Question of Evil

[jack]

If you were the God, and all possible parallel universes existed side-by-side, what would you do? Would you delete most, or transform them into copies of the one where people were happiest? Or let them run?

To me, that thought experiment relates to several questions:

* The problem of evil "If God existed, and were omnipotent and good, why would he let there be bad things". If you can even conceive of God not reordering all his universes to be "best", that is one possible answer to the question. (Not that I think that's true, but it's possibly a rebuttal to the argument that "There are bad things, therefore God is at most two of good, omnipotent, and existing")

* A logical extension of local morality. People naturally care more for people close to them (both friends, and people similar to them, and people physically closer to them). To a greater or lesser extent depending on circumstance. This has bad effects, that far away tragedies can get ignored, but good effects, that people can choose to help some people close to them, even if this is a drop in the ocean compared to everything else, but a lot better than just freezing up. But if all possible parallel universes existed, it would make it obvious how every thing you chose to do was an essentially arbitrary decision about how people close to you matter more than everyone else,

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Have your read any Olaf Stapledon ?

No -- now I certainly want to :)

I don't see Eganesque virtual universes being outside our ability to affect in the medium-term future

True, this thinking could definitely be relevant then. I was imagining interacting with universes parallel to ours, just to admit to hilarity that I know what I'm saying may sound irrelevant, but I think it's worth thinking about anyway.

which is why I do what I do for a living.

What is that?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Stapledon: I strongly recommend you read Star Maker. Though Last and First Men, you also should, on general literary grounds.

what I do for a living: bioinformatics web databases. priimarily used as tools for drug design. Tools or making tools to save lives, in other worlds. While I could, theoretically, be affecting the world for the good more directly in many ways, I am satisfied that in doing what I can do, strictly in not-for-profit publicly accessible contexts, I am a) using a skillset I have that is not as widely available as many and b) exerting myself in ways I can continue to do long-term, as opposed to, frex, the sorts of doing helpful things that would burn me out rapidly like suicide crisis hotlines; I greatly respect people who are capable of helping others that way, but I do not have that particular kind of strength, and it seems morally preferable to apply some tactical thinking to using what strength I do have in the optimally effective manner.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thank you.