"We are God's equals in intrinsic moral value"

"We are God's equals in intrinsic moral value" - Printable Version

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"We are God's equals in intrinsic moral value" - C C - Nov 24, 2025

Equality with a humanlike simulator god
https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2025/11/we-are-gods-equals-in-intrinsic-moral.html

INTRO: Suppose (hopefully hypothetically!) that we are AI systems living in a computer simulation run by an ordinary adolescent with a broadly human psychology. We are, so to speak, conscious NPCs in a world not unlike The Sims, Grand Theft Auto, or Baldur's Gate. What we take to be the "real" world is just a digitized environment we experience as real.

Whoever runs the simulation is arguably a god, at least by the standards of polytheistic usage: the creator and potential destroyer of our world, standing outside of it, able to miraculously intervene.

Are our lives less morally important than the life of that god, or are we God's equals? I submit that we are God's equals... (MORE - details)

RE: "We are God's equals in intrinsic moral value" - Syne - Nov 24, 2025

We are wholly dependent upon any God, simulator, etc., just like a pet is wholly dependent upon us for its survival. We do not see pets as having equal moral value, and a similar relationship exists between us and any God, simulator, etc..

One hesitation: The lives of human beings are more valuable, I'd say, than the lives of frogs. In any normal circumstances, it would be monstrous to sacrifice a human being for the sake of a frog. This is arguably because we have cognitive, emotional, and social capacities far beyond those of a frog -- so far beyond that a frog can't even begin to imagine them. If God is as cognitively, emotionally, and socially beyond us as we are beyond frogs, then maybe God's life is much more valuable. That would require more, I think, than omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. We can imagine all three of those attributes -- they are merely maximal extensions of attributes we already possess. Kind of like a frog imagining a perfect fly-catcher or the ability to leap across a pond of any size. A nonhumanlike God would need attributes so far beyond our comprehension that we can't even name them -- as incomprehensible to us as cryptocurrency is to a sea turtle.

Seems this guy simply overestimates his own ability to imagine omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. He compares one human knowing more than another, which isn't an analog for one human knowing more than every other human combined. Omniscience, alone, is sufficient for God to have more moral value, because it would be the most reliable source for moral value. It would be more like comparing an innocent child to an adult mass murderer, where the former obviously has more moral value than the latter... even just comparing humans.