Tyson on God..

[Syne]

Either your God can but won't, which means he is not good, or wants to but can't, which means he is impotent. Take your pick. The universe does not behave as if there is a good or powerful God behind it all.

He can but doesn't, because the good of human freewill/agency outweighs the evils it allows... and actually allows many evils to be overcome. So you're presenting a false dilemma.
How you believe the universe behaves is more a testament to your belief/outlook than the state of the universe. The universe is very fine tuned to allow an environment in which humans can flourish.

[Magical Realist]

He can but doesn't, because the good of human freewill/agency outweighs the evils it allows... and actually allows many evils to be overcome. So you're presenting a false dilemma.

That seems an entirely subjective judgement. Was the murder of 6 million Jews outweighed by the freedom of the Nazis to make a free choice to murder them? The murder of 9 million Russian peasants by Stalin outweighed by their freedom to be able to do so? How does one person's choice to kill another outweigh the freedom of their victim not to be murdered? In point of fact freewill is NOT being preserved by anyone and the world acts just like random and arbitrary outcomes of conflicting choices and accidents. Survival of the most powerful.

[Syne]

The freewill/agency of every human that has or will ever exist is a huge good. Agency also allows the chance to flee or fight back against evil. Just because some didn't throughout history does not mean it was impossible.

There is no "freedom not to be murdered." There is freedom to protect yourself. All freedoms are defined by what you can do, not what others must do. And due to that fact, all freedoms are ultimately attempts... just like all agency. Causality don't ensure any outcome will be unabated.

[Secular Sanity]

At some point, you have to ask yourself why God needs creation. Is he learning, growing, or just watching for entertainment?

[Syne]

At some point, you have to ask yourself why God needs creation. Is he learning, growing, or just watching for entertainment?

Depends on your beliefs, I guess. For some, God wants fellowship. For others, like myself, it's how God relieves boredom. Can't do that unless some part of creation has agency and can do other than what's strictly determined.

[C C]

At some point, you have to ask yourself why God needs creation. Is he learning, growing, or just watching for entertainment?

It's akin to the question of what drives the simulated reality industry. Especially after it is passed on to transhumans, posthumans, and technological singularities (archailects) in the future. And there's probably no single answer -- multiple reasons, some of which may become defunct when biological humans start fading away, and be incrementally replaced by new reasons. (I.e., can we even conceive of what the motives and agenda of a benign equivalent to Skynet or AM would be?).

In the case of the original or non-benign AM (a techno-god), it would be something that we could comprehend -- an overly simplistic revenge against its creators. Ensuring that they or their progeny resided in a world of suffering. Maybe the prior-in-rank stratum that makes our world possible (if such were the case) circularly had something like humans as its intellectual ancestors or makers.

[Secular Sanity]

Depends on your beliefs, I guess. For some, God wants fellowship. For others, like myself, it's how God relieves boredom. Can't do that unless some part of creation has agency and can do other than what's strictly determined.

Yikes, entertainment. I don’t see how you find that comforting though. To each his own, I suppose.

It's akin to the question of what drives the simulated reality industry. Especially after it is passed on to transhumans, posthumans, and technological singularities (archailects) in the future. And there's probably no single answer -- multiple reasons, some of which may become defunct when biological humans start fading away, and be incrementally replaced by new reasons. (I.e., can we even conceive of what the motives and agenda of a benign equivalent to Skynet or AM would be?).

In the case of the original or non-benign AM (a techno-god), it would be something that we could comprehend -- an overly simplistic revenge against its creators. Ensuring that they or their progeny resided in a world of suffering. Maybe the prior-in-rank stratum that makes our world possible (if such were the case) circularly had something like humans as its intellectual ancestors or makers.

I guess unaligned AI has surpassed climate change, pandemics, and nuclear threats among the most probable extinction-level pathways, possibly by exploiting the latter two.

I can remember when I first came here and we were discussing the Turing test. At the time, it seemed almost impossible. Those first chatbots were ridiculous.

[Syne]

Depends on your beliefs, I guess. For some, God wants fellowship. For others, like myself, it's how God relieves boredom. Can't do that unless some part of creation has agency and can do other than what's strictly determined.

Yikes, entertainment. I don’t see how you find that comforting though. To each his own, I suppose.

Well, when we're parts of God that have voluntarily forgotten in order to have new experiences, I consider it personally beneficial. Learning new things is a great experience, IMO.

[Secular Sanity]

Well, when we're parts of God that have voluntarily forgotten in order to have new experiences, I consider it personally beneficial. Learning new things is a great experience, IMO.

I can see why that idea is appealing, but I tend to view it as a poetic metaphor for human experience rather than a literal claim about reality.

[Syne]

Well, when we're parts of God that have voluntarily forgotten in order to have new experiences, I consider it personally beneficial. Learning new things is a great experience, IMO.

I can see why that idea is appealing, but I tend to view it as a poetic metaphor for human experience rather than a literal claim about reality.

Yeah, there's many things that cannot be a literal claim about reality, including a lot of physics.