Simulation Hypothesis Religion

[Zinjanthropos]

Is it set to take over from modern religion as this article suggests.

https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-simula...a61b12c034

Don’t know why theists aren’t jumping all over this. Either way you have a creator. In fact anything a theist can’t prove about their religion is entirely possible if programmed into a simulation. From the simplest miracle to an afterlife.....it’s all possible in a simulation. 

Of course as the article suggests, it will require faith in the simulation’s existence.

[Syne]

Like it or not, atheists are generally quite desperate to fill that gap. What better way to do that than inject technology as a thin pretense to jettison traditional morality? After all, the only thing they REALLY want is ethical relativism. They don't really care if they need to postulate aliens, a god within some underlying material reality, or just vacuously assume it's turtles technology all the way down (infinite regress).

And if atheists argue this, you're right, they lose any credibility in their best arguments against religion.

[C C]

[...] Don’t know why theists aren’t jumping all over this. Either way you have a creator. In fact anything a theist can’t prove about their religion is entirely possible if programmed into a simulation. From the simplest miracle to an afterlife.....it’s all possible in a simulation....

This guy wrote what may have been a 20-part or more series about its value to religion or Christianity, by the time it was finished (Saints & Simulators): https://www.scivillage.com/thread-6793-p...l#pid27044

One Christian(?) site:

What is simulation theory?
https://www.gotquestions.org/simulation-theory.html

As it turns out, Scripture indicates that our earthly lives are only part of a larger whole, and there is a “real reality” above and beyond what we experience on a day-to-day basis. The Bible says our “reality” is created and designed. And yet, most who support “simulation theory” reject the idea of God, an afterlife, or other spiritual concepts. This is not dissimilar to how many atheists attempt to use evidence for the Big Bang Theory against biblical views, despite the fact that concepts like a “beginning” were once seen as antithetical to atheism itself.

Other Christians are potentially apathetic about SH due to it not really being recent. (I.e., they could have espoused the philosophical, pre-technological versions ages ago.)

Friend, have you heard the good news about the simulation hypothesis
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/201...hesis.html

As it turns out, this world-beyond-this-world idea also isn’t new. For thousands of years, theologians, religious priests, and philosophers have asserted that our immediate, visible, and experienced reality is not “all there is.” Whether one turns to the ancient Egyptians, Greek philosophers, Indian Brahmins, or medieval scholastics, the universe is always depicted as multi-dimensional in one way or another.

This world is not necessarily “ultimate” or “base” reality. It wasn’t until materialistic modernity that the world became so terribly flat. This is partly why simulation theory is so intriguing today: It is being promoted by the deeply invested, hands-on stalwarts of technological progress. It’s also interesting because specialists in this field aren’t typically encouraged to read religious texts or classic literature for their degree.

It's wayward to accuse a world of not being "real" due to an "ultimate reality" or metaphysical proposals, anyway. Not even the one that scientific realism outputs in a revisable fashion, since what we experience would then become a demoted half-fiction itself, a simulation produced by the brain.

What makes a world "real" (among potentially other characteristics) is its degree of internal coherence and conforming to its own principles (independent of the observer's wishes and desires). Which the external world of the senses satisfies.

Proving an aphenomenal and non-cognitive manner of existence that subsists "outside" the mental domain is impossible since that means leaving behind the very phenomenal and intellectual properties that make evidence and verification possible in the first place. A second-level "external world" in metaphysical context is always going to be an object of argument, reason, speculation, etc. The dead might return to its blankness, but they accordingly don't care anymore and can't report back.

But won't the problem of other minds arise without the impotent hand-waving about a metempirical reality being a fact or it transcending mere belief status?

Even in our inferior dreams there can occasionally or often be a surrounding culture that enforces the moral belief that other human bodies likewise have minds in the feeling respect. It is both an innate thought orientation and a societal add-on or invention, so it's pretty difficult to dodge either form of brainwashing -- unless one is a psychopath or radical narcissist. It's necessary for civilization to emerge and be maintained (part of an internal explanation for why a dream would feature such). A rare dream might even sport scientists that subscribe to their cosmos conforming to universal regularities, so if the dreamer's avatar has a mind then it follows the other inhabitants should, too. What's actually the case is irrelevent until one wakes up.

Death for us probably is no "wake-up" like that, since memories from the former specific life/identity don't survive, or there is no transition of personal information to other remaining "observer spots" for a hypothetical, global background psychism. If in a "Matrix"-like situation, however, obviously that would not seem to be the case unless the Simulation System deliberately erases the memories somehow. (Not sure what purpose that could serve.) Or one forgets them just as with ordinary dreams occasionally -- there are those who claim they never dream, though that's probably because they have zero recall.

[Zinjanthropos]

I wonder what creators do when the cat’s out of the bag? Shut it down? Become God? Start over? Provide updates? Reprogram? Let it run & see what develops?

Virtual reality, a nihilist dream come true. It’s what nothing looks like.

[stryder]

I still say if simulation theory was to be proven it would be very similar to a CERN or some other science related project. You'd have a bunch of scientists putting together the methods on how to make the universe, no country would be directly involved because of the politicising, no religion would get ultimate control or say so over what was what. There would be no deities, just a a bunch of labcoats. At least that would be the plan, the problem is however some people aren't necessarily going to be onboard for the right reasons and will attempt to use it for their own agendas, so that is something that would have to be guarded against otherwise the world would be filled up by binge eating a fake news/religion/politics sandwich.

[Zinjanthropos]

I still say if simulation theory was to be proven it would be very similar to a CERN or some other science related project.  You'd have a bunch of scientists putting together the methods on how to make the universe, no country would be directly involved because of the politicising, no religion would get ultimate control or say so over what was what.  There would be no deities, just a a bunch of labcoats.  At least that would be the plan, the problem is however some people aren't necessarily going to be onboard for the right reasons and will attempt to use it for their own agendas, so that is something that would have to be guarded against otherwise the world would be filled up by binge eating a fake news/religion/politics sandwich.

I see what you mean....from 2012

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2...ggerheads/

From CERN’s director general no less. What was he thinking?