EKUMA1981 wrote:Here's an idea that has bugged me for several years now- 'The problem of evil'.
If there are programs in nature generating all the wonderful, good things we see around us, then there must be programs generating the bad. I'm not talking about earthquakes and other natural disasters (although we can if you want to). I'm more interested in human evil. For example, why is it an innate human quality? Why aren't we all more spiritual? Why do we need economies and money (another two examples of evil?) to get anything done. Why do we need money at all? More importantly- WHY ARE WE THE WAY WE ARE? Why would the programmer of the universe set our minds up like this from the very beginning?
Some philosophical thoughts:
1.) Morality is relative... there are many people with many different value systems. According to
Friedrich Nietzsche "It is we alone who have fabricated causes, succession, reciprocity, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, motive, purpose."2.) Because we do not have complete understanding of the world around us... we are probably not qualified to define good or evil.
Some thoughts from an engineering perspective:
1.) As a software engineer... I often use
fuzzing techniques to locate security issues or potential bugs. From the perspective of the software... this type of bad data could be described as 'bad input'. But over the course of time... this 'evil input' strengthens the system as I fix the bugs and add better algorithms.
EKUMA1981 wrote:
Another disturbing feature of this idea is mental illness. Some people claim to hear voices, see strange creatures, be possessed by demons. Most psychiatrists put it down to brain malfunctions or hallucinations, but is this really the case, or is someone/something/some corrupt program implanting these thoughts/delusions into their minds.
Unfortunately people with *real* mental illness seem to be attracted to conspiracy theories and subjects such as physics and programmed reality. This makes it difficult to navigate through the available online information and extract reliable opinions and experience.
There is also the problem of 'Perceived Mental Illness' associated with new or differing ideas and opinions. For example if you were to walk around in the early 1980's speaking about some of the accepted ideas associated with modern physics... there is a distinct possibility that you would have been carted away in a straight jacket destined for the local nut house. Most of the worlds population remain very 'grounded' within the physical reality as they observe it with their hands, eyes, nose and ears... and when you try to communicate ideas such as superposition or wave–particle duality you will receive a blank stare as the response.
Unfortunately I must admit that I was once one of those people who followed a more classical physical model and assumed that anyone who thought otherwise was a quack or nutcase. As the years passed... and as I understood more and more of the mathematics and experimental evidence associated with some of the modern theories... I found that I
(and the physicists) actually understood very little. This is what caused me to search for alternative theories... and believe it or not 'programmed reality' is currently a viable possibility that cannot ruled out yet.
EKUMA1981 wrote:
Then there's the area of magic (white/black) and the occult. Can practitioners really influence (good/bad) the fortunes of other people? I am starting to think this may actually be possible.
I am a huge skeptic about such things. If such things exist it should be possible to experimentally confirm them. Unfortunately I have not seen any convincing evidence to date.
-TheArchitect
