Show HN: Proof of God

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7045843

by itry • 13 years ago

4 15 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For all we know, the spontaneous creation of life from inanimate matter is extremely unlikely. Otherwise, it would have happened on earth more then once. And would have already happened in our galaxy's past and we would have aliens all over the place.

But there is a theory that doesn't need an extremely unlikely event: We are part of a simulation. And the guy who runs the simulation manually put in a self replicating molecule to get the whole evolution thing going.

What do you think? Is this a sufficient argument to prove the existence of God?

mooism2• 13 years ago

If you assume that "the spontaneous creation of life from inanimate matter is extremely unlikely", then it is extremely unlikely that anyone exists to run the simulation, no?

itry3• 13 years ago

Well, we only have information from within the simulation. It might be common outside of the simulation.

daenney• 13 years ago

You should ask the mice!

skrebbel• 13 years ago

No, because "plausible theory" doesn't equal "proof". We can have a lot of fun discussing whether or not your theory is plausible, and I suggest that we do because I like your theory, but you got nowhere near explaining why it must the only possible situation. That's a proof.

itry3• 13 years ago

Ah. But then - did anything ever got proven? Is a falling apple proving the existence of gravity?

weddpros2• 13 years ago

(please take no offense, and forgive me if you think my words are a heresy, I'm not a deist)

Just disproving spontaneous creation doesn't prove the existence of God. Actually, God may have invented spontaneous creation of life from inanimate matter (it was the official christian belief less than 200 years ago).

That way of thinking makes it impossible to disprove God, but it doesn't prove God. BTW, there are aliens all over the place: their existence is similarly impossible to disprove, but that doesn't prove their existence either (the same holds true for unicorns).

Unlikely events are all over the place: if you can read this message, it's because humans learnt to use sand to make computer chips (silicon) and fiber optics.

NicoJuicy• 13 years ago

We are aliens, think about that

weddpros2• 13 years ago

Not me: I'm a unicorn hiding my true nature.

krpalospo• 13 years ago

boltzmann brain

http://www.volconvo.com/forums/philosophy-religion/26464-bol...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

wanda• 13 years ago

You know what is funny about this? Not that this post has little place on Hacker News, but the fact that it would not even belong on Philosophy News or Theology News either. Philosophy is not concerned with petty, primitive questions about deities or fairies--and neither should theologians •need• a proof of god's existence. Those with faith should not need a proof of god's existence, just as those who are truly moral should need no justification for their moral being. Only fanatics and self-deceivers would want to prove god's existence to other people. If you found god, that's great for you. I am among those who have bigger problems or different tastes in hobbies.

gus_massa• 13 years ago

The problem is that with spontaneous life creation you don’t get a fully functional cow. You get a version 0.0.0.1 of life that is something like a molecule that (by random) can make a copy of itself every 6 days, but it is decomposed by the ambient in approximately a week, so it has a little chance to do two copies.

So, slowly but steady the amount of this molecule increase. Perhaps it needs a million year to conquer the word, but there is no rush because there is no one to compete. Some of the copies are bad, but one of the copies can copy itself in an amazing 5.5 days! (Or perhaps lives for 7.5 days and it has more time to try to do the second another copy.) Now the new version 0.0.0.2 conquers the word! ...

If something like that appears today a bacteria will it in a second, a amoeba will eat the bacteria, some nasty animal will eat the amoeba, and a lot more of eating will happen before the spontaneous generated barely alive molecule has time to do a copy of itself.

The problem with the second spontaneous life creation is that the first spontaneous life creation creature will be so much faster that the second’s creatures will have no chance to survive.

Morphling• 13 years ago

What makes you think that aliens would be "all over the place"? Maybe no one has come up with FTL travel?

Maybe there is a ton of life in Milkyway alone, but they aren't interested in us or maybe they are so technologically advanced that they are visiting/monitoring us constantly, but we can't detect them.

Or maybe we simply haven't been spotted yet?

Any way it is I don't see how this simulation thing has anything to do with anything and at least it doesn't in anyway proof existence of any God like being.

itry3• 13 years ago

No FTL travel needed. The milky way is over 10 billion years old but only about 100,000 light-years in diameter.

a3n• 13 years ago

We do have aliens all over the place. We're some of them, seeded by material from comets from outside the solar system. Probably.

Show HN: Proof of God

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