From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: GOD is EXISTENCE
Date: 27 Sep 92 18:33:42 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory

In article <1992Sep27.171453.9382@news.ysu.edu> ae642@yfn.ysu.edu (Kelley Miller) writes:
>In a previous article, hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi () says:
>>In article <1992Sep26.145623.6825@news.ysu.edu>, ae642@yfn.ysu.edu
>>(Kelley Miller) writes:
>>> In a previous article, hporopudas@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi () says:
>>>> (in 2nd Moses 3:14-15 and in gospel of Johannes 8:28-29),
>>>> then who dares to assert that God does not exist. ?
>>> I would say any thinking person.
>>  Then I would say that these thinking persons must be stupid, because
>>  they assert at the same time that they themselves does not exist. !
>Indeed?  I don't seem to recall ever asserting that I do not exist.

I am appalled that all these wimps -- on both sides of the argument --
are afraid to challenge the (stupid and irrelevant) assumption of
existence. Here is a resend of something I sent to comp.ai.philosophy
a time ago.

 - - - - -

  To say that a certain object exists is like saying that it's in the
universe.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  But then, to say
that the @i[universe] exists is saying that the universe is inside
itself - which makes no sense at all.  And the trouble is that the
ordinary way of saying things like "X exists" is a useful shortcut
that causes trouble when you try to think more about it, because what
we really should say is not a simple predicate E(x) at all, but a
relation IN(x, U) -- that is, we should say X is in Universe U.
    To see why this is serious, imagine the predicament of a person
like Tron (or you, or me) that is actually being simulated by a
Virtual Reality Program inside some computer C.  I'm not joking.
Clearly, you couldn't tell whether you were absolutely "real" or
'just' a program inside some computer C.  Because there's no way to
detect C itself.
    "OK," you might object.  "But that is a real program running in a
real computer.  So it does -- sort of -- exist."
    Yes, but now consider the program just sitting there as some
writing on paper.  Not running in a computer at all.  But simulating
the processes that you and I embody.  Then those process still have a
sort of potential performance, because the instructions specify what
happens from each step to the next.  A lower grade of existence,
perhaps, but we should still ask to what extent such an abstract
process can feel or think or have "experience"?
    And so far as I can see, the internal experience ought to be
exactly the same.  To the abstract process, each abstract pleasure,
satisfaction, or frustration or pain should be the same -- and
precisely as real -- to that abstract process, as is a real
satisfaction or frustration to a real process.  And we can make the
same statements about each of these "grades of existence":
   --P runs inside some actual computer
   --P runs only in the mind of its human programmer.. 
   --P doesn't run at all, but just sits there on paper. 
   --P isn't even written, but only imagined by someone. 
   --P isn't even imagined, but merely a "possible" program, not yet even conceived by anyone.
    In each such case, if P describes some simulated universe, there
is no way for the creatures inside that universe to know whether or
not their universe "actually exists" as a feature inside some larger
universe.  No answer to such a question could have any actual
consequences -- and therefore, the attribute of existence is an
inconsequential accessory!  There is no possible way to prove that our
universe itself is anything more than a "logical possibility".  So all
that religious garbage about "who created ..." is based on a simple
mistake, of postulating an unnecessary entity.  It reaches its most
ultimately stupid form in terms like, "God created God, of course.
Who else could have done it."