Godhood - A dilemma

[SpaceMarine93]

I had been looking around in Gaming section of BBS and gone to a thread about a god game. Basically, it is an awesome gravity simulation game - UNIVERSE SANDBOX - that puts the universe literally in your hands - you could shoot asteroids around, make stars out of thing air, customize solar systems, smash planets together, or blow entire galaxies up just for the heck of it.

I manage to start a very interesting philosophical discussion when I casually mention the only thing that is lacking to make it a true god game is that you can't simulate life.

Next thing you know, there was considerable discussion about what they would do with it, with many people claiming they would kill the entire Sim planet's population off, while others admonish them and point out it is exactly this that proves Power Corrupts Absolutely and the reason most gods in mythology are assholes. Some others, including me, claim that with enough self-awareness one could bring this behavior under at least some control and use it to benefit the sims.

I posted on the thread this intersting philosophical dilemma - if a good person is given the power of a god, free to do whatever he want with the universe, with no reprecussions. Now note, he could do practically whatever he want with the snap of his fingers; he could solve all problems that plague the universe and all its life forms - war, diseases, natural disasters, hatred and bigotry, ignorance, and even death and Heat death itself etc. - without even snapping of his fingers. If a good man, by our standards, is granted such opportunity - should he take it?

Personally I won't. Too risky. But what about you guys?

[cosmicalstorm]

I'm not going to reply to your question, but I recently finished reading Permutation City by Greg Egan, it dealt with this question and did so with a very thought provoking quirk. It might seem like a corny book at a first glance, but if these thoughts intrigue you, I would warmly recommend giving it a try.
http://www.amazon.com/Permutation-City- ... 006105481X

Edited your spelling because it bugged me. -Lagmonster

[Lagmonster]

"Ray, if someone asks you if you're a god, you say, 'YES'!!!"

You always take the godhood option. Always. Two reasons why:

1) Shit is not better off on the 'impartial' plan.

The universe is a nasty place that doesn't give a shit. The possibility of creating a universe that is biased heavily in favour of the comfort and happiness of sentient life is worth the risk that it would be anything else. And really, I would wager more money on eventual divine boredom and apathy than on divine evil monsterhood. When you're truly omnipotent, you shouldn't have problems. Just set the universe to Awesome and relax.

2) Someone else might get the offer if you don't take it.

If they make you the offer, you can make the offer to someone else. You're basically being asked to handle a responsibility that will never be a challenge, because you're going to be omnipotent. Turning it down without giving it a go would be stupid; you can always pass the mantle to someone else later.

[Norade]

I agree with Lagmonster, even if I was to be a dick and kill everything better me (from my view obviously) than the next guy to get the offer.

[SpaceMarine93]

Yes, but the main problem is, Power corrupts absolutely. A good man gifted the power of a God to do anything he wants, make things better, then sit back. As the other commentator then suggest, what then? Its going to be boring. WHat happens if that guy decide to make things exciting again? What if that guy, out of boredom, decides to abuse his powers? He can, and nobody could stop him. Then he might decide, now that his mental block is gone, to repay ever single major / minor misdeed made towards him in his mortal life with disproportunate retribution that might even scare his good side, and nobody could stop him. Then, why stop there? Maybe he might thing the whole Earth might be something that needs to go with all its evil things, then there's that planet with those weird lifeforms which he find disgusting....

And nobody could stop him

Its, in my opinion, too risky. Too darn risky.

Now that i think about it, the logical thing to be done if this option is open to you, get power, destroy that guy distributing it immediately, then remove it from your system.

[AniThyng]

"Ray, if someone asks you if you're a god, you say, 'YES'!!!"

You always take the godhood option. Always. Two reasons why:

1) Shit is not better off on the 'impartial' plan.

The universe is a nasty place that doesn't give a shit. The possibility of creating a universe that is biased heavily in favour of the comfort and happiness of sentient life is worth the risk that it would be anything else. And really, I would wager more money on eventual divine boredom and apathy than on divine evil monsterhood. When you're truly omnipotent, you shouldn't have problems. Just set the universe to Awesome and relax.

2) Someone else might get the offer if you don't take it.

If they make you the offer, you can make the offer to someone else. You're basically being asked to handle a responsibility that will never be a challenge, because you're going to be omnipotent. Turning it down without giving it a go would be stupid; you can always pass the mantle to someone else later.

What if my idea of "Awesome" is galactic war though? I mean, that's why we even have a star wars forum, right? But I suppose Life will get around to doing that on its own anyway, so I can just maybe intervene here and there to spice things up. A little kamikaze here...a flash of inspiration there...a nasty blizzard at the right time...

Of course, when I play SimCity, I always have a restart button if I went a bit too far and blew up the tax base. So no harm no foul if I mess around with people and reset the universe?

If you're an omnipotent god, humans are to you as sims are to humans...

[Purple]

Well, I would take the power without question. I also know that without question I would fail to the temptation of power and do quite a lot of evil along the way. It does not have to be great evil either. I would not act like the biblical god nuking cities and the like but I fully expect that I would behave like the Greek gods by jerking some mortals around, especially those that actively insult me. It's just the inevitable thing that comes with the power.

However, I would also cautiously try to do as much good as I can to keep my self occupied. I am the kind of person to play CIV4 and build empires and stuff so I would have fun thinking of brand new ways to improve stuff. The trick is to use your powers as little as possible and instead make them work in a sort of butterfly effect. You know, start a small thing and see it build up into what ever you want. Make the universe think it is in charge. Also adds some unpredictability to the mix, and that can't be a bad thing. And if I can inspire the mortals to love and worship me and sacrifice them self to my avatars for fun and profit (if you catch my drift) that has to be fun right?

In the end, the goal is not to do good and good alone since that is unreasonable. The goal would be to make the good deeds outweigh the bad ones by a sufficiently high margin that the bad ones might as well not exist. There is no reason to put goals higher than what you can expect from the average mortal. After all, powers or not I ain't a god by nature.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I assume this omnipotent power does not include abilities to improve your own nature? If it did, then I would take the power instantly. If not, I might still. Would one be immortal? I don't know if humans are mentally stable over arbitrarily long timespans. What about companionship? Would one be alone as a god? With basically human psychology that would be a recipe for disaster.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You're omnipotent. So I would find my girlfriend, raise her to goddesshood, and start raising our very own Greek pantheon.

[Lagmonster]

People always assume that once they were omnipotent that they would continue to suffer the same neuroses as when they were human, make the same mistakes, feel the same way. I'm not positive that's necessarily the case; you wouldn't have to have a brain that was capable of self-delusion. You wouldn't necessarily have a libido. You wouldn't have the fear of growing old or being hungry. You wouldn't have to guess at outcomes or take risks. Take away all of the fears and instincts plugged into your brain and replace it with absolute knowledge and power and arguably you wouldn't even be recognizably human, much less 'you'.

[Serafina]

True omnipotence is logically impossible.
Just ask questions like "can this omnipotent being create something it can not destroy/move/influence?".
If the answer is "yes it can", then it is now incapable of doing something - destroying/moving/influencing what it just created. It is therefore not omnipotent.
If the answer is "no it can't" then it is obviously not omnipotent.
The only way out of this is disregarding logic.

Of course, you could still get pretty damn close to omnipotence, but actual omnipotence is a logical impossibility.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I believe that practical omnipotence is generally what is meant, rather than the "I can create contradictions with impunity because I am so powerful" kind of omnipotence that modern theists resort to just to override the obvious contradictions in their theology. I was imagining this scenario was envisaged as a more or less normal "you" operating a sort of omnipotence device that didn't change you very much (unless you specifically requested it, I suppose). Lagmonster is right,though. Our personality is dependent on our being in human bodies with all the state dependent sensations, limitations, and evolutionary drives. Actually being a god would be radically different from being a human. Almost unimaginably so. I think it's something of a critique of traditional gods that even when they are called "perfect" or "inscrutable" they act as though they had exactly the same kinds of evolutionary drives and limitations that humans have. Obviously they were just projections of the minds of people in power who couldn't be bothered to imagine what it was really like to be more than what they already were.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think if I became omnipotent I would erase questions like that from the universe, for just this reason.

[Purple]

Even if I could, changing my personality is one thing I would newer willingly do. In fact, I would try and make up all sorts of self made rules to make sure I remain my self.

And questions like that need not be erased, they should be nurtured and encouraged. That way you can really mess with theologians and the like. Can you imagine in creating a contradiction and than watching the poor guys try and reconcile it?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ooooo good point. If they question me like that I can always turn them into a squirrel and say "ha, try questioning my powers now bitch!"

But I think breeding a new pantheon is the best bet. If nothing else, it gives you company for eternity, and gives you someone to compete against to prevent utter boredom. Plus, other omnipotent beings may act as checks and balances on your own power.

[Formless]

Formless's Wishgiver RAR Fallback Plan A: when in doubt, make your wishes so that they take yourself out of the equation at the soonest convenience after doing the greatest good. The longer you hold onto absolute power, the greater the risks and the greater the potential benefits.

Now, this isn't exactly the "Genie Who Grants Wishes" type scenario as you are essentially becoming the genie and have unlimited wishes, but the principle is the same. Do great good, then retire *. Hell, if you are clever enough you can do both in just one wish, though that's only necessary in scenarios where the wishes come at a price. The idea is that you take away the possibility of becoming corrupt by voluntarily surrendering power before that happens, but not before you've actually done some good. If you are aware that power corrupts and what corruption looks like you're obviously not amoral by nature, and should not treat yourself as if you were. But if you are aware that having power can change that, then don't hang onto it any longer than you have to. Self reflection and honesty are your friends, and if you know your vices you can overcome them.

Of course, this assumes that you cannot simply wish away your vices, wish to become incorruptible, wish to become the most moral and intelligent man in the universe, etc.. If you can do that, that's obviously the strategy to end all strategies. It is possible that this will turn you into a Lovecraftian being that is as far beyond humans as we are from bacteria, but if so that just means you will be doing good on a scale that mortals find difficult to comprehend. It does not nullify the fact that you are doing good in the universe.

* Corollary: you may have to include a clause that prevents someone else from taking the position of god/the ability to make wishes. In a Genie RAR this could take the form of, say, wishing that no one can ever communicate a wish to the genie again, including yourself. Here you just snap your fingers and be done with it.

[Lagmonster]

I'm not so sure about the 'absolute corruption' bit either. Even if you were still you by way of personality, you'd have omniscience. Perfect access to the memories of everything that ever lived would give you a metric assload of perspective on the nature of suffering that, if you gestated into godhood via humanity, has got to make one hell of an impact.

[Formless]

I think if I became omnipotent I would erase questions like that from the universe, for just this reason.

Trying to remove Godel's Incompleteness Theorems from the universe would require making logic no longer apply to the universe. I don't think that's such a good idea...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Then in that case I would display my powers often enough to stop people thinking about such dilemnas.

I think you would only start asking questions about God's omnipotence if you never experience a god's power. If you do, you'll know firsthand that he is at the the very least incredibly powerful, and it might not be a good idea to question him over his omnipotence.

[Formless]

I'm not so sure about the 'absolute corruption' bit either. Even if you were still you by way of personality, you'd have omniscience. Perfect access to the memories of everything that ever lived would give you a metric assload of perspective on the nature of suffering that, if you gestated into godhood via humanity, has got to make one hell of an impact.

The real limiting factor on godhood isn't power or knowledge; its intelligence, creativity, and capacity to use that knowledge and power to achieve the right ends. Look at all the people who fail to ask questions like "can I wish for/grant myself perfect moral insight?" If the beginning state of someone who has just received apotheosis is "you are still you but with absolute power", I somehow doubt these people would realize the full potential of their godhood.

Of course the flipside is that the god(s) could find themselves in a recursive loop, always trying to improve themselves or running into the aforementioned incompleteness paradoxes and never getting anything done. That's why I think my fallback option should always be kept on the table-- it certainly couldn't hurt.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I'm not so sure about the 'absolute corruption' bit either. Even if you were still you by way of personality, you'd have omniscience. Perfect access to the memories of everything that ever lived would give you a metric assload of perspective on the nature of suffering that, if you gestated into godhood via humanity, has got to make one hell of an impact.

I am going to really agree with this as well as a few other statments made. Many people go on about "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts abosutlly" But, absolute ABSOULTE power maybe something that just levels off.

I mean in many discussions about "great power" people often decend into talking about creating, say, an island paradise, with mansions and castles, and harems of sexy chicks (or guys). And living like a king etc etc. But, if tommarow I woke up, and knew with a wave of the hand, I could alter the genetic make up of everyone on Earth to be resistant to disese. Well it makes everything else so trivial. Many of the "power corrupts" exercises come down to someone wishing to attain all the trappings of wealth and influance. But with true "Godhood" it all becomes moot.

I hate to use an example of Fiction, but look at "Dr Manhattan" He attains, what is 'close' to godhood and, doesn't grow drunk with power, doesn't wave a hand and mold things to his own wishes, but instead can sit and spend 100 years contemplating subatomic particles.

I would imagine that if I or ANY of us attained "Godhood" we would, by and large, not be "us" any more, having such knowledge, such experiance really would change perspectives. In a way it would scary, I would not be "me" any more. Yet, I would still go for this in an instant because, as others point out, if I say no, who may say yes?

More to the point, even in "inexperienced" god trying to make things better is preferable to the way the universe is right now. I mean, tommarow we could all be killed by an Asteroid and 'the universe' wouldn't care one lick about it. Even if I never reached full potential, being able to influance things is preferable to any alternative.

I mean let us truely expand our creative minds on this. We are able to contemplpate things like making Venus and Mars habitable paradises over night. Make the Asteroid belt super rich mineral fields to fuel humanity for centuries. Change human bodies to be resistant to disease, age slower, etc etc. Humanity has made a real mess of things these past 1000 years or so, and it would be nice to not just fix things, but ensure Humanity has a good stepping stone into the Galaxy.

Of course with such power we would eventually leave Humanity behind. We could explore the universe, or perhaps we already "know" the universe, other life forms and cvilizations. Really there is no limit if you think about such things.

I know there would be some small part of me sad about the loss of love for videogames, good movies friends and fun, but this is godhood after all.

EDIT: if there was ONE thing I may wish to retain, is if I ever do things in public, it would be to assume the shape of the Flying Sphaghetti Monster, just to dick around with the other relgions.

[Big Phil]

If power corrupts, we should be seeing Bill Gates living a wildly hedonistic lifestyle. Instead, he started a foundation to donate his money to making the world a better place.

Power corrupts is a pithy little mantra, but the reality is people are not simple - just because YOU might not be able to handle wealth or power without losing your mind, doesn't mean everyone will.

[Rahvin]

Even if I could, changing my personality is one thing I would newer willingly do. In fact, I would try and make up all sorts of self made rules to make sure I remain my self.

For the love of...

Why?! You change yourself and who you are throughout your normal, human life - why would you suddenly want to purposefully stagnate your development if you attained omnipotence?! You wouldn't to eliminate the cognitive defects you suffer because you have a human brain?! Do you think your current personality is some sort of perfect ideal and should never be changed?

Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change. If you purposefully stagnate yourself out of fear of negative changes, you eliminate the possibility of positive changes as well.

[Samuel]

Because he fears being an alien monstrocity that can no longer relate or empathize with humanity and eliminates them not out of malice, but because he no longer considers the effects of his actions on their existence?

[Purple]

That. It's fine to grow intellectually and become god like and all that. But if I completely allow the new state to change my person into something that is no longer recognizable as me than I risk becoming something like what he said.

Also, I would newer, not ever give up my powers. In fact, my first act as god would be to make it so that my powers can not be taken away from me eve by my self.