A computer God?

[Star Cannon]

THere is a concept of Karma -- which is (in a nut shell) for every action you do that harms another or yourself, you will eventually pay for it.

But for Karma to exist, does God experiance emotions as we do? Or does God see raw data in its purest form and then conclude based on logic and reasonable consideration to the circumstances.

I must go now, I'll post the rest of this later.

Star Cannon

[jimkopelli]

What, like a giant karmic computer? You'd need empathy for karma to be effective. Does karma even require a deity, or could it just be a motive force all on its own?

[paladinoflunaria]

Karma is an interesting subject. It varies between religions- Buddhist Karma isn't quite the same as Hindu Karma- you get the point. Since Buddhism is an anatman religion, it appeals more to logic, so I'll post a link for Buddhist Karma. If anyone wants to take up the Hindu definition, feel free.

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma1.htm

The first few paragraphs can be skipped.

Karma exists despite a deity, and has nothing to do with empathy. Karma is the moral equivalent to Newton's Third Law.

Jim has the 12th triangular number posts, by the way.

[jittus rye]

I don't see how the karma concept could be applied to basic everyday internet surfing. Hmm, maybe it only applies to when humans are communicating. Tell us more..

[Star Cannon]

Basicly, I think that God can be likened to a 'creative and intelligent' computer. It's order is precise; it has a universal justice system; and it's creation can create.

The very nature of the universe is orderly. There's not much in space to stop the planets and galaxies from moving. And the planets are put in motion as to not collide with each other (if nothing interferes, of course.) Even the golden mean, which occurs in nature and in most human preference, is evidence of universal order.

We have countless examples of art. So I won't really go there. It would stating the obvious.

And based on the above, I can say that God really doesn't have much in the way of emotions. Its creations do but otherwise... I think an emotional god is a creation of humans.

Star Cannon

[Johnny]

I like to think of order as a string of cause-effect relationships, or events that both possess a past that brought them to be and a future that would otherwise not exist without them. On the other hand, I like to think of justice as system that monitors and repairs order when things go wrong.

Maybe a computer could encapsulate order, both in its hardware and software, and justice could perhaps be the on-line tech support center...?

Now might be the time to do a little digging on Hindu Karma.:lol:

Hinduism is so incredibly old, polytheistic, and diverse, it's almost the catch-all for any religion that doesn't fall into any other defined category, you know. Still, some of the stories I read that were "Hindu" were quite beautiful.

[paladinoflunaria]

Now might be the time to do a little digging on Hindu Karma.

Please do, I'm interested.

I think that Karma is a term that gets twisted and isn't really understood well. It is causality- it is not sentient and therefor has no emotion or thought. It transcends the concrete. God and Karma are seperate ideas.

I'll do my best to find some good writing on the subject.

[sme_bro]

Im not hot on the re-incarnation idea of karma, but i like the play it foward idea, I do good, my good goes out there, the good comes back.
Its as simple as doing a favor for someone and them doing you a favor back.
Also hate spreads, so if you are mean to a person, they become mean, there meanness spreads it gets back to you.
But doing bad and coming back as a worm...seems a little far-fetched

[paladinoflunaria]

Of course it does. Reincarnation is yet another commonly misunderstood idea. There are different kinds of reincarnation, such as Hindu and Buddhist reincarnation. Hindu reincarnation incorporates the use of a soul. Buddhist reincarnation is the idea that the laws of conservation of energy and mass apply to the mind as well. Picture a cup of coffee. If you smash the cup, the coffee's still there isn't it? It's simply on your shirt, the floor, etc.. This is pretty general, so feel free to do your own research.

Simply keep in mind that religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Daoism, etc. have ideas of the same name, or even some of the same ideas. Dharma, Reincarnation, Karma, etc., are names shared among several religions, and they're not necessarily the same. Be careful.

[Star Cannon]

It seems that I am using a wrong concept.*shrug* I don't care for either religions concept of Karma. I'm merely trying to use the concept as evidence to support my own query.

[paladinoflunaria]

Circular logic = bad.

[Avengardh]

I think about it in modified-Newton terms:

"For every force exerted there is and equal and opposing force exerted back", Newton's third law of motion.

And so I think about it this way, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It's not really karma per se, but something of the sort.


~*Aven*~

[paladinoflunaria]

Actually, that's a very simple description of Buddhist Karma.

[Avengardh]

What do you know, hehe.

~*Aven*~

[Melody]

Buddhism is my favorite religion. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/dalailama-main-0917.html

Well, going ultrabasic again, I think causality doesn't really exist. ^.^ In relativity, causality can be skipped by something that travels faster than the speed of light.

The idea that we are in a computer simulation is a common concept. In this sense, the calculating system of the computer would be faster than the speed of light.

Something that may confuse people is that the computer you are using right now could be used to calculate any portion of space, including something the size of the universe, given the rules for it (which we of course don't know yet.) You might say, "But my computer is 45MHz." That does not matter because the entities inside the simulation do not know any better. To them, time passes just as fast on your 45MHz as it does on a 45YHz. My point is that the power of what is running our universe does not matter, so the argument "Our universe is not run by a computer because it would take too much time to run something so huge." Is incorrect. Also, there is such a thing as a parallel computer, which would theoretically have a much easier time running the universe and is more conformant to relativity theory than a sequential one. Your brain is a parallel computer...

And since I'm flushing time down the toilet, the concept of "computation rate" for such a computer might not even be valid. Even in its own domain, it might be an 'instant' computer. Kawaii. Although, if time doesn't exist, 'instant' is itself invalid. >_>

[sme_bro]

The world as a computer simulation, ( i probably say this too often but) i remember reading an article in New Scientist in whcih a a scientist explained how a computer would work if it was simulating our world, the no. of calculations per second was huge as well as the proccessing power of the hypothetical computer...interesting article but im sure it would be gone from the archives now

heres an article i found googleling

http://www.objectivethought.com/liberator/simulation.html

And if you are really interested in the subject have a look at this site but its pretty indepth, i plan to read it fully later

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

[Melody]

>_> but... as I tried to explain above, the "number of calculations per second" is unimportant. >_> That scientist must be an idiot. Well, probably not. I guess he/she does not have an understanding of relativity.