Re: Mars and the Problem of Pain
Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 5:49 am
I like the continuation of the sci-fi, especially the crickets.Gadianton wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:32 pmIt's an ethical dilemma that would make for good dystopian sci-fi. But Imagine this series of plot twists:
- After years of hardship colonizing Mars, and nearly dead, Steve Cray, the football brainiac just watched the last of his team succumb to suffocation in the E12 crop sector. A stranger approaches with oxygen, and as Steve begins to revive, the stranger explains it's all a simulation by the legendary Dr. Zod.
- As Steve's comes to accept the stranger is telling the truth, he grows angry with Dr. Zod, and in his strengthening thoughts, plots to kill Zod.
- But then, as Steve bristles with holy revenge, the stranger shows the contract that Steve signed, and further, shows electronic correspondence between him and Zod proving Steve helped design the experiment and write the contract.
- Back in the real world, Steve struggles to bridge the two worlds of his mind. He comes to accept the experiment, although, having been on the receiving end, it's a resigned acceptance, rather than the enthusiastic embrace of his former self.
- Steve once again finds himself working actively within the top ranks of the company, and his matured self operates at the top tier of Fowler's Stages of Faith. And when his team from the simulation harvests the real E12 for the first time, it is a victory of the program, notwithstanding the pain of three team members getting eaten alive by Mars crickets.
- But then, just as all seems right again, a stranger approaches Steve and reveals Dr. Zod is an alien, and that the real Mars and all of its horrors, the earth and we as a species, and anything in the sky we'd ever reach was all a creation by Dr. Zod.
Yeah, I would argue this is the biggest flaw to the whole thing. I mentioned this briefly. Some of the pain and evil just seems extreme. Most rational people would look at those extremes and say to themselves, "Really? How in the world is this part of God's plan?" That is still an open question in my mind. One of the only things I can think of that even comes close is that whatever a god must endure when they get their full-fledged power has to be even more extreme. It must be so terrible that we will look back on the greatest horrors of this life and think they were fairly mild previews of what a god has to suffer. Unfortunately, this isn't all that palatable either. If that is actually the case, I could understand some of the quotes by Joseph Smith and others that say something like those who aren't going to the Celestial Kingdom wouldn't ever want to, not in a million years.Gadianton wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:32 pmThe problem of evil in our time is less about the brute compatibility of God and evil, but the problem with senseless evil. Imagine the Mars experiment designed with senseless horrors that can't possibly have any teaching value. How many babies must die horribly of dysentery for ever one Rusty M. who victoriously fathers a son in a luxurious getaway lodge after having been dealt a brutal hand of 8 daughters?
I think this might be were the analogy breaks down. Lds theology is fairly universalist. In this life, we are all in the same boat. We are all being tested, and we all have the opportunity to be saved, regardless of whether we joined the church or not in this life. This means a successful outcome of the simulation is not baptism or conversion. The closest thing I can come up with is that at a fundamental level, this life is testing whether we can be trusted with power. Will we use the power we have to help others or to step on people as we try to better our position. Do we manipulate people to get our way? Even if we are fairly impotent, do we lash out at people in anger, using what little power we have in an attempt to make others as miserable as we are? Or do we use our power to help others? Even if we are fairly impotent, do we use what ability we have to sooth or uplift? If this life really is a god simulation, I would think this would one of the fundamental things being tested. This can be done by the rich and the poor, the Latter-day Saint and the atheist.Gadianton wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 7:32 pmIf the simulation is the logical conclusion of the most clear thinking people, then it wouldn't work, because just as the clearest thinking people become Mormon, accept the Mormon plan of salvation, and think through the thought experiments proving that this life is a simulation, the best and brightest, clearest thinking candidates of the Mars program will come to reason that they also are in a simulation.
Alternatively, supposing the Mars simulation is like our life on earth, it would be really weird for agents of the company to spend countless hours trying to convince participants that they were part of a simulation, and that only a simulation where they didn't know it was a simulation could prepare them for the real Mars. If life on earth is supposed to be an immersive character test, then it's pointless to have missionaries banging on the door constantly trying to convince you that it's a character test, and then live your life every day trying to convince yourself it's a character test and you have to do the right thing. If that works better, then instead of building the immersive Mars experiment, they would conduct a disinformation campaign convincing people that they were in a test, which emboldens them to take braver actions.