X-Message-Number: 24923
From: "Michael C Price" <>
References: <>
Subject: More on techno-Heaven, Hell 
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:10:13 +0100

Mike Perry continues to argue against the possibility of being
revived in an eternal techno-hell by sadistic superbeings:
>> Why not?  Doesn't power corrupt?  Surely the Actonian lesson
>> of history is that with great power comes great abuse.  Only
>> Spiderman thinks differently :-)
>
> Acton was speaking at the human level only. [snip]

I find the idea that power won't tend to corrupt all levels of beings
very implausible.  Since I don't need to prove this to demonstrate
the existence of techno-hells I shan't pursue it any further, however.
[.....]

> I think the probability of an advanced but sadistic, evil being
> coming into existence is certainly nonzero but far less than a
> benevolvent, advanced being arising.

We agree on this.

> Benevolence will foster a community of mutually supportive
> beings who help each other advance, whereas hatred, sadism,
> and a generally evil nature will be seen as a threat by others, one
> they must counter for their own safety. So I really don't think the
> bad guys will get very far.

Only most of the time.  Sometimes they will get very, very far
indeed.

> The ones who do manage some incredibly evil stunt will certainly
> encounter opposition in proportion to how much mischief they
> were able to cause, and I suspect very much more.

Not if they have (say) moved to some other continuum and pulled
up the drawbridges (blown up the wormholes, or whatever) behind
them.

> Even today we don't treat terrorism lightly, and I expect society
> to evolve in such a way as to make the threat progressively
> smaller overall, once a few initial hurdles are overcome. The
> majority (I think it will actually be quite a large majority) simply
> won't have it any other way.

One again: Majority does not equal totality.  I'm only arguing for
the *existence* of techno-hells, not for their high frequency.

>>  This, and the expected infinite
>> diversity in infinite multiverse(s), implies there will be some infinite-
>> durations hells for saints as well as sinners.  Sorry!
>
> No, I beg to differ. Good and evil I don't think are simply symmetric
> and likely to both exist somewhere in infinite proportions.

I assume you mean "amounts" not "proportions", insofar as
these are definable.

> Places of suffering and horror naturally inspire thoughts of
> eliminating them, both for the victims and for many others,
> thus the likely outcome is they will be rapidly countered
> wherever they crop up.

Note: "likely" in "the likely outcome "

It doesn't matter how likely you imagine the group selection
pressures will be against the construction of techno-Hells by
sadistic superbeings, they some will still exist.  Your arguments,
as I have repeatedly tried to point out, will only reduce
the ratio of Hells: Heavens, not eliminate them.  In an infinite
multiverse any non-zero ratio implies an infinite number of
Hells.

[.......]
>> It doesn't matter what plausibility arguments you
>> construct against the existence of virtual hells, infinite
>> diversity *demands* their existence.
>
> Again, I disagree. The sorts of things whose existence is
> demanded are things that require only a finite number of events.

Wrong -- by this argument immortaliy is impossible, and I know
you don't believe that!  How can you argue that "nice immortality"
-- which requires an infinite number of events -- is possible and
then say that "nasty immortality" is impossible, since it also
requires an infinite number of events?

What you say is also mathematically incorrect.  One
infinity can contain itself.  Indeed it is a property of all transfinite
numbers that they can be mapped one-to-one onto a subset of
themselves; every infinity necessarily contains an infinity.
So almost any infinite multiverse is required to contain
infinitely many maximally diverse infinitely complex sub-universes
-- which must contain techno-heavens *and* techno-hells.

> A "Hell"--conceived as a place of *eternal* torment, must
> involve an infinite number of events, as I see it, so its probability
> *could* be zero, without violating the basic idea of infinite
> diversity (which does have some limits). I can imagine a community
> of benevolent immortals constructing a virtual Heaven that gets
> better and better with passing time, with actual nonzero probability
> of its surviving forever. This is because I think there is great strength
> in mutual benevolence. Again, its opposite invites opposition and
> instability, so I think a Hell would be inherently unstable in a way
> that a Heaven would not.

And I can imagine a community of malevolent immortals constructing a
virtual Hell that gets worse and worse with passing time, with actual
nonzero probability of its surviving forever. This is because I think there
is great strength in mutual malevolence directed towards "others" -- or
indeed in any set of shared values.

> Again, its opposite invites opposition and instability,
> so I think a Hell would be inherently unstable in a way that
> a Heaven would not.

Not if they isolate themselves from forces that don't share their
malevolence.  The existence of parallel universes implies that
such isolation will be quite easy, somewhere, to generate, and
will also occur naturally, somewhere.  Copies of me waking up in
techno-hell will be as upset as the next copy, but that is the reality
implied by an infinite multiverse that permits (nay demands)
techno-heavens.

Cheers,
Michael C Price

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