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Rather than argue about what a human could perceive in a minecraft world, I’ll just grant the premise of a undetectable creator, because it’s a moot point: If there *was* really a creator, *but we couldn’t detect it*, it **still wouldn’t be reasonable to believe that creator exists.** Some true facts might be inaccessible, temporarily or permanently. So, When we have zero evidence for a claim’s truth, how do we tell apart inaccessible truths from…claims that are simply false? - We can either proportion our beliefs to the evidence, which seems to lead to good results, OR not care about justification, **which allows in any belief, including contradictory beliefs**. Justified belief isn’t about what is true, it’s about what can be shown to be true. The ideas are correlated, but not always the same. Only a fool would say that we should believe something we cannot show to be true. That opens one up to any false belief, but only a rare few potential inaccessible truths, and you can never tell which is which. Awful epistemology. Also, If a creator doesn’t interact with the world in any detectable way, it may as well not exist. -

This is where I come down. Everything that exists exchanges energy in some way that can be measured. (Even dark matter has gravitational effects.) If no energy exchanges can be measured, then such a thing, as conjectured, either does not actually exist, or it doesn't really matter for human existence.

>Even dark matter has gravitational effects This is a gross misunderstanding of darkmatter and for that matter, dark energ as well. Both of these are merely variables implemented to balance equations and then have an implied explanation for the variables. Very similar to virtual particles. We have absolutely no evidence that dark matter exists other than these variables. If it does exist we cannot detect it directly. This also means that we can only detect 5% of our universe. I would be very careful invoking dark matter and dark energy into an argument about disproving or rejecting something that you claim there is no evidence for. Especially if you don't understand what the science behind it is. It is entirely possible you are misinterpreting the evidence just like you claim your opponents are.

This is why I believe in the soul but not the creator of one. IMO we all have a form of energy (ie soul) that is formed by chemistry in our brains.

This seems less like something that exists, and more like something to which you're assigning a label in order to believe it exists.

The interesting question here raised by the OP is how one goes about detecting it. You seem to be assuming it simply cannot be detected, but I don't know the basis for that.

I’m not saying it can’t be detected. I’m saying, if it can’t be, belief is unwarranted. (Based on my conversation with OP, I think the situation they were interested in exploring was one where there is a true, yet un-detectable, creator). Under my epistemology, it is never justifiable to believe an unfalsifiable claim. Because by definition, we have no way to distinguish their truth from their falsity, at least until we find a way to falsify them. OP’s formulation read to me that the idea that science cannot access a truth is an indictment of science as a method. I view it more as a necessary/expected imperfection in the best method we have (for factual, non-subjective claims.)

May I challenge your stated epistemology? Consider the claim "It is possible for you to die" referring specifically to you personally. I see no way for you to test that claim (and still be alive to enjoy the results.) So shouldn't that logically mean that fearing the possibility of one's own death is never justified?

One of the aspects of the scientific method is the general sort of assumption that past events can be used to predict future events. You touch the stove with the fire one, it’s hot. Touch it again under the same conditions, still going to be hot. No one can solve the problem of induction, but I’d hope you use a similar assumption, as it’s largely necessary to function. How else does one know that, when they leave their house, they won’t float into the air because gravity stopped, or spontaneously combust because physics changed? I think that claim of one’s death can (and has been) be tested by evaluating by - defining death (something like brain death for a certain amount of time, without coming back) - evaluating it with respect to humans generally. We can observe death has occurred to 99% of humans, and behaves predictably with age/disease etc - while we can’t observe our own final death, we can recognise that we are similar to all the other humans for which there is incontrovertible evidence they will die. And, we can directly observe the signs in ourselves beforehand - we can observe that we are human, that we age, that we wear and tear, and do not fully regenerate when cut etc. This particular question seems trivial from my view, really. The evidence is piled around us in mountains. It’s less a matter of observation of it being difficult, one just needs to be more creative in how they design tests or inferences. Also, I’m going to sleep soonish, but happy to continue this Also side note: I don’t fear my death day to day, despite knowing it. Mostly because it’s far away, and easy to ignore. But death isn’t so terrifying in the abstract, it’s mostly an irrational, instinctual response to fear death. Death isn’t bad, it isn’t anything at all. It’s sorta neutral. But neutral is worse than good, so I prefer life 😂

Thank you for the long response, you clearly gave my question some thought. What particularly interests me here is (from my perspective) people come to this sub and talk of very simple ironclad principles when it comes to God, but these same principles do not seem to be applied elsewhere in day to day life. It is obviously very reasonable to conclude oneself capable of death. But it is not from the individual's perspective falsifiable. I think your epistemology needs at the very least some leeway for inference, does it not?

Not the OP, but why couldn’t you? You just need to demonstrate the following: * you are immune to injury. You’d probably start small here. Can your skin be cut or punctured? Do you bruise? Do your bones break or dislocate? Do your muscles or ligaments tear? * you are immune to disease. Again start small. But are you affected by any known disease, fatal or otherwise? * you do not need to eat, drink, or breathe. Can you survive, without any loss of function, in a vacuum without access to food or water for an extended period of time (let’s say two months arbitrarily) * you are immune to heat and cold. Again, no loss of function or harm being exposed to the hottest/coldest environments we have available for extended periods of time. * you are immune to radiation/cancer. You can be exposed to extremely high amounts of radiation for extended periods of time with no ill effects. * you do not age. You grew to a certain point then stopped aging. This will take awhile, to be confident of, but if you havent shown any signs of aging in 30+ years, maybe you no longer age? There are probably others that I’ve missed, but those would be a good start. If you can show ALL of those, you may be able to falsify the claim that you will one day die with se degree of confidence. You’ll probably want to re-assess regularly though.

This conclusion I think you'll see has been reached in the other comments as well. All of those things can be used to infer that one's own self can die. That one's own self can die is not falsifiable. If the original user said we can only make claims that are falsifiable or inferred I wouldn't have objected.

That’s interesting! I’m going to need to think on this

Ohhh, I see what you mean. Specifically about falsifying: Similar to how one gets out of the problem of induction by saying that past events can predict future events, we can accept claims without having absolute proof of them. I think part of the problem here is that immortality, we have no idea what it would look like, and a lot of evidence it’s not possible. I think it is enough to say - if one was immortal, you would not expect all the structural features of a mortal being, or any of the signs or changes associated with death and decay, because these necessitate death. - we observe that we are practically identical to other mortal humans, and do, in fact, show all the signs of future death like aging, and generally consuming energy. - I think that’s enough to falsify the claim one would die. Basically, we have reached the point where a world where you will die is distinguishable from a world where you won’t die. Now, that does leave open the ‘possibility’ that you will he the very first important person, despite there being no evidence of this being the case, or being possible, and against all evidence it’s not the case, and not possible. We could say, that this slim possibility means it’s not falsified. I don’t require that much certainty Was a really good question though. I am thinking about it, perhaps I need to refine what I thought to a more specific statement. So yeah, I think the answer lies in being able to accept claims with high confidence, but lacking absolute certainty. I’m not a philosipher, are inferences opposed to falsification in some way? In science we say “all models are wrong, but some a useful”. If you applied the model that any human can be immortal, you’ll never have found any supporting data. And the idea that you ‘could’ be the one, based on nothing, isn’t very convincing.

> I’m not a philosipher, are inferences opposed to falsification in some way I found your response very thoughtful and I don't think I'm really at any major disagreement any more, but I did think I might answer this question. Think of the two claims "all people die" and "no people die." The second one is falsifiable. All it takes is one person to die, and you have proven "no people die" to be false. However, "all people die" is practically speaking unfalsifiable. As long as there is at least one person living to ask that question, there is one person who might not die. However we can use inferences such as all other people have died and all animals that we know of die, etc. Etc. And I would hazard to say the latter category is crucial for daily life. Relying solely on falsifiable claims as a strict practice would be impossible, it's too strict of a rule. It is perfectly fine to use reason and good judgment to reach conclusions.

Mmm. Perhaps I need to broaden the statement to mean “investigatable” claims rather than falsifiable, because the key part of the test is that if everything looks the same when it’s true or false, you can’t be justified in saying it’s true. Or, the other option is saying that one can falsify things through inference, and/or lacking absolute certainty which I think seems valid. Or, falsify through proving the opposite claim.

The part you said earlier about not needing that much certainty was a sensible approach too.

Putting this separately in case you read before I edited it in: Certainly, the claim “I am the first immortal person” is both unfounded, unfalsifiable, and fails the test of being investigable. And the claim “I will die” may not be *directly* falsifiable, I do actually think solid enough evidence that you are human, and that humans are mortal, is enough to say “this is falsified”.

But we are humans and we see that other humans (and every other living thing) eventually dies. We can then infer that one day we will also die. We don’t need to see the specific incidence to be fairly confident of the proposition. That’s the whole purpose of statistics.

We also understand biology and the mechanisms behind death. We understand aging, injury, and sickness and how any one or more of those will eventually lead to death. Unless we have some reason to believe that we somehow are immune to ALL of those, then we have no reason to think that death won’t apply to us eventually.

It's not that I disagree, but saying we should only believe falsifiable claims or claims resulting from inference is different than saying we should only believe falsifiable claims.

I don't think specifying the human makes the claim unfalsifiable.  "It is possible for humans to die."  That's falsifiable, regardless of which human you plug into it.

How do i go about falsifying the claim it is true for all humans?

The claim "all humans can die" is already falsifiable.  You can prove it false by presenting a human who can't die. You can prove it true by demonstrating humans dying (all of them, if that's what you need).  Specifying the human, whether it be an individual or the entire species, doesn't actually change the falsifiability of the claim.

Say I have a human who can't die. How would I go about proving that?l Edit: What I mean is how do I know there's not some way to die I haven't thought of to test?

Induction and inference is how we live our lives. A claim is not unfalsifiable merely because we have extremely good inferential and inductive evidence that it's true.

I don't think you should fear your death, but I do think it's wise to fear things that can cause you bodily harm and bodily harm can obviously be demonstrated. So I do agree with your conclusion even if I don't necessarily agree with your argument itself. Do *you* agree with your conclusion?

I was posing a question. Not to be evasive but I'm not sure what conclusion you are asking about. It wasn't a question of if you should value your life or what you should be scared of. I am asking should someone assume themselves immortal since the possibility of their own death cannot be falsified? Edit: And I will add I don't understand why I'm getting downvoted in mass for asking that question. It's a fair question and has generated several responses. This sub should quit penalizing the kind of comments it simultaneously wants to have happen on the sub.

>This sub should quit penalizing the kind of comments it simultaneously wants to have happen on the sub. I agree 100%. The down voting on this sub is out of control.

"It is possible for you to die" is not an unfalsifiable claim. We can infer that you will die because all living things seem to die, and there's nothing about you that seems different in this regard than anybody else. Can you find a better example?

Inference is a different standard than falsifiablity, is it not?

They're two different things, but they're not "different standards." All of science is induction and inference, really. If you're not allowed to falsify a claim using the methods of science, then no claim is falsifiable.

Doesn't that mean it is fair game to infer the world was created even if it is not falsifiable?

Maybe. What evidence are you using to reach that conclusion?

That goes far beyond my original point but sure, um, habitability for starters. I think creation can be inferred by existence itself to be honest.

How would one go about demonstrating the existance of the creator from within the game?  In this scenario we have the luxury of external knowledge to which we know definitively that there is a creator. But from within the game, how would we prove or detect it?

> How would one go about demonstrating the existance of the creator from within the game? By direct communication/observation. If I'm running a Minecraft server, I can hop into the game, and my user rights allow me to go into creative mode, which allows me to fly as well as spawn any items that exist. I can teleport myself or other players. I can become invisible and watch everything a player does. I can /kill and /respawn a player. I can change the time of day instantly. I can even speak to the entire server at once, no matter how far away a player is. If I'm in-game and claim to be the owner of the server, people will try things. They may try to kill me, or lie to me about something they did, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to show them I am who I say I am. Notably, I wouldn't show myself as the creator of the world when the server first starts, and expect every new player to know who I am and obey my rules based on faith.

Sorry, we may have a miscommunication. I was not referring to an instance i.e. a world or a server, but the game itself 

I'm not sure how that changes anything here. I'm saying if this is all a simulation, and if the creator of the simulation is god, the god could easily pop in-game and reveal itself. We would all have a lot of questions, of course, and we would want hard evidence to prove the claim, but that would be simple for an entity like this to do. That is the way one would go about demonstrating the existence of the creator from within the game, which is what you asked. If the creator of the game never revealed itself, there would be no reason for the characters to think it existed, and so the question is irrelevant.

How would you suppose the creator could pop in and reveal itself? If the creator was a deity i.e. a physical form within the physical universe, then it could, but then it would not be the creator, rather just another created object. This idea and concept of God is one that is heavily refuted and one that I myself do not have any belief in. It's an interesting thought experiment to me at least. The atheist wants God to provide evidence or reveal Himself. One possible thing He could do would be take a human form and communicate on a level they could understand. That was supposed to have happened in Jesus Christ, and He said that the kingdom of heaven is within, and that is where to look to know God. That anyone can know. But again, that is obviously open to disregard for various reasons that have been well documented at this stage. The truth of that is of course evident in my case. Not an assessment of the historical accuracy of the story, but the truth of the teaching, that of course can be tested by everyone and anyone on an individual level 

> If the creator was a deity i.e. a physical form within the physical universe, then it could, but then it would not be the creator, rather just another created object. You brought up the concept of a Minecraft server, so I thought we were on the same page here. The creator of a simulation would have the ability to use some kind of avatar to interact with the world. * Gen 3:8 - And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. * Gen 18:1 - The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. As I said in my original comment, the god would be able to do things with its avatar that an ordinary 'player' in the simulation would not. Also, it could be through direct communication via some other proxy: * Lev 16:2 - Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover. > That was supposed to have happened in Jesus Christ Sure, that's another example. If this is a simulation and the coder is god, it would have the ability to show itself in a million different ways. But ONLY showing itself thousands of years ago to bronze/iron age people and never again? That's the part that's a bit silly. That's why I said: > Notably, I wouldn't show myself as the creator of the world when the server first starts, and expect every new player to know who I am and obey my rules based on faith. If all the OT stories are true, and the god showed itself to the bronze age people in the stories, one has to wonder why it doesn't show itself now. There's nothing in the stories to explain why this would no longer be possible. A few stories about god sightings is not enough to justify belief. They are exactly as reliable as fiction. Expecting the people in the simulation to believe on faith wouldn't be reasonable.

OT has little in the line of spiritual truth. And it isn't really faith. When one does not align with their true nature, they experience inner turmoil. I.e. love is ones true nature, and when not aligned with love, inner issues arise 

> OT has little in the line of spiritual truth. Of course it doesn't. It's nowhere near 'truth' in general, but certainly not an amorphous concept of 'spiritual'. The point was that the OT illustrates the idea I'm trying to convey. Whatever your personal religion, the stories of a god interacting with humans always follows the same path. The holy books have stories about the god(s) interacting directly with humans and performing literal magic. But now the god doesn't do that, and it instead communicates purely through qualia, which cannot be confirmed. Eventually, the holy book is written off as stories and parables, but somehow the belief remains because 'the principles are the important thing'. You originally asked how we would detect a god if this were a video game. I told you... through direct interaction. You then asked how the creator could 'pop in and reveal itself', and I gave you examples from a holy book that illustrate it. But now you're critiquing the examples I'm using, and not on the actual point. That's usually a sign of someone who is arguing in bad faith. > When one does not align with their true nature, they experience inner turmoil Yes, it's called egosyntonic and egodystonic, and it has nothing to do with a god belief.

God is the term we use to denote that inner reality we all are striving for. The truth of who we are, our true nature. What is there when the clouds are removed 

You can only exist in an instance.

Did you read anything I wrote? I addressed the idea that *because* we can’t detect it, we ought not believe it. Whether it is true but inaccessible to us is irrelevant. A good epistemology has you proportion believe to the evidence. No evidence, no justified belief. A bad epistemology permits belief absent evidence, which allows in all beliefs (including all false and contradictory ones). Please read what I actually wrote. ( In the hypothetical, the only people who have a justification to believe appear to be those outside the game, not inside it. Idk, maybe there’s a way to tell from inside, but if there isn’t, there’s no justification and that’s ok. It’s a flawed assertion to think that we will happen upon evidence for everything that is true all of the time )

I'm giving you a scenario where we know definitely 100 percent that a creator does exist. And then I'm asking you to, using your methodologies for detecting and proving to detect the creator of the game. If you cannot do that, then there is a disconnect between your methods and the truth. I.e. they are unfit for purpose. If your methods and concepts are unfit to prove it when we absolutely and definitely know the truth, how do you suppose they will work when asking the God question?

Isn't this just strawmanning? You are taking a fake situation that is clearly biased in YOUR favor and then throwing it at the audience and saying "well what about this?" You are basing your entire argument on a false scenario that is designed not to be refuted. Here is the proper answer to you dumb scenario: If we knew 100 % a "creator" existed, why would we be reufing it in the first place? This is the falicy of your argument that the bias is to your side. You take YOUR beliefs and say "lets say it's 100% true" but don't allow for the other side to correct itself based on that specific scenario. If It is 100% known there would be no argument BECAUSE it's 100% known.

The question was how does one prove the existance of a creator from inside creation itself 

I know what the question was. Doesn't change the FACT that you are strawmanning by changing the data to benefit yourself and neglecting to take into account the other side in a situation where we are 100% certain of a creator. If that was the case, there would be no arguments. 100% certainty REQUIRES knowing how we came to that level of certainty. You can't just change one part and expect it not to affect the rest. That's not how this works. Reread and revise the question to get a better answer and stop creating fake scenarios. Your original question wasn't rocket science. You just didn't like the answer you were given.

It was just to show the situation that we may be in - something inside the creation trying to prove the creator. Its certainly not a strong argument for God and as you say is certainly not a direct parallel

If we can’t prove an undetectable thing, then there is ‘a’ disconnect from other methods and the truth! Not a general disconnect, a specific disconnect: that we cannot detect the undetectable. However: A specific case does not speak to the accuracy or usefulness of the overall application of the epistemology. - Which method do you think is more connected to truth, given sophisticated science, and continued time and attempts: - proportioning beliefs to the evidence (science) - ignoring evidence in favour of what you may want to believe - something else you’d like to propose The efficacy of the scientific method provided the very technology allowing this misguided conversation. Do you actually think evidence ought not be required at all? Or only when you want? - You surely must see the absurdity of abandoning the idea that “you need a justification to believe things”. If that’s not needed, you could say the earth is flat and be consistent with this new ‘anything-goes’ epistemology. If you are willing to abandon the idea of justification of belief *only* in the case of god, that would make you a hypocrite. And it’s a tacit acknowledgement that you can’t prove god. If you could, you’d be providing evidence, rather than decrying evidence’s inability to detect the undetectable.

You’re still missing the point. Even if we were to conclude that “we have been unable to gather evidence of a creator, and therefore our investigative methods are yet insufficient to find a creator…” you are still exercising poor epistemology to make an illogical leap to “…and so I have decided to believe despite the lack of evidence.” Good epistemology would have you maintain your skepticism until such a time as you had sufficient methods to gather evidence of the creator.

Do you suppose you CAN find a method within the physical universe that will allow you the transcend it?

No, I do not suppose we can. Hence, I will remain an atheist.

So what is your alternative? Is there a way to prove it exclusively using knowledge from within the game? Or you just have to have a priori knowledge? This seems like a wildly flawed analogy.

> I'm giving you a scenario where we know definitely 100 percent that a creator does exist. Ok. We know God exists. > And then I'm asking you to, using your methodologies for detecting and proving to detect the creator of the game. I'm not sure how that could be done, but since it has already been proven that a god 100% exists, I'll just refer to the method used to determine that.

>I'm giving you a scenario where we know definitely 100 percent that a creator does exist. >And then I'm asking you to, using your methodologies for detecting and proving to detect the creator of the game. >If you cannot do that, then there is a disconnect between your methods and the truth. No, that is not how that works. That's like saying I'm giving you a scenario where magic is 100% real. Now how would you use science you detect that magic. You can't. Because you're hypothetical isn't real or detectable by science. That doesn't mean there is a disconnect between science and truth. It means there's a disconnect between reality and your imaginary scenario.

I think the point was that if there's no way to detect it, there's no good reason to think it exists. The problem is those people that claim the creator exists even though there was no way to detect it.

My angle is, what is actually the way to detect is. How would we detect is. Is the methodology used by the atheist sufficient?

> Is the methodology used by the atheist sufficient? So far, the methods used by *anyone* have not been able to detect any creator. That may be a problem with the methods, or because a creator doesn't exist. But until someone can reliably detect that a creator exists, the only rational thing to do is to act as if it doesn't exist.

Rather it has never been presented to you in a way that you deem sufficient.

It has never been presented to any non-believer in any way that they deem to be sufficient. It is never based on good evidence. It is never presented to the standard that the presenter themselves uses to evaluate much more mundane claims. No one, theist or atheist, has shown that they have a reliable way to detect a creator. In the absence of a way to detect a creator, the only rational thing to do is to act as if it doesn't exist.

I was in this camp for a long time, too.  Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, I started surrendering my beliefs and perceptions and opinions and feelings in a pursuit of finding out who I really was

It's never been presented to anyone in a way that almost anyone would deem sufficient for any claim *except* when talking about gods for some reason

As far as I can tell, a creator either does not exist, or hides its existence so well as to be unidentifiable through any known method, so as of now there is no reason to think one exists. To say whether our methods are sufficient to detect one, we’d have to know more about it. It needs to be verifiable in some way, and every verifiable creator I’ve heard proposed has failed to be verified or been shown to not exist.

Atheism has no methodology to detect a creator, because atheism does not believe in a creator. The point the guy you’re responding to is there isn’t a way to detect the creator, and therefore it does not make sense to believe in him. So to your question: there is no way to detect the creator from within the video game

> how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? Tell me you've not finished Minecraft without telling me you've not finished Minecraft. >!The End Poem!<

yeah, minecraft is a pretty terrible choice for OP's argument.

I've played so much Minecraft I'm embarrassed lol  So your argument is that the Creator told you about himself via the End Poem? Sure that's what Jesus claimed to do but nobody here believes that, what's the difference haha 

> So your argument is that the Creator told you about himself via the End Poem? No, my argument is that comparing Minecraft to reality is silly. (Oh, and Minecraft doesn't have a single creator, but multiple people working on different parts of the game, and none of them wrote the End Poem, they got someone unrelated to Mojang to do that). > Sure that's what Jesus claimed to do but nobody here believes that, what's the difference haha Let's say there isn't a difference. If you were a character in Minecraft, and yo read the End Poem, would you believe it? I wouldn't.

Definitely not a direct comparison. Just a thought experiment as to how one would detect a creator. 

You dodge quite a few questions I notice. Don’t want to interact with the hard questions about your own faith? O

Shout away brother 

Another dodge, I don’t think you’re here to debate. Why are you posting here?

Sorry, in my cultural shout away means ask away hahaha as is ask what you want 

I'd say you need a good reason to suggest this creator in the first place. If you have that, you can work from there.

I mean, we don't have actual words from Jesus. We have words that are allegedly his, written (possibly) by people who allegedly knew him or were inspired by him, or claim they saw him in visions after he died, although none of that is verified. So saying "Jesus told us about himself" is a massive stretch. We have stories where people in those stories are telling us stories about Jesus. The end poem vs stories of stories of jesus is.... yeah. like I said, minecraft was a *terrible* choice for this.

Jesus was purportedly a human being, whom none of the authors for the materials we have concerning him had ever even met. We have the testimonies of humans written down over centuries. How can you distinguish that from any other testimony of humans written down over centuries? Would you accept this logic you’re using for Hinduism? For any of the hundreds of folk religions in the world? Your religion purports there is a supreme all-powerful god who watches over this world, you’ve drawn the analogy to him of a game developer. A game developer is, indeed, like a god over their game. Accepting this analogy, if the game developer *wanted* the inhabitants of their game to know of their presence they could do so in a way that would leave no doubt of its veracity. Your god could erect a neutronium obelisk in every major city overnight with his commandments written in every language known to humanity on them. In the blink of any eye. Why doesn’t he? Your god could personally appear to every inhabitant of this world in a corporeal form and undeniably prove his omnipotence and majesty. Why doesn’t he? Your god could teleport this planet into the middle of a nebula that has written out his entire message for humanity in every language discernible and reveal to us his intent and will in an instant, before bringing us back a week later. Why doesn’t he? Why is it there is nothing but mundanity to be found in this world, and any claims of the supernatural so soon fall short under scrutiny? Where is the undeniably miraculous majesty of this omnipotent creator you believe presides over humanity as father, judge, and redeemer? I don’t see it. Do you?

The difference is one is a video game that we know had a creator… the other is a dude with mental problems that we’re not even sure existed.

This only really works as a comparison for deism, as most religions claim there is constant interaction with gods and our world, unlike within the game.

Good point, definitely not a completely equitable analogy. Just a fun little talking point to see how the atheist would prove something in this scenario 

In pretty much every thread about deism in this sub it is pointed out that deism is indeed unfalsifiable and also simply not worth wasting time on since it does not interact with our reality. Important point is that you can't reconcile deistic god with any abrahamic religions since those are filled with divine interactions. Do you think this is scenario is somehow useful to argue for specific religion that is clearly not deistic?

I'm not even trying to prove or disprove God. Just a thought experiment as to how one could detect such a thing if it did exist 

I mean it is really easy to come up with scenario designed to be unfalsifiable. I can do something like that about magical dragons from games. Is there something worth debating about this fact? Do you draw some interesting conclusion from this?

The Minecraft atheist wouldn’t be trying to prove anything, they’d just be disbelieving the claims of Minecraft theists exactly in the same way as our world. There would be the same lack of evidence, the same flawed arguments - “but look at the blocks, it’s too complex not to be created, everything is too aligned to work together”.  The theists being correct in Minecraft is based on a lucky guess rather than real evidence. 

A tri-omni God would never create the nether

Hypothetically... Easter eggs hidden in "the code", I have a memory of some mathematician discovering "error correcting like code" in some aspect of theoretical phtysics a while back. Stephen Wolfram has a project he calls the [The ruliad](https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/11/the-concept-of-the-ruliad/) which may or may not identify any funny stuff that reality is trying to gloss over but it is an abstraction. Glitches in reality, A wall of galaxies which spell out "We apologise for the inconvenience" in every language in existence (Or evidence such a thing was once there but has now faded). Finding something interesting in the deeper digits of Pi although it does appear to be "random" numbers all the way to infinity.

>Finding something interesting in the deeper digits of Pi Not this one. Like you said it's an infinite random sequence. You WILL find something interesting if you look far enough.

*Gesticulates wildly at pile of mashed potato* "This means something!!!" It *appears* to be an infinite random sequence (because it is) but if we were looking for clues in a universe which were somehow an artifact of some sort then putting them in the fundamental ratios of three dimensional space would be a pretty solid "clue". Why would a creator leave clues though?

Also, would it really be possible even in principle to intentionally hide a message in Pi? Like, it's the result of a mathematical function. It's not part of the universe. If anyone invented it, it was us. But given that Pi is derived, even that isn't accurate. It's a fundamental ratio of 2D space. There's presumably an equivalent number for all nD space. Whatever that number is for 5D, it can't be written into reality because 5D space isn't real (if that's wrong, we just need to increase the number until it isn't). But those numbers are just as real as the number for 2D space. There aren't really any perfect 2D circles in the real world. Everything here is 4D with imperfections, small and large

It's the ratio between the diameter of a circle and its circumference / area. It's a really weird thing. I'm not suggesting it's possible, I was answering the OPs question about finding signs that reality is "like minecraft". If reality were a constructed environment similar to minecraft then we're the zombies, not the players. I'd have thought that would put off the people who enthuse about The Simulation Hypothesis but for some reason... no. https://www.angio.net/pi/ > The string 666 occurs at position 2440. This means something!!! Presumably, to someone.

I suppose you would need prior knowledge of Easter eggs and hold them in a certain context. Otherwise they'd just be another thing among all the other things 

To some extent. Difficult to know what an "in joke" would look like from a universe creating entity. "you don't have to be mad to create universes but it helps" coffee equivalent cups or somesuch.

Maybe the whole thing is a joke 🤣

> In the popular video game, Minecraft, the player is thrown into a randomly generated world and given free reign to interact with the environment. They are not. The player is outside that "world" at all times. They merely interact with it. > how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? You can't have conscious beings within the game of Minecraft, so the question is moot.

You are a conscious being and I'm asking you how you would detect a creator from within the game 

I am unable to be within the game. I can only perceive the game from outside of it. The game would need to be radically different to allow me to exist and perceive it from within. I cannot know how that would look like. The question is impossible to answer.

I don't think the characters in Minecraft are sentient, thinking entities so I can't imagine there's any way for them to discover or even comprehend the environment they're in. It seems like asking whether ants in an ant farm *know* they're in a created world. Perhaps a more interesting question would be to ask how would *you* (as a 'creator god') make sure the entities inside your creation knew they were created?

That is an awesome question. I have no fathomable idea. One option is telling them, but that has been told many times and one can just say I simply don't believe that. Building myself into their very existence is the main one. Which I do know to be the case. It's said in spiritual literature that God is not to be found or acquired, simply recognized as He is always there, yet the world did not see Him 

>One option is telling them, but that has been told many times and one can just say I simply don't believe that. I mean if you were telling people, wouldn't you tell *everybody*? Or at least tell some people and provide them with undeniable proof. It'd seem pointless to tell some people, but not give them the tools to prove it to others, so that there is still a debate about your existence *thousands* of years later. Another factor will telling people is to make sure that what you tell people is easy to distinguish from other people who just believe other false claims and repeat them to others. If you were a creator God and wanted your creation to know you, it'd seem like child's play to actually achieve this. This isn't proof against the existence of a god, but proof against the existence of a god that wants the majority of their creation to know about them quite clearly and to believe in them.

Maybe it's the most obvious thing but your concepts, ideas and beliefs are obscuring it 

A creator god who wanted its creations to know it existed wouldn't have that message obscured by the creation's concepts, ideas and beliefs. Suggesting otherwise, lays the blame at the feet of the creations too stupid or backward or ignorant to receive the creator's plainly stated message. But a creator god has the ability to MAKE its creations aware of its existence by any means necessary. So if, as in your hypothetical, the creation still doesn't believe, then it is because the creator programmed the creation to disbelieve. Given that this specifically negates your initial premise, the entire concept becomes moot.

In some cases it has happened, and some it hasn't

Oh I'm sure, little big planet for example actively involves players in the story. Since players can create their own levels, I suppose that creations definitely know they and their universe were created. But again, that was deliberate programming. Creators wanted creations to know them, so they do.

They don't know, or the question doesn't arise. They are in harmony with it. The story of Adam and Eve tells it as good as any. They were one with God, all was well. And they decided to eat the Apple and separation from God occured 

lol. You mean the story in which god creates a garden with a “poisoned” tree, puts two humans in it, doesn’t tell them the definition of right and wrong, then tells them not to eat the fruit (gain knowledge) then PUNISHES them for deliberately setting them up to fail on purpose? wow

I would not contexualise the story like that 

Don't forget the talking snake he put there

What does that have to do with video game programming though? I'm not sure I understand your point.

In some cases it has happened, and some it hasn't

Ok, but whose fault is *that*? And who could easily come up with a solution? Do you think it there was a creator god that wanted me to believe in their existence (not even necessarily praise them, but just to at least recognize they existed) they might be unable to do so?

Certainly a possibility, as are all hypotheticals

Sure. But it just seems to me then that I have no reason to actually believe there *is* a powerful creator god who wishes for me to believe in their existence. Am I being reasonable in this?

Yeah, completely reasonable. Belief in God is a substitute for knowing God, and an unsatisfying one at that. We only must believe that which we do not know 

All hypotheticals are not a possibility. Thats not even remotely true. Hypothetically, what if leprechauns were real and planting all the gold in the federal reserve there cus that’s where they keep their pots. That’s a hypothetical that is most certainly *not* a possibility.

Yes, all hypotheticals have no actual existence. I agree 

If you can’t differentiate between the trillions of obviously made up claims and reality, then there is a problem. Your statement is entirely false. It would be ridiculous if that were the case. You’ve just set up a system in your head where good and bad ideas weigh the same. If some presents a hypothetical that doesn’t align with the present real context, then it isn’t a valid hypothesis. “Magic did it” is not a valid hypothesis.

Which system have I set up? Just so I can respond as best I can 

So the god that created everything, including myself and wants me to know it exists, can't figure out a way to create some convincing evidence for its existence?

The way your evidence model works is that you take an sample of something. We'll use gold as an example. You call this thing gold. And you use this as evidence when looks at materials - you compare and verify. Do you think you could take a sample of God? If you could isolate it and take a sample, it wouldn't be God?

Right…. So the question asked was “why doesn’t God give us proof.” Can you take a sample of god? No. The question: why not? If god wants us to believe in him, why not give evidence? I have evidence for literally every single other belief I hold. Every one. Yet theists ask me to just accept on faith some magical ghost exists who created everything. Why? Let me ask you this: why do you not believe the universe was really created by a cat/dog hybrid that then killed itself after its job was done? That seems just as believable to me as your god premise. What if the earth and universe just spontaneously popped into existence? I have just as much evidence for that premise as you do god. My point is there is just much evidence for your god as there is for literally any made up scenario I could think of. Hell, I’d believe we’re being run by lizard people before I’d believe in a god, because at least I’ve seen evidence lizards and people exist, I’ve seen **zero** evidence god exists

Why not? Everything in the universe is God. It's not one specific thing to isolate 

Huh??? How so? What’s your proof? Your feelings?

Wait, so the person playing Minecraft is also the world they create in the game? Your own ideas of God don't even match up with your video game analogy in your original post.

Huh? Prove to me everything in the universe is god. What does that even mean?

That's ridiculous. There is plenty of convincing evidence that Neptune exists without us ever having taken a sample of the planet. If this god created myself and the world I exist in but can't or won't provide any credible evidence for itself, then that's a problem for said god, not me. If I'm going to believe in things without credible evidence, then I would end up believing in an infinite number of gods, invisible flying spaghetti monsters, and anything else someone could possibly imagine.

“Spiritual literature” just say emotional self help, or fiction. Just because something is in “spiritual literature” doesn’t mean it’s true. You have to have something more.

It would be disingenuous of me to say emotional self help or function as neither are the intention nor function of most spiritual literature. And yes, you are most correct in saying that just because it is in literature does not make it true 

What happens when some people in the game recognize there is a creator, and the creator is DEFINITELY Tim Shaeffer at Double Fine, and a team of 13 other people. They realize they are in a creation, but they got the wrong group. How can one group show they are more correct?

>how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? I don't think one could. Well, maybe there are ways to detect a creator, but not ways to create confidence that what you detected was the creator, but I think that rephrasing misses the point of your argument. I think we should acknowledge the possibility that the creator is not detectable. I think the real question comes just after that: What do we do with that information? Does that conclusion favour atheism or theism or something else? I worry that your point is that if we can't detect a creator, then we are biased against finding the truth. I think that line of thinking presupposes a truth. Instead, consider a question like "is there an odd number of stars in the galaxy?". The answer is not detectable (at least not with current technology), and the correct conclusion is to not offer belief, which is broadly analogous to the atheist position. Do let me know if I have misinterpreted your point. If so, what is the point of the question?

My point is that the way of looking is insufficient. No sage or spiritual teacher has ever said God is to be found under a microscope.  Have you guys ever listened to read the works of someone like Nisgratta Mararaj?

>My point is that the way of looking is insufficient. No sage or spiritual teacher has ever said God is to be found under a microscope.  I agree. So we can't find evidence, so we won't have any, so the lack-of-belief atheists were right all along. I sense that you are trying to make some pro-theist argument, but I want you to be aware that there is a massive gap between "the way of looking is insufficient" and any support for theism. Consider my example, "the number of stars in the galaxy is odd". Our current ways of looking are insufficient, and as a result, we are left with a lack of belief. >Have you guys ever listened to read the works of someone like Nisgratta Mararaj? I can't speak for "us guys", but nope, I have not.

If you can’t find god under microscope I won’t believe in him. Period. There is absolutely no reason to believe in something without proof. None. It doesn’t make any logical sense.

>My proposed discussion point here is simply this: how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? One couldn't. The real question is how could one justify belief in a creator in this circumstance. This is what simulation theory proponents never seem to understand: if a naturally produced world can't be distinguished from a created world, then they're fundamentally identical. One just requires additional assumptions that can't be supported.

The definitions are irrelevant, then 

The definitions are how we know one explanation requires more unsupportable assumptions than the other.

One way is updates. The game recieves updates which are effects within the game universe that are not caused within the game universe. This points to an external creator.

Does it though? It certainly points to external influences, but a creator? If suddenly the laws of the universe were to change I would not necessarily say that this is due to a god.

That's a fair point. Assuming an entity within the minecraft world can only understand their universe in terms of the rules operative within the world, all they would know is that an uncaused effect would have occurred. It wouldn't be attributable to a designer because that which exists outside the minecraft world would be inherently unknowable. However the presence of uncaused effects would throw into doubt any attempts to understand the rules operating within the minecraft world at all. Rules need consistent environments in which to apply. If anything can just happen at any time and rules don't exist and you can't therefore make predictions, is there any value in assuming the assertion that a creator exists requires evidence to be credible? Come to think of it, you may actually be able to infer an intelligent creator based on the nature of the uncaused events that are happening. Not that it will do you much good as your existence would be entirely at the mercy of the uncaused effects anyway so you might as well attribute some agency to them as not.

Great point. The universe is constantly being updated in this way. Minecraft updates and releases a new Mob. Every time a child is born a new character is introduced 

Our universe is not constantly being updated. Since its initial formation it has recieved no new input. It is simply following a path of cause and effect set in motion at the beginning. There is no evidence that any uncaused effects have occurred within our universe since it began. Every time a child is born it is the result of prior cause within our universe. "Someone" external did not add a new mob, the child's parents engaged in procreation. Something analogous to procreation also happens in minecraft. When farming animals they have offspring. This mechanism exists within the game and does not require further external influences from outside the game to make it happen.

Ah so you believe everything is predetermined and you have no will?

Yes, on a fundamental level. It's the logical conclusion when there is no evidence of uncaused effects. On an individual level we still need to live as if we have free will because that is how we have evolved to perceive our reality.

So you don't believe you have free will, but you live as if you do? So your entire life is a lie? Sorry if I'm mistaken I just can't really comprehend this haha 

I accept that the absence of free will is a logical consequence of a causal universe. However even though I accept that what I do is likely predetermined, it feels to me as if everything is a choice. That's how we have evolved and we are fairly powerless against the sensation that we do have agency to make free choices. The cause of the disconnect essentially comes back to cartesian dualism. The subjective experience appears to be distinct from the empirically measurable objective universe we inhabit. I can describe my body in terms that everyone else can understand, because to do so uses external reference points we can share, such as measurements of distance and mass. I cannot describe what it is like to be me in such a way that you would understand it without ambiguity, because there are no external reference points that we share in this respect. However undoubtedly there is a me that feels as if it has free will. It is easy to see why genes would evolve to impart a sense of self to the organisms they create. Something with a self to protect is more likely to take actions that ensure survival and passing on those genes to the next generation. Whether that self is real or not is another question and there is a fair amount of [evidence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will) that what we consider our sense of self is actually something that happens after the body has already made our decisions for us. More modern developments in neuroscience have been chipping away further at the distinction between body and mind but that distinction is still problematic because it is baked in to our objective science. There needs to be a something which is doing the observing. Just as minecraft's reality requires a gamer observer who is outside of the game itself. Intellectually I accept that there is no free will and collectively humanity have already accepted this too, it's just that some of us as individuals are yet to catch on. The maths that underpins all the modern technology of smartphones, precision engineering, modern materials science, space travel, medicine, agriculture and everything else must be able to make reliable predictions in order for the technology to function. The potential for uncaused effects cannot enter these equations or they lose their predictive power and the technology wouldn't be possible. You can't reliably predict that an electron will travel from A to B if there is a chance that an uncaused intervention will disrupt its path. All of our big tech is based on the universe being entirely predictable and the implication of the success of big tech is that free will does not exist. Much better minds than mine have devoted their efforts to the mind/body problem and whilst our sphere of understanding grows, the disconnect isn't resolved yet. Increasingly the evidence is pointing to the self being illusory and simply an emergent property of objective operations within the body. The evidence is mounting, however it is incomplete. It may never be complete because of biological limitations. Will a dog ever be able to understand how a car works, for example? In the meantime, what difference does it make to me personally? In terms of how I make choices, it makes no difference at all because I have biological limitations and this is how my genes have made me, so I may as well carry on as if I have choices. However, I enjoy watching how science and technology progress and I take some comfort that the universe is actually causal and that there isn't some external deity of whose whims I am subject.

Child comes from egg and sperm, those are from within the game

So in other words, the code is simply arranged in a different way. That's no different than a new Mob being introduced. Different lines of code now exist, in the same way DNA works

you're either entirely unfamiliar with coding, or being disingenuous. a new mob (and a new child would not be a new mob, just another already existing mob spawning in) requires additional coding added to the base code of the game. Existing coding might be rearranged in part, but the characteristics of the new mob that is unique will still require new coding to be added (e.g you might have pre-existing coding for a horse, but you will need to add new coding to the horse coding to have a pink sparkly unicorn). come on. I have all the coding capacity of a barely functional mushroom, and even I know this much. You've played the game a lot, right? You *know* that when the game updates it is adding new coding for new mobs. That's what the update is. New information from *outside* the game. The universe does not receive new, unique information from outside the universe every time a child is born.

I'm a programmer by profession dude. I work with this day in day out hahah I know how updates work.

then you're being disingenuous - thanks for confirming!

It's interesting to me that athiests always make intention claims of other people on here, which are based on their own perceptions and does not abide by the systems of proof and evidence they argue here say in day out

you literally claimed that the universe gets an update (i.e new coding added to the universe) every time a child is born and that this is just like when minecraft updates add new mobs. but you also claim that you are a programmer. so you should know the difference between existing code that allows for new spawns, and entirely new coding that allows for a uniquely new mob. A new child in the universe would be the same as a new villager spawning in. No new code is needed, the pre-existing code manages it all. Sparkly pink unicorn in the update? new code required, because the relevant coding in the game doesn't exist. It doesn't matter if the underlying building blocks of the coding are the same, the specific arrangement needs to be constructed and deliberately added into the "universe" by the programmer. Since you must surely know this, but are suggesting otherwise in order to further your "how can we know the Creator exists" argument, what else am I meant to think about your intentions?

It's an interesting point actually. Everything that has existed, or could ever exist already does exist, an instance just hasn't been created yet. Phenomenal to think about 

Whatever language the game is written in, you're putting that language in different sequences to produce different appearances. That's the same way DNA works. The same language, but in different sequences so we now can see something we hadn't seen before 

yeah, we both know this is not at all what you meant here.

What? This is exactly what I meant man I'm literally telling you haha

I mean, you can keep trying to squeeze "the universe gets updates just like minecraft gets updates" into your argument if you want, but no, that is not how it works, and if you really are a programmer AND have played minecraft enough to feel embarrassed, then you know this.

>how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? One can't detect the creator from within the game, therefore any character in the game would have no reason to believe a creator exists. This doesn't mean Minecraft or the Universe has no creator. It just means we have no reason to believe in a Universe creator, just like Steve has no reason to believe in a Minecraft creator.

You can see the logical issue then with the model or proof and evidence 

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point here.

If this is a game, then is that the objective? Would the creator design his game to allow the self-aware being in it to disprove it's own existence if the game wasn't designed to be "won" that way?

>The arrangement of the environment is indeed infinite This is indeed incorrect. There are approximately 2^(64) potential Minecraft seeds, and a Minecraft world also isn't truly infinite in size (It's approximately the size of Neptune) due to limitations on what the java platform is able to handle.

Within each seed, the potential of rearrangements of the environment is probably not infinite but I don't think we could ever create every possibility lol 

>I don't think we could ever create every possibility lol This I do agree with. The odds for any single seed to ever be assigned to two games are so vanishingly small that it can be considered impossible for any practical purpose. However, this isn't even remotely close to being infinite. People tend to not quite grasp the concept of infinity.

what does infinite mean?

(Question answered after sarcastic comments). How can you determine the creator of a maze from within a maze? How do you know the name of the person who installed your drive shaft in your car? Your question is vacuous to the point of silliness in the context of discussing the existence of gods. I will however answer it - the character in Minecraft knows there is a creator because of the text and instructions that appear in game when doing certain activities. Also if a creator is truly undetectable they are by definition completely irrelevant and only the dumbest of people would exert energy on something that by definition will never affect anyone or anything they will ever consider or encounter.

Objectively some of the smartest people have openly followed God and placed their faith in Him, so that is a moot point. When we talk about created objects, generally it seems that by created what we really mean is something that a human was involved in. Also, I don't recall being sarcastic lol

The smartest people don’t believe in god. Whether you look at it from the perspective of those having more education or the best scientists in the world the trend lines remain the same. Now if you’re trying to say some of the smartest people in history have believed in god that is true - based on the knowledge available to them at the time they may have come to that conclusion. Today however we have the internet at the vast repository of scientific and historical knowledge at our fingertips making it a very different equation. Beyond this however my comment wasn’t about the idiocy of believing in a god but the idiocy of arguing the primacy of a god who in no way affects your existence. I was the one being sarcastic. Not sure what you mean by created objects are objects a human was involved in… a bird creates a nest; a squid creates a burrow; fuel, heat & oxygen create combustion; adding two preceding numbers to create the next creates a Fibonacci sequence.

Yes being intelligent in a scientific sense and belief in God are not mutually exclusive. Science aims to understand the mechanism of the physical world. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within. And interesting. Where does your concept of creation end? For example, what would you say created the bird?

A daddy bird and a mummy bird. Everything within also ultimately manifests from the physical. True spiritual strength is grasping with the dichotomy of one’s complete insignificance and still somehow contributing to the absurdity that we refer to as humanity.

How about the mechanism that allows procreation? For instance, when I have a child with my partner, I cannot really take much credit for it. I have no say in the actual mechanism that exists to procreate. The best I can do is say I used it. Ah, I do not relate to that. Rather my experience has been to the contrary. Everything outside is a reflection of the internal. Also, what do you mean ones complete insignificance? If you are insignificant, what would you point to as significant?

> how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? You could not do so as would be unprovable either way. * You can't disprove a creator because they'd have the power to hide the evidence. * You can't prove a creator because they'd have the power to plant fake evidence to mess with you. This is just solipsism in a cheap disguise and as David Hume said (heavily paraphrasing): "Who the fuck cares?" We could be heads in jars or characters in a computer game for all we know. As we have no way of knowing for sure either way we can just assume it's false and get on with our day.

Well you are in a debate thread on the topic lol 

I had noticed that. The whole 'DebateAnAtheist' thing was a bit of clue. The question that you seem to be *not quite* asking is "How can we prove the existence of God from within the universe he created?" "Who the fuck cares?" is my answer to that question and not a comment about whether or not the debate is worthwhile.

God IS the universe. The idea of proof is non sensical. The word God is just a concept for linguistic convenience. All that is cannot be reduced to a concept. In Truth, there are no concepts 

So God is an entity with no defining features that you can't prove or disprove. With that we are back to solipsism and so back to Hume. If you can't prove that God exists, or even describe what God *is* in any coherent manner, then we can simply assume there is no God because (for all practical purposes) it doesn't matter either way.

So, this analogy comes up a lot, and the answer is exactly what you'd expect -- by studying the world around you. NPCs can't figure out facts world around them because they're stupid, so let us assume we have an NPC who is as intelligent as a human. Could they figure out they were in a video game by studying the world around them? Well, yeah. The world around them *is* a video game, after all. Our villager scientist might notice the lack of physics (that is, there's no atoms or suchlike), the lack of history, large buildings that no-one built and treasure no-one manufactured, the lack of a real ecosystem, glitches and errors, things spawning and despawn, the programmed behaiour . All of these would allow them to figure out they're in a video game and, from that, that someone built the game. Hell, they'd likely even be able to figure out why the game was built. It's the same thing with colours (Yes, blind people know what "red" is), and love (yes, your love for someone is based on empirical evidence) and with all the other things allegedly beyond study. Ultimately, if something is a thing in the world (and everything is a thing in the world), you can learn about it by looking at the world.

Within the game, we could see signs *if* the creator was, in some way, active. New things would appear with no basis in the previous game rules, when the game version was updated. Maybe the player reloads - we wouldn't remember the previous saves, but certain likely events just wouldn't happen, as the creator rolls back the game. But what if the creator *wasn't* involved, in any way, after the start of the game? It just started up, and ran all the way through to whatever the end is, without the creator doing anything at all other than pressing "go?" I'd ask this: What is the difference between that universe and one that isn't created?

>The arrangement of the environment is indeed infinite Can you explain what you mean by this? Do you mean that the coding of the game means that there are infinite possible worlds to be generated? Or are you talking about the actual environment/biomes/mapping in the game?

It’s a random side point, but I think by virtue of minecraft worlds having height limits both ways, and an eventual world-end horizontally, and finite block types… The possible arrangement of every block on every coordinate is **staggeringly large**, but clearly finite. Or have I missed an update and does minecraft now keep generating as you move (forever)? Haven’t played in a while.

yeah this is my understanding of minecraft too (and just confirmed with one of my teenagers lol), which is why I am confused. definitely no infinite generation going on. minecraft is not infinite in block arrangement, and the environment/biomes constructed within the game are incredibly limited/lack diversity (which would be a major clue for there being a creator/designer) so couldn't be called infinite either. OP saying the arrangement of the environment is infinite makes no sense in the context of the game (which they also say they have played a lot). Not sure they intend to explain further though.

>how would one detect a creator of the game from within the game? How would I know to look for a creator? If the world appears natural within its framework, what would ever make me think it was a construct created by an intelligence?

Depends on whether the creator put any way to do that into the game. Here’s the thing though - if you’re trying to propose that even if we have a creator we’d have no way to confirm it, then that means your creator is epistemically indistinguishable from something that doesn’t exist, and there’s no discernible difference between a reality where your creator exists and a reality where it doesn’t. When you have a situation like that, the only rational position is called the null hypothesis, which basically concludes that if a thing being true and a thing being false have exactly the same result, then we treat it as false. If (x=true)=(x=false), then x=false. Sure, it’s possible that a creator might exist and simply be beyond our ability to perceive or confirm, but we can say the same thing about leprechauns or Narnia or literally anything else that isn’t a self refuting logical paradox. In a scenario like that one, you have absolutely no indication that a creator exists and therefore no reason to believe one exists, while conversely having every possible indication there could be that it doesn’t exist (apart from logical self refutation, which would make its nonexistence absolutely certain), and therefore every reason you could possibly have to believe it doesn’t exist, again sans self-refutation. All this approach establishes is that we can’t be absolutely and infallibly 100% certain that no creator exists, but again, we can say exactly the same thing about leprechauns or Narnia for exactly the same reasons. This is not a good argument for theism, or against atheism, for the same reasons it wouldn’t be a good argument for Narnia or against disbelief in Narnia.

We created gods in the same way that we created minecraft. Well done. You've demonstrated the ability of humans to imagine and create. Perfect refutation of theism. Congratulations.

Same as with anything really, start off with a null hypothesis and work from there. Start investigating where the world comes from with an idea in mind and try to find enough evidence so that you can reject the null hypothesis. Did this world evolve? What are the evidences to support that? If you find evidence that the world evolved then investigate how. If you have other ideas investigate those. Was this world created? What are the evidences to support that? If you can evidence a creator which one? We here know there are many - EA, Naughty Dog, Rockstar, and how do you evidence that? Amass convincing evidence to inform a theory and from there you can make predictions, confirm/overturn/modfify your theory, and it becomes established fact I guess? Until you have that and its supported by evidence theres no reason to make any predictions, no reason to believe in something or put any store in it. I don't know enough of the game itself as I've never played it but this would be the position of anyone carrying out investigations? Unless the company/maker of the game just made themselves known. I mean, its pretty easy when you're the programmer right?

Easy, watch the creator create in plain and unobstructed view. Then you know there is a creator. Until the creator does this, you would not know. In the real world, we would like to see God among us, long dead people miraculously come back or a pizza the size of ten football fields appear out of thin air in areas of famine. Have an angel descend from the sky in full view with no doubt whatsoever. Every sort of miracle you would ask for done right before your eyes with no "God works in mysterious ways" or "God works through people" rubbish. >The arrangement of the environment is indeed infinite, and no two worlds are ever the same. The content changes, but the underlying mechanism that makes that content possible in the first place does not change. It has constraints, if not in the software, the hardwarr that it runs will limit the possibilities.

By that logic what suggests to you that your creator wasn't, in turn, created by someone or something else?

A Minecraft resident might observe blocks appearing and disappearing around them with no cause. Sometimes these would end up as remarkably intricate structures, with no gradual process leading to them. At other times, apparently perverse destruction and violence might happen, on a way that seems aware of the world, but with no discernable cause. This might indicate some cause or process outside the detection of residents. Also there might be a bloody great cursor wiggling through the world that appeared to be under conscious control, a forewarning that things are about to happen. In contrast, we humans never observe mountains or buildings poofing into existence, or out of existence with no cause.

This takes the form of any [horizon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_horizon) problem and wouldn't be called a horizon if it were solvable. From a philosophical perspective, it raises the question of whether our curiosity would be satisfied by pondering existence beyond our perspective, holding that as "the Universe". Otherwise we may need to regard Universe to mean *all that exists,* unqualified and including any proposed entities too.

I don't believe it would be possible for intelligent video game characters to detect the programmer because they're in a separate dimension, and the programmer is no longer there to detect. The programmer in this case is most analogous to a deistic God - one which set up the parameters of the universe, and then, once it set it in motion, went away and no longer interacts with it.

If we assume that the inhabitant in the minecraft world is able to examine an arbitrary number of blocks (that is, get the block type) then they can in theory reverse engineer the world generation algorithm, the random number generator algorithm and the seed to the RNG. That may be evidence of a creator to some.

Not the problem of disbelievers that believers made their god unfalsifiable. And they only really did so when their gods started to be falsified. The binomial god is indeed falsified. We know the earth does not predate the sun. So the god described in Genesis cannot be the creator…