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From: walton@tybalt.caltech.edu (Steve Walton)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The mathematics of supreme beings - game theory
Message-ID: <3475@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Tue, 4-Aug-87 13:32:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.3475
Posted: Tue Aug  4 13:32:27 1987
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Xref: mnetor sci.math:1743 sci.philosophy.tech:351 talk.philosophy.misc:657 talk.religion.misc:3113

(I have cross-posted to talk.philosophy.misc and talk.religion.misc,
with followups directed only to the latter two.  Feel free to change
this if net consensus is that this is happy in either sci.math or
sci.philosophy.tech.)

In article <839@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes:
>In article <902@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>Perhaps two or three years ago, I read an article about a book in which
>the author applied game theory to the (supposed) wishes of Supreme Beings,
>like people choosing to follow Him, or to believe in him without coercion,
>etc.

The book is called Superior Beings, and is by Steven Brams, published
by Springer-Verlag (sorry, don't have it here so don't have an ISBN).
He uses as a starting point the self-description of Jahweh in the Old
Testament and shows very neatly that you can arrive at various
non-optimum results, in which (for example) the SB exists but the
person chooses not to believe.  Brams also attempts to model the
implications of omniscience and omnipotence on SB's actions.   I found
it a fascinating book, and agree with Martin Gardner that it almost
single-handedly revives a great intellectual tradition of applying
rationality to human-God rleations, and that modern theologians cannot
ignore it.


    Steve Walton, guest as walton@tybalt.caltech.edu
    AMETEK Computer Research Division, ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
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