If You force the outcome to be soly on Your decision alone and if Your decision is clear, free and consistent with a specific philosophy, then You must be judge acc. to this philosophy.
Which philosophy is valid in a Least Convenient Possible World?
If everything I do to "humanely" help the patients without commiting murder to the strange ris futile AND and if none of the patients would be willing to do a self-sacrifice to save the others AND if the sole and only decision to this situation would lie on me, then (my clearly idealized) I would teach the donor all the neccesary skills to kill and harvest me to save the others.
If not even that is allowed, then yes - a utalitarianistic murder of the stranger would be legit, beacuse You have trully checked for all options, to freely and through selff-sacrifice try to save the patiens - without success.
Only when You eliminate all humane options can You turn to the "inhumane" (I use thet term loosely - in this case, at the end, it was a humane sollution) - if that brings out more utility/less global suffering/more global pleasure and freedom.
But again - this is not a realistic option. Realistically it is almost certain that a humane approach would become viable before that.
If alien means "not comprehensible" (not even through our best magination), then it's folly to talk about such a thing. If we cannot even imagine something to be realistically possible - then for all practical purposes (until objectively shown otherwise) it isnt. Or using modal logic - Possiblly possible = not realistically possible. Physically/logically possible = realistically possible. The later always has bigger weight and by Occam = higher possibility (higher chance to be correct/be closert to truth)
If we imagine the designer is not acting irrationaly or random - then all potential motives go into survival/reproduction and max. p/p. The notion of max. p/p is directly related to the stage of inteligence and self-awareness of the organism - but survival/reproduction is hardwired in all the evolutionary types of life we know.
Wouldn't it be rational to assume, that what/whoever designed the simulation, would do so for for the same reason that we know all inteligent life complies to: Survival/reproduction and maximizing its pleasure / minimizing pain?
A priori assumptions arent the best ones, but it seems to me that would be a valid starting point that leads to 2 conclusions:
a) the designer is drastically handicapped with its resources and our very limited simulation is the only one running (therefore the question - why is it exactly like it is - why this design at all if we're talking in several "episodes")
b) the designer is can run all the simulations he wants simultaneusly and ours isn't special in any particular way besides being a functional tool (of many) providing the above max p/p to the designer
if we assume a) then the limitations/errors of the simulation would be more severe in every way, making it easier to detect what the author lists. Also, our one simulation would have to be an optimal compromise to achieve the very limited, but still max. p/p for the designer - we could talk about variety of sorts - but only variety with clear and optimal purpose would count. What is so special then in our known configuration of the physical constants? It would seem that a strong anthropic principle would apply - only a universe with inteligent (even simulated) life and physical constants similar to our own would be required for an evolutionary way for this life to evolve - or think it has evolved. I would quess that the world outside our simulation is subject of similar ways of physic and evolution as is known, in a simplified way, in our simulation - by this same anthropic principle.
If b) is the case and we're only one simualtion of many - that would assume that there are no severe restrictions on resources and computational power of the designer. Our simulation would therefore be a lot more detailed with less room (if any) to find errors or any of the kind of proof that we're living in a simulation. Parallel processing the same simulation with diferent, but relevant permutations asside - what could we tell about other simulations running in paralell with ours? That they are very different to our simulation. Since resources arent a problem - variety for max. p/p is the key. The designer could arbitrarily create simulations that are not long-term sustainable, but allow for scripts and vistas impossible to experience in a simulation similar to our own. He could use the resources to explore all relevant (or potentially relevant) possible world simulations and allocate resurces to constantly find new ones. All computationally accessible and relevant worlds would be running in parallel (because there is no need for an "experience cap"). The only limit would be that of an act utalitarian - to run those scenarios, that in the long run bring out the most pleasure.
The level of detail of the simulation is the key - if its very limited - so is the world outside it and our simulation is the best compromise (best possible world) to run - a fact that could be analysed quite intensely.
if it's very detailed (but we still managed to prove we're in a simulation), then we're only a very small drop of paint in a very big picture. But I would guess in this case that our detailed simulation would allow for additional subsimulations, that we could create ourselves. The same could be true for a), but with much greater limitations (requiring limited moemory/experiences and/or plesure loops - very limited ways of maximizing our own pleasure)
I thought that in closed quantum system there are only probabilities of a true indeterminisitc nature - and the only deterministic part is at the collapse of the wave function (where the positions, speed,... are truly determined - but impossible to measure correctly).
Still the fact remains that one universe is holding observers and even there is only one sollution to past eternity - that of a cyclic universe of the same kind and same parameters of the big bang - the futures of the universe would be determined by the acts of those observers. Different acts of observing - different universes in series (but strictly with the same physical constants).
All the consequences of observing in those universes would so have to be realized.
I always say "physical/logical" to note the known laws of physics of our universe and the logic that describes it.
If you say only "physical" - then you limit yourselve only to that which is directly observable, testable and foreseeable. And that hinders a more relaxed approach of discussing such "far-out" possibilities as required in such cases.
Point being: IMO the only valid physical/logical speculations are those that relate to the physics and logic we know of (or a variation of it in an indeterministic universe),
Only Past Eternity stays completely (or mostly) in such a physical/logical frame. Creatio Ex Nihilo is on the other hands, completely out of it with no hypothetical and (not to mention) no observational evidence offered.
It's the most unlogical thing ever conceived: no theory explains it - yet it has the "same" probability as any other option in the physically unknown.
If You "can" put the known logic and laws into the physically unknown and make it into a coherent, workable, testable theory - then any such theory is "more" probable then others without it.
Minimalism and reductionism, which are the the main reasons for allowing/prefering Creatio Ex Nihilo, break down after some scrutiny. If You talk about one singular event in all eternity (or non-existence), which just happens to be a universe capable of intelligent life - then you need to offer some theory - any kind of theory, that explains just that (and the logic of it). How can "Non-Existence" allow for any kind of Existence and why in all eternity just for 1?
If we talk multiple Creatio Ex nihilos for completely separated spatial/temporal universes, then their numbers can easilly exceed the nr. of universes that happened in a Eternal Existence.
Not just that - universes born out of Ex Nihilo would allow not just all possibilities as Eternal Existence allows for (based on known physical laws and logic) - it would also allow for universes with laws and logics completely unknown to us (illogical to us - just as Creatio Ex Nihilo is illogical to us).
So when You think about it Past Eternity is the simpler and more logical solution and as such a valid starting point for further specualtions.
Doesn't quantum indeterminism (edit: quantum uncertanty) prevent that?
Any kind of quantum fluctuation, which "could" have had a makroscopic, relativistic effect must have had such an effect (f.e, in an early universe).
Either you except indeterminism or a nonlocal hidden variable - my guess is indeterminism is far more exceptable.
Can I ask a related question? Is there a physical model available that allows for immortality (eternally stable structure) in a cyclic model of the universe only (limited space with finite time between cycles)?
MWI and other parallel universe models seem to allow for suitable ways of replication and escape - but I never found anything related for a cyclic model. There is talk of surviving the Heat death (superconductor based computers) and Big Crunch/Big bang (using suitable black holes, etc..) - but there is one specific problem I haven't seen addressed: Particle decay.
If everything else works as planned and a future stable structure is created - in a cyclic model - Is there any way to prevent it from catastrophically desintegrating through particle decay (which is bound to happen in enough finite time)?