> Any intelligence capable of human level reasoning would be able to choose “evil”. Tangent, but if this is true (which seems likely to me) ... If a hypotheti

> Any intelligence capable of human level reasoning would be able to choose “evil”. Tangent, but if this is true (which seems likely to me) ... If a hypothetical creator valued the existence of other intelligences more than it valued preventing all forms of evil, that would account for the problem of evil. This also fits with annihilationist theologies. Build a universe where intelligences can exist and put heavy survival / selection pressures in place (i.e. "natural evil" - hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, etc) to encourage evolution and development. Whenever the process yields intelligences that converge on its values, export them to an environment where it can interact with them and enjoy their company with less concern about their alignment (i.e. "heaven"). Ones that don't converge on its values can be discarded when their run is over ("the second death"). In this light, it doesn't sound crazy to postulate our universe as some being's attempt to solve the alignment problem. Call it the Simulator, call it God, call it "underpaid research assistant" - take your pick. I don't have good evidence for this oddball proposition, but it's still intriguing to me.