I'll start with a disclaimer: No way am I going to re-read this entire thread to check that no one has said what I'm about to say. There's just not enough time.

I was lying awake, just ten minutes ago, musing on the complexities of computation. Suddenly, for reasons I'm about to go into, I was reminded of this thread, and I think I have an Answer. Capital A to signify its importance. I actually slightly misremembered it as "The Universe as a Program," but that is of little matter now. Forget the thread temporarily, and regard this next bit as a post entirely on its own.

Computers are irritating beasts; not because they don't do what you tell them to, but because they *do*. But, a lot more people have told your computer what to do than you may think. You tell your computer to do something, and it does it. It knows what you told it via its various input devices, which have been told what to do by techies. The operating system has been instructed by a whole host of people in order to understand what these devices are telling it. Control is then handed over to whatever app is currently running, which-- well, you get the point. Lots of people have had to come together in order for that button to change colour when you mouse over it.

And at the top is you, controlling it all. You decided you wanted to listen to some music, so you started up WinAMP and loaded in your favourite tracks. You with the Ultimate Power of Life and Death, even - you turned the damn thing on in the first place, and a simple press of a button (or kick of a cord) will send it back into blissful unconsciousness.

See where I'm going here?

Yes. Say it with me.

You Are God.

Well, you are analogous to god in this situation. You are omnipotent - you can drag that window or click that button or do anything possible. (Anti-pedant note: In this analogy, the "make a rock heavier than itself" and other logical impossibilities are replaced by things like "make that window round." The philosophy (axoim?) of whether omnipotence allows impossible actions is left unchanged in this analogue, and that's all covered in one of the subthreads.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. You are omnipotent. And you are omniscient - you can find out anything you like. It may require the use of a hex editor, specialist equipment, or even opening the case and poking around, but you are able to find it out. You can even know things that "mortals" (things within the computer universe) can't ever know. So this metaphor is actually pretty close. Now, I want to introduce you to something I haven't mentioned yet: what exactly are you doing?

You wanted to click a button, so you did. You dragged a window. You played Quake. You weren't concerned about exactly how these things happened; you just initiated them on your higher plane of being and let the universe sort out the details. Omniscience means you could find out how it happened if you wanted to, but you don't need to be concerned by it. You didn't directly manipulate data in order to accomplish your task, although you could have (you're running a super debugger tool thing) if you wished. This is easier to envision with really old computers, in case you're struggling now.

Here's my point: You knew what was going to happen. You knew that pressing that button would close that window. You knew that pressing the mouse button would result in the bad guy getting a rocket in the face. This is where it's easier to imagine an old and simple computer, so that it doesn't crash or go wrong in any way. The situation is entirely predictable. Let's factor in quantum theory's analogue now: The situation is almost entirely predictable, except for an unimaginably small possibility of Something Going Wrong.

And we're done. What if god is simply a user of the Great Computer known as The Universe? He exists outside of it, and yet is able to directly control and predict the events that go on inside. Maybe it's just the late hour causing me to miss something, but this seems like an almost precise analogue to me. There is the question of whether the god can be 100% sure of the quantum results, but he can certainly be 99.999999999999% sure without ruining the comparison. And besides, if the universe did crash, he could always reboot and hope that it doesn't the next time. The universe wouldn't know it had been reset, after all.

Mat"I bet Scandisk would take ages after such a crash, though"thew