I spent a few hours talking to my mother the other day on the phone. She's a smart woman but she's spent a number of years in a church which tends towards some very lazy thinking so when I brought up a lot of these questions it got too esoteric for her and she had to end the conversation. Still, you're a brilliant bunch of people so I wanted to throw this in the wind and see what comes back.
I should be clear, I haven't got much in the way of evidence for 'God' in the down-on-your-knees-worshiping sense of the word. Some might say 'The universe' would be evidence of such a being but if it were and I am to ascribe omnipotence, human sympathy, and omniscience to this creature then I can only conclude he's a malevolent bastard driven by boredom and impulsiveness.
Putting aside the need for solid answers, I want to summarize before I put down the series of what might seem like random ideas which I swear to you are interconnected.
Everything which exists and organizes itself in this universe does so as part of a fractal organization. That is to say, if you find an organized system at a microscopic level you will find the same system's structure copied at a human level or a global level.
An easy enough example of this is the internet. We interact with it every day.
Each computer on it is a single cell, transferring and receiving information. You put stimulus into the system and receive information back. You write a forum post and get other people's responses to it. This is analogous to feeling the wind on your arm. The internet feels the cell (you) telling the nerve (the network) a piece of information and sends it throughout it's response system (the nervous system), develops a response, and sends it back. Sometimes it will be a response that the network is hardly aware of. Informational goosebumps. Sometimes the response is more direct.
You are part of a being whose thoughts are so vast and interconnected as to be incomprehensible to you. They exist on a scale so massive that their sheer energy would break you. To comprehend a thought of the internet would be like a single neuron taking on the electrical charge of the entire brain. It would burn.
Equally, despite it's scale the Internet acts and reacts the way you do. If it's threatened, it defends itself. It adapts to changing laws. It expands and breeds. Yes, you are part of this organism in the same way your cells are part of you.
Now, I don't blame you if 'God' seems like an altogether different beast. To explore 'God' in the practical sense or define him with any solidity is to destroy his mystique. Many people clutch at the (so far) unexplained nature of intelligence as a sign they are loved by something so vast it cannot possibly be explained now or ever. It's a good feeling to have someone who cares about you without regard for your behavior. It's certainly something few humans are capable of.
Still, I want to pose these questions as points to think on (both for atheists and those of a religious bent)
I'm going to define God in a very specific way using 3 criteria.
1.God translates will directly to action. If God has a need or impulse, it is achievable without a period of exploration to determine how it might be achieved.
2.God is aware of itself. Each part of God is conscious.
3.God is a creator. God takes the natural processes of the universe and bends them to it's will.
So here are the questions.
1.If we are building a system as vast as the internet and technology is allowing for greater and greater connections between us, is it possible we are becoming a 'God'?
In the next 10 years we will have direct human/computer interface, the ability to create organs, longer life-spans, computers we no longer need to interact with using keyboards and mice, cybernetics, and advanced networking integration providing an extremely high level of privacy. Within 40 years we will have trouble recognizing ourselves as 'human' in the way we do today. Moores law has been broken and we are on track to be unable to predict our own rate of technological innovation within those 40 years.
2.Does God require worship to still be God?
3.If we become God, or a 'cell' of God, will our thoughts be the thoughts of God? It may be that our planet operates as a single neuron in a gestalt creature spanning galaxies or even universes.
4.Are you okay with God not caring about you? If God doesn't care about you, in the same way you don't care about your skin cells, are you willing to still validate yourself and value your own existence?
5.If God is explicable does that invalidate the virtues and positive influences of belief?
I should be clear, I haven't got much in the way of evidence for 'God' in the down-on-your-knees-worshiping sense of the word. Some might say 'The universe' would be evidence of such a being but if it were and I am to ascribe omnipotence, human sympathy, and omniscience to this creature then I can only conclude he's a malevolent bastard driven by boredom and impulsiveness.
Putting aside the need for solid answers, I want to summarize before I put down the series of what might seem like random ideas which I swear to you are interconnected.
Everything which exists and organizes itself in this universe does so as part of a fractal organization. That is to say, if you find an organized system at a microscopic level you will find the same system's structure copied at a human level or a global level.
An easy enough example of this is the internet. We interact with it every day.
Each computer on it is a single cell, transferring and receiving information. You put stimulus into the system and receive information back. You write a forum post and get other people's responses to it. This is analogous to feeling the wind on your arm. The internet feels the cell (you) telling the nerve (the network) a piece of information and sends it throughout it's response system (the nervous system), develops a response, and sends it back. Sometimes it will be a response that the network is hardly aware of. Informational goosebumps. Sometimes the response is more direct.
You are part of a being whose thoughts are so vast and interconnected as to be incomprehensible to you. They exist on a scale so massive that their sheer energy would break you. To comprehend a thought of the internet would be like a single neuron taking on the electrical charge of the entire brain. It would burn.
Equally, despite it's scale the Internet acts and reacts the way you do. If it's threatened, it defends itself. It adapts to changing laws. It expands and breeds. Yes, you are part of this organism in the same way your cells are part of you.
Now, I don't blame you if 'God' seems like an altogether different beast. To explore 'God' in the practical sense or define him with any solidity is to destroy his mystique. Many people clutch at the (so far) unexplained nature of intelligence as a sign they are loved by something so vast it cannot possibly be explained now or ever. It's a good feeling to have someone who cares about you without regard for your behavior. It's certainly something few humans are capable of.
Still, I want to pose these questions as points to think on (both for atheists and those of a religious bent)
I'm going to define God in a very specific way using 3 criteria.
1.God translates will directly to action. If God has a need or impulse, it is achievable without a period of exploration to determine how it might be achieved.
2.God is aware of itself. Each part of God is conscious.
3.God is a creator. God takes the natural processes of the universe and bends them to it's will.
So here are the questions.
1.If we are building a system as vast as the internet and technology is allowing for greater and greater connections between us, is it possible we are becoming a 'God'?
In the next 10 years we will have direct human/computer interface, the ability to create organs, longer life-spans, computers we no longer need to interact with using keyboards and mice, cybernetics, and advanced networking integration providing an extremely high level of privacy. Within 40 years we will have trouble recognizing ourselves as 'human' in the way we do today. Moores law has been broken and we are on track to be unable to predict our own rate of technological innovation within those 40 years.
2.Does God require worship to still be God?
3.If we become God, or a 'cell' of God, will our thoughts be the thoughts of God? It may be that our planet operates as a single neuron in a gestalt creature spanning galaxies or even universes.
4.Are you okay with God not caring about you? If God doesn't care about you, in the same way you don't care about your skin cells, are you willing to still validate yourself and value your own existence?
5.If God is explicable does that invalidate the virtues and positive influences of belief?