January 4, 2007
View Comments | Post CommentThe First Coming (Not A Porn Movie)
Jacob posted about the Edge annual question for 2007, where they ask what they call the "world's leading thinkers" one question. This year, the question is, "What are you optimistic about? Why?" Jacob pointed out the really cool answer of Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness.
Seligman writes about what he calls "The First Coming;" about a "God" that may eventually arise as the end process of biological and cultural evolution. It's a very cool idea. That eventually, as the result of the increasingly complex systems that are selected for in evolutionary processes, we or our descendents will evolve into or create through technological means, a system sufficiently complex as to be omnipotent, omniscient, and even good.
In the all too brief answer, Seligman argues that there are four properties Judeo-Christians ascribe as necessary to God:
- omnipotence
- omniscience
- goodness
- creator of the universe
He thinks we should abandon the fourth. It will get rid of certain messy theological problems (and he elaborates on that a bit), and it will still have the end result of giving our lives hope and meaning. It's an idea that even I, a vehement atheist, can get behind. And really, in a way, I am already am in that camp. I'm a secular humanist, thinking that the point of our lives is to advance the technological, moral, and intellectual progress of humanity. The end result of that process, if it is allowed to continue for long enough (though it is very likely that it won't) is indistinguishable from God.
It reminds me of the Arther C. Clarke's statement (referred to as Clarke's Third Law) that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Michael Shermer paraphrased that law, and commuted it into "Any sufficiently advanced extra terrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God." And a far-evolved version of ourselves is the functional equivalent (to us) of an extra-terrestrial. So is a sufficiently advanced machine.
So I don't necessarily think that Seligman's statement changes anything for me. But I've never heard the idea stated so straighforwardly and in a way that secular people who believe in science can say without blushing. Either way, it's cool to be reminded that maybe we are working toward something real. And maybe in the end, there might not be much difference at all between the views of religious men and rational men. They might end up giving up one of their views of God, and we might end up adopting a few of theirs.
Posted at January 4, 2007 9:29 PM | Comments (5)
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Just wanted to say that Martin Seligman (Marty to close friends and acquaintances) was my undergrad advisor's grad school advisor. So you know, that makes us close or something. Or really it just makes my advisor and him close...I've never met him.
Posted by: Cara at January 5, 2007 12:20 PM
An imagined realization of this idea would make a cool science fiction story.
Posted by: Chris Santoro at January 5, 2007 5:39 PM
In the full version of Seligman's answer, he actually mentions an Asimov story that explores the idea. You obviously failed to RTFA.
Isaac Asimov wrote a short story in the 1950's called "The Last Question." The story opens in 2061 with the Earth cooling down. Scientists ask the giant computer, "can entropy be reversed?" and the computer answers "not enough data for a meaningful answer." In the next scene, earth's inhabitants have fled the white dwarf that used to be our sun, for younger stars; and as the galaxy continues to cool, they ask the miniaturized supercomputer, which contains all of human knowledge, "can entropy be reversed." It answers "not enough data." This continues through more scenes, with the computer even more powerful and the cosmos even colder. The answer, however, remains the same. Ultimately trillions of years pass, and all life and warmth in the Universe have fled. All knowledge is compacted into a wisp of matter in the near-absolute zero of hyperspace. The wisp asks itself "can entropy be reversed?"
"Let there be light," it responds. And there was light.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 5, 2007 6:32 PM
You would, of course, expect me to disagree with you on this point. However cool I find the Asimov quote, I'm reminded of another quote from Isaiah, one of the few obvious instances of sarcasm in the Bible:
14 He cut down cedars,
or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
15 It is man's fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself,
he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.
16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
"Ah! I am warm; I see the fire."
17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
"Save me; you are my god."
18 They know nothing, they understand nothing;
their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
19 No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
"Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"
[Sorry about any formatting problems. I've never quite been able to figure out how to do this right on your blog.]
Seligman's idea sounds like a more high-tech version of the same foolishness. It's taking a tool made and used by man and worshipping it. Story of history, I suppose. It's just that usually the tool is money.
I realize that in some sense he and I mean two different things when we say "God." Mine is much more....personified for lack of a better word. But the idea of limited humans creating something omniscient is laughable to me.
Posted by: Ben at January 6, 2007 8:45 AM
Well, in my opinion, there are other "essential properties" that most Judeo-Christians ascribe to God. For instance, the desire to be worshipped. For me, that particular property is the most illogical, the most inconsistent, of all of them. Sure, creationism is tough to reconcile with science and creates some other theological problems, but desire of worship (or jealousy) is internally inconsistent. I can conceive of there being a God, but I cannot conceive of an omnipotent/omniscient being caring about worship. So I think everything in the Bible about false idols and a jealous God is nothing more than an attempt (an exceedingly successful attempt) by the early Christians at self-preservation. If you're creating a religion, or a religious sect, you have to figure out some way to make it incompatible with the dominant religions of the day or else there will be no meaningful "conversion."
Isn't it possible that the Bible speaks of a personified God because that's all that the Jews and Christians of millenia ago could conceive? We have a much more expansive view of the universe now, and we are conditioned to have broader intellectual horizons. Why limit ourselves to the imagination of the ancient middle east? Of course, buying that argument requires that one not believe in the divinity of the Bible.
Posted by: David Barzelay at January 6, 2007 12:57 PM
