Concepts of God and the Kingdom inspired by highly imaginative science
My friend Rev. Chris Benek, founding Chair of the Christian Transhumanist Association (CTA), warned me that many concepts presented via Turing Church might be too unconventional and weird to effectively reach the masses within the Christian tradition.
My first answer: That’s not a bug but a feature! Reaching the masses within the Christian tradition is what the CTA is for. Turing Church focuses on highly speculative ideas. If the CTA is the US government, Turing Church wants to be NASA.
Then Chris said:
“It is important to remember that Christians believe that our God is the creator of the cosmos and that our vocation as humans is to steward God’s creation for Christ’ Kingdom purposes. When that acknowledgement is omitted then the speculation you are engaging in often seems outside the scope of what we are called to be… for TC to truly be inclusive would be to show how Christians vocations (and other traditions) can be included in the speculative piece. That takes some theological deliberation — but I think it would engage more Christians.”
My answer:
My approach is to consider the Christian belief, “that our God is the creator of the cosmos and that our vocation as humans is to steward God’s creation for Christ’ Kingdom purposes,” not as an assumption or a starting point, but as a desired conclusion. I also want to make the arguments in support of said conclusion as compatible as possible with current scientific knowledge, highly imaginative but credible scientific speculations, and as many other religions as possible.
In “The Turing Church and Open Source Religion: Ben Goertzel Interviews Giulio Prisco,” Ben made an insightful analogy with working on the Linux kernel vs. working on the user-friendly Ubuntu distribution:
“The Linux kernel itself only attracts a handful of hard-core nerds… but Ubuntu, by putting a fairly slick interface on top of Linux, managed to attract more of the masses…”
In this analogy, I think, I am working on the Linux kernel and the CTA is working on Ubuntu. I think the two are both needed and strongly inter-related.
A problem with the analogy is that “Ubuntu” (Christianity) already exists in a final form, and “the Linux kernel” doesn’t. For a better analogy (Ben’s wasn’t really meant for Christian Transhumanism), imagine that Microsoft wants to re-implement the Windows user interface on top of a new Linux-like operating system “Winux,” slipped beneath Vindows.
Let’s go back to the first part of the core Christian belief
that our God is the creator of the cosmos.
I can see several ways to build a low-level layer, inspired by science, beneath this core belief. OK, there’s already a foundation: the Bible. But the Bible doesn’t elaborate on how exactly God created the cosmos. Perhaps different layers can co-exist, and perhaps my half-backed, work-in-progress ideas could be appealing to scientifically-minded seekers.
Here are some possible concept of God inspired by highly imaginative science.
The simulation hypothesis — the idea that our reality could be a simulation running in a deeper or higher level of reality — is totally equivalent to Christian cosmology. Nick Bostrom says:
“These simulators would have created our world, they would be able to monitor everything that happens here, and they would be able to intervene in ways that conflict with the simulated default laws of nature… An afterlife in a different simulation or at a different level of reality after death-in-the-simulation would be a real possibility. It is even conceivable that the simulators might reward or punish their simulated creatures based to how they behave.”
In can be (and has been) argued that the simulation hypothesis is too similar to religion: it just replaces one supernatural concept with another supernatural concept, without trying to suggest possible physical models. Granted, Bostrom’s simulators operate withing their own physical reality and its laws, but it seems desirable to at least try and advance some speculations anchored in today’s science. Such speculations are likely to be wrong, but may be “wrong in interesting ways” and point to directions worth pursuing.
I have tentatively suggested a more physical model for the simulation hypothesis: super-intelligent consciousness could exist in a deeper (deeper, not higher) “trans-Planckian” material reality that we don’t perceive, which could be tentatively conceived as a “superfluid quantum vacuum,” and from there build the reality that we perceive.
Space and time themselves could be “material,” sort of: not a pre-existing stage for physics, but emergent properties of trans-Planckian matter. The Mind in the superfluid vacuum — God — engineers our reality just like we engineer condensed matter systems with desired properties.
See “From Elon Musk to Joseph Smith: a material simulation hypothesis” (and links therein) for a zoom in the last paragraph, which may sound rather cryptic as it stands.
In passing, I will note that Mormon theology seems more open to imaginative “theological engineering” than mainstream Christian theology (which is why I am often tempted to call myself a Mormon). See for example the fascinating speculations in “Parallels and Convergences: Mormon Thought and Engineering Vision” (2012), edited by Richard L. Bushman and A. Scott Howe.
New theories of space-time physics with retro-causality and time loops seem to indicate that advanced entities could operate in ways that are not limited by time. Then we can think of yet another scientifically inspired concept of God: a God who comes to full being in the far future of the universe, perhaps emerging from the cosmic evolution of intelligent life, and becomes the omnipotent God of all times, able and influence events anywhere, anytime, including here and now, and create the cosmos that will ultimately spawn Them.
Note: I am not using “Them” for political correctness (I really don’t care for that) but to leave all options open. I don’t think God can be fully captured by anthropocentric pronouns.
I find the three (inter-related) concepts of God outlined above especially interesting, and plausible. In all three cases, our God is the creator of the cosmos.
Now let’s move to the second part of the core Christian belief
that our vocation as humans is to steward God’s creation for Christ’ Kingdom purposes.
I’m totally on board with that! Actually, I interpret it literally, and radically: God wants us to build the Kingdom.
We are beginning to speculate on future ultra-technologies able to remake the universe, re-engineer space-time, create self-consistent time loops, re-write the laws of physics, and retrieve the dead from other times, space-time foam, deep quantum reality and whatnot.
Once we learn more, we will realize our potential, become cosmic engineers in God’s cosmic control room, and build the Kingdom under the guidance of God and by Their grace. I think religions should make this transhumanist concept central to their message.
Summing up:
Our God is the creator of the cosmos, and our vocation as humans is to steward God’s creation for Christ’ Kingdom purposes.
Now I’m waiting for Chris’ (and your) comments.
Cover picture from pxhere, blue ghosts image from S. Geier, Escher sketch from Wikimedia Commons.
