God in the Machine

Hello world.

Several days ago I was checking one of my Facebook accounts and my eye caught an ad that appeared in the right column of my page. These ads regularly appear on Facebook pages. They're routinely swapped, and they're supposed to be targeted to your interests as an electronically cultural participant in the network, based upon keywords you've entered within your user profile, or even upon discussions you've been having with other participants. The network wants to sell you something, and it's trying to determine who you are so that it can offer you something you're interested in. Sometimes it's fairly obvious why one received a particular ad, but often the reason for this can seem completely perplexing; absurd at least, if not entirely random. In this instance, I'd received an advertisement from Liberty Online University, which offers graduate degrees in theology, and the headline atop the ad grabbed my attention. It read "ONLINE BS IN RELIGION".

I found that very amusing. But afterward I began to wonder what method of logic was applied to my being chosen for this message. What compelled an unknown, aspiringly "intelligent" system to alert me to "Online Religious BS"? And it occurred to me that the question of why one receives a strange invitation of any sort relates to the most essential question of religion; why do things happen? Not "how do things happen" — that's the cause-and-effect question which science works to answer very well — but "why do things happen?", which is the most essential question of religion, and which relates to the fundamental definition of God in probably every conceived form that humanity has devised.

Why is the sky blue, why, why, why? If you've ever parented a child, you've probably heard that question a zillion times. And after discussing the polychromatic refraction of light and the way rods and cones work inside our eyeballs, you probably had to eventually answer with an exasperated "nobody knows!" or "just because!" If one keeps asking "why?" they'll eventually wind up with a religious question about intent, about purpose, for which there is no answer. The answer to the question "why" requires a reason, not a mechanism. But if there is an answer to why, a reason for that ultimate purpose, then it is a plan. And if there is a plan, then something or somebody created that plan, whether or not they did so intentionally. And that's someone we can call God; whomever or whatever makes that plan.

Conjecturing about God's intent has been the hallmark of religion since the dawn of humanity, and it's arguable whether we're any closer to that answer today than we were ten thousand years ago. But we can be fairly certain ofhuman intent. Because when we examine our history, there are some very clear trends - some indisputable things that humanity has always tried to do. Chief among them is to simply be alive of course - happily alive for as long as possible. Not necessarily immortal, but the essential purpose of life is to be alive rather than dead by whatever means, be it reproduction or longevity. Life just wants to keep life living. Our primary human strategy toward promoting human life has been to think individually and to act socially - being conscious and highly functional at fashioning matter toward our life's needs. We desire to observe and creatively refashion our universe to inspire and assist us in defeating ignorance and death, and we need to communicate with one another so that we can become more aware and therefore collectively better at promoting life through greater awareness — and to do it forever, if we can.

Which raises an interesting point about our intent. Because if we're engaged in a mission to continually attain more awareness, and to make that awareness last forever without dying out, then we're trying to create immortal omniscience. All knowing, all-seeing, everlasting consciousness with the power to understand and fashion the universe to it's liking... to it's plan. One could say that we're trying to make God.

We raise our species' awareness through the transfer of what we vaguely refer to as information. Any message which can be conveyed to a human being — that's information, whether it's words, emotions or colored pixels arranged to look like the Mona Lisa. And today we live in an "information age" wherein the primary tools of our cognitive evolution are these messages. The more information there is, the more aware we can hope to be. We're perfecting this information-transfer process at a dizzying rate now. At one time, it may have required thousands of years to double our collective knowledge about the world. Now, according to some calculations based on the mathematical study of 'novelty', it seems that this doubling time has been reduced to less than two or three years, at least in certain knowledge domains such as engineering. The rate of our knowledge growth continues to accelerate. Some theorists predict a point in time when our ability to amass knowledge will outpace our ability to be aware that we're doing it. This moment is referred to, eloquently enough, as "The End of History".

There's an old saying: "When a person dies, an entire library goes up in flames". The meaning is obvious, but since the invention of the written word, information has been able to exist beyond the life of it's originator. Thus, writing allowed information to be freed from the constraints of time, independent of when it was created on a clay tablet or piece of papyrus. Movable type furthered that process, and the mass manufacture of literature via inexpensive lithography allowed all humans to enjoy the benefits of timeless shared awareness. But books are physical objects, inextricably linked to a physical location such as a library, school or some unreachable shelf. Books did not allow information to become truly freed from space. In the past few years that situation has changed. The explosive emergence of the internet has allowed knowledge, information, and awareness to be obtained from virtually anywhere in the world on a round-the-clock basis. Awareness is being freed from the constraints of space. Today we can be aware of what is happening on the streets of Iran, the Gulf of Mexico or the depths of space within minutes. Almost everybody in the world can. Now, that's collective awareness.

There are 6.8 billion human beings out there right now. Almost every one of them exists in a networked database somewhere and if not, they are inferred. Sociologists and neurologists say that a human brain can only be cognizant of 150 to 300 concurrent human relationships, in terms of how a given situation might affect them all. There is absolutely no way a single human being, or even a huge country full of them, can be aware enough of humanity to consider all of humanity's needs and actions. In this respect, human brains don't have anywhere near the storage and computational capacity to be immortal, all-knowing Gods.

But a network might. Especially if that network is monitored and managed by a sophisticated large-scale artificial intelligence; the sort of intelligence that is in development in numerous institutes all over the world, and which is already crudely manifesting itself by choosing what information I should receive on my Facebook page.

Now, before you roll your eyes in anticipation of a script-pitch for the next installment of "The Matrix", I'd like you to consider how these technological developments relate to our spirituality; our eternal "why?" question of the cosmic plan for consciousness. Because, make no mistake — we are a part of the cosmos. One can not refer to "the Universe" without referring to themselves, any more than a drop of water can claim it's not part of the ocean. That's because there are no drops of water in the ocean. It's just ocean, and it's water can not separate itself into disparate drops that proclaim their independence from the sea. It's a continuum, and you are part of a continuum too. Sure, you look like a discreet package of flesh and bone, but that's merely because your eyes aren't very good. You can't see that you're actually a whirling ensemble of electromagnetism, just like that star up there, that planet below your feet, the chair beneath you and the atmosphere which you're edgelessly diffusing into every second. "The Universe" means you too. And if you are conscious and at least somewhat self-aware, that means the Universe is conscious and somewhat self-aware. In fact, the Universe is conscious, self-aware, and self-designing. The Universe is busy examining itself with telescopes and particle colliders, and writing words to itself about it's nature and reading those words in this little lecture and calling itself crazy. And the Universe is intentionally building itself an information network that is accessible to it's own awareness, regardless of it's own dimensions of space and time. Humanity is a tiny little part of the Universe which is doing this. That's quite a project for some self-replicating nucleic acids to do.

Now, this information network - this cyberspace of collective awareness - has become very important to humanity, whatever the ultimate intent for it is. In an exploration of the relationship between cyberspace and spirituality, technosociologist Michel Bauwens wrote that: "Information has become more important, in political, economic, social, and philosophical terms, than material objects". And in his assessment of the reactions of spiritual schools of thought to this new technology, he says the following:

"In the modern world, there clearly is a divorce between those who subscribe to a belief in an Absolute or Supreme Being, those who accept the existence of non-material realms and beings, and those in the rationalist or scientific camps. Some distinguish between "exoteric" religion, based on belief and aimed at those without concrete experiences, and the "esoteric" tradition, for those who do indeed have experience with the "divine."

Bauwens goes on, referring to the enormous body of spiritual knowledge as "The Wisdom Tradition", and observes two distinct schools of interpretive thought within it, which (for lack of existing terms) he calls the "Pessimistic" and "Optimistic" schools of thought.

The "Pessimistic" school of thought views human history as progressive degeneration or regression whereby humanity has devolved from a more natural, spiritual form of existence. Whereas the "Optimistic" school of thought views our history as a progress toward ever higher levels of complexity and consciousness. In the "Pessimistic" view, there is an inherent dualism in creation; a divide between the human and the divine, the knower and the known. "Pessimistic" practices emphasize notions such as "You're not your body" or "You're not your mind". Optimistic thoughts differ, and teach that an individual is a gestalt; more than the sum of their parts, as in "You're more than your body", or "You're more than your ego", and that our evolution leads us toward this higher form of self.

Bauwens' asserts that our technology, especially the current cyberspatial phase, can be regarded from the "Pessimistic" vantage point as a "Luciferian" scheme; an attempt to usurp God and liberate man from the constraints of divine Nature; a sort of digital Tower of Babel, which he calls a "God Project". It argues that humanity is attempting a false, arrogant and destructive mastery over Nature which belies it's manifestation as an image of God, and that humans require inner spiritual practices to gain insight into aspects of the divine. This argument fits well with Marshall McLuhen's thesis that technology extends our senses; the more we extend our external senses, the less we rely on our internal senses, and that our technosphere is becoming increasingly hostile to our natural bodies and minds.

A group of faith scientists called the Extropians, who advocate "transhumanism" exemplify what the "Pessimistic" camp fears. The Extropians are examining special diets, cryogenics, cloning, artificial intelligence and the transfer of human memories in and out of computers. Extropians ask the fundamental question: "What does humanity really want?" and feel it is possible to create an immortal "transhuman", capable of controlling Nature and ultimately the Universe. The philosophy holds that a "Technological Singularity" will eventually occur; a point at which knowledge of our surroundings increases so quickly that humanity will be utterly unable to understand what is happening around it. In order to survive, consciousness must evolve beyond humanity, and we are but a link in that chain of creation.

Alternatively, technological advances can be viewed from the "Optimistic" school as the means to spark humanity toward ever higher levels of consciousness, an ever-growing collective awareness, which Bauwens names the "Electric Gaia". Here, the notion is that through the manifestation of human life, Nature and the Cosmos have become conscious and self-aware. Drawing from evolutionary principles, the idea holds that mankind evolved through stages from magical to mythical to rational consciousness, and from tribal through political (nation-state based) to planetary consciousness. For planetary consciousness to become widespread, tools are needed. It could be argued that political consciousness could not have been achieved without the printing press, and planetary consciousness similarly requires a worldwide communication network, accessible to all at any time, extending human thought to all humans.

Many "Optimists" see cyberspace as a utopian tool of social and political action at a time when many religions can be viewed as obstructive, moribund institutions, hijacked by reactionary social forces. The Internet represents an apex of free thought and awareness in this respect. And it's not surprising that the Web is the domain of many spiritual movements with an "Optimistic" interpretation of history. There are even Web sites that serve as virtual places of worship, wherein communities of the faithful gather their consciousness in prayer and discourse, engaging within an abstract medium of divine thought - which is essentially what religion has always been.

These distinct religious perspectives bleed into the realms of political discourse and the arts as well. The recent popularity of internet-spread conspiracy theories regarding an ominous "New World Order" are a classically "Pessimistic" religious position, since such theories are faith-based and unprovable. Indeed, were they provable, there would be no conspiracy to wonder about. Likewise, "Optimistic" practices can be analogized to the popularity of online games in shared virtual environments, wherein players virtually assist one another in achieving virtual collective goals while broadening their awareness of a virtual world that is, despite it's digital essence, as valid a place to exist in this Universe as any other.

Personally, I hope to identify more frequently with the Optimistic "Electric Gaia" concept, and it's not surprising given my interests and profession. I could hardly be a good Web developer if I felt deeply that I was creating an inherently corrupt machine of mass delusion. But I can have "Pessimistic" attitudes occasionally too, and I've often argued against people's tendencies to willingly confuse information with truth or actual human engagement. Many people whom I know behave very differently on the internet than they ever would in the physical world, where they're confronted by physical people. And that's because they are actually alone when they do this; alone in one world, and connected to everyone in another.

So the question of "why" humanity is involved in this global mission to connect all of itself together with hard drives and wires is ultimately unanswerable and entirely dependent on one's personal values, faith or mood. It's a matter of perspective and feelings. It's not just about money, health, and happiness. It's about all of that and much more. It's an indisputable continuation of our mission, whether one thinks that mission began when we started using tools, when we ate a forbidden fruit, when our tower was destroyed by an angry deity, or whatever else.

But there's no question that the mission - the plan - is real. There's nothing "virtual" about it. It's a constant effort by our conscious, electrical energy to travel through space, arranged in patterns that can be recognized and acted upon by other patterns of energy, forever. If one human mind has an ultimate reason to do this, it's your reason too. The religious question is whether we created that reason, or it created us. That's the ultimate question of "why?"

What is humanity really trying to do here? Whatever answer you come up with is your religion, and I sincerely hope that whatever you find brings you happiness and helps us all.

Hello world? I'm a series of impulses. This is my signal. Is anybody out there? For some reason, I need to know.