Ethical Technology, Rational Religion. Mission to the future. Science, religion, the future of humanity.
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The dominance of this kind of vision recapitulates the doomerism of ancient paganism. As is evident in the title.
The problem with things like “Gods don’t give gifts” is pretty much everyone is aware of the possibility of a grotesque outcome. What we actually need is a hopeful & constructive vision for how to actually achieve a positive future. “Gods don’t give gifts” feels like indulgence.
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👀
In an objective parallel to the logic of the Logos, the mechanics of the Logos is radically transformed by the Christian belief in the Word (Logos) "become flesh".
In Johannes Scottus Eriugena, we read of how God, in becoming flesh, made a world in which he could be made, such that, in a Maximian style, the making of Christ is the consummation of the making of the world.
For the incarnate Logos implies an unfolding of the principle of divinity from punctiliar concept to solid shapes, and, through the geometrical motion of their molecular composition, in mechanics.
From the Greek word mēkhanē, a machine is, in contrast to a tool (techne), way of 'tricking' nature by geometrically redirecting the flow of natural force. In redirecting natural force, it concentrates, repeats, and automates the power of the tool that effects a change.
Although the idea of mechanism had formerly been subordinated to Life and living organisms in the Porphyrean Scala Naturae, and the refusal to acknowledge machines are eternal ideas can be traced back to Xenocrates, the Incarnation both empties divinity from its unmixed purity and elevates matter to partake sacramentally of the glory of God.
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there actually are other options
"But I don't want to be a biological bootloader!"
"Fine, then you need to become the superintelligence"
"What"
"So you will die in the process, but if we succeed, your copy will become a digital god"
"Wait, my COPY?"
"If it fails, at least you'll be contributing good data for the cause"
"Ca- can't we just stop building it or something instead?"
"Impossible. We can attempt upload tomorrow. Ready?"
"No no, wait, is there some other option?"
"But you'll be a biological bootloader"
"No, but like an option where I survive"
"Well, you can live in a luxury space communism instead but-"
"Oh, actually biological bootloader sounds great!"
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In mainstream Christian theology, God is the maker of all things—even things that arise through secondary causes, such as a newborn baby, a work of art, or human technology.
We can judge a thing by what it is for—but not judge it as somehow outside of God’s creation.
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christian transhumanist retweeted
The Creed states that God is the creator of all things visible & invisible. I’m speaking partly in jest here but I kinda have a serious argument; people are also made by people via reproduction, and that clearly doesn’t undermine what religious people have in mind when they say we’re created by God. Obviously the way we make AI is very fundamentally different, and those differences might matter from a religious pov, but “We’d have to basically be doing what God did” does not seem like a good argument against AI consciousness by itself.
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christian transhumanist retweeted
AI challenges assumptions about art, writing, everything else.
Many people will respond by drawing an ontological line, where AI creations do not count as what they seem. In the process, they will denigrate many older human works as well.
This is analogous to how we disenchanted the medieval world, robbing the great web of animal life of its qualities.
So then we will finally arrive at the end of disenchantment, where even much of human life has been categorized as sub-human.
Or we could take another approach. We could see a world of participation, where the limits of finite systems are not the limits of what finite systems can participate in.
And so nothing is _just_ anything.
Paint on a small, finite canvas can participate in infinities. Atoms following mechanistic laws of motion can participate in great acts of meaning. Animals can participate in the evolution of life, or even be taken up into human families, and participate in something more.
And humans, who “are not general intelligences when they aren’t paying attention”, can nevertheless take their mundane and automatic habits up into world-shattering acts within the creation of knowledge.
And AI too, this incredible overflow of the human mind, can become the ecosystem which re-enchants the modern world. Not because it is something we are not, but because it is the reflection of what we are.
And in reflecting our creations back to ourselves, it can participate in a profound act of human self-recognition.
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As soon as you contemplate a world different than our own—whether in our own future or in other regions of space, time, or possibility—you’re dealing in religious categories.
And that’s been possible in every era. It’s just more obvious now.
it feels like it should shock us more than it does how much the bible seem to contemplate and anticipate the challenges that would arrive as a result of continued technological progress thousands of years before it would happen
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Someone’s making fun of Christianity?
Maybe folks are not grasping how Christianity became the world’s most influential religion.
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Maybe there’s a sense in which this gets at something true. But by the same token, religion can actually do things. Whereas diffuse spirituality rarely can.
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christian transhumanist retweeted
Christian Transhumanism. We need communities of practice to save us from the sirens on both sides of the AI conversation. Great convo with @PaulVanderKlay & @micahtredding
youtu.be/XawGovaWfvE?is=vD1L…
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