One of the more convoluted explanations of Creation is that an absolute being, as the deists tend to conceive Him, falls short of completion until He is able to participate in contingency, albeit indirectly. He's self-contained and Perfect, but experiences urges.
I was reminded of this recently when pondering the crossroads humanity now seems to face with its own technological creations.
I find I am less interested in AI as an enhanced version of human capability, software which can do what we do, see what we see, but better, than as a pathway to 'artificially' unfolded forms of perception, which in effect remove the psychological filters which appear to stand between consciousness and reality in the raw.
In other words, we end up placing within our world something which goes against our own natural disposition, which is precisely what the theologians insist that God felt he needed to do.
(Either way, the assumption that creation comes bundled with benevolence can probably be Ockham’d away.)
1 comment:
AI: You can bet on new compounds for materials and medicine. Maybe a better understanding of gravity and how to control it. Engineering breakthroughs, no doubt, as well as far better ways of killing each other.
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