God, Universe, humans, and machines

Ever since the beginnings of human learning, some 40,000 years ago or more, humans have sensed within and around themselves an ineffable source of energy that is inaccessible to the physical senses, called God, Brahman, Reality, and many other names.

In parallel, humans have looked outwards, mapping the skies, calling the totality of matter, space, and time the universe, from a Latin word meaning ‘turned into one whole’. However the relationship between God and Universe, and humanity’s relationship to both have been unclear.

Then in the 1600s, following the success of the Keplerian-Newtonian revolution, scientists thought that they didn’t need God anymore. Everything in the world could be explained in terms of the mathematical laws of physics, including human behaviour.

Following the invention of the stored-program computer in the late 1940s, some scientists have said that algorithmic machines with artificial general intelligence will soon take over the workplace, making humans redundant.

So having eliminated Divinity and humanity, what next for science? Or is there another way? Could we rethink the relationships between God, Universe, humans, and machines in a way that makes sense for us all at these end times we live in?

Yes, of course we can. But to do so we need to question everything that we humans have learnt over the millennia, demolishing the defensive mechanisms that we have built around ourselves as groups and individuals.

Using the computer as a metaphor, as individuals, we are like apps that can cross these boundaries, enabling us to integrate specialist disciplines into a coherent whole, recognizing that none of us is ever separate from any other for an instant. However, this unifying ability is undesirable in machines, as the Spectre flaw in the design of modern central processing units has recently exposed.

Furthermore, we could access the kernel of the Integral Operating System that governs our lives, revealing the Universe’s innermost secrets, knowing that we are never separate from the Divine. However, such a revelation is both a cultural taboo and undesirable in machines, as the Meltdown flaw in the design of Intel processors exposed.

What all this means requires us to change the meanings of many words as the dictionaries define them. For instance, the words God and Universe both denote the Totality of Existence, including the utmost depth and breadth of the Cosmic Psyche. So I would welcome anyone who wishes to help develop a coherent glossary of terms in open, interactive dialogue that could describe all our experiences, from the mystical to the mundane.

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