Is God an Alien Mathematician?

[I am ST]

BEN: Following up on that, one question I have is: if there is some superintelligence that created the universe, how similar do you think this superintelligence is to human intelligences? Does it have a self? A personality? Does it have consciousness in the same sense that humans do? Does it have goals, make plans, remember the past, forecast the future? How can we relate to it? What can we know about it?

HUGO: My immediate reaction to that question is that with our puny human brains, we very probably can’t even begin to conceive of what an artilect might think about or be like. If we think that a universe-creating, “godlike” artilect has the human like attributes you list above, then that might a “category mistake” similar to a dog thinking that human beings are so much smarter and capable than dogs, that they must have many more bones lying around than dogs do. One thing that is interesting about this question though, is that by conceiving of the artilect as a scientific-based creation, we can begin to attempt answers to such questions from a scientific perspective, not a theological one, where theologians are all too likely to give all kinds of untested answers to their particular conception of god. Is a consciousness, or sense of self a prerequisite to the creation of superhuman intelligence? These are interesting questions, that I don’t have answers to. Perhaps I haven’t thought deeply enough about these types of questions.
...
BEN: Now I'm going to get a little more technical on you. You've spoken of the "deity as mathematician" argument. Is this a version of Eugene Wigner's observation of the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics"? It seems to me that this is an interesting intuitive argument for the existence of some fundamental hidden order in the universe – related to the order we see in mathematics – but not necessarily a strong argument for an actively intelligent "deity" with its own coherent memory, consciousness, goals, and so forth. Can you explain how the observation of surprising amounts of mathematical structure in the universe suggests the existence of a "deity" rather than just a "subtle hidden order"? Or is your deity basically the same thing as what I'm (somewhat awkwardly) calling a "subtle hidden order"? Hopefully you can see what I'm getting at here; unfortunately English isn't really ideal for discussing such things with precision (but if I switched to Lojban I'd lose most of the audience, including you!).

HUGO: Yes, subtle question. I think the rise of the artilect with its massive intelligence levels during this and in later centuries makes it very plausible that our universe operates according to such deep mathematical principles. These principles would be the result of the artilect deity’s design. Whether such principles could “be there” without such design, is hard to imagine. The deeper the physics genii of this century (such as Ed Witten, etc) delve into the deep structure of our universe, the more mathematical it seems to be, e.g. with superstring theory using the very latest ideas in low dimensional topology, with its beautiful mathematics. This creates in my mind the deep suspicion that our universe is designed according to such mathematical principles. If it is not designed, then is it just pure chance that our universe is so highly mathematical? That seems so implausible. This “mathematical principle” is closely analogous to the “anthropic principle” in the sense that our particular universe design seems so fantastically a priori improbable. One is virtually forced to accept it has been designed. The so called “designer” traditionally was conceived of as a theity, but now that we humans can imagine artilects, we have a new way to imagine the designer, i.e. as an artilect, and hence compatible with our deeply held scientific principles. I guess what I’m saying is “artilectual deism is compatible with science”, whereas “traditional theism is simply pre-scientific garbage.” You (may have) alluded to Spinoza’s ideas with your “subtle hidden order”. Einstein talked about “der Alte” (the “old one”, who designed the universe). He wanted “to know his thoughts.”

I agree with you that if there were no artilect-deity concept, then the existence of a subtle hidden order would support the idea of a creator less strongly. But science-based artilects are now very credible, so give strong support to the idea of our universe being designed by an earlier artilect in a previous universe. One fascinating question this raises in my mind is the status depth of mathematics. Are the principles of mathematics in some sense “deeper” than even the artilect deities? Are such artilects obliged to use mathematical principles as a given, or are these principles, in some (humanly unfathomable?) sense, concocted by these artilects? This is a really deep mystery for me, but fascinating philosophically.

More at the link

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[Mr. Perfect]

I have a sense this can be boiled down to simpler elements.

[Torchwood]

The mathematical structure of the universe follows from the weak anthropic principle: we are here, so the universe is capable of supporting intelligent life .

Therefore:
- the universe is not chaotic, or else life could not develop;
- so it must have a regular structure
- so it can be described mathematically, maths just being a human language which describes implicate order (even chaos, it seems).

Why this is so, is of course something else.

"Artilect" The lengths people will go to, to avoid the G word...

[Caskhades]

ST and TW,

We've had this discussion before, I think. it's either that Headology repeats Cosmology, or that Cosmology repeats Headology.

That is to say, either
a) the universe has a hidden order, for whatever reason (Abraham's loving tormenter, Einstein's "Der Alte" or Wheeler's "Law without law"), and our Darwinian minds reflect the order of the universe as a survival advantage.
b) from the infinity of things that the universe is, our limited mathematical minds can only perceive those parts which conform to mathematical law, leaving an infinite portion of the universe outside our sphere of possible perception.

[Colonel Sun]

[~]

[Hoosiernorm]

[Demon of Undoing]

Is it just me , or do all Anglo pictures of White Jesus make him look like a professional wrestler on Quaaludes ?

[Tinker]

[Tor]

ST,

Beyond the word "God" are a multitude of possible interpretive layers and outcomes based on inputs and outputs. Our inputs are both the language we have inculcated, associations with such words in our heads (e.g. "aliens! ahhh!"), and the direct experience we have, and the means by which we interpret this experience. One perhaps (hehe) hears God speak to him when he prays, just as one sees visions of previous root races (Atlantis!), or aliens while in a drug induced coma. "God" is neither "alien" nor "God," he is what he is, just as monotheism has really predominantly been henotheism. What do you do with all this?

My solution: more experience, less words, starting with the traditional dictum re: wisdom/knowledge and the Fear of the Lord. Or, if you wish, the fear of the invisible super-aliens responsible for most of our programming.

Back to normal programming...

[~]

"Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Ed."

"My solution: more experience, less words, starting with the traditional dictum re: wisdom/knowledge and the Fear of the Lord. Or, if you wish, the fear of the invisible super-aliens responsible for most of our programming."

Circular arguments are circular, even for a Primum Movens with green lipstick.

[Demon of Undoing]

" The beginning of all wisdom = the fear of the Lord" , where

Fear of the Lord = recognition of human limitation

And

Beginning of all wisdom = Axiom/Assertion that underlies all reason and investigation.

Are you sure your BIOS is running right ?

[Tor]

Axiom? It is more like an anti-axiom.

[Demon of Undoing]

[I am ST]

[Tor]

Ha, lots of people like puppet shows.

[I am ST]

2 more things:

- Recognizing human limitation can lead to two things, aside from the requisite humbleness: giving up on the knowledge process and sinking into brainhacking mysticism, or being more cautious and tentative about it. One is a disaster, the other is a mark of wisdom.

- What on Earth is an anti-axiom?

[Tor]

[I am ST]

The binary distinction I am trying to draw by using the word "mystic" is that between study of the exterior reality (including one's own physical brain and its various functions) where the goal is to gain knowledge and mastery of the world, and the self-centered study of one's own mental simulation, where the goal seems to be to hack the mental simulation and set it to "bliss." I would call those pursuing the second option mystics. If the term offends, feel free to replace it with one more suitable.

The value statement I was making is that awareness of our limited ability to correctly figure out the rules of the ongoing cosmic chess game should not drive us towards mysticism as defined above, but merely engender a healthy skepticism towards the validity of our own results.

Re: anti-axiom - "fear of God" or "awareness of our limitation" sounds like propositional knowledge to me. But then again, I almost never know what I'm talking about.

[Rhapsody]

[Tor]

[I am ST]

[Tor]

[I am ST]

Frankly, I am not sure what this whole debate is about. In so many words, I stated that knowledge of our limitations should not lead to solipsism.

I don't have the slightest desire to engage in the usual twenty post definitional cat-and-mouse game.

[Tor]