From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Mar 15 2001 - 03:24:52 MST
T0Morrow@aol.com wrote:
>
> Like Hal, I've long thought that the one might well craft a religion
> reasonably consistent with Extropian tenets and well designed to plug the
> memetic receptor site for theological belief systems by appealling to the
> notion that we exist in a simulation. But I think such a religion (or, as I
> would term it, "reliberion") ought to spell out more clearly the hows and
> whys of Rapture. Here's one quick take on the matter: The entities running
> our simulation do so not merely for entertainment but, more importantly, for
> reproduction. As they quite naturally exist themselves in computational
> space, they generate new entities via computational means. And just as we
> generate our children by the same means that our parents begat us, so too the
> god (or gods) hosting our simulation rely on the rough-and-tumble of
> self-interested agents (albeit simulated ones) to give birth to new gods.
> Our simulation thus functions something like a petri dish, and we sperm and
> eggs striving to transcend it.
Ah yes, the children of God. Such occurred to me also. I got in a lot
of trouble in Sunday School class when I was 10 for asking when the
"children of God" grow up and how they do so. :-)
Also, I think we might be in a time-loop where this period is part of
the becoming/being of God[s] which then transcend space-time and become
part of our being becoming them, if you see what I mean. The awareness
and very being is looped upon itself.
>
> One practicing the reliberion I'm describing would thus take as his or her
> goal growing into and thus joining the god(s) hosting the simulation we, ex
> hypothesi, now live in. Note that this by no means ratifies prayer,
> self-abasement, or other such humbug. Nor does it necessarily imply outright
> rejection of all rituals. One would test such practices for their efficacy
> in promoting the goal of achieving godhood. (As a side benefit, it bears
> noting, such a reliberion, even if at best harmless, might help to block
> infection by more virulent strains of theology.)
>
Actually, I think you have a sound beginning of something that is
workable. Add to that an ethical side of choosing the type of
super/trans/beings we which to become and releasing/transcending our
current ideational/emotional/psychological bonds that hold us back and
imprinting new patterns and I think you have most of what is needed.
I further think that such a religion might well safe us from a
tremendous amount of pain, unrootedness and random, increasingly
powerful collisions of differing goal/belief systems as we head toward
Singularity. It might we form a core appealing to both spiritual and
scientific aspects and people and a crucial point of unity.
- samantha
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