Luke discusses his conversion from Christianity to atheism in the preface. This journey plays a big role in how he came to be interested in the Singularity, but this conversion story might mistakenly lead readers to think that the arguments in favor of believing in a Singularity can also be used to argue against the existence of a God. If you want to get people to think rationally about the future of machine intelligence you might not want to intertwine your discussion with religion.
might mistakenly lead readers to think that the arguments in favor of believing in a Singularity can also be used to argue against the existence of a God.
(1) If the Singularity leads to the destruction of homo sapiens sapiens as a species and a physically and functionally different set of organisms (virtual or material) appears that can comprehend and imagine everything humans could and much much more (or perhaps can’t imagine some!), and this claim can be made fairly definitively, I claim it updates “God made mankind in his image” to negligible probability.
(2) If theoretical physicists come to a concensus in the ontological context of Penrose’s math-matter-mind triangle (see http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510188v2), such as for example finding a way to agree on the ”?” in the mystic approach, and such a consensus requires post-Singularity minds, the question of existence of God dissolves.
(3) In the hypothetical case that
(i) the picture of humanity as a species arising out of natural selection due to competition between genes is accurate, (ii) we rebel against our genes (see http://hanson.gmu.edu/matrix.html ) and the physical structure of DNA no longer is present on the planet or is somehow fundamentally altered,
(iii) the mental concept of “God” is a corollary of particular gene expression,
then nobody will be talking or thinking about “the existence of a God”, and in some sense “God” will cease to exist as a serious idea and become a cute story, in analogy to alchemy, or demons inducing madness. You can still talk about turning iron into gold, or someone in an epileptic bout being controlled by a demon, but the mainstream of conscious organisms no longer have belief in belief or belief in that sort of talk. A modern medical understanding of certain psychological disorders is functionally equivalent to an argument that demons don’t exist.
All three examples share a key feature: in some sense, a Singularity might brainwash people (or the information processes descended from people) into believing God does not exist in the same sense that science brainwashed people into believing that alchemy is hogwash. Now remove your affective heuristic for “brainwash.”
More examples are left as an exercise to the reader.
I think the target audience mostly consists of atheists, to the point where associating Singularitarianism with Atheism will help more than hurt. Especially because “it’s like a religion” is the most common criticism of the Singularity idea.
On another note, that paragraph has a typo:
Gradually, I built up a new worldview based on the mainstream scientific understanding of the world, and approach called “naturalism.”
the arguments in favor of believing in a Singularity can also be used to argue against the existence of a God.
which I saw as meaning that Singularitarianism might be perceived as associated with atheism. Associating it with atheism would IMO be a good thing, because it’s already associated with religion like you said. The question is, does the page as currently written cause people to connect Singularitarianism with religion or atheism?
I think it’s possible that the paragraph could be tweaked in such a way as to make religious people empathize with Luke’s religious upbringing rather than be alienated by it.
Re: Preface
Luke discusses his conversion from Christianity to atheism in the preface. This journey plays a big role in how he came to be interested in the Singularity, but this conversion story might mistakenly lead readers to think that the arguments in favor of believing in a Singularity can also be used to argue against the existence of a God. If you want to get people to think rationally about the future of machine intelligence you might not want to intertwine your discussion with religion.
Some of them surely can.
name three
Kolmogorov Complexity/Occam’s Razor
Reductionism/Physicialism
Rampant human cognitive biases
(1) If the Singularity leads to the destruction of homo sapiens sapiens as a species and a physically and functionally different set of organisms (virtual or material) appears that can comprehend and imagine everything humans could and much much more (or perhaps can’t imagine some!), and this claim can be made fairly definitively, I claim it updates “God made mankind in his image” to negligible probability.
(2) If theoretical physicists come to a concensus in the ontological context of Penrose’s math-matter-mind triangle (see http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510188v2), such as for example finding a way to agree on the ”?” in the mystic approach, and such a consensus requires post-Singularity minds, the question of existence of God dissolves.
(3) In the hypothetical case that (i) the picture of humanity as a species arising out of natural selection due to competition between genes is accurate, (ii) we rebel against our genes (see http://hanson.gmu.edu/matrix.html ) and the physical structure of DNA no longer is present on the planet or is somehow fundamentally altered, (iii) the mental concept of “God” is a corollary of particular gene expression,
then nobody will be talking or thinking about “the existence of a God”, and in some sense “God” will cease to exist as a serious idea and become a cute story, in analogy to alchemy, or demons inducing madness. You can still talk about turning iron into gold, or someone in an epileptic bout being controlled by a demon, but the mainstream of conscious organisms no longer have belief in belief or belief in that sort of talk. A modern medical understanding of certain psychological disorders is functionally equivalent to an argument that demons don’t exist.
All three examples share a key feature: in some sense, a Singularity might brainwash people (or the information processes descended from people) into believing God does not exist in the same sense that science brainwashed people into believing that alchemy is hogwash. Now remove your affective heuristic for “brainwash.”
More examples are left as an exercise to the reader.
I think the target audience mostly consists of atheists, to the point where associating Singularitarianism with Atheism will help more than hurt. Especially because “it’s like a religion” is the most common criticism of the Singularity idea.
On another note, that paragraph has a typo:
Which is exactly why I worry about a piece that might be read as “I used to have traditional religion. Now I have Singularitarianism!”
Yes, that is a problem. I was responding to:
which I saw as meaning that Singularitarianism might be perceived as associated with atheism. Associating it with atheism would IMO be a good thing, because it’s already associated with religion like you said. The question is, does the page as currently written cause people to connect Singularitarianism with religion or atheism?
Not if it causes people to associate Singularitarianism as a “religion-substitute for atheists”.
Fixed, thanks.
I think it’s possible that the paragraph could be tweaked in such a way as to make religious people empathize with Luke’s religious upbringing rather than be alienated by it.
Any suggestions for how?