From: ben (ben@machinegod.org)
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 19:40:56 MST
[Bill2] In order to suggest that God was the first object in the universe
would
be like saying "The most complex entity formed from nothing, and the simple
stuff came later". I have never considered the notion of complexity before
simplicity before, but it does seem awfully unlikely. I am not aware of
something as complex as I imagine a god to be forming spontaneously with
consciousness and power to boot.
[ben 2] Which is more complex? A single being housing all possible energy
and sentience directing it all to the same goals, or thousands of trillions
each having a small portion of it and directing it sometimes with, sometimes
against each other seemingly at random?
> [ben 1] I was suggesting the possibility that they are not physical places
> in any universe, but are more like states of being. States of existence
are
> commonly referred to in English by the same mechanisms as physical places:
> "Person X is in ecstasy" or "Person X is in a foul temper" or "Person X is
> on the net" - another linguistic detail that could have been lost over
time.
[Bill 2] A state of being is nice, good sex makes me feel like I am in
heaven,
and cleaning up after my cats makes me feel like I'm in hell - however, all
emotions that we have, with few exceptions, are identifiable chemical
processes
happening in an electro-chemical dance inside the brain.
[ben 2] The brain under certain circumstances emits radio waves (
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/e/e120.htm ), providing at least a basic
'wireless' capability. Theoretically (expanding that idea, and making up
neuroscience fiction as I go along here) it is then possible for a human
brain to project its entire conscienceness outwards. If it is possible for
anything to receive, translate and organize the data then we have just had a
direct host-to-host soul transfer. Perhaps Heaven is the name given to the
electrochemical dance in the recipient brain resulting from a successful
transfer in the seconds before death, and Hell is the name for the error
message if it fails... (STP error 403: Access Denied = bad bad painful
dance)
[Bill 2] We can specifically affect these actions with drugs, EM fields,
pain, sound, light..... lots of things. Though there is still much to learn
in this field, the pieces seem to be falling together in a manner consistent
with what we know about electro-chemical processes.
[Ben 2] Absolutely. I see no logical barrier to Heaven's synthesizability in
this model.
[Bill 2] It's not because we lack the evidence to to see souls that we do
not believe (or
myself anyway), it's because of the unnecessary nature of the soul.
[Ben 2] We're getting dangerously close to the part where we have to define
a soul...
[bill 2] If we make a clone, and it lives as a normal human being, then if
you believe in souls, you have to believe that this clone has one, or how
could they function? If they have a soul, then god must have given it to
them.
[Ben 2] Just for the record, I love the clone/soul argument :) However, I
can't remember if it says anywhere that god gives _each_ human a soul, or if
he gave souls to the species in general. If the latter, then the clone
example fails in this discussion, in no means of course detracting from its
efficacy vs. fundies who are against cloning for religious reasons.
[Bill 2] See my point - what is the purpose of the soul when man does fine
without one?
[Ben 2] We haven't yet built a human from scratch, and couldn't "test" for a
soul if we did, so we don't know in fact if man would do just fine without
one. Regardless, we do just fine without tonsils or appendixes, but we still
beleive in their existence.
[Bill 2]I simply seems much
more likely that man is just an animal living on a planet in the far reaches
of
the Orion arm of th Milky Way galaxy. Alone. Not that the galaxy might not
be
teeming with life, but that we are still somewhat simple apes just learing
about
the Universe - to weak and distracted to make an effort to find our
neighbors.
And lets face it, the cost to find them can only be measured in time,
technology
and expense.
[ben 2] Agreed.
[bill 2]Fun conversation Ben, thanks!
[ben 2] Likewise!
-ben
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:41 MDT