A Higher Power Through Technology

      The greater our technology gets, the easier it is to think that a Higher Power exists. How can this be? As technology advances, humans are getting closer and closer to developing a great Artificial Intelligence (AI). Not only that, we also get closer to creating bigger and more realistic virtual worlds. Not that many years ago, a megabyte was beyond our comprehension, but now we have terabytes and even that is going to be obsolete at the rate we are developing. In a similar timeframe, AI has advanced as well, even defeating geniuses on a game show.

        What does this have to do with a Higher Power? What it means is that we are becoming a higher power. We are obtaining the power to create without bounds. Even today, we can create worlds that people that play for the rest of their lives. We can create Continents worth of space to explore. All of this we can do on a computer.

          Once we remove the barriers our current technology has, we will be able to create a perfect virtual world. This would mean we can make a world like ours in which we (or even just one) is a “god.” We can already see that in range due to Sims. After realizing this, saying that, “In the Beginning there was nothing,” is not that difficult. For in that world we create, there would have been nothing, but what we create can feel time. At the same time, we would be outside of that world’s time and have the power to manipulate what we created.

            We write stories and watch movies of a possible future in which AI surpasses even our own Intelligence if not at least matching. As much as I am not a fan of Blade Runner, it gives us the question about if androids could be considered human if their intellect was equal. Combined with the knowledge of the Human body that we have and continue to accumulate, it soon won’t be too difficult to create an artificial human in a cyber world. As a result, the idea of making someone in your “image” is not too farfetched.

           Creating something in our image is really not difficult to grasp at all. Whenever we create a world to play in, we generally cast ourselves as the hero. In fact, when we watch movies, we tend to want “someone we can relate to.” Not only that, but we grow attached to our creations. Sometimes we hope in a fictional universe that two people get married or have an honorable end. Many artists also grow attached to what they have drawn or sculpted. If those were destroyed, the “creators” would be sad. They don’t need their creations, but they still care for them.

           Getting back to the supposed virtual world, we would have the power to do whatever we want. However, inside of us, we would prefer the idea of having a friend, would we not? As we care for our creations, if we gave them artificial intelligence that was close enough to a human’s, would we not prefer for them to “choose” to love us? While we could force them to respect us, it would be just as if they were dolls. By having them “choose” us, would we not feel a far greater joy? So would “free will” be absurd? No. Yet with that ability to choose, they also inherit the ability to reject.

             Since they would be allowed to reject us, and if we respected them and their decisions, we would permit that. At the same time, we would not hate them but we also cannot just delete them, because their existence is still something good to us. So the perpetual existence and even Hell wouldn’t be out of the question. The furthest we would probably go in breaking their “will” is just influencing them.

            Now it would a great feat to accomplish this, but what would be even greater? To be able to design something that could evolve to various “life forms” from just an ameba. Evolution is just basically more advanced programming. Since you still have the power to manipulate what you made, inserting AI into one particular “life form” is not just a fairy tale either.

          Angels are not crazy either. With our “Administrative” power, we could designate people in our own world to do stuff and maintain for us. They would still need our permissions to do something, but they can act on our will. Even people who are against us can do evil if we permit it. Yet, we can also think a few moves ahead, and turn whatever evil they did into something good they did not even expect.

           While I am at it, I might as well throw in Saints. Since the AI that was created is very high, if they chose their “creator,” they could technically be elevated to the status of Angels who can help maintain the whole world, but reporting to you. It could go as simple as one coming and presenting a situation, and since you favor these “Saints,” you may listen and do what they asked. Hence even the idea of prayer could be implemented.

So what would happen in this virtual world? If we left it “alone” for a while, would not our creation that has been given “free will” and “intelligence” doubt our own existence? They would because the only way we could tell them that we do indeed exist is through their own world. We could program it into them, but even then they would still have the power to doubt, because they can choose. There is really no way they could “know” of our existence except by the Philosophical Proofs that some of us deny today.

          I am not necessarily saying this is the case of our world today, but I am saying that it is not as unreasonable as some people make it out to be. The fact that we are close to doing it ourselves should give us a reason to think that it already has been done with us being the created. If you argue that as a result of our technology, we can prove there is no such thing as a god, then I recommend you to consider this essay and its possibilities.