Post 4. Continued . . .
Alternative Theory of Reality & Deity
Programmer vs Creator vs Recycler
Admittedly, the hypothetical Cosmic Creator or Prime Programmer of this thesis is nothing more than a job description, and we can imagine a variety of office-holders to fill the prescribed roles. For those who prefer a transcendent ultimate entity, an unimaginable deity like Allah or Brahman would fill the bill. For others, more modernistically & humanistically inclined, a clean-cut white-haired Architect, as in the Matrix movie, might suffice to symbolize the Designer. Or for those who prefer a more abstract and impersonal concept, a Multiverse of eternally cycling energy, creating a variety of material forms out of nothing more substantial than the power-to-enform, might sound more scientific. But it still must somehow explain the emergence of conscious minds. Moreover, any intervention from above by any of these role-models would have to work from the bottom up, in order to agree with the observed mechanisms of reality. Which of these role-models would best suit this new worldview for the 21st century, wherein Reality is founded upon immaterial yet potent information?
Aimless Evolution vs Intentional Program
Futurist & transhumanist Ray Kurtzweil has optimistically conjectured that a mindless-but-lawful universe is accidentally stumbling toward a universal mind of god-like proportions. And cognitive historian Y.N. Harari, in Homo Deus, foresees the emergence of a “cosmic data processing system . . . like God”, yet entirely natural and matter-based. On the other hand, I have deduced, from the same database, that the materialist's arbitrary “laws” of physical evolution are more like purposeful metaphysical codes. Historically and theoretically, Evolution proceeds via the inventive interaction between random Chance and contextual Choice. That progressive process is not aimless though, as some would have it, but pointed in a positive direction, as measured by one-way Time, as recorded in human history, as inferred from Archeology, and as conjectured in Cosmology. Such an apparently teleological universe must have originated from an intentional source of some kind. Since mathematical Information seems to be the coded language of evolution, I like to call that cosmic “Programmer”, the “Enformer”.
For those who prefer more traditional terms, “God” or “Creator” may be used judiciously, because their general meaning is well-known, though contaminated with specific instances of mis-informed human speculations and mythical elaborations. That's why, to avoid going into philosophical technicalities, I sometimes use the familiar designation for the entity presumed to be the ultimate reality, but spell it as “G*D” to hint that there's something unconventional about this kind of deity, who is both creator and creation. Although, the attributes of G*D are unknown, and possibly unknowable, we can derive a sense of what they ought-to-be from the known properties of the world itself.
Post 4 Continued . . . Click Next
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