From: ben (ben@machinegod.org)
Date: Mon Jan 28 2002 - 14:13:55 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?
[Joe]Simple. The much greater complexity required to marshall all
matter/energy in the service of a single complexly recursive self-
conscious awareness. It would have to not only subsume all the others
as parts, but supervene its own level of organization upon them.
Random, lacking all organization whatsoever, is the opposite of complex.
[ben 3]
Where's the marshalling? If all the enrgy started in one central being, and
then dissipated, there is no need for any marshalling. Start central, then
dissipate... just like we know it does normally...
> [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)
>
[Joe] Death is the irreversible degradation of dynamic cerebral complexity
below the level at which it can maintain as a material/energetic substrate
for the emergence of recursively complex self-conscious awareness.
And if someone is shot in the head with a howitzer and their head
explodes in a single millisecond, where's the dance? And what about
those who die in their sleep?
[Ben 3] Faster-than-millisecond data transfers are possible already, with
our clumsy silicon. I don't see speed as a limiting factor.
[Joe] Now heaven is something that each and every individual brain has the
capacity to differentially synthecize at the point of death, ayy? That
would
make heaven plural, and more than that, a multiple naturally occuring
terminal illusion. Which is better than negotiating between Bin Laden and
Gandhi in which version of heaven both are required to reside.
[Ben 3] Absolutely!
> [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.
[Joe] And what do you say to identical twins, which are the same thing
produced by more natural means? that one of them is soulless, Do they
then flip a coin and leave it in god's hands to give them a heads or tails
sign?
[Ben 3] That example passes either way: If god gives each individual a soul
individually, well then he just drops off a double order, saving himself a
trip I suppose. If given to the race as a whole, then the souls of twins
would develop the same as those of non-twins.
[Joe] We can build a human from a de-nucleized egg and some DNA (from
most cells). Where would the soul reside there? In the DNA (a chemical
definition of soul)?
[Ben 3] Hmm gives whole new meaning to the idea that the soul departs the
body at death...
-ben
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