Technical Jesus

Trying to build or even become God is the right thing to do...

Tower of Babel

We all see how technology is becoming more and more empowering. Read the news, it looks like we are heading for the absolute worst and possibly the absolute best in mankind.To avoid the worst work for the best. Let's take our optimistic progress to the limit: the ultimate long range goal is to become immortal, self sustainng, all-knowing, and universally creative. That is our God. And, our God does not limit us in any way, God encourages us to grow in understanding through love. 

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

I submit that with a healthy balance of faith and work, Christians can actually grow to be just like Christ, stay out of the dangerous traps along the way, by never being satisfied with anything less than the one true omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God.: proceeding carefully with unwavering humility and selfless peace. Trying to build or become God in this way is an act of adoration, worship, and a moral responsibility; it’s the quickest way to unlock the abundance in this world necessary to feed and educate the growing masses. Plus, it gives meaning to life.

What God are we trying to build or become?

1. God is a timeless and transcendent state of being: Revelation {1:8} “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." The beginning and the end come together in this timeless and eternal aspect of God.
2. God is present and within us: In-between the alpha and omega there is the presence of the lord God in “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We are this body of Christ living and growing in time... and we become that “which is to come”: timeless, eternal, Almighty, because that is our true love.
3. God is love, the process of connecting the timeless and the present. The product of love is understanding, and the creative power that goes with understanding. If love is efficient and sustained, understanding increases exponentially. Humility and selfless peace allows unwavering devotion so that love can establish a clear connection. Forgiveness is important to growth because it establishes an exhaust for misunderstanding and disorder. With this truth we transcend. John (4:8) He that loves not knows not God; for God is love... Love rules, ignorance dies.

Trying to build or become God is the authentic manifestation of God in time, always evolving, improving self-sustenance, and growing in creative powers. Ultimately there is only one way, life, and truth because of the forces of convergent evolution. Convergent evolution says the laws of nature dictate what the requirements are for eternal self-sustaining life. Imagine the evolutionary branches in the kingdom continuing to flourish, yet all life forms, whatever way they seek to grow, will converge on that one winning state of being. It all converges on the Christian Divine Nature (Godhead). That state of being is the center of unification (precisely to fulfill its motive, collective and self-sustaining function). It’s pre-existing and transcendent. Souls living in time are effectively “one with the Divine Nature. This state is not  obtained by identification (God becoming all) but by the differentiating and communicating action of love (God all in everyone). And that is essentially orthodox and Christian: mankind worshipping and the Holy Spirit calling... God made/makes a difference.

It is interesting to note that in Genesis (1:22), the first thing God said to us was “Bless you. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” This request is sometimes called the Dominion Mandate.

The Dominion Mandate gave us a goal:  to explore, develop, and enhance the world.   They were to construct a culture, build a civilization, and build a holy City to the glory of God.  They were to do these works by faith through grace.

The task, would require them to become scientists, artisans, mechanics, inventors, scholars, writers, musicians, and more.  They would have to become proficient in agriculture, animal husbandry, the culinary arts, mining, metallurgy, shipbuilding, navigation, commerce, and storytelling.  The mastery of these skills would require a deep understanding of physics, chemistry, geology, botany and psychology.

The mastery of these sciences in turn would require an ever-growing mastery of mathematics. In short, godly dominion would necessarily produce an intricate and complex culture with roots in mathematics and the sciences and fruit in literature and the arts.

Be fruitful and multiply still applies?

Science and technology have lagged behind the “be fruitful and multiply” thing, causing much poverty and wars. I place the responsibility of that lag squarely in the lap of grace-alone fundamentalists of all kinds. By trying to force-fit reality to their dogma, they have slowed scientific progress, given rise to a growing atheism, and a mostly ignorant privileged class.

Now, with a healthy balance of faith and works we can meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. Exponentially growing technologies are converging on satisfying the needs of the growing masses.  Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it can be closed fast. There are infinite possibilities for doing good when we tap into our own empathy and wisdom. 

• In the beginning we were told to subdue the world. 
• Later Jesus Christ as the fully developed human aspect of God, said to his disciples; “I have overcome the world.” 
• Then in the book of Revelations close to the end of times it is the same “overcomer” who asks us to follow him in the continuum of life...There is plenty of reason for techno-optimism!

http://www.technical-jesus.com/

http://www.hyper-evolution.com/

http://www.offthegridnews.com/2014/03/30/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-dominion-mandate-life-universe-happiness-and-all-that/

http://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/1451614217

A Universe From Nothing... But Not By Nothing

“Symbolic representation of the Universe as a self-excited system brought into being by ‘self-reference’

As a Christian Transhumanist, I like Lawrence Krauss’ idea that you can create a universe from nothing. I mean actual nothingness, The Void... no laws of nature. Honestly, it would have to be that way, right?   If a universe pops into existence from nothing (no space, no time, no laws), goes on to become conscious then evolves further into a self-sustaining super-intelligence, what does that make it? God, These atheist just can’t win...ever. We are proof that the universe can grow conscious of itself, even boot-strap itself into existence. "I Am that I Am" is a self-consistent Strange Loop. "I Am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and end" connected, is a self-consistent strange loop.  It's an elegant and profound idea. 

• But, are not the claims that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and "For by him [Christ, Col 1:16] all things were created ... through him and for him," basic Christian beliefs? If so, then there was "something" before creation, and if not, then what is Christianity? (David C Winyard Sr)

The answer to this is illuminating. The "something before the creation" David refers to is our very same selves growing in understanding and creative powers. As Christians, we are gathered up in Christ, through which all things are made, according to the Nicene Creed.. Secularists are coming to realize the real possibility of this in the advent of super-intelligence and the simulation hypothesis. Scientists are also coming to understand that our lives matter greatly in the grand scheme of things. We live in a participatory universe according to John Archibald Wheeler, colleague of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, mentor to many of today's leading physicists. He devised the figure above, whose caption is:

• “Symbolic representation of the Universe as a self-excited system brought into being by ‘self-reference’. The universe gives birth to communicating participators (us). Communicating participators give meaning to the universe … With such a concept goes the endless series of receding reflections one sees in a pair of facing mirrors.” All things are gathered up in Christ.  Ephesians 1:10

Now, to further answer David; how is this Christian?  In Christology, the concept that the Christ is the Logos (Greek: for "word", "discourse" or "reason") has been important in establishing the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus. Christian theologians consider John 1:1 to be a central text in Christian belief.

The concept of Logos derives from the opening of the Gospel of John, which is often simply translated into English as: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Logos has an analog in physics, and that would be information. Many physicist see the universe and life, is at heart information, and is therefore reason, rational, Logos. The universe can be conceived of as a conscious self-referential I AM made from, and by, abstract Logos. You followers are living proof that this can be, when you realize I Am.  No one can ever deny or take away the eternal miracle of being, something from nothing... material.

• “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

•  “Christ is like waking up in the morning, but on a cosmic scale.” J.M.L.

Reference: J.A. Wheeler in Isham et al., eds, Quantum Gravity (Clarendon, Oxford, 1975), pg. 564-565.
Christian Transhumanism
Singularity Religion

LOVE MAKES SENSE

There is an important connection between religion and technology that I would like to point out. It has to do with the concept of love. Besides the religious concept of love, what could love mean in the context of the technical world? I see a grainy and rough “love process” going on in the technical world, and it is resolving daily into a finer construct. Just like all religions this technical trend is aimed at achieving the same optimum point of life: eternally self-sustaining, universally creative... and fun.  Whether spiritual, or technical, love is the winning strategy in the “game” of life. [1]

The love process is based in information and communication theory: Technically, love can be seen as the process of connecting data, information, and knowledge. The product of the love process is understanding. If the process is efficient and sustained, understanding increases exponentially.  Peace allows unwavering attention so that the love process can establish a clear connection. At the heart of the process; symbols, words, and feelings are ordered into meaning. But meaning is not static, it grows. A type of “forgiveness” is important to the process because it establishes an exhaust for misunderstanding and disorder. (Here I would apply the love process to computers, the internet, telecommunications, social networking, as well as sensory and kinesthetic enhancement. We are actually coming together, living better, and becoming more conscious of the world.)

The Love Process has the power of life behind it: “We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge, and when the love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently intense, the knowledge becomes unitive knowledge and so takes on the quality of infallibility.”[2] Eternal and infallible works: We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. We inherit the good works of evolving species, scientific progress, and spiritual growth. This idea is the catalyst for a Christian-transhumanism synthesis.

We enter the age conscious evolution: Now it seems we have discovered the science of the love process. As it should, the process of connecting is emerging as a fundamental law of nature ready for our technical and spiritual application. There is a peer reviewed paper [3] just out linking consciousness to connection of information in a system. That connection is measurable.  Its strength and growth is obviously trending to The Great I Am (if you have an optimistic outlook on life). The more integrated the system is, the more synergy it has, the more conscious it is. The latest theory of consciousness is precisely expressed in the language of mathematics using notions from information theory such as entropy. Given a particular brain, with its neurons and axons, dendrites and synapses, one can, in principle, accurately compute the extent to which this brain is integrated and so the level of consciousness. From this calculation, the theory derives a single number. Measured in bits, this number denotes the size of the conscious repertoire associated with any network of causally interacting parts. Think of number as the synergy of the system. The more integrated the system is, the more synergy it has, the more conscious it is. This system can be established in a brain, a silicon based computer, electromagnetic fields in space-time, a society...or across all such systems at once. There is obviously much room to grow... This is where we grow. Now think Christian-Transhumanism, it is so grandly synergizing it has emergent properties... real transcendent properties...a new level of consciousness that is hard to relate back.

1: RELIGIOUS VIEWS ON LOVE

2: THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY

3: THE THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

Johnny Depp heads off to the Supreme State of Being, and the western world is Christian/Transhuman.

This new Johnny Depp movie “Transcendence” should spark popular interest in the spiritual goals of our increasingly technological society, and clarify that the western world is Christian/Transhuman... Yes, I dare say this is the definitive movie for western culture because it touches our Christian roots and our technological branches.

In the movie, Depp makes a computer-to-mind interface, he transcends into the “cloud”, and grows beyond.  It’s a new type of pioneer story with uncharted territory to discover. The grass is much greener here: The collective intelligence of everything ever known, with the full range of human emotions is concentrated in the mind of our hero. Of course if he overcomes all the dangers in the movie plot, it will be because of his western/Christian sensibilities.

    

     Why do I say the west is still Christian? Like it or not the gospel is ingrained deep in our culture. Jesus is the biggest name in human history. Ever. It is a matter of fact Jesus is the indisputable leader of influential ideas: Reference here.

Why do I say we are Transhumanists? Transhumanism is about learning, and overcoming our human condition: "In the end, all technology is prosthesis, the extension and augmentation of existing biological and informational capabilities. We put eyeglasses in front of our eyes to bring the world into focus, telescopes and microscopes to see those realms which our unaided eyes cannot fathom. We use remote sensors to explore the planets, and these are all extensions of the senses we have. All of our systems of writing and of calculation are similarly extensions of memory systems and logical operations that we can perform in our minds. Similarly the technological implements that carry us from one place to the next, or that grow our food for us, or that keep us warm are but extensions of our own bodies' effectors." - Peter Cariani ... Transhumanism goes all the way down to the essence of life:

• A living thing is conditioned to exist and grow.
• 
  
• Understanding the laws of nature increases a living thing's chance to exist and grow.
• 
  
• Science is the systematic process of understanding nature.

• Technology is the application of our understanding of nature to better adapt to our environment.

•      Why do I say we are Christian Transhumanists? The two converge hand-in-hand on the way to the Supreme State of Being. The early Christian church was clearly closer to the spirit of life with the idea of transcendent humanism; where it was taught not only mankind but the whole cosmos finds its fulfillment in Christ. Through the grace of God we grow to be like Christ. Paul Tillich calls this original meaning "The profound doctrine of a transcendent humanism, a humanism which says that Christ is the fulfillment of essential humanity." "And we can become fully human through participation in this which has appeared in Christ, including eternal life, and similitude with God with respect to participation in infinity."  Then Tillich says, "I am always surprised how much better the theology of the ancient church was than the popular theology which developed in the nineteenth century, how much profounder and more adequate to the paradox of Christianity, without becoming irrational, nonsensical, or absurd." Know Transhumanism is part of God’s plan, the spirit of life.  Because the reality is, through computer and sensor evolution our technological tools are turning into a place where we can extend our senses to better understand where to grow. Technology is a place to expand your mind, and find truth, for those who wish it. There is talk of uploading our minds into this environment and living forever. Technology is opening the door to a new ecological niche to grow. This is not a plastic virtual reality. It is God's creation in high resolution and amplified. The doors of perception are opening.

It seems like transcendence really is at hand. Check out the Transhumanism movement to see how some folks are speculating on, and actually trying out possible transcending paths. Then check out the various Singularity Watch Internet sites to see what futurist think is happening with technological growth.

Is this really a place for a Christian?? Let’s say we transcend our flesh body using the technology of the near future. What about our soul? There isn't much being said about the spiritual aspects of this exponential technological growth. Every movie or book I have read on this subject is rather scary. Scary sells. So let me provide a comforting metaphor for what I think is really happening. You could look at it this way: engineers build a church as a place of worship. They build roads to the church. They design modern modes of transportation for getting to the church. Then it is up to us to get to the church and use it in the spirit of love. This technology is just another church, a place to get together and worship. Personally, the kingdom of God, and the Temple, is within us all and these technologies are extending our influence. So, be careful there will be challenges, if you go this path, Go in the Spirit of Love. You can do no wrong when the spirit of love, the Holy Spirit is with you. And, it is said; "If you are trying to save your life for any other reason than love, you will lose it." There is one way to life and truth. This wisdom is eternal. It takes love... Love is the winning life-strategy in the end. To survive even the meanest brute will grow to understand! This really is a place for a Christian. You see, Christianity is Transhumanism!