Will humanity someday create "gods"?

[TheHermit]

Futurism. (weed-ism)

I'm assuming things without proper knowledge and reflection. Do forgive me, my lords.

My sci-fi dream... Let's create a etheral eternal being all-powerful everywhere-present all-knowing perfect immaterial infinite... Or maybe, you know, just passionate super-humans with elementary powers and stuff. It's easier. *Muahahaha*

I think It was made before in fiction and non-fiction, but, in this age, what are the real (or unreal?) chances of something like this actually happens? Please, enlighten me.

It doesn't matter what you believe, I just want to know your reasoned opinion about the human potential of creation (or destruction). Depending of your faith, It could be either a "copy" or a "original" god. I'm a romance novelist, I don't have proper references in tech-stuff!



*feeling high today*

 

[Black Rose]

The future belongs to the machine spirits.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

I thought we already were?

 

[Tannhauser]

The potential for creating AI is vastly overestimated.

All we have currently (neural networks, support vector machines etc) is just fancy ways of doing regression. We are as close to creating thinking machines as we were when we invented the refrigerator.

 

[Rook]

To create a universe-making god one must first create a universe...?

If elementary physics allows some loopholes around our biological limitations, we may very well become closer unto the collective conception of a god, leaving behind our humanity like history left behind the dinosaurs.


From my viewpoint, a created god is far more boring, it is pre-defined and even if it surpasses the beings that made it, they still made it and chances are they put in fail-safes if it comes to threaten them. Chances are also great they designed it to think along similar lines as they do, for the sake of mutual understanding. A god created in their image, as most fictional gods on your planet are currently.

No, a sentient planet, a hive-mind shared by bat-like creatures that float through space, their minds larger than stars, a fungus-like being with every cell in its body a universe, ours among them. These are gods that interest my mind more than any that mortals may bring into being.

I guess ultimately, the god we make shall be limited in scope for we are limited in scope. Unless the universe has loopholes. And then one must ask: What brought those loopholes into being? The sentient blobs that grow universes as we grow petunias?

 

[Haim]

I was already created, when I was 14 years old.
I created many worlds, worlds which this world rules does not apply, worlds better than this one, where you don't have to live if you don't want to.I am a softwere developer god.

 

[Sinny91]

Humanity has already made many Gods.

Egregores.

 

[Jake54321]

Will man eventually be able to make himself into a god?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

;enters thread about to post something AI related
;first posts already are AI related

Well, it's settled, God will be a giant computer.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[air.ee.yell]

To create a universe-making god one must first create a universe...?

...

From my viewpoint, a created god is far more boring, it is pre-defined and even if it surpasses the beings that made it, they still made it and chances are they put in fail-safes if it comes to threaten them.

I think this is the case of "The creator is far more important that its creation." Think about it in this sense; if I created the world's first computer, and it was destroyed, I could still create it again. Which leads me to see why people say "cut off the head." But that's not the point. If my computer is powerful then I must be even more powerful because I'd have created something so powerful and can do it again. But I think I'm just repeating myself now lol. So I'll shut up.

 

[Cognisant]

I can build machines that are stronger and faster than I am, code programs that can complete processes in a moment that would take me hours if not years, why do you think a creation cannot be more capable than its creator?

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Humans are already gods.

Imagination is a tool of infinite creation and simulation. Reason and thought enable us to take on any perspective and shape reality as desired, the rest is a matter of temporary shortage of resources and conflicts with other gods.

We are the general purpose intelligence, we could create better intelligence that would do the same things much faster or more efficiently, however we already can achieve anything and everything if we had infinite time and resources to spare.

If you're asking whether we'll create a being that won't be restricted by time and resources, I'd say that it's very doubtful that it would be possible.

 

[Not Anyone To Care For]

Will man eventually be able to make himself into a god?

We already are Gods, during the 1700s people would be worshiping us. Our modern society is filled with gadgets that would leave past people in awe. Let's use the lightbulb for example, or the average car or even the small portable computer that allows you to talk to anyone all the way across the globe and can give you an answer to any question with a few strokes of your finger.

Yeah, we're gods alright, but just imagine what the 22nd century will have that would make our jaws drop.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I think this is the case of "The creator is far more important that its creation." Think about it in this sense; if I created the world's first computer, and it was destroyed, I could still create it again. Which leads me to see why people say "cut off the head." But that's not the point. If my computer is powerful then I must be even more powerful because I'd have created something so powerful and can do it again. But I think I'm just repeating myself now lol. So I'll shut up.

Not necessarily... sort of.

See, we humans were created from the Earth and Sun. Now, these entities are more powerful than us, but we are the ones with what we know as "intelligence". It evolved.

Likewise, humans, through harnessing greater powers and knowledge of evolution, could hypothetically give birth to a greater intelligence than ourselves.

--

Regarding people becoming gods: I think with virtual reality we may well be essentially able to create reality around us (in virtual space) simply by thinking it so; at such a stage, we would be as gods.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

*scans recent responses*

Seems like the one thing some might be missing is that creator can't be separate from creation.

I'm going to go ahead and declare that to be truth without immediately supplying supporting evidence. Fight me on it?

 

[air.ee.yell]

*scans recent responses*

Seems like the one thing some might be missing is that creator can't be separate from creation.

I'm going to go ahead and declare that to be truth without immediately supplying supporting evidence. Fight me on it?

Before I even get started, are we talking about the ACT of creation or the THING of its creation?

No, I'm definitely not going to fight you on it. But I do want to know why and how you see that link between a creator and its creation. Just because I don't see it, doesn't mean I don't want to. So, go ahead and explain it. There's something I'm missing and I don't understand it. I'd like to see what you believe connects these two things.

 

[Intolerable]

We could if we weren't so preoccupied with our own shortcomings. Namely personal bias, the comfort zone vs being wrong and a litany of reasons for recreating the wheel at every turn.

Just look at how we handle language. It's a mess.

My bet is no advanced intelligence is ever created by humans let alone a God.

 

[Architect]

Working on it, check back later.

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

Before I even get started, are we talking about the ACT of creation or the THING of its creation?

No, I'm definitely not going to fight you on it. But I do want to know why and how you see that link between a creator and its creation. Just because I don't see it, doesn't mean I don't want to. So, go ahead and explain it. There's something I'm missing and I don't understand it. I'd like to see what you believe connects these two things.

I don't think there's a difference between act vs thing. That goes back to the ol' neoplatonic One. I'm not sure we can say that something came from nothing because we haven't exactly figured the universe out yet, so I reverted back to the stereotype "we are the universe observing itself" thing and tossed in a dash of reciprocal determinism for good measure. If the creator can't produce something from nothing, the only thing they have available, being the creator and the wonderful definitions and context of the subject matter associated with that word/title, is themselves.

 

[DaDaMan]

WE already do, any time we idolize something, we make it a god.

 

[IndigoViolet11]

I wander in a tunnel confused whether I am myself or the tunnel. The branch out is so huge I do not know where to go

 

[420MuNkEy]

As I understand physics, "reality" could be nothing more than a quantum "simulation" arising from a very basic recursive quantum function. If we were able to initialize that simulation ourselves, we'd be "gods" (likely spawning other "gods" who spawn other "gods" out into infinity). To really get any sort of grasp on any of this we'd need to solve P vs NP, amongst other things. Like any "God" hypothesis, though, there's really no way to prove it in its full scope.

I'm not saying that's what I believe "reality" is, but I do find it to be an interesting idea nonetheless.

 

[QuickTwist]

Boring unrealistic topic that has no practical application today. You should feel good I am actually saying this, usually I don't even bother, so consider yourselves lucky.

 

[420MuNkEy]

Boring unrealistic topic that has no practical application today. You should feel good I am actually saying this, usually I don't even bother, so consider yourselves lucky.

So we should limit discussion/thought to that which has practical applications already?
This kind of thinking is the antitheses of technological progress.

 

[QuickTwist]

So we should limit discussion/thought to that which has practical applications already?
This kind of thinking is the antitheses of technological progress.

Nope, I'm saying there is a limit to what I can take.

 

[420MuNkEy]

Nope, I'm saying there is a limit to what I can take.

Aw, c'mon, guy. It's like you're trying to bait me into getting banned again.

 

[QuickTwist]

Aw, c'mon, guy. It's like you're trying to bait me into getting banned again.

I don't care honestly. You're free to live in your ridged world based on empiricism, I care not.

 

[420MuNkEy]

I don't care honestly. You're free to live in your ridged world based on empiricism, I care not.

Okay, buddy.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I don't think there's a difference between act vs thing. That goes back to the ol' neoplatonic One. I'm not sure we can say that something came from nothing because we haven't exactly figured the universe out yet, so I reverted back to the stereotype "we are the universe observing itself" thing and tossed in a dash of reciprocal determinism for good measure. If the creator can't produce something from nothing, the only thing they have available, being the creator and the wonderful definitions and context of the subject matter associated with that word/title, is themselves.

That makes me think there really is a goal of evolution and that is to reach the life form capable of conceiving a universe of its own.

 

[Rixus]

At the risk of sounding Nietzschien, I don't believe there is a end goal to evolution. We are still evolving, and will continue to evolve. Hopefully, into something that will look back on ourselves as primitive and something we would look as almost god like. Possibly not better, though. Just adapted to whatever environment we happen to live in in the future.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Humans are already gods.

Imagination is a tool of infinite creation and simulation. Reason and thought enable us to take on any perspective and shape reality as desired, the rest is a matter of temporary shortage of resources and conflicts with other gods.

We are the general purpose intelligence, we could create better intelligence that would do the same things much faster or more efficiently, however we already can achieve anything and everything if we had infinite time and resources to spare.

If you're asking whether we'll create a being that won't be restricted by time and resources, I'd say that it's very doubtful that it would be possible.

When you dream it feels like realtime and your mind jumps from setting to setting during what feels like hours or even days, yet dreams are supposed to constitute the last few moments before waking or before REM ends.

Now imagine what if humans could create a method to induce prolonged REM sleep that lasts for days, weeks, years etc without the subject dying / going into an unwakeable coma? The dreams would feel like an eternity and the subject of the dream would only be restricted by their imagination.

Or perhaps if humans are finally able to upload consciousness to a digital means you could get similar results of infinite creation that are probably perceived with more tangibility, with the ability to design/import elaborate and detailed content.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

When you dream it feels like realtime and your mind jumps from setting to setting during what feels like hours or even days, yet dreams are supposed to constitute the last few moments before waking or before REM ends.

Yes. High compression of information processing and intake can be achieved, I was speaking in absolute terms saying that time is an entropic limit of what can be perceived (infinite existence without perceptible proof is possible, though meaningless from human standpoint). And time, considered potentially, is one set (dimension) of several spaces information can occupy before the amount of space runs out (if ever) and it has to move to the next (time) frame or become noise.

Our minds can escape into simulated n+1 universes of the omniverse, question being, is infinitely deep recursive simulation (universe creation) possible, or do you start running into density/other problems? If not, then there are hard physical limits on computability and feasible time compression that put a theoretical limit on the amount of resources that can be effectively utilised.

Even things as fundamental as having only a single source for consciousness/personality become a problem. As the distances between computation/information centers increase, even across multiple simulation depths, there arise new limits for maximal effective ranges of storing and recalling information for single-centered entities.

At some point an entity has to split and accept that it won't be able to have access to its wholeness in order to coordinate a much greater information processing effort.


Also it's worth considering if the dimensionality of the omniverse is ultimately accessible, or whether the versum is infinite going back to its metric (not unitary, but unit defining) properties.


With regards to doing anything our imagination is capable of producing (being godly), there's no doubt that it's physically possible to create a complete experience of such acts for limited instances of time (or limited instances of any fundamental characteristic that differentiates perception from existence).

 

[Ex-User (13503)]

That makes me think there really is a goal of evolution and that is to reach the life form capable of conceiving a universe of its own.

The kicker being that there's really only one universe, by definition. So then not to conceive it, which would by definition be within it (and hence not it), but to be it.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPtydxVjHos

:smiley_emoticons_mr

 

[ToddRyler]

The potential for super-intelligence lies dormant in matter.

 

[Pyropyro]

This thread pleases the Omnissiah

 

[bvanevery]

We are as close to creating thinking machines as we were when we invented the refrigerator.

Fundamental computer science theories such as The Halting Problem would suggest that you cannot be so certain about the amount of time it will take us to realize Strong AI. We may be close, we may be far away.

 

[TheManBeyond]

I think humans can create something that will last long enough until we get used to that speed. Then it will become boring.