Humans are the means by which MATTER LEARNS HOW TO MANIPULATE ITSELF INFINITELY. So the point is evolution creates thinking minds that then learn how to manipulate matter through technology and this technology evolves beyond our understanding, like computers that have minds of their own that greatly surpass ours, or humans that manipulate and engineer their own brains to unknown heights and configurations.
The end result is matter that learns how to interact with itself to surpass all limitations. So we as humans are a small intermediate step to a much brighter future where MATTER WILL MANIPULATE ITSELF AND INTERACT WITH ITSELF INFINITELY TO UNKNWON HEIGHTS. At that point even just imagining a computer simulating another universe with other physical laws, other engineered minds with other emotions etc. means that we no nothing at all.
A funny thing about evolution, is that not only are the chance possibilities that carbon chemistry creates a thinking mind kind of slim, but also that these minds occur on a planet with just the right amount of metals, energy, gas etc. at just the right depts to extract, just the right amount of fruits and vitamins etc. Just the right history of creating advanced technology when it is so easy to just war each other off. All these quirk chances kind of make Intelligent Design by an ALIEN from a parallel universe seem reasonable.
Good thread, old. It’s fascinating how matter has organised itself such that there’s a kind of feedback where it manipulates itself again, in a way that’s a “tier above” the basic force-interactions.
Don’t be seduced by Insidious, sorry, Intelligent Design. First of all, if the universe hadn’t been so wonderfully fertile for life, we wouldn’t be here talking about it. Secondly, with that and the Alien theory, it begs the question where did they come from?
Intelligence is like software, it can be executed on many different material substrates. But the point is, can a disembodied intelligence exist maybe in a parallel universe ? In a certain sense it is easier to believe in a pure intelligence-consciousness-intentionality that no longer depends on any matter, therefore any physics than a random universe generating intelligence. Our own mind gives us the sensation of being greatly removed from MATTER, it seems to be a pure MONOLITHIC SLAB OF CONSCIOUSNESS existing in some odd limbo beyond MATTER.
So the aliens that created this universe and designed some parts of it may inhabit a parallel universe where there is no MATTER AND NO PHYSICAL LAWS and may be disembodied minds. Their universe may have also been designed by another parallel universe made up of simpler laws of physics that are not based on mass-energy. There could be an infinite recursion of universes, or an infinite heirarchy of universes interacting in such a way.
Then again the Intelligent Design theory of physics states that there must be some mind that designed the laws of physics, the atoms and the cells. But it could be the other way around in that our mind resembles the laws of physics and we get confused between our mind and the external universe not understanding that they are both purely random or both “intelligent” being that this word is so vague.
So matter transcends itself through technological evolution, so maybe many cycles of previously transcended matter have generated many universes one after another, one more complex than another, for an infinite time. In other words maybe matter in a previous universe reached such a high point that it decided to create another universe with these laws of physics to continue its evolution. This universe will continue to evolve through the technological singularity up to another phase transition where another universe will be born-created-simulated or invented. That new one will go on the same and the cycle may be infinite.
Interesting. Truth be told, I think there’s an element of deferral in multiverse theories, and this puts me off them a bit.
You said:
I agree. I’ve been thinking recently that there could be a Platonic Idea of consciousness (inc. intelligence) which manifests itself to different degrees and in different ways in its varying substrates etc.
Has to be so. We ourselves are made of many different substrates, all of which are capable of supporting computation at their level, as well as being the substrate of computation at higher levels, eventually resulting in what we call intelligence.
I have no doubt that your notion of the rise of ever more transcendent entities from existing entities is a trend in the evolution of the universe. However, whether we are part of the future or just a dead end is yet to be seen.
The rise of complexity out of chaos is a natural process, and does not require the supposition of an alien intelligence. But if there is such an intelligence, because of logical and physical limitations, it cannot be of a finite quality, such as we ourselves are. Such transcendence between universes can only be possible for an unlimited, infinite Being.
Aren’t Patonic ideas just models, the abstract scaffolds of thought?