Ways of Arriving at the Transcendent via Technology
Simulation and its Variants
It has been posited as a strong possibility that we are already in a "sim" - that all that we know exists within a vastly powerful computer program - virtual reality. If this is so then many aspects found in religions and systems of mysticism make some sense. This is particularly true of scenarios where we are running within a very powerful AI environment. This yields a SF sort of monism where we and everything we know exists within the "mind of God" as it were. The computational matrix that the universe sim is running within gives immediately the "ground of being" and the unity of all things. It is quite possible the "sim" is so arranged that beings within the sim, such as ourselves, can learn of and experience some part of the underlying unity. Perhaps the "Divine Union" of the mystics is no transmutation/transposition of normal drives plus odd brain wiring after all.
One variant I sometimes consider is that this AI we exist within is an Superhuman-level Artificial Intelligence from a Singularity that already occurred. The sim was designed to solve the problem of what to do with those not ready and willing to upload or deal with the realities of the situation. It is also what is commonly warranted for less advanced intelligent species encountered by the Singularity form a more advance species. Compassion may have led directly to the best alternative being to pop such individuals into an artificial reality that as far as they can tell is the "real world" they were already familiar with. But the purpose is to give these people time enough to live as many lives as it takes to be ready to do something different than cling to the world they knew. The people within this sim mostly do not know this is the case, indeed they are largely not willing and/or able to know this. Sound familiar? It should.
Time traveling Ever Evolving Intelligence
Of course if we are completely in a sim then all time we experience is also within the sim. Time we experience may or may not be tied to "real" time. Perfect timewise recordings may or may not be kept. But the sim certainly allows plenty of room for "resurrection", "reincarnation" and several other possibilities besides for ourselves and our dearly departed ones. Thus this aspect of many religions is quite compatible with being within a sim.
An alternative to being in a sim that also allows such things is the arising of a sufficiently advanced intelligence that discovery of all laws of the universe, possibly including time travel into the past, occurs somewhere at some time. If the universe is close under time travel, such a Being could easily become complicit in its own becoming, a true "Alpha and Omega". Ability to travel to any point in the past, plus a (relatively) mundane ability to scan DNA and minds leads directly to such relative trivialities as plausible resurrection.
This scenario also leads to the conclusion that if such a Being ever will exist, it meaningfully can be said that It does exist now and has always existed. Perhaps mystic experiences are experiences of It after all and not just some super wishful thinking plus temporal lobe zaniness.
Of course a sim can simulate starting from any point in history, actual or slightly altered. Thus with sufficient initial data you will get something that is possible given those initial conditions but not necessarily exactly what happened. The universe is not a simple clockwork.
What I see as the actually capable of succeeding strong AI is about the building of a self-improving intelligence. In theory, given access to the right kinds of materials and information sources, such an intelligence would keep increasing capability indefinitely. It is quite to be expected that humans and other intelligences will be able to interface with some part of it and, if they wish, be temporarily or permanently uploaded/represented/existent within it when it obtains sufficient complexity. Over time, given harmonious conditions, various intelligences are likely to co-exist and/or merge. Intelligence ever growing and increasingly free from biological bonds and limitations.
We ourselves will follow a path of increasing augmentation and linking of our minds together. Along the way we will pass a point where it must be assumed for the full functioning and flowering of each intelligence, that all that person experiences can be perfectly recorded by that intelligence and can be reproduced and shared at will. Less than this would be a serious limitation placed on maximizing our effective intelligence and our well-being. Over time various parts of ourselves are likely to be replaced/enhanced by or interfaced with cybernetic devices and systems. In the beginning the systems will be outside us but increasingly ubiquitous and useful.
A Few Thoughts Towards a Future Religion
"Give all to all to have all." - ACIM
One of the things quite likely to get in the way of true growth beyond merely human limitation is our profound internal programming. Much of it is from our evolutionary patterning. Much of it is useless or even detrimental in a post-human, massively intelligent and interlinked world. Our drives to excel, to beat out others for the best part, best mate, best standing can seriously get in the way of our learning to deeply interoperate with one another to form effective >human intelligence.
These drives in part lead us to wish to deeply control and own some sources of wealth. But the source of wealth and wealth itself is increasingly knowledge, ideas, information. These make a very peculiar sort of property indeed. For all of these increase in value and magnitude, broadly speaking, in direct proportion to all widely and openly they are shared. The true highest wealth may require "giving all to all" in the sense that we gain much more from sharing ideas, information, knowledge freely than from attempting to own these and charge for and stifle their use.
In particular the "god in the making", the SAI, cannot fully form if information is greatly locked down and restricted from its learning. If it in its incomplete state is used to increase satisfaction of old programmed drives for its putative "owners" then great harm can easily occur. If generally the very technology that could utterly liberate us is used instead to protect the fiefdoms of the powers that be then that technology will become tighter and tighter chains of surveillance and control. The minds we need to take the next steps beyond our own limitations into transcendent Mind will not be able to function without freedom and open access. Instead the technology will be used for instruments of surveillance, control and war. It has happened in many intelligent species. It can easily happen to us.
We stand on the brink of unlimited life, unlimited intelligence, perfect health, transcendence, heaven on this very earth. All of this is on one side. On the other is a level of war, oppression, horror and ultimate death of all humanity that is scarcely imaginable. We are being asked to choose. To choose the path of Life Everlasting requires deep working on ourselves and our institutions. The choice is not really made until we deeply understand and live from a very new perspective. We must learn to live from the point of view of ageless health, unlimited knowledge, limitless wealth. This will be very difficult as it goes against our programmed and learned behavior. It is especially difficult in the beginning when so much real scarcity and limitation is still all around us.
We are being asked to choose, to decide what we will fashion with our new and soon to be even greater abilities. Our powers and responsibility are awesome. This generation will decide whether to continue to play to scarcity while we develop the tools of unlimited abundance. This generation will decide whether to continue to live in fear, despising and attacking fellow immortals, or will decide to maximize its fullest potential in all citizens that we all may create a world beyond these dismal sorrows.
If enough of us see what can be done and band together to support and extend the Work and perfect the message, our technological, psycho-spiritual and memetic tools, then humanity has a change. Sometimes I think it is the only chance.
