Christianity and Advanced Technologies Monday, Feb 25 2008
philosophy 2:42 am
Here we go with another Christianity-related post. This one solicits Christian responses to issues brought up by technological advancement. Atheists, I know you might think there’s no point in asking these questions, and if so, there’s really no point in you commenting in this thread. Let me ask my questions without dismissive or bitter comments.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is meant to be pro-Christian or anti-Christian. I am just asking hypothetical questions. The views expressed in this post, if any, are not necessarily the position of any organization or individual associated with the author.
Questions:
1) If man was created in God’s image, would it be blasphemous for people to radically alter their body and brain as it becomes technologically possible, through genetic engineering or nanotechnology? (See “What I want to be when I grow up, is a cloud” by J. Storrs Hall.)
2) Would it be a sin to extend someone’s lifespan indefinitely using anti-aging therapies, because that would forever prevent them from getting into Heaven? Or would indefinite life extension merely be God’s will, because if he wanted us to die anyway, he could easily make it happen at any time?
3) Say that a brain chip is invented that makes its user more morally sophisticated and theologically insightful. Would this contradict the notion that good comes from God, and show that the “soul” is actually rooted in the biochemistry of the brain? Or would this signify the brain implant is somehow better tapping into the power of God? How would we tell the difference?
4) Say that humans develop a technology to bring someone “back to life” a few hours after brain activity ceases. Could this be used to research possible visions of Heaven, such as those in “light at the end of the tunnel” and other near-death experience accounts? How would we distinguish between genuine visions of Heaven and hallucinations caused by neurological trauma?
5) Recently it was reported that the Vatican was encouraging local churches to hire more clergy adept at performing exorcisms. When a high-level Vatican official was interviewed on the topic by CNN and asked how he knew the difference between a possessed subject and one suffering from psychological problems. The priest responded, “you can see it in their eyes”. If this is true, could we determine this by taking pictures of different types of eyes and discovering distinguishing characteristics associated with possession?
February 25th, 2008 at 4:44 am
Just a point I want to make on Question 1: religious folks have a long history of calling various technological breakthroughs “blasphemous.” They said it about anesthesia. They said it about it organ transplants. They said it about IVF. They will continue to say it, at least initially, and once they get over the Future Shock or Yuck Factor or whatever you want to call it, all will be well.
Christianity will evolve to meet the needs of its day, just as it has for 2000 years.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:02 am
[…] Monday, 25 February, 2008 I touched on these issues in my Darwin Day blog entry, but Michael Anissimov at Accelerating Future has recently asked some questions on the issue on his blog, and I would like to have a go at answering them. Firstly, Michael says: This one solicits […]
February 25th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Question (1) From a Christian Transhumanist Perspective
Being created in God’s image essentially means we can say “I AM” just as God gave his name “I Am”. So no matter what material form we take, as long as we can reflect upon being, we are an image of God.
As for technology; God’s first words to man was; “you are cool, now go out and subdue the earth”. So, Adam was to overcome the world but he fell. In the New Testament Christ is called the Over Comer, the one who overcame the world and, in the book of Revelations the Over Comer leads the people to the Kingdom of God. Think about the history of technology and the extraordinary stuff we will be able to do in the future.
Technology can go astray. The Tower of Babel mytheme illustrates this.
And the Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have “its top in the heavens.” However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was dedicated to false man-made religion, with a motive of making a ‘celebrated name’ for the builders. - Genesis 11:4.
Technology can be right on target if applied with a Holy Spirit. As long as technology is applied in the spirit of love and understanding the effort will have the blessing of God. It will be cool in God’s eyes. Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man and says that “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother”.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:41 am
“God’s image” refers to attributes we share, such as rational thought and free will. No blasphemy in wanting to be a nanobot cloud. It’s the tired old “If God had wanted us to fly” meme.
Indefinite life extention a sin? Why? It doesn’t matter if you live until the heat death of the universe, you WILL die eventually, Singularity or not. What matters is HOW you live, not how long.
I don’t believe a brain chip can make one “morally sophisticated”. Possibly it can make one more emapathetic to others (or maybe I’ve watched too many Futurama reruns). For most, “moral sophistication” means “adopting MY moral code”. It would end up imposing someone else’s morality, in which case the problem isn’t that we’re mucking about in God’s territory, but that we are eliminating Free Will.
Ancidotal evidence of an afterlife will never be accepted as genuine by science. It’s not falsifiable; it’s not repeatable. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Finally, concerning possesions. If, as Nick Bostrom thinks, there is a high probability that we are living in a computer simulation, then it would certainly be possible for one of us to serve as an avatar for one of the entities running the simulation. Most transhumanists would accept that possibility wouldn’t they? Is that so different?
February 25th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Michael,
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been lurking a while here and this is my first post. As a Christian and one who is interested in the effects of technology, it is of interest to me.
On the first two points, there are some theological considerations. One is that not all Christians believe in a literal seven day Creation “event”. Another theological point of view is that of a Creator God who is in constant historical relationship with humanity. (The God of history is what first separated the Israelites from their cyclical gods of the earth.) In this view, creation does not end, and “every good and perfect thing comes from God” (Romans). In other words, creation continues today, in a newborn baby, in discoveries and inventions, etc. In this view, which is my own, transhumanism is only apart from God when its purveyors exclude God form the equation. God is present in all things.
On your second question, again, there are other theological considerations. One reading of Jesus in the Gospels shows him emphasizing the Kingdom of God not as a place we go to later, but as the here and now. “The Kingdom of God is at hand”. This is the view of those who fight for injustice and oppression, and to help those sick and in need in this life. Some Christians only look toward the next life. And there’s nothing wrong this, especially when the current life sucks. But God’s kingdom - heaven - is also in the here and now when we work, as followers, to make it happen. So take someone who is doing good works - an easy example is Mother Teresa. What is she participated in an anti-aging program to extend her life for the sake of caring for others? Or what if transhuman technologies could have revived MLK, in answer to your number 4?
February 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
If I’m not mistaken, mankind has been radically altering in body and brain for millenia if you count nutrition and education and all of their attendant supporting technologies. Looking at the skeletal record it appears as though on average we all got bigger, more or less smarter, and are living longer. There does not appear to be any commandments against progress.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Here are some answers from my Mormon (which I consider to be Christian) perspective:
1) To be created in the image of God is to be created as a creator. Both the Bible and Mormon scripture suggest that future persons will have bodies that differ as much one from another as the celestial bodies differ among themselves.
2) Heaven is what we make it. In Mormon tradition, God has a physical body, and we are to transform our physical world into heaven. Moreover, life extension would fulfill Mormon prophecy that, leading up to transfiguration to immortality (which is still a physical state of being), humans will live long mortal lives.
3) From the perspective of Mormon metaphysics, everything is material, including spirit — which is described as light or finer matter in Mormon scripture. Enhancing our spiritual capacities via tools is also well established in Mormon scripture. For example, the Book of Mormon tells a story of a person who receives from God a metal ball, called a Liahona, that directs him in his journies better than unassisted spiritual inspiration; Joseph Smith also claimed that persons in heaven would receive a white stone into which they would look to learn about heavens of higher orders. Contemporarily, the LDS Church relies heavily on information technology tools as the basis for its genealogical efforts, directed faithfully toward salvation for the dead. In summary, I see no reason to distinguish between the brain as a tool and other tools that we might use to make heaven. All good comes from God definitionally, not hypothetically. To the extent you are good, you are God.
4) I think the tests you propose would be interesting, but would teach us nothing about heaven. They would teach us about the nature of post-mortal existence, which, in Mormon tradition, is merely a stage between mortal life and resurrection to immortal life.
5) So far as I’m concerned, possession is a primitive description of unwanted psychological conditions or memes, with physical correlates. To the extent demons exist in any meaningful way (with any practical consequence), we should be able to observe them with our technology.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Please note that the opinions of the Christians on this blog are generally those of liberal, modern Christianity, which can coexist peacefully with transhumanism, science, and the like. Using the metaphor of the human mind as a tiny dot floating in mindspace, many fundamentatists (even today) have no qualms about blowing your head off with a shotgun if you exist in tiny little corner of the dot A and not tiny little corner of the dot B. Hopefully this will diminish as a memetic force as science continues advancing.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I’d been toying with starting a blog dedicated to bridging the gap between “mainstream” Christianity and some of these bleeding edge technology topics in the hope of reducing some of the knee jerk reactions that seem to be occurring. I think you’re starting from the other end and stealing my thunder.
1) While some people have tried to define the Image of God concept narrowly, there is no real biblical definition of what is meant so people shouldn’t be that dogmatic about it. I am concerned, however, that when we are able to freely alter our makeup we could eventually slip beyond what we originally intended. Once you tweak your way from compassion to ruthlessness, would you really choose to go back even if you noticed the change?
2) I think there’s a big misconception out there about the form of anti-aging success. There seems to be a meme that you get a shot and then you never age again. Eventually that may be true, but in practical terms anti-aging is going to be a series of preventative and correctional medical procedures just like we go through all the time to extend our health and life a little bit. Not accepting treatment would be no different than never going to the doctor.
3) If a chip was made that improved visual processing in the brain, would you consider it evidence that light is rooted in the biochemistry of the mind? Without more specifics, I’d have to say that the chip you describe simply enables better processing of what the brain receives.
4) Dying and death are two different things. I don’t really trust these kinds of events for that reason.
5) That’s just….weird.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
1. No; The universe is the image of God. Man self-augmenting is simply man being man.
2. It is the nature of life that life is mortal, no matter how long it goes on for. Stars and flies alike are mortal.
3. Insight and soul are totally separate considerations, so, “No,” this wouldn’t demonstrate anything about the root of the soul (consciousness,) any more than expertise in, say, bluegrass music, would give you any insight into chemistry.
But moral sophistication and theological insight *would* be a very powerful, positive, spiritual thing. It is misunderstandings about what “God” means, that are causing apparent contradiction.
By all means, we should make use of implants that give us greater insight into spiritual matters, and would bring us closer to God’s realization. The technology of books has been used to great spiritual benefit, after all.
4. That’s great research to perform.
One way to distinguish, might be to ask, “Can we reproduce this effect, without killing a person?” If so, then that is a good indication that the activity is neural, rather than super-natural.
However, spirituality and conceptions of heaven do not rely on the super-natural. In fact, if there “were” a “super-natural,” it would only be a higher-order “natural.”
Visions of heaven can come from fictions, acid trips, near death experiences, imagination, wishing, dreams, desires, and even simple calculation. A vision of heaven is valid in so much as it compels the soul and moves the spirit.
Most people don’t understand it this way, but that’s okay — the great truths are felt, before they are understood.
5) Possession and psychological difference are not necessarily bad. The word “enthusiasm” means “to be filled with a God.” “Inspire” similarly means “to fill with spirit.” Difference can be weakness within an evolutionary trajectory (a malformed eye,) but it can also signal a new genuine evolutionary branch.
It is possible that the priest, saying, “you can see it in their eyes,” is not only relying on the eyes, but also relying on their sense of the patient, a sense that has developed over working with many people over time. Given your anecdote, there’s really not enough to judge on. I’d really be more interested to know, if any of the priest’s exorcisms have *worked.*
It is interesting that indigenous cultures have, (from all the literature I’ve seen, researching into this question,) zero (NO, NONE) incidence of what we call “clinical depression.”
And yet, with all the camera images, brain surveys, statistics, chemical inhibitors, and so on, that our psychologists are provided with, our psychologists cannot help the clinically depressed.
What is going on here?
February 28th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Free Will, God’s Will and Sin
2) Would it be a sin to extend someone’s lifespan indefinitely using anti-aging therapies, because that would forever prevent them from getting into Heaven? Or would indefinite life extension merely be God’s will, because if he wanted us to die anyway, he could easily make it happen at any time?
This is not a problem using the Christian-Transhumanist paradigm. From a transcendent view you are not changing a thing to extend someone’s lifespan indefinitely. Past future and present, it is all now from the transcendent view.
From an imminent view you are adding more branches of choice that have their own survival potential. Free Will and God’s will coexist. The two viewpoints are complimentary.
Is it a sin to extend someone’s lifespan indefinitely? Whether you are a Transhumanist, Christian or… a Christian-Transhumanist, sustaining the excellent adventure is the aim of life.
I say; Hang on long enough and you will go to The Rapture like we go to the movies today! And, if you don’t make it to that time in the future, there is always The Resurrection.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
3) Say that a brain chip is invented that makes its user more morally sophisticated and theologically insightful. Would this contradict the notion that good comes from God, and show that the “soul” is actually rooted in the biochemistry of the brain? Or would this signify the brain implant is somehow better tapping into the power of God? How would we tell the difference?
Most Christians follow the Nicene Creed wherein God is Trinitarian. There are three aspects of God; Father, Son, and The Holy Spirit. Christ is the Son aspect. He is fully human according to the creed. The father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father giving rise to the Holy Spirit.
We are to become Christ-like according to the scriptures. So we are to love the Father with all our heart mind and spirit in everything we do. And we build temples to inspire us to worship. Now there is a new temple to be built for the worship of God the father according to the scriptures. Christian-Transhumanists believe that temple is forms of technology that makes its user more morally sophisticated and theologically insightful. It is a higher communion, exponentially growing in intensity (insert a Ray Kurzweil graph here).
In this way, there is no difference.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:36 am
From a non-denominational Christian who prefers to take things literally when at all possible, but doesn’t want to associate with the negative buzzword that “fundamentalist” has become:
1) A lot of us believe that we were created spiritually in God’s image. It is our souls, not our bodies, that are based on God. Whether that’s what the Bible actually meant or not, plenty of things already happen to people which cause them to be different from how humans were created. Losing and replacing limbs, for example. I don’t believe that an amputee is somehow less godly for it.
2) If we weren’t meant to spend time on Earth, we wouldn’t very well be here. I don’t think anyone would be prevented forever from getting into Heaven, because at the very least, the world is supposed to end someday. (Even without an apocalypse, isn’t the universe supposed to either collapse again or expand so much that we will no longer have any energy sources? Not soon, obviously, but in some finite amount of time.) Before that, well, like you said, if God wants you dead, he’ll find a way to make it happen.
I think anti-aging research is an extension of God’s will, because I fail to see the difference between that and, say, curing cancer. Saving lives is saving lives.
3) We couldn’t tell the difference any better than we can tell, right now, whether an insight is coming from a person’s clever reasoning or from the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
There’s no right answer to how such a chip would work. It would work however it was designed to work. All possibilities are open.
Finding the soul to be physical does not contradict the notion that good comes from God. Thoughts and emotions are rooted in the brain, but they are still real and they are still a big part of every major religion. Finding a basis for the soul in the brain wouldn’t prove that the soul is theologically meaningless. It would just be an interesting fact about how humans work.
4) This scenario sounds no different than the current one. We have no way of distinguishing now, and I don’t see how lengthening the period for which people are dead would change that. I’m not sure if I believe in NDEs anyway. They’re certainly not part of the basis of my faith or anything.
5) Catholics will be Catholics.
I can only go on what you quoted, but it seems to me that he didn’t mean it was literally part of the physical appearance of their eyes. He probably meant that it was a sense you get when you meet them, not something quantifiable that he could list for the interviewer. Having never been in the room with a possessed person (at least, not that I know of), I couldn’t say. I think the only way to be sure is to get some sort of reaction from the actual demon doing the possessing, but this really isn’t my area. If I’m right about that, then no mere device could ever be used as a test, because it would have to believe in Jesus and be possessed by the Holy Spirit to work.
I do know that most credible people in the field consider possession very rare, and will look to psychological issues to explain symptoms first.
Most scientific progress is good and does not conflict with my understanding of Christianity. (I say “most” because someone once invented the nuclear bomb, and Jesus was a pacifist.) The ideas behind science–discovery, curiosity, experimentation, a way to try to improve the world, and so on–seem to me like things that God specifically wants. I believe he put us in a world with so much to discover for a reason, made us curious for a reason, and gave us the ability to make new things for a reason.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
1) If man was created in God’s image, would it be blasphemous for people to radically alter their body and brain as it becomes technologically possible, through genetic engineering or nanotechnology? (See “What I want to be when I grow up, is a cloud” by J. Storrs Hall.)
[I could postulate another scenario: If adultery is wrong, then would it be right for society to enact a law so that each individual would be engineered for sexual attraction and desire for their life-mate? The answer to Michael’s question is, it depends on the direction of the alteration of their body and brain. Meaning, engineered in order to achieve what objective?]
August 25th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
2) Would it be a sin to extend someone’s lifespan indefinitely using anti-aging therapies, because that would forever prevent them from getting into Heaven? Or would indefinite life extension merely be God’s will, because if he wanted us to die anyway, he could easily make it happen at any time?
[While science (or science fiction) seems to point to eternal life through scientific means (life extension technologies); Christian canonized writings (the Bible) state that humans will annihilate themselves if Christ does not return. The Christian premise is that humans are innately bent towards destruction by their very nature. Eternal life extension is God’s desire for humans, but Christ is the means through which that can be accomplished.]
August 25th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
And Tom, I only take people’s head off who disagree with me with this little puppy:
Shotguns are too cliche.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76wGxg3fzw
August 27th, 2008 at 7:24 am
3) Say that a brain chip is invented that makes its user more morally sophisticated and theologically insightful. Would this contradict the notion that good comes from God, and show that the “soul” is actually rooted in the biochemistry of the brain? Or would this signify the brain implant is somehow better tapping into the power of God? How would we tell the difference?
[If one reads through some Church theologians’ writings, some of them point out that people have a disposition to commit certain moral sins (e.g. overtly drinking, envy, out of control anger). I’m guessing that some people that were a Christian that had a lobotomy had certain personality traits alter with the procedure - your jack’en with the brain. A person that might have been prone to having an out-of-control temper might become mellow in all aspects of their behavior. My point, you alter one trait, another trait shows up. However the first “sin” recorded in the Bible came from a person’s desire to replace God. The desire (even without an act) is a sin. Christianity doesn’t really have an exact concept where the separation from the immaterial-self, and the material-self begin and end. There tends to be a reciprocal interaction that is not scientifically explained in known religious writings. Michael, your thinking on “good” and Christianity seem to not match up. In general all people can be “good,” but in Christian theological terms none truly good.]
August 28th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[If I was a demon, and I didn’t want the general population to remain ignorant of the demonic netherworld, then would I be able to manifest inside a person at my choosing as to keep from revealing to the general population that I, or demons exist?]
September 27th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I am one of those orthodox, the Bible is literal, Christians. Historic Christianity sees death as the enemy.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were created to have eternal physical lives as well as eternal spiritual lives. They were created in the image of an eternal God.
The sin of Adam and Eve - desiring to BE God, resulted in their spiritual death. God then ordered that they be shielded from the Tree of Life, lest they remain physically alive forever, and thus be stuck in eternal death.
In Genesis pre-flood, people lived very long lives, several hundred years or more. Methusela lived 1,000 years. Lots of theories as to why that was.
Just before the Flood, God set a time limit of 120 years, b/c mankind were using long lives for wickedness, not good.
Moses, Joshua, and Caleb lived over 100 years each.
I firmly believe that part of the restoration that Jesus brings, is also the restoration of long lifespans (maybe to 150 or longer) for the purpose of doing good and serving others. As a Christian I also understand that God has numbered and ordered my days (Psalms). BUT, He also tells me to care for my body, as an act of obedience.
Jesus came to free us from eternal death and hell. It stands to reason that since Humankind was originally intended to have millenial lifespans, that some measure of that would be restored as well.