Conclusion

CopyRight @ 2006 It is time for a suspension of belief or perhaps that is a suspension of disbelief. Isn't that what hypothesis making is about. It is too bad that many clergy have promoted a hostility between science and religion. It has distorted religion. It is understandable that science avoids studying religion, because science is inherently self-limiting. The evidence for what has been called the supernatural is just to lacking for science to be applied to it. I have always said that the study of genetics and morality that is the main part of this book cannot be a science in a moral vacuum. Neither can this study of God be in a vacuum of reason and logical projection. I repeat that I didn't plan to go down this road, but I guess I always knew I would. How I knew is another question. Only recently has my study of genetics gone this route at all. Still, I knew. I told people decades ago that the consequences if I succeeded at my work were going to be rather dramatic, even if I had no clue what that success might look like. Well, I'm not going to try to bury it. I've worked at this too long to be very shy. Also, the way things have been going and accelerating, I'd have to be pretty blind to claim I can't see what it leads to. To bad I didn't date all these essays as I went along to show how my thinking has progressed. I followed a path to where it led me. I did not have a destination. Still here I am. It's time to quit beating around the bush. I don't much like it, and I'm afraid a lot of other people might not either, though it is actually good news and some people will just take it on face value like I have to. That is good. Unfortunately, some won't. I'm afraid they will react and put their own meaning on it. Some will say it is bad. I just say it is the way things seem to be, a world that is rather beautiful and elegant. There is a reason I studied memes. I was amazed to find a way that complex logical constructs of ideas could be encapsulated and communicated. I had wondered how all this genetic and moral concepts could all fit in the tight integrated package I have explored for so long. When I had studies genetics and morality, I wrote the monographs to describe my evaluation of what I had learned about morality and survival strategies. Now, after exploring the concepts of God, based on what I know of genetics, evolution and human nature, I will give my interpretation of what I learned. In this case though, I will allow in a bit more than just what I have learned. I will add a bit of experience and how I interpret it. Be aware, I know that I am playing with fire, talking about God and religion and I don't want to do it, but this is what I was made for. This is where an awful lot has led me. I doubt I will offend anyone except those that are very dogmatic, but there are a lot of those about. Describing religion and God in terms of science is not likely to satisfy many other than people that are very open and reasonable, but this is written for all who want to think about what they believe and the world we live in. I also am aware that this description says that the Christians got things pretty correct. This is not just bias, because I was raised as a Christian, it is based on the genetic and moral information I describe in the rest of the book. The strategies of the Christians are good, advanced survival strategies, based on their potentials for cooperation and survival. At the same time, a major premise of this is definitely not mainstream Christian and will likely annoy many, no matter how reasonable it is. It is best described by a Mormon comment, "As God was, man may one day be; as man is, God once was. All in all, I think my description, such as it is, is a very positive one for all religions and peoples, especially those that believe in loving one and other and loving God. As I wrote before, belief and knowledge are very different things and may not much effect each other. Knowledge changes little in the human mind. Belief can change much and humans can believe more than one thing at a time, even if they contradict. It is the multi-mind model of psychology. It is necessary to how the brain works. To say that one believes in God and has no doubts is almost certainly an impossibility. To say one doesn't believe in God and has no doubts is also untrue unless the person has somehow never in their life heard of God. Ideas contaminate upon exposure to them. A few years ago, before I started studying what is in these last essays, if you had asked me if I believed in God, I would have likely said, I don't know. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. That is reasonable in human terms and how the mind works. Perfect faith is something many wish for, but it is not a natural human state. Anyone who says you either believe or you don't is incorrect and very likely trying to manipulate your beliefs. It was a while ago, even before these last essays, that I studied morality and noticed the importance of love and faith as survival strategies. That did make me wonder a bit. The philosopher that taught the Western World of love as a basis of philosophy claimed it was a gift from God. The coincidence did make me wonder. I got into the debate with my friend about religion and wrote these last essays. After I did this last study about virtual reality and artificial selection naturally leading to God, I would say I have greater belief that God exists. Still, my study only shows a probability that God exists. True, a high probability, but there is a difference between knowledge and belief. My belief is not pure either way. There is more though. Beyond the logic, reason and learning, I have had some odd experiences. There are two worth mentioning that seem relevant. When I was 15, I was rather frustrated by my schoolmates as I often was at that time. I said to myself rather forcefully, "I would pay anything to understand". I only recently have I understood what I was asking. It was that I was wanted a knowledge of heredity. At the time when I said that, it was almost as if I clearly heard someone say "OK". That was all and that's not much. I didn't even think of it for decades, but I do remember it. The second thing to consider is something that baffles me. I have this pretty amazing knowledge of heredity (if you agree with it). I always wondered where it came from. The parts of it just seem to come to me. (By the way, modern chaos theory predicts that.) You see, while it has developed over the years and I can articulate it now that I have gathered the facts relating to it, the odd thing is that I always knew it. I just took a long time and a lot of work to get the parts and put it into words, but I've clearly known this since shortly after I was 15. I've driven people crazy since I was in high school trying to figure this out. The key to the genetic knowledge is disease and genetic load. How did I know that and it's consequence back then? Yes, I had biology classes that gave some of the fundamental information, but was there some way to extrapolate all I have written from what little I knew then? I wasn't a particularly good student. Very theoretically I could have, but I somewhat doubt I did. It would have been quite a feat of extrapolation and logic. So what does this mean? Well, in light of my knowledge of memes and my extrapolation about God, I have to ask, did some alien being give me a chunk of knowledge that was the framework of my genetic studies? You might ask, where did an alien being come into this. Well, if it wasn't human then it must be an alien and in the terms I am using, that would make and God an alien being. For this evaluation, I am going to make the assumption that that is what happened, because it seems reasonable when all the evidence is weighed. Still, It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy kind of thing I know, but as usual, I will frame what I am saying it is based on science and reason such that my opinion matters little. This is so that the reader can evaluate it without having to depend on my opinions. Is it true? Did it happen this way or did I do some feat of logical analysis to figure this out? I'm not positive, that's just the way it seems to work and quite reasonably so. I have explained why a knowledge of God, rather than a faith in God, is likely to be fatal. What is amazing is that it works. Worse yet, there are indications I knew that my studies would lead to this examination of God. Many times I told people the likely consequences of my studies and it didn't sound like I was just studying genetics. So here is what I presently think of God and religion, based on my personal views and on the reason and science that my genetic studies have revealed. Realize that I have presented all the facts, reason and logic I have been able to up to this point. Now I am going beyond that. It is time to believe or else perhaps time to suspend disbelief. I believe (limited the way all belief is, especially to a skeptic like me) I'm picking up on information that isn't from what we would call normal or understand. Perhaps there is encapsulated information all around us and we can pick it up sometimes and sometimes we can even put it into words. Perhaps it is communication from an alien being or what we call God. I don't know. I can certainly carry on great conversations in my head, but I'm trying to explain how I have come to know things that I shouldn't have been able figure out. Please excuse the tortured English, but this is very difficult. This first part is a guess, but a reasonable one. Universes exist naturally. From what we know, it seems likely that most universes were not very good for supporting life, but occasionally one is. Maybe there are just so many universes that we happen to live in one of a number that are conducive to life. It doesn't change things a lot. It is only the difference between a scope of billions of years and perhaps trillions of years. Long ago, most likely long before this universe existed, natural evolution caused by the physical principles of thermodynamics led to life, likely similar to what we know of. Life is an eddy in the stream of entropy. That life eventually evolved into an intelligent technology using specie. This may have happened repeatedly and then gone extinct as most species naturally do, especially one facing such a massive change in its ecology. Finally though, one specie followed the path I have described. It used artificial genetic selection to overcome the natural problems of using technology and thrived in a new ecology. It enhanced its life and capabilities with artificial selection used over geological time periods and used virtual reality as an extension of its ecology and as a method of achieving immortality of a kind. It to used the strategies of love and faith to as the basis of its survival strategy. It became a permanent eddy in the stream of entropy. Something I am not clear on is that it seems that it also managed to become a plurality of consciousness to further enhance what it was and to extend the potential of its immortality. Even it needed some replenishment or its faith, its will to survive, might weaken. It too learned about time and space and reality. It became powerful enough, (though who knows, it might not take that much to do it) to create universes. It developed an advanced philosophical knowledge of survival and purpose. It developed enough knowledge and wisdom to produce universes that had physical laws that were good for sustaining life and that became an action it undertook, for its own reasons, perhaps survival, but I don't like to second guess this being. It probably created this universe with the physical laws that it has. In this context religion makes sense, both in purpose and source as well as in ambiguity. Prophets are interpreting memes. While the meaning is from beyond this world perhaps, the ability to communicate it and understand it is purely human. Now to the first issue and one very much on many peoples minds these days. From what I can see and understand what is referred to as Intelligent Design didn't happen. There is no evidence that humans were carefully crafted by a superior being. Still, look at physical laws of the universe and it does look a bit like the universe was Intelligently designed. This may be a coincidence, since we don't know about other universes, but this universe does seem surprisingly friendly to life. Change it much and life would have a hard time existing. There might be a trillion other universes out there, all devoid of life and this one has life by the luck of the draw, but we don't know. At the same time, as far as Intelligent Design of humans, while there is no evidence to support it that I know of and much against it, I can tell you where to look for it if there is any. Look at the speech center of the brain and the genes that comprise it. It is amazing and if there is anywhere a being would manipulate human ability, it would be the ability to communicate with that being. The speech center of the brain seems almost magical, but perhaps that is just a limitation on my understanding. Another aspect of Intelligent Design is that geneticists and biologists recognize that life in all its variety is based on a limited number of building blocks. This may apply to thought/memes as well (one of my great curiosities). It maybe that they formed at random early in evolution and then out competed other variations that later arose. Or they may be patterns artificially created early on or they may be consequences of the physical laws of the universe, natural of constructed. One thing for sure, if God wants to take actions that we aren't clearly aware of, I do not think it would be difficult. We are so limited. Though we should be able to find evidence if it exists. Next topic. God. What the genetic data suggests is a natural evolutionary procession to a specie that has used artificial genetic selection to make themselves into Gods in terms of relative immortality, wisdom and especially emotion, particularly to our limited understanding and perceptions. Still, that description is both conservative and limited, but it is all that I will extrapolate from what science and reason show. The God I was told about though was one who was a bit more than that. Well, this says that the God had a beginning, but it was most likely way way before this universe. My feelings are that somehow this God became a plurality, sort of like the solution to human consciousness, the multi-mind. I can describe this a bit, but only do because I think it is the way it is. I don't claim to understand it and it is way beyond me. It also probably has a consciousness that extends through time, not just in it. Now I will say, that at the height of my exploration of this I sort of asked to see how vast God really is. Did I see anything? Did I imagine something? Heck if I know, but it seemed like I did and what I perceived just continued to expand until after about six seconds I said "fine, enough". I got the impression it was about as vast as the religions claim. Note that this plurality element is mostly missing from the two previous definitions of God presented here. This is because I simply don't understand it and reason doesn't demand it. In ways, monotheism claims it is so, but I have other reasons to believe it is so. In hindsight, (like a few other odd things I picked up somewhere) it makes sense, but only after I looked for a reason to explain what I believed. Another thing I believe and this is because something I was told stuck in my mind, is that we have to build heaven. Say what? It took a long time to make any sense of this. If some alien being built some great big virtual reality long ago that we call heaven and we are invited to (according to the holy books) why would we need to build a virtual reality like it ourselves? Well, perhaps a couple of reasons. The first being the fantastic danger it presents that I discussed in the earlier essay on virtual reality. One we build would be less danger and we would have more time to adapt to the older one created by the aliens before the danger became overwhelming. Perhaps it is because that is the most likely way for us to create something original to add to the older one. Perhaps considering the danger of meeting a being of the emotional presence and power that I am describing, the only safe place to (initially) meet it is in a limited (compared to theirs) virtual reality where communication is so limited that we wouldn't pick up on their emotional power. It could also be because direct knowledge of God or heaven would be dangerous for the reasons mentioned before. I don't know, but I do know that when the idea was presented to me, it was presented as something the person had been told by God. It made no sense to me and I wrote it off at the time as delusional, but someone else mentioned how compelling the person had explained it. That is a warning flag, so I looked some more and it possibly made sense for the reasons I mention above as, well as others. Speaking of warning flags, while I look at the world quite intellectually and am fairly good at it, really, in ways, it is a weakness. That is the simplest way to approach the world. There is a magic to emotions. We use them to communicate, but I suspect our abilities are relatively rudimentary compared to what is possible. Many impressions I have come in an emotional context. I probably would be considered to have a high EQ or emotional quotient. I can say that because no one really knows what it means more than intuitively. I have taught myself to smile all the time, otherwise I can make people uncomfortable because my emotions care strong enough to be easily sensed and they change rapidly. It eventually makes people around me uncomfortable. More importantly though, I can be sensitive to emotions and can feel the emotional content of memes. The reason I mention this is that ideas that survive in history usually have an emotional content. I look for those, just as I look for anything that other people react to emotionally> It is probably another case of a natural blind spot. My emotions are strong, so often I only sense strong emotional signs. (oh, I also can pick up on the subtle, but don't usually want to. I don't really want to know too much about most people, because the first thing I usually sense is their loneliness. Humans have a long way to go. We're still pretty weak, limited and unsure at the skills of life in this ecology.) In any case, among the many things I have picked up on that have emotional content, a few belong in this discussion. In the Virtual Reality discussion I mentioned the Life Stone. A recorder of a person's life for when they no longer had a biological body and lived only in virtual reality. The idea came from the concept of a soul. (It also gave me a great idea for some simple, but useful software.) In any case, the idea of a is one that echoes through history with great emotional content that I often sense. Looking at comments in the from ancient Egypt and the Bible it sounds almost as if some superior being made a deal that included at some point giving humans (non-physically normal) recording devices that would be recorders that transported their identity to a virtual reality after the person died. True or false is un-guessable for the usual reasons, but again, together with the other logic the concept is rather reasonable and there are a lot of stories about it. Now an interesting thing is that if none of this is true, even though strict probability suggests it is, it makes an even better ending for my book. If God and heaven and souls don't exist, then that is the path humans should take. Make heaven. Make God. Make souls. Make more worlds for people to grow and create. Grow and explore. That is the essence of faith and survival both. As far as religions, this model agrees with basically all of them. In my original examination of virtual reality I predicted war, sex, art and science. It sounds like all the stories of afterlifes are there, Heaven, Valhalla and all the sex you might want. Right now I am learning from the virtual reality called Second Life. Sure enough, what I have found there is amazing art, socializing, shopping, war, sex and gambling. Everyone is attractive. Everything is beautiful. There is no pain or want. Really, I think I have much more to learn, but it is very revealing of what people are and want. Now many things don't work as satisfyingly in such a limited virtual reality as in real life, such as sex and war. We cannot project our consciousness into it, but I think truthfully that is a surmountable technical problem, then it will be like I described in my original virtual reality essay. Back To Home Page