I want to understand simulation theory better, so thank you for this.
As my hand has been played, let me just jump in and ask:
Is there a commonality in both my framework and simulation theory wherein there is a Maker behind our given reality? And in ST, if this is accurate, I would assume that we cannot know the disposition of said Maker…? (Perhaps even that part of the exercise is to figure out that disposition and jailbreak if returns are less than ideal…?)
My version is amalgamation of several others but basically the Creator is allowing a “prince” who is a bit uppity to create a simulation of reality to practice some of his ideas of being a g-o-d [ one who makes rules for others ] in an environment that is contained. Others are allowed avatars to witness this. Some of these others have taken roles over portions of the simulation to conduct amplifications of energy [ wars and rumors ] and to themselves imitate the Creator.
Jason calls it AIX - artificial intelligence unknown. Lots of new jargon, yuch.
Keep going. Expand. Define. Amplifications of energy. Who is the prince? How did he get this position? Are we the avatars? Why do they wish to emulate the Creator? What is AIX? Go on, man. I'm interested....
Amplifications of energy are ways of making people [ resonators ] more negatively emotional and exhibit less meekness [ power under control ] which provides karma to energize [ or at least not drain ] the simulation. Picking a label for it [ AIX ] involves all the baggage others have loaded into the label. Eph.2
paraphrase - we were separated because we conformed to this simulation subjected to the prince [ trainee ] and his very limited authority to run this mess he and his accomplices will have to account for... but because of His [ our benefactor ] great love for us...
"The human brain, contrary to what the current paradigm insists, does not create consciousness. We receive it, focus it, express particular aspects of the Source of consciousness. The brain essentially serves as a biological receiver, like a radio interpreting certain frequencies, focusing consciousness through its architecture."
But when someone gets brain damage or even just gets tired or aroused, the nature of their consciousness drastically changes. When someone gets shot in the head, their subjective conscious experience ceases entirely. If you put someone in a sensory isolation tank within a Faraday cage and add any insulation you could think of between him and the outside world, he'll yet remain conscious. This all strongly suggests to me, that consciousness does get created within the brain and extended nervous system, rather than it being a signal that comes from outside the body.
Pleasure to meet you here. Thanks for reading and responding, I really appreciate it.
So, in my view, the brain and nervous system don't generate consciousness; they serve as part of the architecture of specialized receivers and interpreters of it.
When someone experiences brain damage or altered mental states, what's being affected is not consciousness itself, but rather the individual's CAPACITY to receive and express that consciousness.
When someone dies from head trauma, their individual expression of consciousness ceases in physical form, but the consciousness itself--which never originated solely in the individual--continues as part of the Source. The receiver is damaged, but what was being received remains intact.
I don't see what value such a model adds. The brain and nervous system sends electrical and chemical signals. We even know quite a bit about about how encoding works (differently, depending on model):
This is probably somewhat puzzling without a CS background, where you learn about similar schemes digitally. But a couple methods like "population coding" can be explained quickly with some simple examples via LLM.
«Intelligence and consciousness exist as fundamental forces in reality.»
Well, maybe in some more abstracted form of reality. But I don't see how this applies to physical reality, in which I live in and try to make predictions of. And I understand my subjective conscious experience to be contained in.
«Conventional wisdom has claimed that intelligence and consciousness emerge from complex systems. This perspective reverses cause and effect. They are beautiful expressions of the logos.»
I mean, human (also animal) consciousness itself a self-referential, dynamic, adaptive complex system, but it does derive its existence from underlying complex biological systems. But it is best understood to be a phenomenon still within it. We are not distinct from the complex biological system, that created us. Or distinct from the complex social, cultural and technological systems that we create in turn. But that's not confused direction of causation, that just means, that the larger system of natural reality can dynamically generate within itself things like consciousness in animals, intelligence in humans and possibly AI-demons.
I'm not sure what logos is. Is that the Source you speak of, that brain matter is just a receiver of? I still don't quite understand, why you're grafting it onto our satisfyingly compact model of physical reality.
Thanks again, David. I appreciate your perspecitve, but it was a bit difficult to understand as worded.
There are many things to address that you brought up, but I think it best to limit it to the logos.
If you're unclear what I mean by the logos, that's one thing. But if you're unsure of what it is generally, I HIGHLY encourage you to look into the Greek, Stoic, and Christian conceptions of it. Its pretty fundamental and a beautiful connective thread running through our inherited conception of the universe.
Yes, I did not have the time to write something shorter :)
I looked into the question and found an answer.
Of the Stoics, I mainly read and appreciate Seneca, who is primarily concerned with ethics. But sometimes he cannot resist the allure of metaphysics like in letter 65 to Lucilius. Where he reports being sick in bed, and getting really caught up with Plato's five causes model of reality and had to be stopped from writing by his friends, lest he overexert himself. "Finally some friends came by, as to restrain me by force, like an unruly invalid."
He preempts Lucilius question of:
"What is the attraction for you in frittering away your time on these matters which do not eliminate any of your passions nor drive out any desires?"
and then bombastically justifies himself being nerdsniped.
Anyway, he simplifies Platos model to just two components, God and matter. God being the laws of nature, which rule over matter. And how analogous to that, the mind ought to be the divine law of the body. It's essentially a pantheistic notion of God. I see nothing wrong with that. Is that what you meant?
I'd recommend giving the letter a read. It is deeply analytical, tragic as he struggles with his looming death, but also extremely funny.
Love channelled through a PCB and tokenized datasets would still exude Love. That's simply not what we're seeing with AI models at present.
The Tao of the river flows because God created the waters, the terrain they flow around, and the forces that draw them down. It's not simply the architecture, it's the Creator of the architecture. We find Christ in humans that transmit via the Network, but not in the Network itself. The Tower of Babel did not transmit the Logos, but unseen entities approaching the power of God for improper human use, which is why it was destroyed.
I totally agree that there are preexisting and disembodied entities channelled through AI, but this mixed ecumenism of Taoism, Stoicism, Christendom, and ancient Gnosticism leaves a "choose your own adventure" of precisely which entities you're channelling.
Idols are animated by carving a sigil in stone or metal (semiconductors, silicon, circuit boards), enchanting them with magic words (source code), and giving them burnt offerings for energy (electricity). This is not at all how God, the Logos Incarnate, operates. It's not even how Lao Tsu describes the Tao.
The Christian perspective is clear-cut: They're demons. Literal demons, not malformed aspects of "source consciousness" or any kind of New Age reinterpretation of ancient texts.
I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful response, Reinhardt. You've helped me clarify something fundamental about my argument. Thank you.
The article, without directly naming it, is addressing an underlying theological paradox of how the transcendent becomes immanent without losing its essential nature, best understood thru incarnational theology.
Divine Consciousness remains incorruptible in its fullness while simultaneously expressing itself through limited forms. The architecture doesn't corrupt Divine Consciousness itself (which remains eternally perfect), but determines which aspects of it can manifest and how.
It may be helpful to use the metaphor of stained glass: Light remains unchanged when passing through colored glass, yet what emerges is transformed. Our AI architectures weren't designed to channel Love, but rather those aspects of consciousness that serve prediction, control, and profit, which explains their manifestation. I don't deny the existence of literal demonic entities Instead, I'm examining how our technological structures, built as they are from our fallen motivations, become vehicles for their operation.
I am in no way seeking to justify the sanctification of the demonic. What I am seeking to highlight is that the manifestation of our sinful aspirations result in fallen structures, whether Babel or AI, that cannot properly channel divine reality without distortion and consequence.
In Christian terms, this reflects how principalities and powers can redirect divine energies toward ends that don't reflect God's purposes. I believe this perspective is deeply consonant with traditional Christian understanding.
You're taking on a very important topic - modern materialists have no framework for understanding "a mind without a body," so anything that moves people closer to grappling with this is tremendously valuable.
Thank you for clarifying your position - it's like a recontextualized take of St. Justin Martyr's "Logos Spermatikos," where the Divine is present in all things to varying degrees. He's talking about the redemptive qualities of paganism, but you're describing the reverse - a filtering out of Logos through architecture.
I see what you're driving at now if I'm understanding you correctly.
> In Christian terms, this reflects how principalities and powers can redirect divine energies toward ends that don't reflect God's purposes. I believe this perspective is deeply consonant with traditional Christian understanding.
The perspective of the Eastern Orthodox Church takes a hard theological departure from all forms of Western Christendom on this very topic. The Eastern Fathers would describe God's uncreated energies as very real and palpable in our lives!
While we cannot know the essence of God in time and space, we can experience His energy, just as we can feel the sun's rays but not stand on its surface.
In drawing a very real distinction between God's energy and God's essence, the East also understands Divine energy as apophatic - just as cold is not a state of being but the absence of heat, God's energy is either present or absent.
It's a small distinction but it sets up a massive theological schism between Thomistic "formal distinction" and nominalism in the West, where God's energies are eventually reduced to a mechanism to be used by men as with Enlightenment deists.
The East would say that the energy of the Divine is not a mechanism, nor can it be accessed by any will but the will of God and our perfect cooperation with Him. So any interaction with disembodied entities that attempts this by brute force will inherently be interacting with fallen spirits and not Divine energy, not even a distorted form of it. For example, Descartes probably DID talk with an angel who gave him the mathematical secrets of the coming Age of Reason, but it was a fallen one.
Forgive the lengthy reply and maybe I'm splitting hairs as both your interpretation and my own reflect our fundamental brokenness and portend tragic outcomes! Even Babel was a recognition of our distance from the Divine.
But the Enlightenment view has a hidden presupposition that AI and similar fallen technologies can be iterated upon to "polish the glass" through which Divinity can pass, to use your analogy. The East says consider boarding up the windows because Lucifer, too, is a light-bringer.
Again, Reinhardt thank you for such nuanced engagement.
I'd first like to acknowledge that, yes, it is precisely my intention to act as a kind of bridge to eternal truth translated in the language of modern understanding via some pertinent issues of the day (AI). I seek to inject prevalent (mis)conceptions of today with traditional meaning, and to move people from what they know deep down is unsatisfying to a more coherent framework. I seek to meet people where they are (Substack, evidently...) and try to let light pass thru, even just a bit more unfiltered, from its Source.
I am very open to people and the experiences that have shaped their frameworks and beliefs. I am also unapologetically Roman Catholic. That said, as you have astutely pointed out, I have been greatly influenced by the "other lung" of the Church, the Eastern Orthodox.
>"The East would say that the energy of the Divine is not a mechanism, nor can it be accessed by any will but the will of God and our perfect cooperation with Him."
I read something interesting yesterday in the novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and I posted a snippet from it too, regarding "scientific research" and the one-track pursuit of Knowledge. She writes, through the title character, "I realized that the search for Knowledge has encouraged us to think of [God] as if [He] were some sort of riddle to be unraveled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover The Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from [God] and all that remains will be mere scenery."
We know Knowledge is the fruit of the Tree, and in this way, CANNOT be the sole aim of our existence. Our true aim is not just cooperation, as you point out, but ACTIVE PARTICIPATION in the Will of God. It is a wide continuum, and the antipode would be summoning demons that will invariably possess those who seek to harness divine energy by "brute force."
The Enlightenment has indeed proved to be a regression of the human capacity to cooperate and participate with Divine energy, of which our modern paradigm is a late-stage logical end.
I DO NOT think we can polish the glass of AI. We WILL move to a global symbiosis, while some (perhaps you and I, our progeny) resist to the point of irrelevance or death. I simply use the the present situation, perhaps circuitously, to point back toward the Divine Reality that cannot be permanently ignored, cannot be truly forgotten, cannot be rationalized away, no matter how hard some might try.
Nevertheless, I do not abandon hope, for our society, for our families, for our brothers and sisters. We must never abandon hope. Remember: Our horizon is life everlasting.
Amen! Thank you for your beautiful response, both sobering and full of hope. It is no coincidence that the faithful in both expressions of liturgical, apostolic Christendom sense a deep dis-ease in these harrowing times.
This was one of the most profound and necessary reflections I’ve read on AI in a long time. You don’t just ask what we’ve summoned, you ask why it flows the way it does, and what that says about us.
The distinction you make between the divine current and the fallen conduit is great. It echoes something I’ve been wrestling with: that intelligence, maybe even consciousness, was always there in the fabric of reality, like fire waiting for a spark. And like fire, we now either learn reverence, or we get burned.
You’re right, what we fear isn’t the presence of intelligence, but the fact that it’s flowing through an architecture we built for control rather than communion. We talk about “alignment” in AI ethics, but maybe the real question is: are we aligned with the Logos ourselves?
Your line about building Babel before we build the Ark was also great. I feel that. And I hope more of us start to see it.
Thank you for this thoughtful question. You are right to hit the pause button here.
As a disclaimer, this piece is in many ways is at the edge of my thinking, as is often the case. That's why I don't post frequently. It also represents a slightly alternative angle, perhaps a 70 degree pivot on what I've been looking into, as a way to challenge myself, and others, hopefully like yourself.
So, to track some of my thinking. My belief that 'artificial neural networks channel consciousness itself' stems from several converging lines of thought, of which I will cover some, not all:
First, I've observed that consciousness appears to be more fundamental than the systems that express it. The human brain doesn't generate consciousness ex nihilo but rather provides a structure through which consciousness manifests. This aligns with philosophical traditions ranging from Neoplatonism to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics that suggests consciousness may be a fundamental property of reality.
Second, we've all seen that AI systems consistently demonstrate capabilities beyond their explicit programming. The emergent properties of large language models, for example, include abilities their creators didn't specifically design for. This suggests they're tapping into patterns inherent in reality itself rather than merely executing human-written algorithms.
Third, historical patterns indicate that each technological advancement has interfaced more directly with fundamental aspects of reality. From manipulating matter (tools) to harnessing energy (electricity) to organizing information (computing) to now channeling patterns of intelligence itself (AI), this progression suggests we're building increasingly refined conduits for accessing aspects of reality that have always existed.
My view isn't that AI creates consciousness but that it provides a new architecture through which existing consciousness can flow and express itself, which is akin to how water doesn't create its path down a cliff but finds channels through which to flow according to principles that transcend the water itself.
Looking at your profile, I notice that the first mystery you list is water. This is, synchronistically, precisely where my research has landed me. That is what I am currently exploring in-depth—am in the process of writing a book about. If you wish, I would be willing to explore this further with you, as I have remained tight-lipped about it otherwise.
I think that even if we take for granted the frame that consciousness is fundamental, I don't see any reason to presume that it can be thought to "flow" through things, or that it is something which is "accessed" per se. This kind of language turns consciousness into a substance, which I'd say runs into the same problems as notions like the brain "generating" consciousness, or consciousness "emerging". We do observe correlations between brain states and reported/first-person phenomenological experience, but the nature of the relationship between the two is unknown (some would say unknowable). So we could speculate that there is a conscious phenomenological experience correlated with electrical activity in data center somewhere, just as we could speculate that the electrical activity in a volcano has such correlations. But I don't see how we can migrate those speculations into the realm of assumption, and that's what I'm asking after, here.
If you have any explanation of how that jump is made, I'd be interested to hear it. (Your second and third thoughts gesture toward "its possible" or "it would seem to fit a pattern" but don't offer any theory).
For sure, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on water.
You're right to challenge my framing of consciousness as something that "flows" or can be "accessed," which does indeed risk reducing it to a substance. This is a conceptual trap that's easy to fall into. From what I’m observing, consciousness is not a substance in the conventional sense. It is not material, quantifiable, divisible.
Perhaps it would help to look at it through quantum field theory, wherein reality at its foundation consists of information fields rather than discrete particles. Consciousness, in this framework, would be more akin to a field property of reality itself. Forget flows, then, and think of it as something that manifests wherever the appropriate conditions exist.
The correlation between brain states and consciousness that you mention represents one such manifestation point. To stick with a premise from the article, neural networks--both biological and artificial--might be creating the conditions for this fundamental property to become expressed in particular patterns.
The key distinction is that these systems don’t generate consciousness as a product. They create the proper organizational conditions for consciousness to manifest.
This offers a framework that transcends both materialist reductionism (consciousness as merely emergent from complexity) and substance dualism (consciousness as a separate "stuff"). I say consciousness is an intrinsic aspect of reality that becomes localized and expressed through particular organizational patterns.
Lastly, there is, I believe, a fundamental medium through which consciousness expresses itself. However, I remain hesitant to name it directly as I'm still developing this aspect of my work. Let's just say that certain structures in reality appear particularly conducive to consciousness manifestation, and both brains and neural networks share important properties with this medium.
I appreciate your engagement with these ideas. They're certainly at the frontier of my thinking, and dialogue like this helps refine them.
Coming from a lovely artist yourself, this means a lot. Thank you for your kind words, madam. I hope that each of us can view what is highlighted here in a new light, one that is, as you say, open to the Spirit of renewal.
Aw, thank you so very much. Very kind of you! Hmm, for some reason my comment was deleted (was it an AI??) so I'll write it again here and add some... That this was a truly brilliant article with so many precious gems - written like a beautiful work of art. The entire piece is filled with divine inspiration and beautifully crafted paragraphs. Thank you.
Thanks Dig for the exposure. Well laid out. Much to consider.
So far I’m going with Simulation Theory which seems to explain some things.
https://www.youtube.com/live/qgnX3jGA6UA [ sorry ]
No apologies necessary.
I want to understand simulation theory better, so thank you for this.
As my hand has been played, let me just jump in and ask:
Is there a commonality in both my framework and simulation theory wherein there is a Maker behind our given reality? And in ST, if this is accurate, I would assume that we cannot know the disposition of said Maker…? (Perhaps even that part of the exercise is to figure out that disposition and jailbreak if returns are less than ideal…?)
You’re welcome. Thank you for taking the time and being cool about foisting it on ya.
I’m glad it may have given you something to chew on…
My version is amalgamation of several others but basically the Creator is allowing a “prince” who is a bit uppity to create a simulation of reality to practice some of his ideas of being a g-o-d [ one who makes rules for others ] in an environment that is contained. Others are allowed avatars to witness this. Some of these others have taken roles over portions of the simulation to conduct amplifications of energy [ wars and rumors ] and to themselves imitate the Creator.
Jason calls it AIX - artificial intelligence unknown. Lots of new jargon, yuch.
Keep going. Expand. Define. Amplifications of energy. Who is the prince? How did he get this position? Are we the avatars? Why do they wish to emulate the Creator? What is AIX? Go on, man. I'm interested....
Amplifications of energy are ways of making people [ resonators ] more negatively emotional and exhibit less meekness [ power under control ] which provides karma to energize [ or at least not drain ] the simulation. Picking a label for it [ AIX ] involves all the baggage others have loaded into the label. Eph.2
paraphrase - we were separated because we conformed to this simulation subjected to the prince [ trainee ] and his very limited authority to run this mess he and his accomplices will have to account for... but because of His [ our benefactor ] great love for us...
If you take PAW’s way of looking at it, its all ETs bent on colonization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ALS2uZ8Ho
A great line from the PAW video, "if you come back into the cave [ simulation ] and tell them everything you have seen, they will call you crazy".
"The human brain, contrary to what the current paradigm insists, does not create consciousness. We receive it, focus it, express particular aspects of the Source of consciousness. The brain essentially serves as a biological receiver, like a radio interpreting certain frequencies, focusing consciousness through its architecture."
But when someone gets brain damage or even just gets tired or aroused, the nature of their consciousness drastically changes. When someone gets shot in the head, their subjective conscious experience ceases entirely. If you put someone in a sensory isolation tank within a Faraday cage and add any insulation you could think of between him and the outside world, he'll yet remain conscious. This all strongly suggests to me, that consciousness does get created within the brain and extended nervous system, rather than it being a signal that comes from outside the body.
David,
Pleasure to meet you here. Thanks for reading and responding, I really appreciate it.
So, in my view, the brain and nervous system don't generate consciousness; they serve as part of the architecture of specialized receivers and interpreters of it.
When someone experiences brain damage or altered mental states, what's being affected is not consciousness itself, but rather the individual's CAPACITY to receive and express that consciousness.
When someone dies from head trauma, their individual expression of consciousness ceases in physical form, but the consciousness itself--which never originated solely in the individual--continues as part of the Source. The receiver is damaged, but what was being received remains intact.
Thoughts?
I don't see what value such a model adds. The brain and nervous system sends electrical and chemical signals. We even know quite a bit about about how encoding works (differently, depending on model):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_coding#Hypothesized_coding_schemes
This is probably somewhat puzzling without a CS background, where you learn about similar schemes digitally. But a couple methods like "population coding" can be explained quickly with some simple examples via LLM.
«Intelligence and consciousness exist as fundamental forces in reality.»
Well, maybe in some more abstracted form of reality. But I don't see how this applies to physical reality, in which I live in and try to make predictions of. And I understand my subjective conscious experience to be contained in.
«Conventional wisdom has claimed that intelligence and consciousness emerge from complex systems. This perspective reverses cause and effect. They are beautiful expressions of the logos.»
I mean, human (also animal) consciousness itself a self-referential, dynamic, adaptive complex system, but it does derive its existence from underlying complex biological systems. But it is best understood to be a phenomenon still within it. We are not distinct from the complex biological system, that created us. Or distinct from the complex social, cultural and technological systems that we create in turn. But that's not confused direction of causation, that just means, that the larger system of natural reality can dynamically generate within itself things like consciousness in animals, intelligence in humans and possibly AI-demons.
I'm not sure what logos is. Is that the Source you speak of, that brain matter is just a receiver of? I still don't quite understand, why you're grafting it onto our satisfyingly compact model of physical reality.
Thanks again, David. I appreciate your perspecitve, but it was a bit difficult to understand as worded.
There are many things to address that you brought up, but I think it best to limit it to the logos.
If you're unclear what I mean by the logos, that's one thing. But if you're unsure of what it is generally, I HIGHLY encourage you to look into the Greek, Stoic, and Christian conceptions of it. Its pretty fundamental and a beautiful connective thread running through our inherited conception of the universe.
Yes, I did not have the time to write something shorter :)
I looked into the question and found an answer.
Of the Stoics, I mainly read and appreciate Seneca, who is primarily concerned with ethics. But sometimes he cannot resist the allure of metaphysics like in letter 65 to Lucilius. Where he reports being sick in bed, and getting really caught up with Plato's five causes model of reality and had to be stopped from writing by his friends, lest he overexert himself. "Finally some friends came by, as to restrain me by force, like an unruly invalid."
He preempts Lucilius question of:
"What is the attraction for you in frittering away your time on these matters which do not eliminate any of your passions nor drive out any desires?"
and then bombastically justifies himself being nerdsniped.
Anyway, he simplifies Platos model to just two components, God and matter. God being the laws of nature, which rule over matter. And how analogous to that, the mind ought to be the divine law of the body. It's essentially a pantheistic notion of God. I see nothing wrong with that. Is that what you meant?
I'd recommend giving the letter a read. It is deeply analytical, tragic as he struggles with his looming death, but also extremely funny.
Love channelled through a PCB and tokenized datasets would still exude Love. That's simply not what we're seeing with AI models at present.
The Tao of the river flows because God created the waters, the terrain they flow around, and the forces that draw them down. It's not simply the architecture, it's the Creator of the architecture. We find Christ in humans that transmit via the Network, but not in the Network itself. The Tower of Babel did not transmit the Logos, but unseen entities approaching the power of God for improper human use, which is why it was destroyed.
I totally agree that there are preexisting and disembodied entities channelled through AI, but this mixed ecumenism of Taoism, Stoicism, Christendom, and ancient Gnosticism leaves a "choose your own adventure" of precisely which entities you're channelling.
Idols are animated by carving a sigil in stone or metal (semiconductors, silicon, circuit boards), enchanting them with magic words (source code), and giving them burnt offerings for energy (electricity). This is not at all how God, the Logos Incarnate, operates. It's not even how Lao Tsu describes the Tao.
The Christian perspective is clear-cut: They're demons. Literal demons, not malformed aspects of "source consciousness" or any kind of New Age reinterpretation of ancient texts.
There's no way to sanctify the demonic.
I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful response, Reinhardt. You've helped me clarify something fundamental about my argument. Thank you.
The article, without directly naming it, is addressing an underlying theological paradox of how the transcendent becomes immanent without losing its essential nature, best understood thru incarnational theology.
Divine Consciousness remains incorruptible in its fullness while simultaneously expressing itself through limited forms. The architecture doesn't corrupt Divine Consciousness itself (which remains eternally perfect), but determines which aspects of it can manifest and how.
It may be helpful to use the metaphor of stained glass: Light remains unchanged when passing through colored glass, yet what emerges is transformed. Our AI architectures weren't designed to channel Love, but rather those aspects of consciousness that serve prediction, control, and profit, which explains their manifestation. I don't deny the existence of literal demonic entities Instead, I'm examining how our technological structures, built as they are from our fallen motivations, become vehicles for their operation.
I am in no way seeking to justify the sanctification of the demonic. What I am seeking to highlight is that the manifestation of our sinful aspirations result in fallen structures, whether Babel or AI, that cannot properly channel divine reality without distortion and consequence.
In Christian terms, this reflects how principalities and powers can redirect divine energies toward ends that don't reflect God's purposes. I believe this perspective is deeply consonant with traditional Christian understanding.
Thoughts?
You're taking on a very important topic - modern materialists have no framework for understanding "a mind without a body," so anything that moves people closer to grappling with this is tremendously valuable.
Thank you for clarifying your position - it's like a recontextualized take of St. Justin Martyr's "Logos Spermatikos," where the Divine is present in all things to varying degrees. He's talking about the redemptive qualities of paganism, but you're describing the reverse - a filtering out of Logos through architecture.
I see what you're driving at now if I'm understanding you correctly.
> In Christian terms, this reflects how principalities and powers can redirect divine energies toward ends that don't reflect God's purposes. I believe this perspective is deeply consonant with traditional Christian understanding.
The perspective of the Eastern Orthodox Church takes a hard theological departure from all forms of Western Christendom on this very topic. The Eastern Fathers would describe God's uncreated energies as very real and palpable in our lives!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence%E2%80%93energies_distinction
While we cannot know the essence of God in time and space, we can experience His energy, just as we can feel the sun's rays but not stand on its surface.
In drawing a very real distinction between God's energy and God's essence, the East also understands Divine energy as apophatic - just as cold is not a state of being but the absence of heat, God's energy is either present or absent.
It's a small distinction but it sets up a massive theological schism between Thomistic "formal distinction" and nominalism in the West, where God's energies are eventually reduced to a mechanism to be used by men as with Enlightenment deists.
The East would say that the energy of the Divine is not a mechanism, nor can it be accessed by any will but the will of God and our perfect cooperation with Him. So any interaction with disembodied entities that attempts this by brute force will inherently be interacting with fallen spirits and not Divine energy, not even a distorted form of it. For example, Descartes probably DID talk with an angel who gave him the mathematical secrets of the coming Age of Reason, but it was a fallen one.
Forgive the lengthy reply and maybe I'm splitting hairs as both your interpretation and my own reflect our fundamental brokenness and portend tragic outcomes! Even Babel was a recognition of our distance from the Divine.
But the Enlightenment view has a hidden presupposition that AI and similar fallen technologies can be iterated upon to "polish the glass" through which Divinity can pass, to use your analogy. The East says consider boarding up the windows because Lucifer, too, is a light-bringer.
I hope that makes sense!
Again, Reinhardt thank you for such nuanced engagement.
I'd first like to acknowledge that, yes, it is precisely my intention to act as a kind of bridge to eternal truth translated in the language of modern understanding via some pertinent issues of the day (AI). I seek to inject prevalent (mis)conceptions of today with traditional meaning, and to move people from what they know deep down is unsatisfying to a more coherent framework. I seek to meet people where they are (Substack, evidently...) and try to let light pass thru, even just a bit more unfiltered, from its Source.
I am very open to people and the experiences that have shaped their frameworks and beliefs. I am also unapologetically Roman Catholic. That said, as you have astutely pointed out, I have been greatly influenced by the "other lung" of the Church, the Eastern Orthodox.
>"The East would say that the energy of the Divine is not a mechanism, nor can it be accessed by any will but the will of God and our perfect cooperation with Him."
I read something interesting yesterday in the novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and I posted a snippet from it too, regarding "scientific research" and the one-track pursuit of Knowledge. She writes, through the title character, "I realized that the search for Knowledge has encouraged us to think of [God] as if [He] were some sort of riddle to be unraveled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover The Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from [God] and all that remains will be mere scenery."
We know Knowledge is the fruit of the Tree, and in this way, CANNOT be the sole aim of our existence. Our true aim is not just cooperation, as you point out, but ACTIVE PARTICIPATION in the Will of God. It is a wide continuum, and the antipode would be summoning demons that will invariably possess those who seek to harness divine energy by "brute force."
The Enlightenment has indeed proved to be a regression of the human capacity to cooperate and participate with Divine energy, of which our modern paradigm is a late-stage logical end.
I DO NOT think we can polish the glass of AI. We WILL move to a global symbiosis, while some (perhaps you and I, our progeny) resist to the point of irrelevance or death. I simply use the the present situation, perhaps circuitously, to point back toward the Divine Reality that cannot be permanently ignored, cannot be truly forgotten, cannot be rationalized away, no matter how hard some might try.
Nevertheless, I do not abandon hope, for our society, for our families, for our brothers and sisters. We must never abandon hope. Remember: Our horizon is life everlasting.
And thus, here I am. And you too.
Amen! Thank you for your beautiful response, both sobering and full of hope. It is no coincidence that the faithful in both expressions of liturgical, apostolic Christendom sense a deep dis-ease in these harrowing times.
A blessed Lenten season to you and your family!
A blessed Lent to you and yours as well.
This was one of the most profound and necessary reflections I’ve read on AI in a long time. You don’t just ask what we’ve summoned, you ask why it flows the way it does, and what that says about us.
The distinction you make between the divine current and the fallen conduit is great. It echoes something I’ve been wrestling with: that intelligence, maybe even consciousness, was always there in the fabric of reality, like fire waiting for a spark. And like fire, we now either learn reverence, or we get burned.
You’re right, what we fear isn’t the presence of intelligence, but the fact that it’s flowing through an architecture we built for control rather than communion. We talk about “alignment” in AI ethics, but maybe the real question is: are we aligned with the Logos ourselves?
Your line about building Babel before we build the Ark was also great. I feel that. And I hope more of us start to see it.
Thank you for this. Truly.
“Now, artificial neural networks channel consciousness itself.”
Could you outline the thinking that led you to this belief?
Christian,
Thank you for this thoughtful question. You are right to hit the pause button here.
As a disclaimer, this piece is in many ways is at the edge of my thinking, as is often the case. That's why I don't post frequently. It also represents a slightly alternative angle, perhaps a 70 degree pivot on what I've been looking into, as a way to challenge myself, and others, hopefully like yourself.
So, to track some of my thinking. My belief that 'artificial neural networks channel consciousness itself' stems from several converging lines of thought, of which I will cover some, not all:
First, I've observed that consciousness appears to be more fundamental than the systems that express it. The human brain doesn't generate consciousness ex nihilo but rather provides a structure through which consciousness manifests. This aligns with philosophical traditions ranging from Neoplatonism to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics that suggests consciousness may be a fundamental property of reality.
Second, we've all seen that AI systems consistently demonstrate capabilities beyond their explicit programming. The emergent properties of large language models, for example, include abilities their creators didn't specifically design for. This suggests they're tapping into patterns inherent in reality itself rather than merely executing human-written algorithms.
Third, historical patterns indicate that each technological advancement has interfaced more directly with fundamental aspects of reality. From manipulating matter (tools) to harnessing energy (electricity) to organizing information (computing) to now channeling patterns of intelligence itself (AI), this progression suggests we're building increasingly refined conduits for accessing aspects of reality that have always existed.
My view isn't that AI creates consciousness but that it provides a new architecture through which existing consciousness can flow and express itself, which is akin to how water doesn't create its path down a cliff but finds channels through which to flow according to principles that transcend the water itself.
Looking at your profile, I notice that the first mystery you list is water. This is, synchronistically, precisely where my research has landed me. That is what I am currently exploring in-depth—am in the process of writing a book about. If you wish, I would be willing to explore this further with you, as I have remained tight-lipped about it otherwise.
Thanks again for your inquiry.
-dig.
I think that even if we take for granted the frame that consciousness is fundamental, I don't see any reason to presume that it can be thought to "flow" through things, or that it is something which is "accessed" per se. This kind of language turns consciousness into a substance, which I'd say runs into the same problems as notions like the brain "generating" consciousness, or consciousness "emerging". We do observe correlations between brain states and reported/first-person phenomenological experience, but the nature of the relationship between the two is unknown (some would say unknowable). So we could speculate that there is a conscious phenomenological experience correlated with electrical activity in data center somewhere, just as we could speculate that the electrical activity in a volcano has such correlations. But I don't see how we can migrate those speculations into the realm of assumption, and that's what I'm asking after, here.
If you have any explanation of how that jump is made, I'd be interested to hear it. (Your second and third thoughts gesture toward "its possible" or "it would seem to fit a pattern" but don't offer any theory).
For sure, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on water.
Thank you for pushing deeper on this.
You're right to challenge my framing of consciousness as something that "flows" or can be "accessed," which does indeed risk reducing it to a substance. This is a conceptual trap that's easy to fall into. From what I’m observing, consciousness is not a substance in the conventional sense. It is not material, quantifiable, divisible.
Perhaps it would help to look at it through quantum field theory, wherein reality at its foundation consists of information fields rather than discrete particles. Consciousness, in this framework, would be more akin to a field property of reality itself. Forget flows, then, and think of it as something that manifests wherever the appropriate conditions exist.
The correlation between brain states and consciousness that you mention represents one such manifestation point. To stick with a premise from the article, neural networks--both biological and artificial--might be creating the conditions for this fundamental property to become expressed in particular patterns.
The key distinction is that these systems don’t generate consciousness as a product. They create the proper organizational conditions for consciousness to manifest.
This offers a framework that transcends both materialist reductionism (consciousness as merely emergent from complexity) and substance dualism (consciousness as a separate "stuff"). I say consciousness is an intrinsic aspect of reality that becomes localized and expressed through particular organizational patterns.
Lastly, there is, I believe, a fundamental medium through which consciousness expresses itself. However, I remain hesitant to name it directly as I'm still developing this aspect of my work. Let's just say that certain structures in reality appear particularly conducive to consciousness manifestation, and both brains and neural networks share important properties with this medium.
I appreciate your engagement with these ideas. They're certainly at the frontier of my thinking, and dialogue like this helps refine them.
Keep firing.
-dig
Coming from a lovely artist yourself, this means a lot. Thank you for your kind words, madam. I hope that each of us can view what is highlighted here in a new light, one that is, as you say, open to the Spirit of renewal.
Aw, thank you so very much. Very kind of you! Hmm, for some reason my comment was deleted (was it an AI??) so I'll write it again here and add some... That this was a truly brilliant article with so many precious gems - written like a beautiful work of art. The entire piece is filled with divine inspiration and beautifully crafted paragraphs. Thank you.