Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God
Scientific American ^ | 1/7/02 | Michael Shermer

Posted on 01/07/2002 8:19:37 AM PST by dead

...........

As scientist extraordinaire and author of an empire of science-fiction books, Arthur C. Clarke is one of the farthest-seeing visionaries of our time. His pithy quotations tug harder than those of most futurists on our collective psyches for their insights into humanity and our unique place in the cosmos. And none do so more than his famous Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

This observation stimulated me to think about the impact the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) would have on science and religion. To that end, I would like to immodestly propose Shermer's Last Law (I don't believe in naming laws after oneself, so as the good book says, the last shall be first and the first shall be last): "Any sufficiently advanced ETI is indistinguishable from God."

God is typically described by Western religions as omniscient and omnipotent. Because we are far from possessing these traits, how can we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely from an ETI who merely has them copiously relative to us? We can't. But if God were only relatively more knowing and powerful than we are, then by definition the deity would be an ETI!

Consider that biological evolution operates at a snail's pace compared with technological evolution (the former is Darwinian and requires generations of differential reproductive success; the latter is Lamarckian and can be accomplished within a single generation). Then, too, the cosmos is very big and very empty. Voyager 1, our most distant spacecraft, hurtling along at more than 38,000 miles per hour, will not reach the distance of even our sun's nearest neighbor, the Alpha Centauri system (which it is not headed toward), for more than 75,000 years.

Ergo, the probability that an ETI only slightly more advanced than we are will make contact is virtually nil. If we ever do find an ETI, it will be as though a million-year-old Homo erectus were dropped into the 21st century, given a computer and cell phone and instructed to communicate with us. The ETI would be to us as we would be to this early hominid--godlike.

Because of science and technology, our world has changed more in the past century than in the previous 100 centuries. It took 10,000 years to get from the dawn of civilization to the airplane but just 66 years to get from powered flight to a lunar landing.

Moore's Law of computer power doubling every 18 months or so is now approaching a year. Ray Kurzweil, in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines, calculates that there have been 32 doublings since World War II and that the singularity point--the point at which total computational power will rise to levels so far beyond anything that we can imagine that it will appear nearly infinite and thus be indistinguishable from omniscience--may be upon us as early as 2050.

When that happens, the decade that follows will put the 100,000 years before it to shame. Extrapolate out about a million years (just a blink on an evolutionary timescale and therefore a realistic estimate of how far advanced ETIs will be), and we get a gut-wrenching, mind-warping feel for how godlike these creatures would seem. In Clarke's 1953 novel, called Childhood's End, humanity reaches something like a singularity and must then make the transition to a higher state of consciousness. One character early in the story opines that "science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now."

Although science has not even remotely destroyed religion, Shermer's Last Law predicts that the relation between the two will be profoundly affected by contact with an ETI. To find out how, we must follow Clarke's Second Law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." Ad astra!

Michael Shermer is founding publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and author of The Borderlands of Science.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 221-222 next last
To: dead
1) I'm not a Biblical scholar but.......Who said:

and you will KNOW HIM/them by HIS/their WORKS (?)

2) Corollary- I am reminded of Star Trek Movie #5 where Kirk asks the Deity: "What does God need with a starship?"

(LOL). I think Capt. Kirk knew the difference!

21 posted on 01/07/2002 8:56:31 AM PST by DoctorMichael
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kidd
I will have no problem distinguishing God from Spock.

But can William Shatner distinguish Kirk from God?

That's the real question.

22 posted on 01/07/2002 8:56:44 AM PST by OWK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: dead
A thread on the liklihood of intelligent life, or any animal life at all beyond earth, NASA-funded, too.

A Universe Of Life: Maybe Not


23 posted on 01/07/2002 8:57:54 AM PST by RightWhale
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: onedoug
invention or discovery

Please define these terms for us, if you would be so kind.

24 posted on 01/07/2002 8:59:57 AM PST by RightWhale
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: dead
lurking...
25 posted on 01/07/2002 9:00:54 AM PST by Come get it
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
..how can we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely from an ETI who merely has them copiously relative to us?

There is a metaphysical outlook in some of today's religious thought that understands God as "Being" (in totality) not just "a being". In that perspective, intelligence is a characteristic of God; and, any manifestation of intelligence, no matter how much more advanced than ours, is just another "offspring" of that ommipotent Source.

I like your article - it stimulates thinking outside the delusion that God is anything like our temporary human condition.

26 posted on 01/07/2002 9:13:16 AM PST by Semper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
God is typically described by Western religions as omniscient and omnipotent.

It would be very interesting to know whether Shermer has any idea of what these terms mean, theologically. I suspect he does not. We cannot evaluate Shermer's ideas properly until he tells us what he thinks he means.

Because we are far from possessing these traits, how can we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely from an ETI who merely has them copiously relative to us? We can't.

Well, I don't know about that. Seen from the perspective of religion, the difference between God and your everyday alien is rather clear -- for example, God can create ETIs (and the universe they inhabit), but the converse does not hold.

There's also the matter of precisely how one knows and understands the existence of God, that an alien presence would be hard-pressed to duplicate. The OT addresses the point thusly: And he said, "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:11-12)

Figuratively speaking, Shermer's ETIs are equivalent to the wind, earthquake, and fire -- none of which are God. They can do things within the universe, but they are not the still, small voice.

The passage applies to this topic in that ultimately it doesn't matter whether we can tell an ETI from God -- if God exists, the existence of ETIs is extremely interesting, but not theologically important.

There is also a more basic problem here: if an ETI is passing itself off as God -- well, there wouldn't be any meaningful difference between them and the false prophets described in both the Old and New Testaments. If one grants the existence of God, then the usual understanding is that He will highlight the differences between Himself and a merely-smart alien. IOW, we may not be able to tell the difference, but God can, and will show us.

"Honest" aliens, on the other hand, would be expected to announce that they're not God, or at least not try to pass themselves off as such.

But if God were only relatively more knowing and powerful than we are, then by definition the deity would be an ETI!

A pointless little comment -- of course God would fit the definition of an ETI, given that He is an Intelligence not of this Earth.

Shermer has a cute angle here but his ideas are neither particularly interesting, nor particularly new. At most, he demonstrates a stunning lack of understanding of religion, theology, and the logical implications of God.

The approach here seems to be: Because we cannot tell ETIs from God, there is no God. Of course, a real skeptic would understand that Shermer's implication is false.

27 posted on 01/07/2002 9:17:47 AM PST by r9etb
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
God (per present beliefs) can raise the dead, even if all DNA has been destroyed; remove us from our universe; and create new universes, as complex and on the same scale as ours. It's possible that a sufficiently advanced ETI might be seen by some as a small-g god, but as God...? Somehow, I doubt it.

OTOH, this is literally true: As God goes beyond Earth, He is an ETI. So I guess a sufficiently advanced ETI would be indistinguishable from God, because He is God.

28 posted on 01/07/2002 9:18:57 AM PST by Celtjew Libertarian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
1Tim 6:20 ... avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
29 posted on 01/07/2002 9:22:11 AM PST by biblewonk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pres Raygun
Will those great new computers crash as often as PCs do now? Will there be a Dell tech to do the house calls or will it be a robot?
30 posted on 01/07/2002 9:23:16 AM PST by Paulus Invictus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: semper_libertas
I dropped Scientific American almost 20 years ago. It has become devoid of original thinking or reliable science. It has become a political pamphlet full of "progressive" nonsense.

You might want to give them another shot. Something very odd is going on over there.

I subscribe to the magazine and the current issue has a huge article (not available online) that efficiently dismantles the entire brouhaha surrounding human-caused species extinction. It takes each point of the envirowackos and points out its flaws. It also picks apart the whole methodology for species cataloguing. While it doesn’t come right out and say the whole thing is a scam, it does very clearly blow holes in the arguments of the chicken-littles (almost to the point of out-right mocking them.) It was exactly the opposite of what I expected to read.

The prior month’s issue featured an article that offered up tons of evidence that the great liberal mantra that smaller class sizes equate to better education (pushed like religion by the teacher’s unions) was completely specious.

And a few issues before that, they printed an article comparing the advantages and disadvantages of drilling in ANWR that featured completely reasonable examination of the environmental impact, and minimized the threat to the region.

There has been a noticeable editorial shift over there in the past few months.

31 posted on 01/07/2002 9:26:32 AM PST by dead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: semper_libertas
True science is the discovery of God. Truth about God and God's universe can only destroy religions that are founded upon flawed human ideals... Religions sincerely devoted to God will be strengthened by science, never weakened.

I really like that. One of the most percipient observations I have seen here.

32 posted on 01/07/2002 9:26:54 AM PST by Semper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: dead
This sounds like an introduction to scientology.
33 posted on 01/07/2002 9:27:48 AM PST by Eva
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #34 Removed by Moderator

To: Celtjew Libertarian
Reading the thread and so far nobody has picked it up. I believe the full A.C. Clarke quote is "Any sufficiently advanced technology introduced to a primative society, is indistinguishable from magic." I think that by not having the full quote, the author tends to be a little disingenuous. My opinion.
35 posted on 01/07/2002 9:29:25 AM PST by 7thson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: dead
When that happens, the decade that follows will put the 100,000 years before it to shame. Extrapolate out about a million years (just a blink on an evolutionary timescale and therefore a realistic estimate of how far advanced ETIs will be), and we get a gut-wrenching, mind-warping feel for how godlike these creatures would seem.

This paragraph negates the author's thesis. If God exists, he predates all creation. Thus, He could not "evolve" since He is already by definition, perfect and unchanging.

Thus, we have identified a criterion for distinguishing between God and "god-like" ETs.

36 posted on 01/07/2002 9:31:00 AM PST by Cincinatus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
If we ever do find an ETI, it will be as though a million-year-old Homo erectus were dropped into the 21st century, given a computer and cell phone and instructed to communicate with us. The ETI would be to us as we would be to this early hominid--godlike.

Bad analogy -- the ETI would be more like the Wizard of Oz to the tinman: he never did give the tinman anything that he didn't already have ("never mind the man behind those curtains"). Technology is master over what already is. Technology cannot create. And it's still "garbage-in, garbage-out" -- bound to be overturned when better garbage becomes available. Nothing pure, nothing pristine, nothing perfect, nothing at all like God, who creates from nothing.

And if God is all and all is God, then God is part of the problem; I cannot accept that, either.

37 posted on 01/07/2002 9:33:12 AM PST by Migraine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: semper_libertas
BUMP
38 posted on 01/07/2002 9:34:20 AM PST by horsewhispersc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: dead
Since the beginning of time, men everywhere attributed phenomenas they did not understand to the Gods. We see it in every culture.

There is little doubt that if you could return to the Roman Empire armed with a handgun you would soon be deemed a god, or at least a wizard of some sort.

While it is going too far to categorically state that first contact with ETI would result in our worship of them as God, as we think of Him, our awe would no less than if they were gods.

39 posted on 01/07/2002 9:34:34 AM PST by Dog Gone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
This whole thing is athiestic mumbo-jumbo. When little ET can convince me that he created the universe, I might be more willing to listen.
40 posted on 01/07/2002 9:34:47 AM PST by Don Myers
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 221-222 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson