God Is the Machine

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS 0. AND THEN THERE WAS 1. A MIND-BENDING MEDITATION ON THE TRANSCENDENT POWER OF DIGITAL COMPUTATION

At today's rates of compression, you could download the entire 3 billion digits of your DNA onto about four CDs. That 3-gigabyte genome sequence represents the prime coding information of a human body — your life as numbers. Biology, that pulsating mass of plant and animal flesh, is conceived by science today as an information process. As computers keep shrinking, we can imagine our complex bodies being numerically condensed to the size of two tiny cells. These micro-memory devices are called the egg and sperm. They are packed with information.

That life might be information, as biologists propose, is far more intuitive than the corresponding idea that hard matter is information as well. When we bang a knee against a table leg, it sure doesn't feel like we knocked into information. But that's the idea many physicists are formulating.

The spooky nature of material things is not new. Once science examined matter below the level of fleeting quarks and muons, it knew the world was incorporeal. What could be less substantial than a realm built out of waves of quantum probabilities? And what could be weirder? Digital physics is both. It suggests that those strange and insubstantial quantum wavicles, along with everything else in the universe, are themselves made of nothing but 1s and 0s. The physical world itself is digital.

The scientist John Archibald Wheeler (coiner of the term "black hole") was onto this in the '80s. He claimed that, fundamentally, atoms are made up of of bits of information. As he put it in a 1989 lecture, "Its are from bits." He elaborated: "Every it — every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself — derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely from binary choices, bits. What we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes/no questions."

To get a sense of the challenge of describing physics as a software program, picture three atoms: two hydrogen and one oxygen. Put on the magic glasses of digital physics and watch as the three atoms bind together to form a water molecule. As they merge, each seems to be calculating the optimal angle and distance at which to attach itself to the others. The oxygen atom uses yes/no decisions to evaluate all possible courses toward the hydrogen atom, then usually selects the optimal 104.45 degrees by moving toward the other hydrogen at that very angle. Every chemical bond is thus calculated.

If this sounds like a simulation of physics, then you understand perfectly, because in a world made up of bits, physics is exactly the same as a simulation of physics. There's no difference in kind, just in degree of exactness. In the movie The Matrix, simulations are so good you can't tell if you're in one. In a universe run on bits, everything is a simulation.

An ultimate simulation needs an ultimate computer, and the new science of digitalism says that the universe itself is the ultimate computer — actually the only computer. Further, it says, all the computation of the human world, especially our puny little PCs, merely piggybacks on cycles of the great computer. Weaving together the esoteric teachings of quantum physics with the latest theories in computer science, pioneering digital thinkers are outlining a way of understanding all of physics as a form of computation.

From this perspective, computation seems almost a theological process. It takes as its fodder the primeval choice between yes or no, the fundamental state of 1 or 0. After stripping away all externalities, all material embellishments, what remains is the purest state of existence: here/not here. Am/not am. In the Old Testament, when Moses asks the Creator, "Who are you?" the being says, in effect, "Am." One bit. One almighty bit. Yes. One. Exist. It is the simplest statement possible.

Sorry, I didn't realize I was irritating. You say to choose God

for all your asking questions to learn, you certainly have a short memory. For one thing, you say here I didn't realize that as I didn't read the article. I just like replying to people, especially if it's controversial. Which to me belies the idea that you're actually interested in people's thoughts and more interested in the "controversy.

We have talked about this before not long ago.

The greater portion of the picture includes a loving relationship with a creator

You assume that humans are only flesh and blood, whereas the Bible (as well as a lot of theists) would claim a human being is spirit also, in contrast to the animals who *are,* according to Christian teaching, only flesh and blood.

It is in that spirit which we have a relationship with God and our flesh (our mind and hearts and ensuing actions) should reflect that. Perhaps you're asking question just to bother people, not actually listening to or caring about the answers?

HERE is where I answer your question about the 'all roads lead to God' mindset you then respond

Sorry, it was too long, I didn't read it all. I find it interesting that while you state that no religion know everything, your religion happens to know what God said said

Also ahref = "http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/787491/posts?page=245#245"> here you say "How do you know God loves, and is relationship-oriented?"

SO don't pretend to not know what I mean when I say "choose God."

In addition you snidely posted

Ok, I'll start believing as you would want me to.

Which isn't what I had said at all in the post you were replying to, and thus makes it very clear that all your "but I'm only trying to learn" act is just that... an act.

HERE you say: I really doubt that I will ask them this because I don't believe it's any of my business, and besides, I don't care. I have no desire to read up on Islam

So, you care about finding out what others believe, and why, but you don't care about reading up on Islam. Then why bother asking questions about *anyone's* beliefs, if their beliefs are none of your business? The only conclusion that can be reached is that you are doing it to 'wield the socratic/dialectic method like a club."

Here is a link to the

Socratic method

since you either are incapable of or are unmotivated to do any research on your own but ask questions of people here and try in your own mind to make them look foolish. But I bet that page is too long for you to read too like the post I made to you on that other thread. Are you hoping to learn everything you want to know in a hundred words or less? Good luck, but you'll remain in ignorance that way.

Whether you believe it or not, the God of the Bible wants a relationship with you individually, and he desires the same with Muslims and Jews and athiests alike, so that you may spend eternity in peace with him, rather than the torment of eternity without him.

If the past and future exist, where are they?

I do hope you'll forgive me...

"Remember what I told you about time," it said. "When I was alive, I believed - as you do - that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know I could have walked through the walls."

The Last Unicorn
Peter S. Beagle.

"Subjective time with its emphasis on the now has no meaning...the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent."
Albert Einstein

Thanks for the snippet from Lewis. A truly great author. My reply to him, knowing full well that I don't stand anywhere near to his level of thinking or understanding is:

1. Imagine the most complex physical arrangement: countless multiple universes with individuals and even entire species traveling back and forth between these multiple universes, and back and forth in time on a regular basis.

2. Regardless of how complex this situation is, God is outside of it and can "see" everything that has gone on, that is going on, and that will go on.

3. God sees physical reality like we might "see" a DVD movie. We can skip to the end, pause at a special spot, review something we like, or go back and see the beginning.

4. The major difference in theories about free will among Christians seems to be Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Calvinists basically say that God created the universe (or multiverse) a specific way from all time and that is it. It's like having a library with only one book in it.

The Arminians, on the other hand, seem to be saying that the library is filled with every possible book that could potentially occur because of what individuals might choose to do. However, only one book is the actual description of what will happen in this universe/multiverse and God knows which book that is.

5. Those of us who would like to "prove" that we truly have free will are now left with two choices: one book sitting alone on a shelf, or a myriad of books with only one piece of non-fiction ... all others being descriptions of imaginary worlds.

6. If God had nothing to do with the creation or maintenance of the world, then him merely knowing ahead of time what we will do would have no affect on whether or not we have free will. However, God did create us and maintains us every day. So the question is much more complex: If He created us and He knows how our lives will end up ... down to the nittiest-grittiest detail ... then how can we way we have free will?

7. A woman can't be a "little pregnant". Likewise, I don't think an infinite God can be a "little omnipotent or omniscient". If he knows that Hitler will kill over 6,000,000 Jews, then he knows that you will choose Corn Flakes over oatmeal for breakfast on July 14, 2005.

8. God could have somehow weaved free will into the design of the universe. However, on this point the Calvinists seem adamant: there is no way that whatever free will God might have snuck into the machine would allow us to take any credit for our own salvation. God does not work with us but on us. So the Calvinists' view of free will is a very severe one with free will amounting to little more than us being strapped into the rollercoaster seat of reality and nodding agreement as life whirls on by.

9. Imagine that you are a creator of one of these virtual worlds on the internet such as Everquest. With regard to you, the players do have free will. You only create the environment in which they act out their fantasies. As creator and maintainer of the game you can throw a whole bunch of "deus ex machinas" at them in the form of ogres, dragons, pots of gold, etc. but you can never be absolutely certain how they will react and how the whole thing will play out. God has no such limitation with regards to the Universe he created. He is no simple clockmaker that just started the whole thing running. He knows not only that He will cause Mount St. Helens to erupt, but that certain people will be very close at that time and will die because of it, while others will be miles away safely robbing a 7-11.

So basically I don't believe its that simple. Many of the examples one can use to think about free will vs. determinism end up sounding like dorm room discussion fodder and are quickly dissed and dismissed by the serious Calvinists. So be it. Evidently there are a number of obscure books that have been written over the years that discuss free will in all the gory details. I will try to get a hold of some of them to see if they shed any light on this topic, which I think is a truly worthwhile one for a website called FreeRepublic ...

especially since a disturbingly large percentage of the posters on this forum seem to be limited in their vision and susceptible to towing the party line to an extent that makes the average Calvinist seem like a bomb-throwing Anarchist!

I don't think an infinite God can be a "little omnipotent or omniscient"

Because one IS omnipotent doesn't mean they have to exercise it all the time.

There is the old question about "if God is so powerful can he create a rock so big that he cannot lift it?"

Physcially no, because he transcends the rock.

However, he can limit himself *because* of love - love being his essence, as well as purity and holiness.

If he creates a creature with which he desires to have a free will love relationship, he can limit his direct influence upon that individual for the sake of love - for the sake of himself.

In that way he has created a rock he cannot lift. It is not that he cannot lift it, but that by lifting it, he destroys it.

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