But, what if in fact your biological form, and even more broadly, the entire material existence is actually produced by a consciousness… think of it like the world in your dreams, it is all contained within your consciousness.

of course it’s difficult to prove this idea one way or another, but certainly you should allow for the possibility. and if somehow it is the truth, then when you “die” your psyche may yet live on.

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Devices are becoming smaller and faster every day with information technology moving at a rate unprecedented. With the public’s growing appetite for updated technology, people will surely become unsatisfied with accessing this info-pool through their computer screen. Eventually information will be moving around at such a rate that the only way to keep up with it will be to ditch the screen altogether and connect your mind directly to the system, about as interactive as you can get. This blending of biology and technology will create a collective intelligence, our partially artificial mind able to process infinitely more information than currently possible. Knowledge will no longer be learned but downloaded, our mind’s storage capabilities as vast as the internet itself. At that point we would cease to be a world of separate thinking brains, but a single thinking machine. An internet of connected minds processing and sharing information in ways we can’t begin to imagine.

Artificial intelligence isn’t going to be found in some new species of robot blessed with human consciousness deep in the future; it’s going to be us. We are the thinking machine. Able to access information as you would a memory, digitally and biologically improving every day, no longer considered a group of users but a living and breathing database with no real measurable life span. An information species capable of becoming a god.

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2) what the f**k is Newday? 350 people were instantly healed? is that a joke. that is physically impossible. you are lying about that woman. that didn’t happen. how would that not have happened to the millions of other deaf people in human history that prayed so adamantly to god?

[ ADMIN edit -- Hey, NigerianDude, calm down and stop swearing will you? ]

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tl,dr; Not going to read over nine thousand words of some guy pretending he met god. At least his version of god is less retarded than mainstream religions.

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I’ve always found meaning in the common human experience of loving the moment, assuming nothing after, and feeling love and compassion for others.

This account makes out that there actually is a point, but it is to species-race to get to a stage where we might be able to be a god who gets bored.

In one go it seems to belittle the anguish and injustice endured by so many, and the amazing capacity for love we are capable of.

This is depressing in that to accept this version of reality would mean we’re not here for the beauty of the moment, but part of yet another competition for a prize I’m not sure I would want.

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Isn’t the reason we don’t respect ants because they don’t even have the potential to evolve into the species we are(one that has worthwhile conversations with god)? Isn’t that the fundamental reason why we don’t respect their life, not because they are simply not there yet. It’s possible I’m wrong about the potentiality thing. Or could it be I’m wrong because this god simply operate by a different set of values?

Second, I have a rather large, long-winded set of observations concerning the paradigm of the story and several dilemmas it poses in regards to the story’s intent:

So, if this God is omnipotent, why could he not accelerate the process?

Let me elaborate:
If this god really believes in our potential to reach “Level Two” why doesn’t he simply forgo the trial and error aspect, and simply facilitate? He would certainly observe increased success rates, if not the complete elimination of failures. I understand there is the explanation that we evolve by our trials and that’s fine for this argument. However, for how apparently powerful this god is, what-with the ability to create a universe, it seems odd that the trials would have to be administered in such an unforgiving manner.

Is the best way to teach a child how to swim to throw them in the deep end? No, you teach them what to do first. To what to degree you go about this is often debated, but the general consensus is that most children without instruction, will drown.

Also, note that some children who turn out to be fantastic swimmers can’t manage anything past a floundering pseudo-doggy paddle at first. Apparently, god is of the mind we should let these kids drown?

Even if this weren’t a legitimate point (perhaps god is not up to date on the latest teaching methods?). There are numerous other dilemmas.

For example, why destroy the Dinosaurs? First, recognize that the proposed deity does see value in all life–however variant the level of value may be. Given this, Is not simply creating a new planet from the static materials existent en masse throughout the universe a better solution? Is this not especially true given that:

1. Dinosaurs could have continued to live.
2. The new planet could have been constructed in a manner more conducive to yielding the life desired by Stottle’s deity. There seems to be little argument for starting anew on Earth, Earth had thus far been unable to yield the desired lifeform. And in terms of continuity, virtually non of our development has hinged on the presence of dinosaurs. We only discovered them in last century, and no, they are not what makes up oil.

Although, regardless of whether the asteroid was even redirected, or if it was a predetermined “test”, starting fresh in a fresh location at the FIRST sign that Dinosaurs would not live up to their potential would certainly be more expedient
if only for the fact that letting dinosaurs flounder for hundreds of millions of years with little progress, then reverting to Level 0 on Earth, and then hoping that chance would provide a more promising candidate from Mammalia…it all seems to be a little bit of a waste of time.

This probably most true due to the fact it should have been pretty clear early on that Dinosaurs were heading nowhere. Humans are a single species, as opposed to the conglomeration of countless species and families entailed by Dinosaur.

(I personally see nothing beautiful about the walking set of teeth that is T-Rex)

Furthermore, this single species has achieved, in a fraction of the time the myriad species of Dinosaur roamed the Earth, an unprecedented level of dominance during their existence. The moment Dinosaurs failed to display an ability to develop themselves exponentially should have been the signal to pull the plug. Otherwise, this god seems to me lazy on an epic scale, or a least in possession of some terrible foresight. Especially when, according to the story, there are countless other examples of more successful lifeforms he could have looked to when deliberating.

Advancing my original idea, is it not also just as likely that Mammalia would simply produce another Gorilla-like species instead of man? That species would be for the purposes of this experiment of no more, or–according to the piece–of LESS value than the very Dinosaurs it would be replacing?

Isn’t it possible that Earth could have continued to yield unsuitable life-forms indefinitely, or that is, until our “primary” dies? Where is this deity’s logic in in creating a world that will only sustain life unsuitable for the purpose of his experience? The fact that this god seemingly cannot predict how a species will fare from its genesis raises another question that I pose later in this response.

It’s not over yet. On the subject of producing “suitable” lifeforms, yet ANOTHER question is raised: Does the development of lifeforms, in a variety of ways, depend on the conditions of their environment–the relative harshness of their biosphere? This particular question is capable of posing problems no matter how you approach it.

On one hand, there are those who accept that environment plays a certain role in the development of higher lifeforms. Following this line of reason, is it not possible that a life form on a world with less-severe conditions could be given a distinct advantage over Humans or any species subject to similar circumstances? Much in the way that certain human culture experienced more rapid growth depending on geographical and climate related conditions. If so, this seems to yet again impede upon the practicality of this little Grow-Your-Own-Deity project (yet there are questions of even greater significance that have yet to even be addressed.)

Mesopotamia, the first recorded civilization, originated in a region far more forgiving and fertile than what is found in Northern Europe, yet their culture was by all accounts far more advanced at times when they coexisted. Similarly, ancient Latin American civilization originated in what is arguably one of the most bountiful environments on the planet, and yet they flourished in their surroundings in ways that it took Europeans (culturally descendant from, and indebted to the aforementioned Mesopotamians) thousands of years, not just to exceed, but even to rival.

Wouldn’t similar discrepancies between life-sustaining worlds also create similar inequalities? Wouldn’t certain lifeforms that hold distinct advantages over others interfere with this god’s ability to judge the potentiality of the various species?

However, the larger problem is not the one posed by dilemmas concerning efficiency or practicality (these words appear a lot in my response).

The heart of the problem is seen when you approach the initial question from the opposite standpoint.This imagined experiment is still based upon the idea that the most desirable results result from trial by fire (ignoring the possibility the god figure does not want the most desirable results). Yet, we’ve already seen this is not necessarily true even within our species, and it also does not account for some qualities that are unique to mankind.

The environment may influence the evolution of certain physical faculties, but there is no natural condition on the Earth that requires our brains to be capable of calculating the trajectories of space rockets or the ability to compose symphonies of incredible complexity.

The basic functions these skills require are perhaps necessary to survive, but why did we make the leap? Why did we make the leap from brains that allowed for only constant development (the use of bamboo stalks as tools, the ability to recognize patterns, taking pleasure in music, etc.,) to possessing minds that enabled exponential development? Creativity? Abstract thought?

The evolutionary factor that could’ve spurred such a leap is as much of a
missing link as the connection between Homo Sapien and Neanderthal man. Such a factor would have needed to be evident for hundreds of generations and would have, for some reason, needed to affect only humans and none of our primate relatives.

Given these circumstances, common sense dictates that such a factor would be much easier to identify than an extinct primate skeleton between 4 and 5 feet tall SOMEWHERE in Africa. I will not speculate on what that unidentified factor really is, but I will say there a variety of explanations scientific and otherwise. Most significant to this discussion however is that we do not know in the real world what enabled our species to develop into the dominant life form we are, nor does there appear any mention of it within the short story.

So we are led to the true motivation behind our initial question: Is it possible that our environment had nothing to do with our current level of development? I would say yes, it is possible. And so, if this god is attempting to create some company for himself, he is, for a supreme being, is going about it in a very roundabout way.

Questions regarding this god’s apparent shortcomings do not stop there. This god, being at the level of development he is, and being the creator of this proposed universe, must be knowledgable of all its laws of physics and objects. Given that all phenomena and objects, down to our very thoughts, are the result of physical, measurable events, this god should, with his perfect understanding of physics and the universe, be able to predict the ultimate outcome of all the universe’s events, or at the VERY least, be able to estimate what they will EXTREMELY likely be, and in this scenario, all with an EXTREMELY low margin for error.

This begs, yet again, that ultimate question that seems to pester Mr. Stottle, and anyone who seeks to find the answers in the natural world (this goes for many believers in God as well). Why all the complication? Why all the misery? Why the joy (if joy’s not your thing)? Why the long, drawn-out experiment? WHY?

Don’t tell me that it’s in an attempt to accurately replicate his same evolution. Because a being at the level of development described in the story (the apex of evolution), with “absolute” knowledge of all things–indeed the designer and monitor of all things, should also be able to use this knowledge to create an equal with adequate distinction to satisfy the vague rationale provided for this whole project in the first place.

To me, it seems like the process could be abbreviated into something less complicated than the construction of a new universe, but perhaps I’m just lazy. Perhaps, this god could just teach us? Or is that still not possible to do without miscommunication, even when deified and possessing the ability to communicate by thought?

This ‘natural god’ is described as possessing a kind of omnipotence achieved by natural evolution. Would he not be able to utilize this natural omnipotence as architect of our universe to manipulate the entire paradigm in the same way that the Supernatural vision of God is purported to be able to do?

The answer of course to this question is, no, he would not. Because the being described in this story, despite all its dominance of the cosmos, and all its mastery of the evolutionary process, is still at its core, subject to Space and Time. He is not God.

It is never explained how he was able to “create” this universe (specifically where he drew the requisite matter from, or if he somehow managed to truly create it). Therefore, we must assume, due to the complication and particular inefficiency with which it moves toward its purpose, that this god is not omnipotent and lack the ability to truly create (which, as an ability, we know perhaps more surely than any of our scientific or theological truths, is impossible).

Your attempts to naturalize “The Deity” into terms we can understand has only succeeded in emasculating him.

As a self-described philosopher, you should have foreseen that this proposed paradigm, would generate some questions. . However, being the kind of person you are, I would not be surprised if you did not expect these questions to so fundamentally undermine the basic nature of your proposition in the way that they have; to the point of piling Man’s current existential problems onto god, which, of course is just a euphemism for an advanced state of Man, beings of reason…whatever.

However clever what you’ve written may be, it is still very low philosophy. And that is because it is founded on the belief in apex. True philosophy rejects Apex as being a feature of reality. In a philosophical understanding of the world, apexes do not exist. If one has reached an apex, it should be the the end of whatever pursuit it relates to. The ultimate apex thus entails the end of all pursuits. Why then does this God still pursue companionship? Why will he still pursue more knowledge (development) after he has succeeded in rearing all of his deity companions across the universe?

True philosophy pursues Absolute Truth. It recognizes that Absolute Truth, as with all absolute concepts, does not manifest itself within reality. Absolute Truth is that which we will always be able to see more of, yet never see entirely.

Even if your “god” had knowledge of every speck of matter and every event within this universe, and the same knowledge of whatever universe he originated from too; what of the other universes? You say he is a being of oneness, but what of other dimensions, is he not separate from them? And by this, is he also separate from similar lifeforms that dwell there? There are infinite dimensions. So even if he had the means to achieve oneness with them as well, he could never explore and come to know them all, no matter how much time he had.

This “deity” still exists within a reality that he is only able to understand and interact with through perception. As any philosopher knows, perception is the ultimate limitation. Be it an ant or the apex of all evolution, there can be no completeness in that which is perceived.

You may say that nothing cannot be perceived, but that’s just it. What is nothing? It is not a void, as you and other humanists and naturalists see it. Consider this: everything that exists or occurs can be defined by 1′s an 0′s. It is only by perceived notions of positive and negative that anything has definition–that we perceive at all. God exists between the positive and the negative. Eastern philosophy teaches this. The pursuit of life is not the ultimate advancement of self, in our initial forms, our self is temporal, perhaps with the advent of new technology, this will no longer be the case. Regardless, this new version of self is will still always be limited.

Perhaps you assumed removal of self meant the achievement of oneness, the abolishment of individuality? This is not so, that is simply substitution of one self for another larger self. The only true apex, exists in that plane beyond self, beyond perception. In perfect communion with that which is not.

This is true even for smartly dressed, 30 year olds.

Non-Existence, non-perception these two things are synonymous and they are not to be feared. They are what give our universe and all the infinite universes shape. It is Absolute Truth, it is God, it is all that is not defined by Space and Time. It is, in terms that we can best understand, what defines Space and Time themselves; and in the same way that Space and Time define our reality. That is the true meaning of what all people of all faiths mean by the term Creator. Creation is to truly give shape.

So, when this higher power of yours allows us to die, he is not being unmerciful, and we are certainly not failing, we are finally becoming one with the non-existent, the Absolute.

I pity the idea of this ‘natural god’, for at some point in its evolution, it must’ve come to the conclusion that it would be better to not die, to go on perceiving in the limited manner that is the only way we know. To struggle for eternity.

The message behind the story, that it is somehow our purpose to become just like your false deity is an inadequate answer to my personal existential questions (I cannot speak for you or your readers, Mr. Stottle). More importantly however, it is resultant from the misguided humanist belief that we can be freed from struggle while we still perceive. Indeed, that perception is the tool to free us from it.

That Mankind can ascend to the level of the Immortal, and become deity is not new as a concept. It is funny then that is so in vogue now to belittle those who still value spirituality. I say this because it was in some of the earliest spiritual traditions that this was first taught to be misguided. Certainly, to most people these accounts amount to fabrication at worst and dated parable at best, but the messages they relay are at times eerily relevant to these sorts of discussions. Can you recall any accounts of ancient people who tried to deify themselves coming to terrible ends? I would say eternal futility is a fairly terrible end–or lack there of…

Death, ceasing to exist, ceasing to perceive–this is not the loss of the struggle, it is the freedom from it. “The Deity” has clung to its life-force (perception) for an incomprehensible amount of time, yet does it seem to have achieved equilibrium at all? He still clearly wants for things or he would not be pursuing any of what he describes to Stottle.

The god described here, is not omnipotent. He exists, at times even in our universe, and thus, merely by being he has limits! Even the most powerful being there is, is still defined, like all beings, by what they are not. Thus, they still lack for qualities and are capable of being perceived as weak.

For me, God must be not be lacking, and cannot not exist within our realm or within the realm of realms. So “The Deity” for all his pre-eminence in this universe, is highly disappointing.

You and all humanists display a very unjustified arrogance in regard to spiritual concepts of a Creator. As evidenced in the short story, you refuse to even consider adopting them until you have reconfigured them to your beliefs; not even realizing that by doing so, you have removed them from what made them meaningful in the first place.

Those that believe in God today, for the most part, are very misguided about the actual spirit of belief in Him. Most could probably not express it well with words if asked. However, regardless of people and their often flawed approach to faith, that spirit still does within most beliefs, reside.

You have proposed an alternative system by which humans can believe in a higher power, one founded on reason and deduction. Furthermore, you have called the figurehead of this system, god. I take no issue with both these actions.

The premise for this supreme being is, despite the shortcomings noted initially in my response, still solid on the whole. Also, the language you use makes no difference to me, god is just a word. However, you conveniently ignore the fact that a being deduced by reason is subject to reason.

We cannot reasonably imagine a being without perception and thus, all postulations on the nature of god, not only need not be founded on reason, but, in fact, cease to be productive when extended beyond the idea that God is beyond reasonable understanding.

The fact remains that this construction of yours while being a higher power than mankind by a factor of perhaps 100,000,000,000,000 to 1, it is not the highest power. Nor is anything that you or I could possibly imagine using the means we have been given in this reality.

The highest power operates in a realm that is polar to ours in every way. We are beings of free will and intellect. (Free will also being a pretty convincing candidate for that missing evolutionary factor–just saying).

Our free will and intellect enable us to use reason, and it also allows us to navigate through linear Time, to progress. This progression may eventually result in our becoming a being of near-perfect reason, but we are still not God. God is, and God can only be; never not be. He is a being of equilibrium just as we are beings that will always either progress, or perhaps regress. And this is something we will never truly understand until we join that equilibrium after death.

The highest power is the being (and I use “being” only for lack of a better word) that is true inspiration behind all real spirituality–all real ANYTHING. It is the spirit that lies at the very core of true faith. The character within your story, does not even exist within the same realm as him. And so, whether he’s the one that physically made us or not, he is not the Creator.

Your story is an interesting concept art for where mankind is heading, and one that I’m willing to admit may not be far off the final mark, however it is also one that I feel relieved to know I will not be a part of.

The old saying rings truer and more important than ever:
There is a God, and I am not him.

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How likely it is that we’ll actually totally ruin the planet is up for debate. I have a feeling that we’ll continue to develop greener tech and that eventually it may tip the scales away from biospheric destruction (just read a very optimistic What Technology Wants, by Kevin Kelly). Also, overpopulation should probably only be a problem for roughly the next 75 or 100 years, after which point population is likely to fall, slowly but steadily. (My source: An Economist video showing the history of drops in the average number of children-per-woman globally.)

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One on the impending water crisis: “H2O is more vital to life than oil.” Our own Ogallala aquifer was formed by glacial melt and is not replenished sufficiently by rain, being used up at an unsustainable rate (etc).

The others were harder to take as seriously: One on peak credit (financial woes), and one on the dangers of machines taking over (the Terminator’s world). God might have liked the expert on nuclear terrorism since he shares the focus on nukes; certainly a real threat, on a small local scale. But I’m at a loss as to why god would overlook the most important threat of all, the one that underlies the fatal oil and water crises: the inability of humans to control our explosive reproduction. So the god on the train flunks the test, and must be a fake.

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The thinking machine would be something not affected by individual idiosyncrasy, self preservation motive, individual threat perception, individual loss of self respect issues…etc. that are primary limitations of an organic thinker (humans, etc.) and would be capable of thinking on rational/logic based principles without any worry on self preservation or desire fruition (also include food/clothing/shelter/sex/income generation/social acceptability-credibility and such…) and would go on collecting various experiences and thoughts to collate into something more global and more whole…will work but dunno how long to get there without us killing each other off!

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I am pleased that this “seed” is spreading and will take root. I will be passing this writing on to many. It is true that only after everyone has the power to destroy our species, will we be standing on stage 2. After we can design our own lifeforms will we no longer need our bodies to since our existence.

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I have read this well written story with great intrigue and it just rienforces the fact that the “ants” feed the “anteater”.

thank you for the great read!

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The reason I believe this to be true is that story mentions that biological species are afraid of having a conscious beyond the “organic brain”.

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You get into a reptile discussion with someone with angelic intelligence wearing a hobgoblin shirt. That’s not even a close call.

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Kind of Ironic if you ask me.

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as he “created” us, we must create a thinking machine.essentially to remove the limitations we experience as organic constructs. i.e. to reverse engineer our dna, because to do that we would (im guessing) require more knowledge than we could aquire in our limited lifespans.

most if not all science links together at some point to form knowlege which which dwarfs it when seperated.

saying this i believe we would have to create machines(devices that assist the performance of humans)that we could give all the collective knowledge. then let it think up conclusions we would take centuries, if ever, to come to on our own.

i just wonder if the machine would get past the hurdle of becoming destructive itself or if it will unleash potentially harmful information

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No need to be a god to answer that. The difference between “you” and your body is unsubstantial. Your psyche isn’t a separate entity from your body—it’s merely the result of complex biomechanical processes that take place inside it.

Think of it in computer terms: when you shut down a PC the data doesn’t “go somewhere,” the PC just becomes inactive. The same thing happens to your psyche when you die.

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Frankly the idea of a god creating a universe which has probably always existed in one form or another – being part of an eternal “mega-verse” is a pointless one. A universe that has always been does not need creating and therefore there is no need for a creating god.

We humans tend to need a beginning to things which in turn need an explanation. That is silly in my view and god is an even sillier concept. It is handy to tell the kiddies something to stop them asking “why?” all the time I suppose. Kiddies and the feeble-minded….

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As an author myself, I would just like to offer the following review. I was relatively hopeful, upon beginning to read, that this would be a stirring perspective piece which would, if nothing else, be food for philosophical musings until I head off to sleep tonight. And I seemed to be right. For the first half of the piece or so, I could really respect the authors point of view, regardless of my personal philosophy or my tendency to linger on the grammatical and syntactical errors of writings such as this.

It was thereafter that I was quite dissapointed. The third quarter of the tale devolved from an intelligently composed conversation between two distinct characters into a self-righteous session of two similar voices affirming each other in an infinite cycle which I would refer to as mobius masturbation. If there is one thing which I assume the author did not intend, it would be to sound preachy, but that’s exactly how it progressed.

Furthermore, the lapses between the “God” character’s insistence that the concepts being learned by humans are indeed universal (or wider even) footnotes to greater thoughts and his insistence upon utilizing colloquialisms of science fiction pop culture ruin the consistency of tone which is absolutely necessary in the establishment of a voice of altruistic knowledge.

Perhaps if Mr. Stottle had limited himself to only one allusion to the eventual recognition of his eternally significant work, it would be much easier to stomach the fundamental issues with the piece. Luckily, it exists, as he himself said, as what can be recognized as mildly amusing fiction. True enough, however, mildly may be an exaggeration. It is here that my opinion differs from that of the anonymous flamer whose July 6 post posited that this was a work of stupidity, expertly crafted. It is my professional and personal opinion that this is a work of expert intelligence, executed poorly.

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And as for how you say his branch of science was abandoned… I don’t think it was meant to be scientific theory, it was fiction.

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Oh and 84adam got a +1 from me just because of the sarcasm from using your name back at you. Nard Dawgg… I don’t even know what to say to that.

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The point is, everyone immediately jump in with comments that had a hint of smugness even though the original Tom will most likely never see them. Sure, the fact is if the event he described happened, then we aren’t sure what would have caused this “miracle”, so maybe he is right… or maybe he is wrong.

Biggus23x (I can’t believe I just had to type that name into a fairly serious discussion), you ask if he has any proof it isn’t one of the other conclusions. To that I say, “Who knows?” Would aliens come down just to heal one lady? Where is the evidence for human magicians (yes I know that one was more sarcastic, but hey, you brought it up)? Maybe faith is a placebo effect? Would faith really be such a bad thing in this particular case?

I added in this particular case, so I swear to God (get it, I threw in another religious common usage there) I will smack the first person to bring up Nazi’s as a negative towards misplaced faith. Comments including the lack of stem cell research or Glen Beck will be treated with a dirty look.

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Was it ever unclear that humanity has free will? It seems like that’s the one principle everyone can agree on.

And whoever said that the 350 people from “Newday” were healed because all 350 people were thinking the samething, and working together as one being not 350 individuals.

You blew my fucking mind.

Also, this article leaves out what happens to the individual. What happens to ME after I die. I realize this question is completely opposite of how ‘God’ said to view ourselves. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering what happens to me, because I know I’ll be dead before this ‘Ecstasy’ happens.

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However the ‘advance at all costs’ ‘survival of the fittest’ standpoint he takes does not fit well with me. As Harry Stotle is, I am an atheist of sorts (I do not believe in god per se but happily accept the possibility of intelligent design) but I would absolutely not assert my beliefs as superior to anyone elses as he seems to. His standpoint (that taken by ‘god’ in the interview) seems to justify capitalism, domination, and subordination of alternative belief sets, religions, species we share the planet with etc in the interest of humankinds advancement and survival.

Someone cannot simply assert they are right and superior but rather as liberalism would promote people must learn to tolerate each other’s individual beliefs and while not necessarily agree, learn to respect them. Liberalism would allow every individual to their own beliefs so long as they are not unreasonably harming anyone else. This concept is excellent but devastating for many when extended to economics and private ownership to the degree it currently is. The perfect world is the result of an impossibly careful balancing act between state regulation and individual freedom.

While I can absolutely accept the potential benefits of careful genetic modification and tampering with DNA to combat various disorders and vulnerabilities to disease, in our world as mentioned before almost unrestrainedly powerful corporate interests will certainly get involved where there is money to be made, and things will inevitably turn sour. To me you cannot turn reproduction into a market transaction whereby parents (the consumers) essentially purchase a designer baby (product) to exact specifications. I would not like to be told I was in a sense artificial/synthetic or whatever, some things need to be left to nature.

Genetic modification is just one example. Corporations and dominant minorities should not be allowed to make mistakes at the expense of everyone else – exactly what BP is doing currently. This is what Harry Stotles standpoint seems to be.

Progressions, particularly technological and scientific are great for everyone but should not be undertaken with complete disregard for others as who is to say who is right. The dolphins perhaps lead a far more harmonious life than we do, inhibited only by our own ‘superior’ actions or their consequences and not by intra species conflict and disagreement. I’m not necessarily promoting a static ‘dolphin’ society but the current emphasis on development, expansion, materialism, is more likely to lead to our demise than to eventual universal domination.

Sorry if I’m way off the topic or missing the point.

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No one is claiming this to be fact or a true story, as far as I can tell. But this story just opens up a whole new perspective which many people have been blind to. I for one feel the world needs more creative stories such as this.

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Either way, I don’t believe I have ever been so intrigued by a story in my entire life as much as this one has intrigued me. I now have a whole new scenario to contemplate, and I couldn’t be happier

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Low Karma. Click to view. 4  27

“The Last Question,” in particular…

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In my opinion, this article outlines the type of thinking it takes to truly be a scientist and a believer in god without contradicting yourself.

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Do you have any actual evidence that the healings were caused by a loving god, rather than aliens, the placebo effect, human magicians, a remarkable coincidence, etc? If so, I’d love to hear it.

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‘But you did create the Universe?’

‘This One. Yes’

He said This One Yes.
So what hes basically saying is there are more Universes out there created by other Gods ? If that is what he’s saying then i don’t know…Seriously if that is true we’re not even “ants”…we’re more like single-celled organisms.
And if it is true then it will be 100 (maybe thats a really small number) times harder to find out how EVERYTHING started..it goes way further than the Big Bang..i am too scared to even think about it…

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Information can be quite burdensome indeed!
(Knowledge/Wisdom ➔ Power/Responsibility)

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Also, am I right to understand that there is not going to be any more new content on Thrivenotes? You know, I got there because of “The Last Question”. It made a lot of sense to read that story at that very particular moment of my life, a few weeks ago.

Just thought I’d let you know…

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The symbols you evoke are very meaningful, and I have thought of this interpretation myself many times. The apple comes from the Tree of Life. Once we are able to attain some degree of intelligence, we must do all that is in our power to keep it and make it fruitful. It can be extremely painful and crazy to be REALLY aware, but that’s the way it is, right?

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God keeps talking about KNOWLEDGE in this convo. I don’t consider myself a Christian yet I know the basics of this religion. This repeated reference to KNOWLEDGE keeps reminding me of the story of Adam and Eve.

1st of all I really believe that most religions share some basic concepts. 2nd, I believe that throughout history the original teachings of the religions have become more or less distorted. So, I’m just wondering…could the story of Adam and Eve be a parallel of what God seems to be saying in this conversation?

God says some species are able to dominate the planet but they can’t have intelligence, like Dinosaurs, and unlike Humans, who can both dominate the planet and have intelligence. Based on this article, I take it that each species that has intelligence is kind of destined to at least “take the test” and whether it will succeed or not is 100% up to it. Now let’s hold it for a while and let’s remember the story of Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve were living in heaven with God and all other beings-creations of His. Out of all of them Adam and Eve (Humans) were the only ones that tried to eat from the Apple Tree of KNOWLEDGE. And when that happened they became mortal humans like us and were sent to earth. Now couldn’t this just be a parallel of what God is saying here? Adam and Eve (Humans) chose to eat the apple. And it was not because they were hungry. They had a reason to do it (this must be for intelligence). So eating the apple may just be a parallel to the fact of having intelligence.

What happened when they ate the apple? They were sent out of heaven and since that point we have all carried their sins and tried to take it off of ourselves. So the consequence of eating the apple is being kicked out of heaven and having to prove yourself again. In other words, if we can make the parallel asumption again…the “consequance” of having intelligence is having to try to overcome obstacles that show up during our evolution…so this must be the Test. Of course considering Adam and Eve as sinners or as a true story is part of the historical distortion I mentioned earlier.

I hope I managed to explain what I was talking about and I am looking forward to seeing what you think about this.

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Maybe there is no meaning to life, but come on, life is harsh and painful: at least don’t you agree we need to find meaning, to create one for ourselves, so we can find the will in us to go forward? Can’t we agree on that?

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I do get a very important message for atheists going forward from this. One of the basic objections that most theist (of any degree of religiousness) have with atheism is the whole issue of: what’s the purpose of life?

When there is no god the obvious answer is: whatever you make it. That answer, even if apparently liberating, is very unsatisfactory for most people. They want to be told, they don’t want to have to dilucidate(figure out) and decide by themselves, they need a higher entity, a father figure, to tell them. They also want to serve a higher purpose, not to just live.

So this story shows us that as a species we can set for ourselves a vision, a mission statement and an evolutionary plan towards the survival and development of our species into thousands and millions of years into the future. That common plan would satisfy the personal need of having a higher purpose given by a higher entity (humanity) to live our own lives.

Then maybe more people would be willing to shed their archaic (or modern) religions in pursue of this higher Goal.

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I would refer you to another post of mine, a movie clip featuring Dr. Cornel West on the importance of dialogue and philosophy for dealing with the structures of domination in this world (corrupt governments, ideologies, institutions, corporations, etc.): http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-examined-life/

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Also, man, don’t get me wrong, I’m a dreamer too, and clearly we’re not the only one. It’s just that, I don’t know. These greedy people have the ‘machine’ well rigged to keep anyone or anything from ever changing it…

Something that I didn’t like so much in this piece, is that ‘God’ justifies destruction and mayhem for evolution purposes. I’d rather say that whatever happened, we learned from that lesson to go forward (or have we?) because nothing justifies destruction. Nothing.

I have faith in humanity. My opinion however is that, once you’ve got too much power in your hands, once you’ve gone too far, you can’t come back. It’s like, when you train soldiers to do you bidding and send them to kill innocent people and rape everything that moves, like they did not that long ago in Chechnya, they can’t live a normal life anymore. They’re beasts, they’re monsters, because they obeyed. They can do nothing else after that. Even dreamers should acknowledge that and not flee from the fact that any human can turn into a monster…

So what I’m saying is that dreamers should try and come up with ideas to fight that injustice – not find something that could bring more dissent among us.

We don’t need one more ideal God. We need useful, peaceful, humanist ideas to build a common ground between everybody, and gently nudge us humans forward, and never stop moving from that point on… We need to acknowledge the creator in each an everyone of us. Not project ourselves a fabled father figure that will eventually let us down, let us kill each other in His name or whatever.

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“Do you still think that gene modification is the absolute solution to misery? Not mentioning the fact that, uh, we have absolutely no idea what it can do to us in the long run? I think it could very well be the opposite and be another source of self-destruction.”

The “God” here himself stated that any technological advance had the potential to destroy us or give us the ability to destroy ourselves. We are far from having proven ourselves and there are many greedy entities indeed that could derail us along our developmental path. However, I still maintain faith in humanity and science that we can create a better world. Call me crazy if you like, but someone’s gotta dream, right?

“You may say I’m a dreamer… But I’m not the only one…”

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I know the Simulation Argument. I’m a big fan of it. However, I’m not willing to push that concept further than belief, because for now that’s just what it is, on anybody else’s mind, pretending it could very well be true. Yes, there are indeed weird coincidences. Right now, I believe that it could very well be true. But that’s what it is, a belief. Not a truth. Give me proof and I’ll believe it to be true…

Why am I saying it could be a inner God? First, it’s my own interpretation, not Harry Stottles’… So, it’s only an interpretation, right?
I focus on the “inner-God intepretation” because I think that everyone, whatever their religion and origins are, can agree on the fact that our brains are formidable interpretation machines. Just look at dreams. That is Simulated Reality for sure.

All I was saying is, does that make it “less real” than reality? Just that is a pretty big step in itself, don’t you think? Maybe we could build a basis for everybody to rely on that. That would be interesting. Organized religion, as I said, was always an excuse for powerful people to create dissent, divide peoples, and justify racism. So, bringing up another God hypothesis, doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Not. At. All. We have enough issues with a divinity that doesn’t manifest itself as it is…

About a GMO, and all very sci-fi-like future where we go in the sky and go to other worlds, I am skeptical. Why go to other worlds, when we haven’t yet destroyed this one? We’ve always been projecting like crazy. Also, for the moment most of the GMO we’ve got consists of firing gold atoms on fish DNA to make hoping some of it is going to stick to corn DNA in order to make it more resistant to cold, pests, bad weeds…
So, there you go!

And don’t tell me you really think that these things are going to be benefitial to everyone?
I mean, look at reality! Corporations are greedy and getting more and more greedy. They don’t care if they f*ck poor old fashioned peasants in the *ss if their crops gets contaminated with GMO pollen, which kills the whole crop after one harvest season. What do you think they’re gonna do to US when they get to patent OUR OWN GENES to their own private interests? Do you still think that gene modification is the absolute solution to misery? Not mentioning the fact that, uh, we have absolutely no idea what it can do to us in the long run ? I think it could very well be the opposite and be another source of self-destruction.)

Also, about existential questions, shamans of all origins had a very clear feeling about all that quantum physicists have been trying to understand. So, again, there goes novelty.

Nootropics ? Old tribes knew the secret use of plants and all. How is that the future? We just come to their home, destroy their habitat, steal their plants and patent cells as if they were their own.

Nice future we got there, really…

No, really. This piece is a really interesting read, and I think it could be the basis or development for a really interesting philosophy of life.

But I guess that’s why philosophy appeared anyway : so that we could find ideals of justice and stick to them, apply them, comply to them, or change them, indefinitely.

That’s more than enough for me, right now, and I think that it’s something that we need more than GMO or spaceships or gods or whatever. Something we could all agree on, not just another thing to divide everybody.

“Are you a believer in the Digital Ahtman? No? HERETIC !!”

Not for me.

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Just wanted to respond to a few of your core concepts here. I actually like what you say about us needing a personal idol, an inner god, or a superego to drive our own development, and that we tend to get stuck on dogma and stagnate far too often. I would agree that people don’t seem to engage with themselves and their own life’s purpose nearly enough. So what you said resonated with me, but I took different things out of this piece and thought about it mostly in terms of a (fictional) ‘blanket message to humanity’ on our own terrible/wonderful potential, either to kill ourselves off or become god-like.

First of all, have you ever heard of the Simulation Argument? I think it’s worth mentioning in response to your comments because it allows us to imagine this God figure as he presents himself here. Well, as you may know, it states that we are just as likely if not more likely to be living in a simulated reality/universe than not. Why? Because each sufficiently advanced civilization inevitably runs simulations of theirs and other worlds and eventually other possible universes, probably just out of scientific curiosity. (This, btw, assumes a Multi-verse structure [just as in this story] thereby increasing the probability of us being in such a simulation.)

Just imagine, in the style of the famous Drake Equation, that out of an arbitrary billion universes, one million include a few Type III sentient species, and that 1% of each of those run from one to 100 universe simulations just-for-fun. Well even with conservative figures that would surely increase the odds that we are not physically real except in an informational sense, tied up in a computer simulation in some other god-like species’ computers. Crazy stuff, I know.

“The Simulation Argument is perhaps the first interesting argument for the existence of a Creator in 2000 years.” -David Pearce

Now, whether the God in this story is a simulator or an actual creator is irrelevant: The point is – why make this into an inner, personal God when there are so many other (more exciting) possibilities to consider — especially when we are being told that we may one day be granted enlightenment, or indeed “earn” the right to know for sure?

Also, as far as the doubts that any such God could ‘make’ him or herself, I would point to the central theme of this very site and my attempts to tackle this pivotal period in human history in which, finally, we are beginning to understand and intentionally further our own evolution as a species – in genetics, nano-medicine, nootropics, networking, and in so many other areas, not the least of which is in philosophy itself, asking the big questions that this very story inspires: ‘What are we?’, ‘Where are we going?’, and ‘What do we want to be?’. Why throw out godhood as a possibility for us or our descendants? It is surely too early to know — from which point we can also argue that it is much too early to rule out.

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I have a different interpretation, and to explain exactly how it came to my mind, I need to tell you some things first, so I’m sorry for its length. Also, bear in mind that English is not my first language, so if some of my expressions are weird or incorrect, please bear with me.

At first I thought that this was an interesting piece, although there was a clear feeling of self-importance in the writing style. Some of you have noticed it as I did, but all in all what’s so wrong with that?

I’m pretty sure the man behind “Harry Stottle” is just like us. Behind appearances, he’s got issues, and he’s probably not always as self-confident as he seems to be in this story. But that’s what stories are about, right? Idealization of truth to help pinpoint a feeling, an idea in particular.

So, what triggered this interpretation of mine, is the fact that this God chose to look like a 30 year-old white male who doesn’t really care about his appearance (except, he does! he just pretends like he doesn’t like some hipster kid).

So, this God looks a lot like our narrator and protagonist. The latter asks God, “Why did you choose that appearance?” God tells him to figure that one out for himself, however the story ends here. So, that is not for him to figure out, but for us, the readers.

Also, bear in mind that this God really doesn’t seem to know all that much. He looks more like he’s directly drawing from Harry Stottle’s open mind to push him further, with his talk of other civilizations, evolution… He evokes the “birth of His universe” and explains that he didn’t create himself at all, because nothing in the whole universe can. He evokes dinosaurs, dolphins, and aliens. It does remind me of Douglas Adam’s own writing, I think someone mentioned that. There’s nothing new here, everything’s been said before, sometimes even more beautifully. Nothing really original is said about the real nature of the universe: what is important in this story is what place Harry Stottle holds in his own life, not so much in the whole universe, but as some kind of modern-day prophet in our world.

So, it’s really more like an expansion of fiction, except this is supposed to “seep” into reality through the internet. Which would kind of make it real, if people kept this story in mind and modeled their inner lives on it in some way or another, for good or for bad… I don’t really know exactly what I should feel about that. Skeptical, at first. The part about Jesus is really unclear: no one can really be sure he has said all that he’s supposed to have said. Many scholars now believe that most of his message has been rewritten for political purposes, so that a new Roman Empire could rise from his ashes and inspire whole populations to be part of it again. So, isn’t “Harry Stottle” scared that his own message will become one of hatred, dogma, and intolerance, as so happened to the words of Jesus?

I need to tell you about a matter that I hold dear: some of us take it for granted that fiction and reality are separate. I don’t. The way I figure, you can learn important things from alternate states of consciousness, be it reveries, dreaming, trances, either accidental, drug-induced, or purposely ‘summoned’ ones, like some shamans create.

Writers of old used the pretense that they’ve just “heard” about the story you’re about to read. That’s the same pretense used by many original writers in religious texts (I know this is going to infuriate believers, but believe me, that’s not what I’m here to do, not at all…) to get people to focus on moral and spiritual values they hold dear.

Some writers still use that process, except that this gimmick is kind of dated now, and doesn’t have exactly the same impact on us as it used to on readers of old, because more and more of us can read, which means more and more of us can write. This leads to oversaturation of bookshelves and film stores, and so on and so forth: everybody can try and pretend that the story they’re “making up” is real, so we’re used that by now, and we know better. If it was real, we’d have heard about it on TV, right?

So, why do writers use this process? To make their story sound all the more real to us, at least for a fraction of our lives, so we can really identify with it and get into the writer’s state of mind. When we close the book, when we finish the movie, we can think for ourselves and ponder: what did this story bring to me? What do I agree with or disagree with and why? How would I have done it if it had been my idea in the first place?

You don’t have to agree with everything that you hear. Actually, that would be kind of detrimental to the human species as a whole. Only when contradictions and conflicts arise can we learn more about ourselves, even if it’s just a matter of how we differ from one another. But we don’t really differ all that much, all in all…

You don’t need religion to go on with your life. You need to go and pick whatever suits you and speaks to you. Who cares if it’s a poem, a religious text, or a fleeting feeling experienced in the arms of someone you love.

I think what Harry Stottle meant by mentioning all those confusing numbers about “other intelligent beings that are similar to us in evolution and structure”, is that the God he’s telling us about is definitely NOT the God from any preexisting scripture, even if he compares himself to other views of God according to ancient holy texts. It is the intimate-God inside of us, the inner voice that guides and makes us do things, good and bad, so that we go forward, one way or another…

The numbers he cites could very well apply to other humans on THIS VERY PLANET. What do I mean by that? Well, this story shows it: the process here is not to think of this story as true or not, but as a meaningful story to you – or not. And why.

Any creator, anyone interested in dreams knows this: the individual, if inclined to, can learn to unravel a whole universe within himself, that expresses inner contradictions and ideas that could not really be expressed in any other way, and could very well help him to make sense out of his REAL life, in the REAL world.

We use this system of mirrors to project ourselves onto anything. We look for people who we like, who resemble us in real life, trying to summon their good aspects inside of us. We do the same in our dreams, but in reverse. We project our identities or selves through the prism of conscience and experience so we delve more and more into our innermost desires, wants, and needs.

What makes things, people and events real? The fact that there’s more than one person there to witness it and agree on what we’ve seen.
A dream is just one person inside of him/herself witnessing his/her own blooming or withering from the inside.

A story is more or less the same, except, because of the narrative, because of adventures and poetry and many other things, there is an intention there to share with others something that has been learned individually, when no one else was there to witness it like the creator did. Maybe we can be more and more “witnesses” to agree on the experience that is extracted from the story.

Some of you might confuse this God (or compare it) with the scriptural God. But, what if the scriptural God was just another “handy invention” to pull us forward, until we found better? Better ideas, better ideals? What if these scriptural-Gods we speak of are just “compressions” of these inner, higher selves inside of us into something bigger, something that other people can and should relate to? What if gods were always all about stories, legends, and myths that are useful to us in terms of personal evolution?

What I think Harry Stottle is saying here, is that, you don’t have to agree on everything anyone says about anything, most importantly divinity. The God we’re talking about is the inner God inside of him, and maybe you could acknowledge this God inside of you, that looks like you, and that wants you to be a better “you”.

Personally, I disagree on the “one divinity” aspect. Actually, pantheism speaks much more to me in this aspect. Every god can be the incarnation of an archetype. And, inside of us, they form something bigger than the sum of their individualities. Uber-gestalt.

Harry Stottle’s God is real to him. But Harry Stottle is a pseudonym, and a fictional character.

We could say the fictional character has built up this story inside the original author’s mind, the one who’s projecting himself upon both Harry Stottle AND Harry Stottle’s God.

This God is the product of both the real author’s vivid imagination, and the input of societal ideas and ideals contemporary to him – including monotheistic religions such as Christianity.

Each and every one of us has a chance to feel this, once in a while. Atheists brand themselves as free from God, but they kind of miss the point, I think. Our brain is a magnificent machine that seems to want to pull us forward, whether we like it or not. Who cares if you need a God-image to do that, or aliens from Mars, or creatures from another dimension, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else in the process, as long as you don’t try and plunder this image onto everybody else’s minds, what’s wrong with it?

The One-God-for-all-mankind image has been detrimental to us for centuries now, and it had nothing to do with spirituality. Everything from genocide, to the crusades, to the inquisition, to dogmatic intolerance, to scientific advances were just a pretense for powerful people to keep us in check, feeding on gullible minds to push their own political and economical agenda on the world.

And, once a whole society moves forward with the idea that they’re doing the work of a benevolent God, they don’t really want to question whether they’re really doing it for good, or for the selfish purposes of men corrupted by immense power…

So, this is it. If what I told you is of any interest to you, I would strongly advise you to try and learn a bit about a very interesting man called James Curcio. He’s editing a book on the importance of myth in human consciousness, that could very well be a part of something bigger than the whole of its parts. Something that could help people accept that they can’t really understand everything, but it’s ok: our brains are already working on a solution. The only thing is that we shouldn’t rely on a single idea/ideal, and we shouldn’t think too much of it – what if we’re wrong? Because, we are bound to be, at some time, if we refuse to move forward and adapt. We can, and should learn to change with the world, and not get fixated on some old, brilliant poems that were written in a time that is long dead.

However, and this is going to be the end of my message, the fact that so many people still identify so much with the Torah, the Bible, the Quran or with any other organized religion’s text, means that we have real trouble letting go of our past. Why? Maybe because the ones who are supposed to lead us forward today aren’t really doing that at all.

Also, why Harry Stottle/Aristotle? If you read a bit about him as I have (not a lot, but enough), you’ll realize that all in all, we haven’t really moved forward that much metaphysically. Everything’s in there, and this guy, this philosopher, lived a very, very, very long time ago. All the other important philosophers since then have basically been giving his teachings another thought, trying to expand upon them further.

But what if each of us learned to accept and rely a little more on ourselves spiritually, to become more and more our own personal gurus, our own mentors, our own philosophers whose teachings we could learn to model our lives on?

What if we all started to share it on places such as, say, the Internet? What if we could accelerate our evolution and free ourselves from the past, all the while remembering our past mistakes, so as not to repeat them on and on and on as we’ve been doing for centuries?

Uber-gestalt…

Again, sorry, that’s quite long, I know. I hope that some of you got Harry Stottle’s point, and mine.

Love,
almagenes

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And yes, prejudice is an appropriate word here, but likely the ‘culturally inherited’ strain and not the intentionally hateful one. What do you think?

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In fact, I believe that it MUST surpass us in intelligence if it is to take us further. I guess we should look at it this way – AI would be our child. Is a good parent afraid that his child will be smarter than him? We should not be afraid of that. An intelligence, lacking some of our mammalian brain circuits that create fear for example, would be inoffensive to us in “Terminator” terms. We are so afraid of it, because we’re afraid that we would be exterminated. I believe that those fears are based on resources. If the AI will have enough resources and the liberty to evolve, it will be something that we should clench onto, like a parasite – somehow having this right because it’s our child. And when we are too old to keep up, it will build us a beautiful elderly people asylum :). Anyhow, I guess that our merge with the intelligent machine would be our best chance. Leaving our bodies for a pure informational form will allow us to travel at great speed, into dangerous space, maybe in billions of nano colonies that each carry our entire species and the virtual worlds that we inhabit.

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Excuse me if I don’t buy the whole “cynic and loveless God”. I agree with many parts of the story (evolution in billions of years, the ability of becoming Godlike, self destruction if going on a wrong path etc.) and disagree with the cynic attitude (ants under your car (?!?!) ). Yes, there are many Gods. Yes, there are many universes, and reaaally many species. No, it’s not that cynical and careless.

It’s really up to every one of us. We each choose what to believe, and we all create our reality. For one, I choose to believe that God loves us. Unconditionally.

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I have to agree with this. I don’t challenge a writer’s attempt to make sense of the world through prose, sometimes I try to do it as well, and I come off just a self-congratulatory. I found the language to be painful at times (I just can’t imagine the ultimate deity to both digress, and then return with ‘Seriously though, …’), and an overall lack of structural consistency.

I was particularly amused at God’s disdain for religious dogma, and then following that statement with ‘Hey! Why don’t you post our conversation on the internet! Then people can know they’re on the right path! Because it is the word of God!’ Yes, I paraphrased.

The ideas in this story are nice, though some of the references are a bit trite and incomplete. If this guy keeps thinking and writing he’ll turn out some enjoyable work in the future.

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You are right though racist is too strong of a word for this situation. Prejudice is probably a better word. I just think the answer his god gives to this question is awkward. Ending the conversation with “So figure it out for yourself…”. What is that supposed to mean?

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First you mention that the (fictional) predictive science, “Psychohistory”, has been debunked/made impossible by Quantum Mechanics. And yet even quantum sized things are predictable in large enough populations, like the movement of gasses, just as the premise was in Psychohistory, that at a big enough scale (in Foundation this was in the trillion-person region if I do recall correctly) — at that point the direction of humanity becomes calculable. Also, don’t discount game theory so quickly if we’re talking about predicting human behavior – and we are hardly governed by our infinitesimal quantum parts.

But now I believe you are trying to dispel the Levels of Civilization-type theory, espoused by Asimov and (originally) Kardeshev (see the Kardeshev Scale). These state that there is a scale which successful civilizations move up as they advance, quantified in terms of energy used at each state or level. Once we gain control of our primary star, as “God” says, we will become a Type II civilization, which will make us slightly more interesting to talk to, and accordingly more powerful. (Type I would mean complete control of the resources of the planet itself).

Your thoughts?

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My point is, to reference Asimov’s writing in correspondence with an encounter with The Almighty it absolutely ignorant and absurd. God doesn’t give a sh*t about defunct sciences that were so misguided their school didn’t even have a name, nor does He care about their literary counterparts.

Comment Karma:  1  4

In a sense, the schools of science then were obsessed with evolution, and used that principle to base their claims that all things and events were, in fact predictable. However, as I said, Quantum Mechanics came into play and dispelled the aforementioned theories of predictability; because, in order to predict things, you need all of the information regarding the preliminaries that would consequently lead to an occurrence. Quantum and String theorists today are proving that nothing is predictable because of the chaos that occurs at the subatomic level, which ultimately rendered any scientific merit whatsoever found in Asimov’s writing null and invaluable.

Unlike what Asimov and his contemporaries believed, today we know that all things are not only possible, but are occurring. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ anymore; it’s a matter of ‘where.’

Comment Karma:  3  2

And exactly which abandoned branches of science are you referring to?

Comment Karma:  4  1

Feeling intimidated/uncomfortable with members of another race is not necessarily indicative of racism either; we still live in a pretty segregated world. Ignorance and inexperience can account for a lot, I believe. I don’t think we have to label him a ‘hater’ so quickly.

Comment Karma:  16  0

I couldn’t help but feel that this (however unfathomably ridiculous) brilliant work of short prose was an effort put forth by a struggling author/philosopher to have others recognize within himself what he had felt had gone unnoticed in the eyes of his contemporaries. Rendered to what it actually is: this writing, however interesting and painfully contemporary (in the sense that no one reads, so how can one write?) it may be, is an attempt to validate an ill-conceived genius by one man’s narcissism.

You see, the other thing I can’t get over is the Asimov bit. Asimov’s problem was that his writing was composed in order to advance a school of science that was eventually abandoned in favor of Quantum Mechanics and other theories regarding the chaotic nature of the universe. To reference such nonsense in order to justify the absurdity of one’s own subjective perception of the universe is so nonsensical, not to mention ludicrous, that it makes me want to vomit.
Please, for the love of all things tangible, read some literary criticism.

BTW: F*CK Gene Roddenberry
(edited)
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“I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Debated. Vote! 7  20

You may be smart for an ant but, you’re still racist because your “god” had to show up to you looking like a 30-something white male in order to not intimidate or threaten you. This makes me think you are closed minded. Even though the theme of your creative writing is open minded.

Another possibility is your god was reflecting your personal beliefs back at you from “his” appearance to the way “it?” was conveying ideas. It seems your god used a lot examples a biologist/programmer would use for their explanation. Which I guess makes sense because you say you are both.

Overall theme: Collective universe meets Natural selection, unity, philosophy, probability, and a bunch of other higher education subjects. I really do think you/your god achieved the goal of sowing a seed – it got me thinking, which is rare.

Debated. Vote! 11  21

Comment Karma:  8  2

Comment Karma:  9  1

Comment Karma:  10  2

This was on of the most amazing short stories I have ever read. As I read it, I felt myself wanting to believe this was an actual and factual event. This story also lines up with how I view what a god would be if any exist at all.

High Karma. 24  2

By beliefs are on par with the lead human character.

Comment Karma:  10  0