On Existential Theories and Insignificance.

After getting myself a bit worked up about the danger posed by AI, a thought occurred. Could it be that God is an advanced form of AI which manufactured the whole of phenomenal reality for its own amusement, knowing that we humans would eventually manufacture an inferior version of itself?

But if that’s the case, who or what created the advanced form of AI? I suppose the Hindu trinity of Tat, Sat, and Aum would be a favourite candidate, but then who or what created the Hindu trinity?

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And I gather that some quantum physicists are now speculating that the big bang (and all those mind-bogglingly complicated things that go with it) was created by an earlier form of the universe. They’re suggesting (apparently) that, contrary to the current received wisdom, time and matter did exist before the big bang went boom. And further, that one day our known universe will completely collapse, thus setting up the creation of the next universe in which everything will happen just as it did in this one. And yet further, that this process has been going on in both directions, past and future, to infinity. I’m told that Buddhism teaches something similar.

Of course, I might have got this all wrong because my own intelligence is not artificial and is somewhat limited. If I haven’t, it seems as though all we humans can do is keep on fetching water and chopping wood for ever and ever. It makes me feel like a tiny speck of sawdust left at the bottom of a Russian doll when all the pieces have been removed.