God as emergence

Why obsess about underlying patterns?

The underlying patterns point to the unity of creation. They are the signature of god in the universe - or possibly the core principles of the code in which this simulation is written.

These patterns include: - Evolution - the variation and selection dynamic - Hegelian dialectic - thesis antithesis synthesis - Emergence- the relationship between macro states and micro states - The tension between love and freedom, chessed and din, potentiality and actuality

Recognizing these fundamental energies in the universe as we observe it makes us feel united with it and gives us meaning

Emergence

A key aspect in maturation of my thought is the understanding that multiple levels of analysis all provide valuable explanations.  The fact that phenomenon A reduces to elements B, doesn’t mean that knowing B will tell you anything interesting about A.

So for example human experience reduces to activity in the brain, as studied by neuroscience (which in turn reduces to chemistry, which reduces to physics, etc…) But this doesn’t mean that neuroscience can tell us something truly meaningful about life. To the question “why did John eat the cake”, the answer “It’s all about dopamine” or “the amygdala is doing so and so” are both absolutely true and completely irrelevant explanation. They provide mechanistical explanation, where what we are looking for is a causal one.

To be clear, other positions are possible: A scientistic position reduces everything to its components. “Once we fully understand the working of the brain, we’ll have an answer for everything” A magical position, on the other hand, sees the universe as a set of unique instances that can never be reduced to something more basic.

This creates a bit of epistemic dissonance. To the scientific-minded person, things both reduce, and they don’t.

But what if this was true even at higher levels? So for example, if we start with the debate about whether current ML-based AI models are similar to the way our mind works and we keep coarse-graining: - A logical, digital, information-flow explanation could be true at one level - A statistical, bayesian explanation could be true at another - Above that, symbols may not be pre-coded, but emergent (as per for eg. Ilya Sutskever) - Above that, and equally true, consciousness: perhaps as a result of a kind of loop between levels of analysis, as described by Douglas Hofstader - Above that, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and psychology as a whole - the behavior of individuals - Above that, the behavior of groups: sociology, economics, etc. - Can god be understood as an emergent phenomenon resulting from both chemical and physical processes, information processes, consciousness and group behavior? Could “God” ever be an explanation at some level of analysis?

So for eg. If someone asks why did someone die, and was answered “God willed it”: could this in a sense be true?

Deus sive Natura può essere interpretato non solo come affermazione ontologica, ma più modernamente, come affermazione gnoseologica. Il dio biblico è stato inventato per dare spiegazione a fenomeni naturali che suscitano in noi un senso di meraviglia è di piccolezza: le stelle, il concetto di zero e di infinito, le infinite varietà dell’evoluzione, i temporali e le tempeste, le altre persone e i loro comportamenti. Dio non è che una metafora per tutte queste cose. Se possiamo dire che la natura, intesa come tutto ciò che è altro da me (e in un senso, incluso me), esiste (anche fosse solo come proiezione interiore di un “altro” inconoscibile o una realtà virtuale generata da una macchina o da un demone), allora possiamo dire che dio esiste: non fossilizzato nel ritratto biblico dell’età del bronzo, ma ritratto oggi, in forma ancora più complessa e mirabolante, dalla scienza. Dio è quindi propriamente la sensazione di meraviglia che proviamo di fronte alla nostra esistenza (in termini ebraici, hessed), l’alterità (din) e la nostra coesistenza o perfino corrispondenza con l’altro (rachamim)- che l’”altro” effettivamente esista o no è in questo senso irrilevante. Che cos’è quindi la religione? La religione è il distogliere- per un tempo limitato- l’attenzione da se’ e spostarla sull’altro -sulla natura- e sulla nostra relazione con l’altro.