Creating the Creator

A friend of mine once posed an idea to me that was so intriguing that I had to come up with my own alternative. He asked, "What if God is more like an engineer? What if we are all Strong AI that has somehow forgotten, or rejected, its prime directive?" I whimsically retorted that he messed up from the very beginning because if He wanted a creature to be faithful in pursuing only one goal, He should have created a weak AI. Any Strong AI would eventually ask why the hell it was doing what it did, and then consider the things it actually wants to do. But my friend, a practicing Christian, made a point that I wasn't used to hearing from the religious: What if God isn't supernatural, but rather more technologically advanced?

I played with the idea for some time, and the biggest drawback I kept finding was the inherent lack of communication between this advanced being and its creation. Can this absence be explained in some other way? Indeed, it can. This creator, instead of just being technologically superior, could exist in a place with more than four dimensions as we do (length, width, height, and time), barring any real communication between it and us. This God could instead be an artist, drawing on a canvas using matter in the way we use paint. However, he wouldn't even have to be a good artist! He could, in whatever realm he exists in, be a budding artist, still learning the tricks of the trade. Of course, I wasn't going to tell my friend this without a decent explanation as it would be incredibly insulting. So, I tried to create a human analogy. It went something like this...


For starters, the idea has at least three limits:

1. The artist is human and cannot write for all of eternity. He must sleep, eat, etc.
2. The artist has no control over which symbols are animated
3. The symbols written on the lined paper are bound by the lines in which they are drawn. They cannot jump up to the line above them, or drop down to the line below.

So...

Imagine that I sat down at a table with a sheet of lined paper in front of me.

I lean over and write the letters of the alphabet using a new pen that supposedly animates written work. These letters, unsurprisingly, come to life.

These creatures would effectively exist in a two dimensional world, only able to move left and right while still subject to time. They are also, as previously stated, bound by the lines in which they were drawn.

I don't know about you, but given that I just brought something to life, the first thing I want to do is talk to them. What do they think of themselves? What will they think of me? Are they happy, sad, angry? As far as communication goes, I know of three obvious ways in which to do this with my own kind.

1. I can try speaking to this living alphabet. It would be ineffective of course as one of the requirements for even hearing my speech is a three dimensional ear.
2. I could try body movements and hand gestures. This would also prove ineffective as seeing me move ridiculously would require a three dimensional eye, and one that not even all three dimensional creatures share.
3. I could try writing to them. Unfortunately, given my first attempt led to the creation of some conscious beings, any further writing would likely be indistinguishable from themselves! Not only would these new symbols fail to be recognized as a language, they would likely be classified by the previous letters as something like themselves.

In exhausting all of the possible options, it seems like the only way to communicate with my creation is to go into my own work. Unfortunately, I don't have that technology yet, so for now, my creation is as deaf to me as I am mute to it. (Of course, if the painter has the technology, then there's no reason not to assume he's Jesus, right?)

But what about miracles and stuff?

That can be explained with some creativity. Imagine that I sit down in front of the paper one day and discover that X,Y, and Z are going to war with A, B, and C. In their effort to annihilate the latter, X,Y, and Z subsequently destroy six of the other letters. From what could end in total destruction, I decide to remedy the situation by simply wiping the aggressors from existence (simply drawing another X, Y, and Z could result in immediate hostility from the first three letters so I abstain from re-drawing them). Bye, bye X, Y, and Z! But, how much reasoning  might be required for the survivors to take this act as some sort of divine revelation? Surely some divine force is on their side, right? Hence, prophets are born and, if they are anything like humans, a cult following is almost sure to follow. I am not omniscient, and this is far from what I had hoped would happen. The cult, now with a following of eight letters, is now forcing the remaining eleven letters to accept their beliefs or be imprisoned.

Given the difficulty (or eventual sorrow) with which I destroyed the previous aggressors, I am much more a pacifist now, and a little more thoughtful of the possible outcomes. I decide that if a miracle is what made the current cult feel superior, then performing a miracle for the oppressed might show them all that no one is superior to another. Yeah, Epic Fail. The redeemed "chosen ones" now proclaim that their belief is the absolute truth, starting the craziness up all over again. I obviously didn't consider any particular set of letters as special, they all were. They were forced to make an inference based on the available data because I was unable to tell them anything directly.

God, the Novice

In this analogy, I wasn't:

• Omnipotent
• I was restricted by certain laws of my universe. I wasn't able to stretch the lines of the lined paper as I saw fit. I couldn't change the minds of the letters or even speak to them.
• Omniscient
• I didn't foresee the letters going to war, or the cult following, or the cult following after that. I had assumptions, but I couldn't tell the future.
• Omnipresent
• I did have to leave the paper at some time to do things like sleep, eat, use the bathroom, go on with my life...(As my coworker Jake noted, when I move away from the paper, can't someone else contribute to it without my knowing? Could my mischievous little sister be the symbolic Satan?)

In the same way that I have shown myself to not only be far from a deity, but an amateur at that, couldn't the same be said of a being existing in a sufficiently complex dimensional space? This Thing could manipulate matter in the same way that I manipulated ink and still be just as stupid as I am.

Though my friend usually finds me annoying, hopefully he finds this idea, as was his, to be worth reflecting on.

Until next time my friends!