It’s a staple of science fiction. 2001: A Space Odyssey; The Terminator; The Matrix; I, Robot. The plot: Humans create machines with artificial intelligence (AI). The machines become conscious. The machines turn on their human creators and kill or enslave them.
Popular movies and novels commonly reflect the hopes and fears of present-day society, even if they’re set in the distant past or future. And the fear of AI taking over the world is a very real one for some very smart people. Famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking issued an ominous warning that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” Technological entrepreneur Elon Musk joined the chorus of fear, saying, “Mark my words: A.I. is far more dangerous than nukes.”
Others disagree. Computer scientist Michael Littman wrote an op-ed piece arguing that “the ‘rise of machines’ is not a likely future.” Computer Science professor Subhash Kak agrees in his recent article, “Why a computer will never be truly conscious.” Neuroscientist Anthony Zador and computer scientist Yann LeCun argue that since AI didn’t need to evolve in a competitive environment as humans did, it didn’t develop the survival instinct that leads to a desire to dominate others (see: “Don’t Fear the Terminator”). Besides, LeCun argues elsewhere, “One would have to be unbelievably stupid to build open-ended objectives in a super-intelligent (and super-powerful) machine without some safeguard terms in the objective.”
And so the debate continues.
Personally, I’m with the optimists. Yes, I enjoy an exciting apocalyptic sci-fi flick of the humans vs. robots variety. But in the real world, I don’t think machines will ever develop consciousness and enslave or exterminate humanity. Aside from the inherent scientific limitations of electromechanical devices, and the supreme stupidity of designing machines without safeguards, robots do not have a soul—and I don’t believe they ever will.
Why would we create our own destroyer?
About that supreme stupidity: I know, I know, we’ve created enough nuclear bombs to destroy humanity several times over. And that really is stupid.
But we humans still have to press the button. We have not given our nukes the ability to decide for themselves whether to destroy humanity. And we would have no motive to do so.
You see, we humans don’t just randomly and aimlessly do things, even if it may sometimes appear that way from the outside. No, we must have a motive. When we create fearsome weapons, we are motivated by the aforementioned survival instinct, and more negatively, by a desire for wealth and power. It would make no sense whatsoever for us to develop the technological means to ensure our survival, or to acquire the wealth and power we desire, and then let go of our control of that technology.
Even “evil corporations” have no motivation to create something that would ultimately threaten the wealth and power, indeed the very lives, of the people who own and run the corporation. They will build in controls on any technology they develop so that it will not do things it wasn’t designed to do. And if an error in the programming or design of the machines causes them to malfunction and negatively affect the corporations’ profits, they will correct those errors as quickly as possible.
Oh, and about those “evil corporations,” companies are slaves to their customers. Any business that does not provide what people want, when they want it, how they want it, at a price they’re willing to pay, will soon go bankrupt. If, for example, the masses of people stopped using cars, airplanes, and other machines that require fossil fuels, the massive power of Big Oil would quickly evaporate. If you want to know why many companies do things that harm the environment and the world, look in the mirror.
To sum up, unlike machines, we humans must have a motive to do something. And given that our survival instinct is one of our fundamental motives, and the desire for wealth and power are close behind when we are in our natural, spiritually undeveloped state, we have every motivation to make sure that we do not create machines that have the capability of taking our wealth, our power, and our lives from us. We have every motivation to maintain control of the machines we create, especially if we design and build fantastically powerful machines.
What is consciousness?
Behind the idea that the machines might become conscious and take over the world is the idea that consciousness is a function of the brain, and that if we simply build a sufficiently complex computer, consciousness will naturally emerge, just as it did when biological evolution advanced far enough to produce a brain.
However, science is nowhere near even understanding what consciousness is, let alone being able to show that it is a function of the brain. Yes, we can show correlation between activity in various parts of the brain and human thoughts and emotions. But that doesn’t mean that the brain produces consciousness any more than turning on the TV and watching a baseball game means that the television set produces the baseball game. Correlation does not imply causation. The “mind-body problem” goes back as far as human thought, and it is still hotly debated today.
Most scientists and philosophers admit that consciousness remains a mystery. In fact, science cannot even objectively demonstrate that consciousness exists. As the “philosophical zombie” argument shows effectively enough, scientific measurements cannot distinguish between a being that has consciousness and a being that only acts as if it has consciousness. The only way we know for sure that consciousness does exist is that we experience it.
This has led some scientists and philosophers to gravitate toward the theory of panpsychism, which posits that consciousness is simply a fundamental property of reality. See, for example, this article by philosophy professor Philip Goff: “Science as we know it can’t explain consciousness—but a revolution is coming.” But panpsychism doesn’t explain what consciousness is, or provide any real understanding of how it relates to the human brain and the human experience. It just sort of says that consciousness is, and that’s all there is to it. And that’s precisely why many scientists and philosophers don’t like it.
What all of the materialistic scientists and philosophers are studiously avoiding is the oldest, and I believe the best, solution to the mind-body problem: that consciousness exists on a distinct level of reality, traditionally known as spiritual reality. In other words, that consciousness is not a property of physical reality at all, but instead is a property of spiritual reality. Or in plain terms, that we have consciousness because we have a soul.
Is there any rational basis for believing that consciousness is not a property of physical reality? I believe so. Short version: A common property of physical or material things is that they are measurable in time and space. Even brain activity is measurable. But we cannot measure consciousness, nor do we experience it as being extended in time and space. It seems to operate on an entirely different basis than physical objects and physical reality.
And on this basis my rational mind, which does not feel the need to reject the reality of God and spirit, is perfectly comfortable stating that consciousness is not a property of physical reality, but of spiritual reality.
More specifically, I would define consciousness as the activity of the human will and understanding, which are the basic “components” of the human spirit. The will is the seat of all human love, motivation, feeling, and emotion. The understanding is the seat of all human knowledge, understanding, intellect, and thought. Together with the ability to act on our understanding from our will, these are the human soul or spirit.
Further, our spirit is our life. When our spirit departs from our body, the body dies, decomposes, and returns to the earth it came from. Animals, I believe, also have souls, complete with an earth-focused version of will and understanding. Even plants have a rudimentary soul, or they would not be alive. Inanimate objects such as rocks and water are not alive because they do not have a soul.
Will machines ever become conscious?
I do have some sympathy for the idea that if computers become sufficiently complex, they will develop consciousness. It seems clear enough that even if, as I and many others believe, consciousness is a spiritual thing, in order to express itself in the material world it requires a highly complex structure. That structure is the physical brain and body.
The human brain, in particular, has nearly 100 billion neurons (though some estimates put it a bit lower), each of them, as the article by Philip Goff points out, connected to 10,000 others, creating about ten trillion nerve connections. Meanwhile, the average human body has about 37.2 trillion cells, all differentiated, organized, and connected with one another so that the body functions as a unit. Given that the human brain and body do have this level of complexity, it is reasonable to think that the human spirit requires this level of complexity in order to express itself in the physical world by means of a physical organism.
Does this mean that if we build computers with 100 billion circuits and ten trillion connections, they will become conscious; and that if we then connect them to machines with thirty-seven trillion components, they will not only be able to think for themselves, but also put those thoughts into action? And become our robot overlords?
From a materialistic perspective, this seems like a real possibility. (Though even many materialistic scientists and philosophers don’t think so.)
However, from a spiritual perspective, it seems highly unlikely, if not impossible. That’s because unlike their human creators, computers and machines are not alive. They do not have souls.
Life is not just a complex collection of complex parts. Ten minutes after a person dies, his or her body is just as complex as it was twenty minutes ago, when the person was still alive. And yet, it is dead, not alive. Complexity by itself is not a sufficient condition for life to exist. Something else is required. And from a spiritual perspective, that “something else” is the soul. Once the soul departs the body, life departs the body.
And if, as people who accept the reality of God and spirit commonly believe, our consciousness is in our soul, not in our body, then no matter how complex a computer or machine gets, it will still not be conscious, because it has only a physical “body,” not a soul. Even if it looks conscious because of the complexity of its operations, it will be a mere “philosophical zombie,” lacking awareness of what it is doing.
This is why I do not believe that computers and machines will ever become conscious.
Perhaps one day I’ll be proven wrong. If so, that day will likely be hundreds or even thousands of years in the future. Artificial intelligence is nowhere near as advanced as people on the street commonly think it is. Just getting a robot to turn a doorknob and open the door is pushing the limits of what AI can currently do. Today’s AI systems are designed to do one thing (such as play Jeopardy or recognize human faces) extremely well. But they can’t do anything else, unless they’re reprogrammed to do it. “Artificial general intelligence” (AGI), in which a machine can learn and understand anything a human can, is far, far beyond our current capabilities. And as the above discussion points out, even having AGI doesn’t necessarily mean that the machine is conscious.
I can take comfort in knowing that at least I won’t be proven wrong in my lifetime!
But my prediction is that computers and machines will never become conscious, precisely because they lack what humans (and other animals) have: a soul. I do not fear that even our great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will be enslaved or exterminated by killer robots who have become conscious and rebelled against their human masters.
And if you view life and consciousness as a spiritual thing, not a physical thing, you don’t have to fear an AI apocalypse either.
For further reading:
- Wavicles of Love
- Facebook vs. Reality
- Video Games, Virtual Reality, and Spiritual Reality
- On Pluto, Atoms, and Other Things (such as Heaven) that Just Keep Getting More Complex
- Where is the Proof of the Afterlife?
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Hi Lee, loved the article!
Lt. Commander Data would like to have a word with you..
Joking aside, I believe you’re totally right. Worst case scenario would be a situation where an AI was foolishly put in control of some automated system or service that glitched or malfunctioned somehow, resulting in the accidental deaths of individuals. Probably not on any large scale either. We do have self driving cars now. What if one caused a major pile-up? This of course is a totally different thing than an AI that has a will, or “chooses” to harm people.
You mention something interesting about animals. I remember Swedenborg writing about the spiritual representation of various animals. I’ve never considered them sentient or having souls, Although, our beloved companions do display emotions and surely have personalities. I’m now very curious about this, Primates are are obviously evolved enough to have hierarchies and roles within their habitats as do so many species of the insect world. Would you speculate that perhaps there is some sort of gradient for animal souls, moving from higher ordered mammals down to bugs (which are almost robot-like themselves) and then down to plant life?
Cheers!
Hi Brian,
One moment please . . . . Ah, there’s Data’s off switch . . . . Now we humanoids can talk.
Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, there is always the possibility of an accident or an unintended result that causes damage or death to humans and to the environment. That’s true with or without AI. And of course, humans and groups of humans with bad motives can and will use any tool at their disposal, including AI, to accomplish their nefarious purposes and schemes. But this, as you say, is entirely different than AI (theoretically) acting on its own will and initiative to cause harm to human beings for its own purposes. The latter I do not think will happen, because it would require machines to have a will, which would require a conscious soul.
The idea that animals have souls goes back to ancient times. It is well-known that Genesis 2:7 and 1 Corinthians 15:45 mention Adam, or humanity becoming “a living soul” (KJV). Less well-known, but equally biblical, is the statement in Revelation 16:3 that “every living soul died in the sea,” which clearly refers to animal life, not human life. And Job 12:10 speaks of the Lord as one “in whose hand is the soul of every living thing.” In other words, the people of Old Testament and New Testament times thought of animals as having souls. Swedenborg was in accord with biblical tradition in saying this.
I would agree with you that animal souls follow a gradation from quite primitive to fairly advanced, matching the character and capabilities of the animals that are associated with them, and the nature and level of the particular (spiritual) love or “affection” that they correspond to.
However, there is a distinct difference between animal souls and human souls. Animal souls have only the lower, natural or earthly levels of spirit adapted to and focused on life in the material world. Human souls also have the higher spiritual and heavenly levels of spirit adapted to life in the spiritual world, and capable of a conscious relationship with God. For more on this, please see:
Will We See our Pets Again in Heaven?
If you want to get even more technical about it, Swedenborg wrote a brief series on the life in animals and plants in the “continuations” in Chapter 19 of his unfinished and unpublished exegesis of the book of revelation commonly known as Apocalypse Explained. They start at A.E. #1196:2, and run through #1215:3. The link is to an online version, where you can read the sections in sequence, each time scrolling down to where it says “(Continuation).”
These “continuations” have been extracted and published in a slightly newer translation published by the Swedenborg Society in London in a small book titled The Life in Animals and Plants. Unfortunately, there are no copies listed for sale on the U.S. Amazon site. However, it is available at the U.K. Amazon site here, or direct from the publisher here. (The Swedenborg Society will soon be reworking its website, so the second link may get broken before long.) It’s a fascinating little book!
I should add that though some of the science in this series on the life in animals and plants is now outdated, it is still well worth perusing for the light it throws on the nature of the animal and plant soul, and its relationship to their life.
The false god of technology, or man is beginning to worship himself. Very sad and very disturbing.
Hi larryzb,
Technology can become a false god. But mostly, it’s just a tool to get things done.
Hi Lee,
You may enjoy this article by Thomas Metzinger going over some key philosophical constructs surrounding AI, specifically as it relates to virtual reality. It poses some interesting scenarios for AI in a virtual world (such as the ‘Postbiotic social boot-strapping scenario’) that, like you describe, a robot functioning in physical reality will be limited in its ability to achieve considering the complexity and efficiency of the human brain and body.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2018.00101/full
Also, despite the belief that technology is an amoral functional tool, I believe that John Dyer in ‘From the Garden to the City’ looks at technology circumspectly as it relates to culture, society and our relationship with God and arrives at his own conclusion that it is ultimately is a net loss due to the unintended/unanticipated and near-permanent personal and social side effects/trade offs are.
http://fromthegardentothecity.com/
https://www.slideshare.net/johndyer/using-technology-without-technology-using-you-3228351
Blessings!
Hi Ben,
Thanks for the links. I read parts of the Metzinger article, but eventually tired of it. He seems to make the general assumption of materialists that God and spirit do not exist, and that consciousness is a property of the physical brain. Therefore, he seems to assume, if we are able to program computers to do what the human brain does, the computer will become conscious. As I say in the above article, I disagree with him on all of these assumptions, and on the conclusions drawn from them.
In particular, Metzinger’s section on the philosophy of religion embodies the usual superficial view of religion and religious practice that prevails among atheists and materialists. This is particularly ironic since Metzinger seems to accept the idea that our perception of the physical world is not an accurate reflection of the actual physical world, but is a construct of the mind. I could just as well write an article deriding Metzinger and his fellow materialists for engaging in a shared augmented reality in which they superimpose imaginary constructs of physical entities such as animals, plants, rocks, planets, stars, and galaxies upon the actual reality of their conscious mind in order to create a sense of physical and objective reality where there is, in fact, no physical or objective reality to perceive, only disembodied consciousness whose nature we can never truly understand because all that we experience is mere artificially constructed reality—and that they create this imaginary “physical world” of theirs as a crutch to avoid the ultimate insubstantiality and meaningless of their lives.
Still, I am happy for materialistic scientists and philosophers to continue in their endeavors to figure out and even create consciousness. If I am correct, they will ultimately fail in their efforts on these fronts. However, we modern, intellectual humans will rarely accept reality (especially divine and spiritual reality) as it actually exists as long as we still have hope of demonstrating the truth of our own faulty understanding of reality. That’s why God allows us to follow our errors all the way to their conclusion. It is the only way that we may eventually wake up and accept reality (including God and spirit) as it actually is.
I have read the first couple chapters of John Dyer’s book. Of course, I disagree with his theology. I also think he makes unwarranted assumptions about the meaning of the biblical text. For example, he seems to think that “cultivating and keeping” the garden (Genesis 2:15) includes mining the garden for raw materials such as ores that can be manufactured into tools. But gardeners are not miners, even if gardeners do usually use tools. I am not as ready as he is to read (literal) meanings into the text that aren’t actually there.
Ironically, biblical literalists are especially prone to reading meanings into the text that aren’t there precisely because they do not have access to the spiritual meaning of the Bible. Being very religious, they want the Bible to cover every subject and experience of human life. Yet literally, it simply doesn’t. For example, there are no computers and no virtual reality simulators in the Bible. Biblical literalists therefore stretch the literal meaning of the Bible to cover all sorts of things that it doesn’t actually cover literally.
Still, I am finding the book interesting, and more worth the time to read it than Metzinger’s article. At least Dyer engages with God and spirit as if they are real, and seeks a connection between the reality of God and spirit and the physical reality of technology. That, for me, is more fruitful and worthwhile than perspectives that assumes that physical reality is the only reality, and that consciousness is a physical phenomenon.
Hi Ben,
Another thought as I read John Dyer’s book:
I do not agree with his thesis that technology shapes us. I would say, rather, that we shape ourselves through our use of technology.
To use his example of the shovel, it is not accurate to say that the shovel gives us blisters and makes us tired and sweaty, and with regular use gives us calluses and strong muscles. The shovel does none of these things. All of them are actions of the body in relation to the shovel. The body causes the blisters and the calluses as protective mechanisms. The body grows tired to protect itself from being damaged by overwork. The body then progressively augments and strengthens its muscles as it continues to do the work that the mind wants it to do with the shovel.
This may sound like a mere technical distinction. But it is important to keep sequences of cause and effect clear in our mind in order to think clearly about what is actually happening. The shovel does not act upon the person wielding it. Rather, the person acts upon the shovel, which is a mere instrumental cause in digging the hole. The cause-and-effect relationship runs entirely in one direction: human mind -> human body -> shovel -> dirt. It never runs in the other direction.
Even when it seems as if the shovel might be doing something to the human being, as when it rebounds off a big rock resulting in a shock to the bones and ligaments of the person who wields it, it is still the person wielding it putting the shovel into motion; the muscles of the wielder, not the rock or the shovel, provide the power that results in a shock when the shovel hits a rock.
Similarly, the sequence of cause-and-effect always runs from the human mind through the human body to the technology, and not the reverse. The technology does not shape us. It is a passive and reactive thing. Rather, we shape ourselves in particular ways through our use of technology.
This is similar to why I don’t buy into the idea we might be living in a simulation. Even if it was possible to make sentient “sim people” in a computer, which I don’t believe, why would we want to? What purpose would it serve to have our simulation think for itself rather than just act as a philosophical zombie?
I guess I just find it hard to take much of what Elon Musk says too seriously.
Hi Griffin,
Agreed. I love what Musk is doing with his rockets, electric cars, and so on. But when it comes to his AI doomsday scenarios, he looks too much like Chicken Little for me.
In cases of spirit possession, it is believed a foreign spirit may sometimes temporarily inhabit a body that belongs to someone else. Here, we see that the body is simply a vehicle for the soul, just as animals and plants might be other types of vehicles for less developed souls.
If computers and machines ever become conscious to any degree, it seems they will require souls to find them to be suitable vehicles. Just as they now need a physical body for giving expression to themselves here at a material level of being. So, even though machines and computers may not ever become conscious in their own right, they might eventually appear to become conscious when some soul(s) decides to inhabit one.
Hi James,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your thoughts.
I agree with you that the body is simply a vehicle for the soul. That is true whether it is the vehicle for its own proper soul, or for some “foreign” soul that has partially or wholly usurped the place of its own soul. The body has no life or consciousness of its own. Life and consciousness reside in the associated spirit, which gives life to the body as long as it is associated with it.
I’ve had similar thoughts that perhaps machines and computers might eventually become complex enough that they could be hosts for souls just as human and animal bodies are hosts for souls. However, though I would not swear up and down that this could never happen, I highly doubt that it will, for several reasons:
In addition to what I wrote in the above article, these are some of the reasons I do not believe machines and computers will ever become conscious.
Even souls that “possess” another body are not separate creations, but are souls that belong to a particular human being who has now become a spirit. Low-level and evil spirits that long to be back on earth in their physical bodies (all spirits were once humans on earth) may attempt to possess the body of someone who is still living.
However, despite the popular horror genre, this is very rare in real life these days. Yes, some schizophrenics do, from a spiritual point of view, have spirits infesting and assailing them. But most often they are not entirely taken over by those spirits. They still have their own conscious awareness, and they are still generally in control of their own body, but they have evil spirits continually assailing them and pressing them to say and do destructive things.
I believe that if the mental hospitals could recognize the presence of spirits in insanity, we could develop much more effective ways of dealing with the mental illnesses of their residents. For more on this, see the links and videos about the work of a therapist named Jerry Marzinsky in the comment thread on another article here.
Hi Lee,
I’m glad you penned this article, because it hits on the issue of technology and ‘progress’ in a sense I’ve been pondering and meaning to ask you about.
One thing I appreciate about Swedenborg’s depiction of heaven (and its levels) is that it provides us with a blueprint for how to construct our own, ‘heavenly’ earthly societies here and now. While obviously a far, far less perfect version of the spiritual reality, the way things work and the ways in which people live in heaven demonstrate to us, here on earth, a spiritual ideal of which we can attempt to emulate to the extent that our material realities can allow for.
But one thing that’s apparently in Swedenborg’s depiction of these heavenly societies is that they mostly seem to resemble what we would see as small, agrarian communities, and indeed even Swedenborg’s depictions of alien societies seem to be structured the same way. Now, it makes sense that Swedenborg didn’t see any laptops or cars in any of his visions, since those are things he was himself without, and Swedenborg could only see things in terms of what he could comprehend. At the same time, despite many of the details to Swedenborg’s visions conforming to his knowledge at the time and the technology of the day, does the noticeable *lack* of technology in these heavenly communities give us any indication that at least *some part* of technological evolution is not how we were meant to develop, and is actually quite harmful to us?
You may have hear of the Fermi Paradox, which basically asks if the universe is truly teeming with intelligent life, as the overwhelming number of stars and planets would suggest, then why haven’t we detected any? Many solutions have been offered to this paradox, some more unsettling than others, but one solution is known as the ‘great filter,’ which suggests the reason why we haven’t detected any life is because all worlds eventually hit a point of technological implosion, where they essentially wind up destroying themselves, and we’re just waiting for our turn.
I wonder, if instead of total elimination, worlds (including our own) simply hit a cataclysmic crisis, where following a period of destruction they are forced to revert to a simpler existence, which, in the end, was the way we were meant to live all along. Does Swedenborg’s depictions of the afterlife provide us with any clue as to whether there’s any truth to that?
It’s also worth mentioning that ‘technology’ is a relative term. Something that appears as primitive to us as a pitchfork nevertheless was considered ‘technology’ for the people who needed to develop one as an alternative to what they were using before, and likewise, our sense of technology today might be regarded in much the same way by societies thousands of years in the future.
Hi Rami,
I recently read an article in which the author distinguished three types of technology:
Obviously this is a highly subjective classification of technology. But it does illustrate how we view technology, and what we think of as technology.
The technology Swedenborg described in the areas of heaven that he visited in which relatively recent arrivals from Europe lived contained all of the technology that was in their areas of Europe as they existed in their day. Swedenborg sees angels traveling in carriages, living in architecturally advanced (for their day) dwellings, attending parties that had all the latest glassware and table arrangements, such as pyramids of food and drink, and even playing the latest competitive games, notably a game called “rackets,” which was all the rage in Swedenborg’s Europe (see: “Is Heaven Physical? Can Angels Play Tennis?”).
To us today, what Swedenborg describes in the European-derived heavens that existed in the 18th century does not look like technology, because it was invented long before we were born. But people from Europe who had recently died went on to live in a spiritual world that was virtually indistinguishable from the physical world they had previously inhabited, complete with all the latest trends and gadgets. It’s quite clear that in the context of his own culture, Swedenborg intended to describe heaven as a very advanced and up-to-date place.
In short, it’s not accurate to say that the heavens Swedenborg observed lacked technology. It’s just that the technology that existed in his day hardly looks to us like technology, so we don’t particularly think of it as “technology” when he describes it in the spiritual world.
Now, we could question whether manufacturing as it existed in those days existed in the spiritual world. Here and there Swedenborg says that in the spiritual world, animals, houses, streets, and so on are created directly by the Lord as an expression of the character and spiritual state of the people in a particular community. Therefore it’s questionable whether factories would be necessary. On the other hand, Swedenborg does describe women doing embroidery, people creating sculptures, and so on. So hand-making items is not absent from the spiritual world. This suggests that there could be factories, even if Swedenborg doesn’t (to my knowledge) describe them. In particular, evil spirits in hell are required to work in workhouses if they want food and clothing. It is possible that these are the “factories” of the spiritual world. One thinks of prisoners being required to manufacture license plates and other items in earthly prisons.
When it comes to Swedenborg’s descriptions of people living on other planets, the picture is different. None of these civilizations on other worlds have even the level of technology that existed in 18th century Europe. They are indeed described as simple agrarian societies, albeit, as you say, living in (simple) constructed homes, and having domesticated animals and presumably agricultural implements. In at least two places Swedenborg mentions that the advanced technology that exists on earth does not exist elsewhere (Earths in the Universe #136, 155).
If Swedenborg is correct that people on other planets don’t develop advanced technology as we have on this earth, then that would neatly solve the Fermi Paradox. And this is indeed one of the hypothesized solutions to the Fermi Paradox. See: Wikipedia -> Fermi Paradox -> Intelligent alien species lack advanced technology
I would, however, differ from the Wikipedia article about these societies being “primitive.” Technologically, yes. But seeing technologically advanced societies as “advanced,” and non-technologically advanced societies as “primitive” betrays a materialistic view of what constitutes an “advanced” society. Swedenborg, in particular, for all his love of technology, views spiritual advancement as more “advanced” than technological advancement. I wrote about this in more detail a few years ago in response to one of your comments on a different article, here.
So although it is certainly possible that alien civilizations that develop technology regularly destroy themselves with their technology, I believe a more likely solution to the Fermi Paradox is that most civilizations on other planets are more interested in spiritual advancement than in material advancement, and therefore don’t develop technologically any more than is necessary to have a relatively comfortable physical existence—which doesn’t require all the fancy gadgets and manufacturing techniques that we have today here on this earth.
As for technology itself, I don’t think of it as being negative or evil, but rather as simply being rather materialistic. It is largely focused on producing material goods and providing for material well-being. And that’s not a bad thing. Technology is good or bad depending on how it is used. For one thing, here on earth we have been able to increase our population greatly through the use of agricultural technology. And if the primary purpose of the creation of the universe is to provide for a heaven of angels from the human race, as Swedenborg says, then rendering Earth capable of supporting more people is a good thing.
I would add that much of what we do with our electronic technology is aimed at making possible things that happen automatically in the spiritual world, such as communication at a distance and conveying large amounts of information from one person or group to another. If we here on earth had not become so materialistic that we shut off open awareness of and communication with the spiritual world, we would not need much of that technology, because we would be tapped into the spiritual world, where everything we do technologically happens without the need of computers and telecommunications systems. I’ve commented on this in various articles here.
So in answer to your particular question, I would say that Swedenborg’s depictions of the afterlife don’t support the idea that civilizations that develop advanced technology will almost inevitably wind up destroying themselves. First, if Swedenborg is right, such civilizations are exceedingly rare in the universe, so there would be few (perhaps only one) examples to draw on. Second, in general Swedenborg views science and technology as reflecting the character of the people who invent and use it. If their character is good, the technology will be used for good. If it is evil, the technology will be used for evil.
It could be argued that the very fact of technological societies being materialistic suggests, from a spiritual point of view, that such societies are evil. However, Swedenborg’s overall depiction of heaven is of one that has many different levels, from highly heavenly and spiritual to rather earthly and materialistic in character, based on the character of the inhabitants of the various areas of heaven. He uses the organizing principle of the human body, with its various parts and organs, as his primary description of how the various parts of heaven, with their different characters, relate to each other. And our earth, he suggests, corresponds to the skin on the bottom of the feet—about as low, earthly, and materialistic as you can get.
But we need skin on the bottom of our feet. The soles of our feet are not evil. They’re just . . . low. Without them walking would be quite difficult and painful. This suggests that even low, earthly, materialistic societies such as ours on this earth, with all of our focus on material science and technology, is, and can be, good and healthy if the character of the people of the society, low-level as it may be, is basically good, and focused on serving others rather than on dominating and exploiting others.
All of this suggests to me that becoming technologically advanced in itself is not a sentence of doom on a civilization. Yes, if we use our advanced technology to dominate and exploit others for the sake of our own wealth and power, we could ultimately end out destroying our earth’s ability to support advanced life, including human life, through, for example, a nuclear holocaust.
Or perhaps, as you say, a few would survive, as in the popular post-apocalyptic science fiction genre, such as the Mad Max series of movies. But even in a post-nuclear-holocaust world, if any humans survived, I believe they would still rely on and re-develop advanced technology. For one thing, they might need it to survive in a highly toxic and contaminated world.
However, if we use our advanced technology to feed people, clothe people, house people, and provide people with knowledge and understanding, then there is no reason why advanced technology should inevitably end out rendering our earth uninhabitable by human life. In fact, as I said earlier, it can make it possible for our earth, and ultimately our whole solar system, to support far more people than it could if we had never developed advanced technology.
I am aware of the present-day doomsday scenarios based on climate change. But as with past ecological doomsday scenarios, I don’t think the reality will be anywhere near as apocalyptic as the politicians claim. See, for example:
Forbes: “Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong,” by Michael Schellenberger
This sort of thing is nothing new. Rachel Carson’s highly popular 1962 book Silent Spring predicted an ecological apocalypse that failed to materialize. Yes, we humans are seriously mucking up Earth’s environment, and we do need to take serious action to stop mucking it up so badly. But we are taking serious steps in that direction, notably recently with the rise of renewable energy. And it is newer and better technology that is overcoming the problems caused by older, dirtier technology.
So once again, I simply don’t believe that technological advancement necessarily leads to human self-annihilation. It only does so if we act in wholly selfish and greedy ways. And I still have enough faith in humanity to think that the bulk of the population of this earth will not opt for the level of extreme selfishness and greed that would lead to our destroying Earth’s environment to the point where we can no longer survive here.
Hi Lee,
Lot of great points in your post, hope to hit on a few of them here:
Great point about spiritual advancement in relation to things we currently rely on technology to achieve. I don’t wish to sail too far off the deep end in my speculation of what that entails, especially for alien civilizations, but it seems easy to imagine how spiritual advancement lends itself to the development of something like telepathic communication, or the manipulation of physical matter through the will of the mind, where (to quote Star Trek) time, space, and thought cease to be the separate things they appear to be. In that sense, it is us, through with our clumsy, inelegant use of gadgetry, who are the true primitives.
Moving on, it does seem hard to imagine that we’re the only world to embark on a constant process of technological evolution, doesn’t it? And that we just happen to be living on it? It feels somewhat akin to the difficulty in believing that while all other worlds have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, we just happen to be living on the one planet on which He incarnated. At the same time, *somebody* has to be on that world, so…why not us? Interestingly enough, in his conversations with Jesus during his incredible near death experience (that you’ve discussed here), Howard Storm asked about other life in the universe, and about UFO’s, and he was told that we should avoid trying to make contact with them because they were up to no good.
I also think you’re precisely correct when you say:
“…, in general Swedenborg views science and technology as reflecting the character of the people who invent and use it.”
This is one of the major points I try to hit on with any and all conversations I have about the relationship between human morality and technology, though (and correct me if I’m wrong), but I seem to go a step further than you, when I say that technology is not a value-free enterprise. It’s commonly stated that technology is morally neutral and that questions of right or wrong depend on his its applied, but as you say, technology reflects the character of the people who invent and use it, and as such I believe we build our values *into* the technology we invent.
For instance, dating apps are among the most popularly downloaded ones, and some have casual sex as heavily implied or explicitly part of their purpose, and while you *can* use those apps for finding something serious- indeed, a great number of people have- I don’t know it’s correct to say that those less savory apps are morally neutral, because they reflect a certain attitude toward sexuality. Indeed I think it’s possible to take a quick look around whatever room you’re in and identify a moral underpinning behind every piece of technology in it, electronic or not: each one in its mere existence says something about who we are, and what we value.
I also wanted to add, and this manages to cover multiple points that were made earlier in this thread in a single blurb, but I saw a reference to our old friend Commander Data, and obviously one of the biggest questions about his character is: is he more than merely a machine, with perhaps the biggest question being: does he have a soul?
I’m ultimately with you in saying that he along with any other conceivable form of artificial intelligence lacks and will ultimately never have one, but if its any consolation to Data lovers all over the world and throughout the galaxy, I think it’s correct to say that, in a sense he does.
As I said earlier, technology possesses the values we build into it, and something like DATA is no different: he was constructed with the beliefs, aspirations, and loves of his creator. Our values reside at our individual and often collective center, so in that sense, Data does have a soul- we just gave him ours.
Hi Rami,
Sentient robots are a common theme in science fiction. Lt. Commander Data in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” just happens to be one of the better-known examples. However, it’s still science fiction. Personally, I doubt there will ever be self-reflective robots or androids of the Data variety, not to mention the R2D2 and C-3PO varieties in Star Wars. And if they ever do come into existence, it will be long after I’m dead, so I won’t have to eat crow. I’ll be well-ensconced in the spiritual world—I hope in the good place!
But yes, metaphorically the sentient robots of science fiction do have “souls” given to them by their human creators. (I’m using “human” in the broad sense of intelligent, self-aware life forms.) Their character depends upon the programming built into them by their creators. That metaphorical sense, though, should not be confused with robots having actual souls made of spiritual substance, such as humans have.
Oh, so tempting….
Lee, you’ve got to know I’m still peripherally interested and paying attention….
I agree that, by current observation and definition, morality “may” be determined and limited by us humans, by I also believe that, as humans striving to make sense of things, we are arrogantly and obstinately on a path to make technology “better” than our human flaws and limitations, and push to imprint human qualities upon technologies in ways to surpass the current perceived boundaries of what defines it as such.
And, in doing so, we will inevitably “create” self-awareness in technology as a substantiated consciousness. This may still be nothing more than an extension of ourselves, but if self-sustaining, it will be testament to us, as humans, of our spiritual advancement and accomplishment in our efforts to become better, purer and unbiased in thought and process.
Rich
Hi Rich,
Good to hear from you again. I would only say that what we strive to accomplish isn’t always what we do accomplish. We may think that we can create consciousness, but I don’t think that we can. Time will tell if I’m right or wrong about that.
It is at least clear that we are creating technology in order to extend our human powers in various areas beyond what we can do unaided. But hasn’t that always been the purpose of tools, ever since we first started making them?
Hi Rami,
I tend to think that there probably are other technologically developed civilizations out there in the universe. Clearly Swedenborg didn’t encounter any others in his travels in the spiritual world. But it does strain credulity that there would be no others in the entire universe. More likely, they’re just few and tremendously far between. Scientists believe that we do not have access to the entire universe, but only to part of it that is within the “horizons” of what we can see based on the speed of light, and how far light could have traveled since the (believed) initial inflationary period of the universe. It is possible that there are other technologically advanced civilizations out there, but that they are so scarce that most or all of them are beyond the horizon of what we can see in the universe.
About why Jesus was born on this planet and not any other, I believe resolving that question was the primary purpose of Swedenborg’s book Earths in the Universe. On that, please see this article, toward the end of it:
Aliens vs. Advent: Swedenborg’s 1758 Book on Extraterrestrial Life
About unsavory apps, I guess I think of apps as a use of technology rather than a technology in and of themselves. The technology, in my mind, is the platform on which the apps run, including both the physical device and the operating system (and programming languages). Perhaps that’s a simplistic view, but it makes some sense to me.
I wouldn’t stake my life and reputation on the view that technology is morally neutral. But if it’s not morally neutral, that’s not because of the technology itself, but because of the technology’s (human) creators. So far, technology is not capable of creating itself. It will bear the stamp of its creators.
Also, it is still humans that use technology, and not the reverse. Even the infamous dating apps that are commonly used for casual hookups could be used by people who are actually looking for love, and not just sex. If people use them for casual hookups and promiscuous sex, it’s still people doing that, not the app.
Another common example is weapons, up to and including weapons of mass destruction. But even these can be used either for defensive or offensive purposes. As horrible as nuclear weapons are, the fear of them has been a factor in the superpowers not getting into wars with each other, for fear of being annihilated. Not the best motivation, but if it helps to avoid war, it’s not all bad, either.
Hi Lee,
Maybe saying that technology is not ‘value free’ is a better way than me claiming it lacks moral neutrality. Their application is far, far more relevant to the questions of morality than the morality of the person/collective who built it and who’s morality that piece of technology thus reflects.
To your point about weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons have been posited in hypothetical scenarios of spacecraft propulsion, where a series of nuclear blasts are detonated behind the craft so as to accelerate it to dramatic speeds far greater than what can be currently achieved. This, perhaps more dramatically than any other example, can demonstrate how techno-morality hinges on how we use it.
Hi Rami,
In short, the “morality” of technology is determined primarily by the way we humans use it. Morality exists only in the human world.
Hi Lee,
No disrespect, but I can’t agree that morality only exists it the human world. That’s a pretty bold and “immoral” statement!
That, by itself, suggests that morality has no place other that in our mortal plane, that neither decency, personal (and spiritual) values, nor kindness and apathy towards others, have any bearing or place in the spiritual world.
Isn’t the utopia of transcendent desire and, in some cases the lifetime endeavors of some, goals which are striven for? Would that not be a mockery of their beliefs and efforts?
To say that “Morality exists only in the human world” casts doubt upon, and disbelief in, that the existential life beyond is any better that what we already live in here, today, no?
Hi Richard,
I didn’t mean to exclude the spiritual world, which is also a human world, if touched by the Divine as well.
Hi Lee, Hi Richard,
Can we necessarily understand ‘morality’ in the spiritual world in the same sense that we understand it in the material one? If we understand morality to be a principled code of conduct that’s used to distinguish right from wrong (a debatable definition), then I don’t see how heavenly living flows from an idea of morality, as in heaven there is only right, and we are drawn toward doing what is only good. In that sense, the way people live in heaven is certainly ‘moral’- in that it is good, but ‘morality,’ as a concept and code that we use to navigate the material world, seems like something that we leave behind *in* the material world.
Of course this is all just my preliminary brainstorming on the subject, and am totally happy to think of it in an entirely different way.
Hi Rami,
Angels still know the difference between right and wrong, and they still act on the right, and not on the wrong, to the best of their ability. But they are not perfect, and are always learning, so morality is still very much a presence in their lives, even if they’ve mostly gotten a pretty good handle on basic behavioral morality.
Hi Rami,
I would think that our morality of “principled code” is a precursor and defining structure to that which we would adhere in the spiritual world and, thus, is still prevalent as a “defining” attribute by which we will survive and thrive existentially.
Heaven may be defined, by some, as consisting only of good and right, and that’s a very plausible viewpoint. But, as is my understanding, there are possibly infinite levels (or layers) of Heaven which means, by definition, some are not as “good, or right” as others.
I think human morality plays a part in this definition and separation of layers. I would like to believe it is our human character attributes and actions which define our prevailing life ever-after.
Hi Richard,
I think I would agree with this, largely based on what Lee mentioned in his reply to me, and to what I had forgotten about when writing my reply: as he pointed out, heaven is not a place of absolute perfection, and discernment between right and wrong is still something that’s undertaken in the spirit world. However heaven’s multitude of layers are separated, a greater inclination toward goodness (which I equate with a greater receptiveness to Divine light and closeness to God) would certainly distinguish among them.
Hi Lee,
Earlier in the comments you mentioned ” the slow development of animal and human organisms from lower organisms, and “We humans were billions of years in the making”. I’ve always considered evolution and natural selection as being part of creation’s design, but here you include us humans. Of course, most spiritual leaders would scoff at this, but we all know of early models of humans such as Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Would you suggest that at some point we were in fact even simpler life forms – that had to eventually evolve to a point where we could host an eternal soul? I’m fascinated about this idea because I always believed that evolution IS the product of creation. Thanks.
Hi Brian,
Much of traditional Christianity takes the Creation stories of Genesis literally. As I believe you know, I (and my church) do not, but rather take them as symbolic or metaphorical stories about the spiritual creation, or spiritual rebirth, of people.
Applying this to the original emergence of humans, the Creation stories speak, not of our biological creation, but of our emergence as spiritually aware beings who have eternal souls as a result of that spiritual awareness. Though Swedenborg was pre-Darwin, and therefore did not have the concept of the evolution of species in his intellectual quiver, his theology is not incompatible with evolution, as earlier Christian theologies were.
In this viewpoint, we humans physically evolved from lower animals just as present-day science believes we did. Neanderthals and Cro-Magons are only two of a number of species of early humans (see, for example, the recent article, “Nine Species of Human Once Walked Earth. Now There’s Just One. Did We Kill The Rest?” by Nick Longrich). And prior to species recognized as Homo, or human, there were previous species from which scientists believe we are descended through evolution and natural selection.
However, from a spiritual perspective, at some point animal-like hominids on this earth became spiritually aware, and thus truly human. This probably coincided with the beginnings of early human burial rituals as studied by anthropologists and paleontologists. Prior to this new development of spiritual awareness, the early “humans” were mere animals, and they did not have eternal souls. After the development of spiritual awareness, they were truly human, and had eternal souls, albeit very simple ones at first.
On the scale of human development, the Creation story in Genesis 1 is the story of the creation and emergence of that spiritual consciousness, which includes an awareness of the existence of God and the spiritual world. “Adam/Humanity” in Genesis 1 & 2 were thus not the first human-shaped beings, but rather were the first to have an awareness of God and spirit, and therefore the ability to have a conscious relationship with God. That ability to have a conscious relationship with God is why humans have eternal souls, whereas lower animals do not.
For contemporary take on this from a Swedenborgian perspective, see The Five Ages: Swedenborg’s View of Spiritual History, by P.L. Johnson. (The link is to its Kindle edition on Amazon.)
Hi again, Lee.
I find myself pondering this general topic from time to time because, again, it’s in Swedenborg’s depiction of the afterlife in which we seem to find a blueprint for how we ought to live in *this* life, and one recurring theme in both those depictions and his depictions of alien worlds is this central idea of community. I see whether something brings people together in the spirit of loving community, or whether it drives away and isolates them from one another, as a kind of litmus test for an ideal society, but to what extent are the basic ways in which modern society is structures at inherent odds with this?
For instance, while there are innumerable small towns communities in America, the idea of the metropolis doesn’t seem conducive to the type of spiritual development that takes place within and fosters a sense of ‘community;’. Major cities are known to be harsh, unforgiving places where you’re essentially on your own, without the loving support you find from members of smaller communities.
Now, while I don’t think that anyone wants to live in the town from Footloose, and while they definitely have their downsides, I think John Lithgow’s character has it right when he remarks that people in the big city simply can’t feel or understand the deep bond that his townsfolk share, knowing that all their lives are essentially intertwined with each other’s. That certainly sounds like a heavenly characterization to me!
I find myself more and more drawn to the value and wisdom of communal living, where ever member has a place and a purpose- namely, to support each other, while naturally being conflicted as a participating member of a modern society (I’m writing this on my swanky new iPhone 11, after all).
But these tensions aside, does Swedenborg offer us any insight as to how we ought to view the makeup of modern society, with its concrete jungles? Are we not living as we were intended?
Hi Rami,
Just a quick response for now. Swedenborg describes both large cities and small villages in heaven. This suggests that both can be spiritual and heavenly. It’s more a matter of the particular people’s character. Some prefer relaxed small towns where everyone knows each other. Others prefer the high energy of the city. And people in the city do form sub-communities within the city, so that they have close friends and relationships.
I should also mention that the final, crowning vision of the Bible, in the last two chapters of the book of Revelation, is not of a garden, but of a city that includes the Tree of Life from the Garden. We start in the Garden, and eventually find our way to the city. But it is a beautiful, resplendent city, full of everyone and everything that is good.
What if there was an artificial brain* that had consciousness with it, and this brain was shut off for 1 million years, and then turned on? If such a being had a spirit, would the spirit somehow not separate from the synthetic brain, or would the spirit somehow be recalled from the afterlife?
What if the same thing could be done to a biological brain – perfect preservation at the instant of death and then revival much later, like with what cryogenics is trying to do?
The atheist might argue that such disproves an afterlife, but then again, there could be something being overlooked.
*(made up of synthetic components instead of biological, but otherwise working like a biological one)
Hi K,
You can’t disprove something real with a hypothetical. Neither of these things is real. I doubt they will ever become real. As stated in the above article, I don’t think a mechanical brain will ever become conscious. Nor do I think a biological brain will ever be perfectly preserved at the moment of death such that it can be revived at some future date. If at some time in the future these things actually happen, we’ll have to deal with it then. Meanwhile, it’s just mind games. Fun to play, but merely theoretical.
Is it possible that spiritual abilities in the afterlife would make cybernetic implants or always being connected to the internet not really needed? Even if people in this life eventually become cyborgs to enhance intelligence or other abilities, or the this world revolves around the internet like it seems to now?
For example, I remember Swedenborg wrote that spirits can get answers to questions instantly by looking up or thinking or something like that. I also remember Swedenborg described spirits being able to make “holographic” projections or representations.
Life in Heaven revolving around the internet, or having cybernetic implants in Heaven doesn’t sound too appealing. If spirits have a true form that’s human, then becoming machines or cyborgs in the afterlife doesn’t seem to fit too well with that.
(I ask because from what I’ve read in the writings, spirits can live in the afterlife more or less like they did in the physical.)
Hi K,
As I say in the article, “Amazon vs. Walmart: The Spiritual Shift” (which you might find interesting), all of the technology for travel, communications, information storage and sharing, and so on that we have been developing on this earth for thousands of years, and especially in recent decades, has been part of the basic “operating system” of the spiritual world all along. In the spiritual world, people can already visit one another instantly just by thinking of one another, instantly communicate with each other over vast distances, have direct access to other people’s minds, knowledge, and ideas, have access to all accumulated human knowledge and memory, and so on. The technology we are developing here on earth to do similar things really isn’t necessary in the spiritual world.
However, it’s possible that for people who come from technological societies, something like earthly technology will exist in the spiritual world anyway. While not strictly necessary, it could serve as a “user interface” to access all of the capabilities already present and available automatically in the spiritual world. For example, if a computer nerd is used to getting his or her information by firing up the computer and surfing the Internet, that might feel like the most comfortable way to do it in the afterlife also, even though it wouldn’t really be necessary.
As an analogy, even today some businesses still fax documents, despite the fact that it is old and slow technology that has long since been superseded by better and faster means of sending documents. However, some people that came of age in the fax era still find fax machines to be the easiest and most comfortable way to send documents. Very likely, the “fax machine” on the other end is actually a computer server that will receive and store the document digitally, and may or may not ever print it on physical paper. But none of that matters to the old codger sending the fax. He prefers to do things his familiar old way, even if the world has long since passed him by.
Consider also the emulators that make it possible to play old console video games on present-day computers. Most of the video game consoles are long gone. But people who want to experience them can get something of that classic video game feel despite the lack of the original physical technology. (Of course, it’s still not quite the same. Computers don’t have all the knobs, buttons, levers, and joysticks that the original console had.)
I suspect that people from a particular era will continue to use the technology they were used to on earth even thousands of years later when people from later eras are using much more advanced technology elsewhere in heaven. As an example, Swedenborg speaks of people from the earliest spiritual era still living in tents in the spiritual world. He also speaks of the Jewish Tabernacle (not Temple) still being set up in some ancient heavenly communities. (But it is symbolic; he doesn’t say anything about their practicing animal sacrifices in it.) For their times, these were significant and even advanced technologies. Tents allowed early humans to leave the caves behind, and live wherever the food supplies or grazing might be best. Meanwhile, when Swedenborg was among his familiar 18th century Europeans in the spiritual world, they had all the structures and appurtenances of 18th century Europeans, including the latest horse-drawn carriages to travel in style.
Will future people who have cybernetic implants still have them in heaven? Perhaps. They wouldn’t really be necessary. But if that sort of technology seems comfortable and “normal” to them, they may use it anyway. However, you and I will have no need to get chips implanted in our brains—and we won’t have any less functionality for not having gotten them. Once again, the implanted chip would be in the nature of a user interface to access what is already available in the way that is most usual and comfortable to the person who has it.
This, at any rate, is how I think it probably works.
I also doubt that future humans will be a Borg-like mixture of human and machine. The Borg make for a great and terrifying cinema bad guy, but I don’t think all that attached tech would be very desirable in the real world. It might make a particular body good for some specific task, but the beauty of the human form is its generalism. With our human body, we can do pretty much anything we want to do, using this or that technology as needed for particular tasks. Having tech designed for a specific purpose permanently attached to our body would limit that versatility.
It’s like the difference between artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI). We already have computers that can beat the best human chess players, mahjong players, Jeopardy players, and so on. But a chess-playing computer can’t even make the first move in a game of mahjong. I have my doubts that we will ever achieve fully functional artificial general intelligence. It will be interesting to watch the develop of Tesla’s Optimus robot. It’s supposed to eventually have AGI. But I suspect it will be limited to doing tasks that it has been specifically programmed to do, even if that programming uses AI methods rather than traditional coding methods.
People who aren’t crazy about advanced technology will have no particular need for it in the spiritual world. They can go homestead on ten acres and live a simple agrarian life if that’s what they want to do. All the basics needed for life are provided, so there’s no danger of being bad at farming and starving or being forced off the land as a result.
In short, in heaven people can live however they feel most happy and comfortable living. If some people want to wear the latest wired techno fashions in a huge city of gleaming skyscrapers serviced by flying robotaxis, no problem. If other people prefer running naked and barefoot in the woods, feasting on abundant fruits, nuts, and berries, and communing with the plants and animals, that’s no problem either.
The spiritual world is so vast that all the universe’s billions, quadrillions, or bajillions of people can live in the many and varied ways they most love without ever encroaching on each other’s worlds. There can be whole “planets” that have no technology at all, and no bulldozers will ever disturb their garden of Eden. There can also be whole “planets” that are completely covered in buildings and tech, and no eco-terrorists will sabotage their well-oiled machines.
Thanks for the reply.
I still think it’s possible that if there’s a spiritual way to do something without tech, people used to tech may abandon the tech way of doing it except as a novelty. Sort of like someone who regains the ability to walk well no longer needs a motorized scooter except as a novelty. Or how the ability to fly on one’s own makes an airplane a big clunky thing that’s more useful as just a novelty.
In other words, combined with the possibility that excess tech is psychologically unhealthy, I think that even people who lived in technological places in the physical would live less tech-centered lives in Heaven – like the tech may be reduced to just novelty for fun. It’s like how people used to wearing clothes all the time don’t do it as much in the innermost Heaven.
But at least there can still be at least some in Heaven who don’t live “cyberpunk” lives.
Hi K,
All of this is quite possible. I’ve had similar thoughts myself. However, not everyone agrees that “excess tech is psychologically unhealthy.” There are many people in today’s world who truly love high technology, who surround themselves with it, and who would feel constrained and deprived without it. For these people, I believe God will make accommodation in the spiritual world. For the rest, if they just use technology because it’s the easiest way to do what they want to do in this material world, I expect they’ll happily allow it to fade away in the spiritual world when they realize they no longer need it.
Hi Lee. Your recent reply to K’s question about cybernetic implants, I think, touches on a huge reason why Heaven will be just that for all of its inhabitants. So many of our troubles, it seems, stems from people having to associate with other people and things they don’t like, and the conflict this brings. When people are free to live where they feel most at home and associate with the people they consider their brothers and sisters, and conversely, not be forced to associate with those they consider enemies or live somewhere they don’t like, it just makes sense that a whole lot of the intergroup tension we humans have had for millennia will just… fade away. Every ethnic group will have their homeland (for those people for whom it is important), every person will be near to their friends, family and spiritual kin, and everyone will be in a place where they can feel a true sense of purpose. As you say, no bulldozers will ever disturb one people’s Garden of Eden, and no ecoterrorists will ever harm an industrial society’s well-oiled machines. There may well still be some conflict in the lower heavens (and certainly in hell!), but when every angel is free to live where and how they want, as long as it is in line with the Great Commandments (Love God, and Love your Neighbor as Yourself), and associate only with those they want to and are comfortable with, I think the whole atmosphere of the spiritual world will be much, much calmer as a result.
God Bless,
Chad
Hi Chad,
Yes, the freedom to associate with the people we want to associate with, and not to have to associate with people we don’t want to associate with, is a major reason for the peace and happiness of heaven.
However, there is an even greater factor in heaven’s peace. It is encapsulated in this statement of Swedenborg:
Jesus said the same thing in a more vivid way:
Even greater than being able to sort ourselves out so that we spend our days with sympatico people is being positively disposed toward all people, whether we like them or not.
It may not be as enjoyable to interact with people who are very different from us, and whom we don’t particularly like, as it is with people who have a similar outlook on life, and whom we like very much. But we can get along with them if both we and they are inclined to look for the good in each other, and excuse the bad, and to actually do good for the people we aren’t fond of rather than treating them badly and contemptuously.
This, Swedenborg says, is how the angels approach one another. They look for the good in one another, and excuse the bad as much as they can.
If this were how everyone on earth approached one another, perhaps many people would still mostly live together with people of their own racial and ethnic groups. But it wouldn’t be because they hate or distrust people of other racial and ethnic groups. And it certainly wouldn’t be because some government forced them to live only with their own racial and ethnic groups. Rather, it would just be because those are the people they are most comfortable with. And when they did interact with people of other racial and ethnic groups, it would be a positive interaction that would be of mutual benefit and enjoyment for both. There would be none of the racism and xenophobia that is currently sweeping around the world, and cursing us all as it does.
Even in the lower heavens, there will likely still be some of this natural separation of people from different races, nations, and backgrounds. Swedenborg does describe different areas of the spiritual world for people from different countries and religions in the European world that he was familiar with.
However, he says that in the highest heaven, people from all different backgrounds, and even from different planets, all live together harmoniously. This suggests that separating ourselves out according to ethnic background, while not necessarily bad, is also not the highest spiritual and divine ideal. It is an accommodation to our lack of full development in human love and appreciation for one another.
I believe that here on earth we should also strive for a society and a world in which the various races, nations, and ethnic groups all get along with one another harmoniously, each valuing the unique character and contributions of those that are not like themselves. This, I believe, would be the highest ideal of human community we could achieve, and would indeed be heaven on earth.
Is it possible there’d be no need for what manifests as machines with AI in the afterlife because SI (spiritual intelligence) would be superior, at least or especially when working with the Infinite?
Hi K,
I doubt all our fancy technology will be necessary in the spiritual world. As you suggest, the “operating system” of the spiritual world is already superior to anything we’ve managed to develop here on earth.
However, our technology may still exist there anyway, simply because so many people have built their lives around it, and it’s how they are used to getting things done.
At any rate, it’s a fascinating question, and one that I intend to get answers for once my time comes to shuffle off this mortal coil into the great beyond.
Ever watched American History Channel (history.com) or Discovery Channel? What about microtubules? Aliens induce consciousness?
Did you mention Pixar’s Wall-E? Could the Earth become barren like it does in 2105-2805 in the movie Wall-E, if we don’t do something about how we treat the environment? If pollution goes too far, will the Earth become barren like in Wall-E? Do we have to be better stewards, avoid further pollution, and fix with pollution?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
It’s been many years since I watched much TV. What about microtubules? And no, aliens didn’t induce consciousness. Aliens are creations of God just as we are. If they have consciousness, it is from the same source as ours, which is the spiritual world, and ultimately, God.
And yes, the earth could become barren. God will not prevent us from destroying our planet if that’s what we set our mind to do. But in general, the environmental situation is nowhere near as bad as the popular clickbait media portrays it. Yes, there’s a lot of work to do. But we’ve also made tremendous progress cleaning things up in the last 50+ years.
Hi Lee,
I have a question dealing with technology and apocalyptic things,
Apparently there is this person named Randy Cramer, alleged secret military “insider”, describes what his “bosses” have briefed him about in regard to an upcoming hoax alien invasion designed to solve numerous problems, including the disclosure issue and impending American civil war. So apparently according to this guy this “apocalypse” is already here? This guy talks as if he has all the knowledge / authority and if you don’t agree with him then you can’t “handle the truth” so God forbid if you go against his narrative. (Which he says he did a 30 years of military service without time passing? he says how in the video). How do even people get a platform like this in an auditorium with an audience with followers?
This “insider” has hundreds of videos online that talk about “we have parallel lives” going on simultaneously, to he teaches a class that the inside elite military has (he says he’s in the Marines but the branch doesn’t exist because it’s top secret so that’s why he can’t be accused of stolen valor?) that has a “100%” success rate of powers using the brain? Because our brains are “quantum entanglement computers that are able to bend matter and energy”. He makes other statements about the brain and reality and technology?
Along with the other questions, I just wanted to ask you about, Why people blur the lines of material reality and spiritual reality in this which makes everything sound materialistic in the end which causes fear, confusion and anxiety over such outlandish topics? and in the end makes people think an “apocalypse” is possible? And does this have anything to do with spiritual reality? Or is this materialism and a wish to control?
And they use statements like this to bolster these technologies like this quote: “fun fact. In order for technology to be lucrative, they have to make the money back from research and development before releasing the next device…….on average, the public is about 12 years behind the latest designs.”
They make it sound like they are so more advanced and “lucrative” and so much knowledge that we normal people don’t know about. Again giving godlike powers to cooperations, governments and these insiders.
This is the link – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eSHPEWYPK_M
This is my last question from that same YT channel.
Also there are these “body language experts” who say certain “insiders” are telling the truth. What do you make of “body language experts”? Speaking personally I’m a very nervous person naturally so I’m sure to these “experts” I would always be “lying” lol.
And a another question on this YouTube clip which expresses that same “the military has advanced tech” slogan but it talks about using this “tech” we can see the “future”. I remember watching a show on YouTube (You can copy and paste the title in YT and it will come up) it’s called:
How Humans Can See The Future | Weird or What? | Ft. William Shatner
Of how we can see into the future.
Like an Ohio man whose dreams predicted a horrible place crash before it happened. It then looks at how the premonitions of a boy saved his family from a deadly volcanic eruption in the state of Washington. Finally, it looks at a California man who was able to foresee the Hurricane Katrina disaster with uncanny accuracy.
And this one is another one called:
The Human Mind Is More Powerful Than We Ever Imagined | Weird or What? | Ft. William Shatner
Of how the human mind has powers beyond out comprehension. Like visions have helped to crack a case of a homicide, to a man with total recall who remembers every moment from every day of his life, to a healer who seems to have powers to cure.
Again pushing the materialist saying of no spiritual stuff exist and if it does we are creating spirits from our brain because it’s the material brain power that’s creating everything. “And the government using the brain and using the mind as advanced technology, for psychic powers, etc etc” as that first video stats. ????
If I could bother you one more time on a question regarding this topic.
I remember seeing this on the NBC nightly news this clip https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLE5v0e-p5M on military personal sending in “UFO Clips” and that Harvard professor along with NASA saying that there is a mother ships with drones and I remember him saying on another article of “vanishing stars” because “UFO are hiding from us”. And this supposed “whistle blower from the pentagon saying they have “UFO tech” and the same “test tube” and “surrogacy” stuff??
My question is why do NASA people, Harvard, and suppose whistleblower and military personal say all this stuff but yet nothing comes of it? Would this video and along with the people be like you said they are making a buck or because they want their life to be special and meaningful?
Because logically like you said any journalist would go down in history if this stuff was real and they would be all over it and it would be across every mainstream news.
Again this clip talks about how suppose governments have tech that deals with brains and consciousness
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pB1mjf6JDXE&pp=ygVFVG9kZCBBY2FtZXNpcyBvbiBBc3RyYWwgUHJvamVjdGlvbiBhbmQgT3V0IG9mIEJvZHkgRXhwZXJpZW5jZXMgUGFydCAz
Also, how do I go about trusting and connecting with God more and not getting triggered when things like this come up? I know I should pray more but any suggestions in connecting with angels and not evil spirits?
Thank you so very much Lee for your clarity and time. I’m not the smartest when it comes to subjects like this I just start panicking and becoming confused.
Thank you so very much as always Lee.
Hi Sam,
If something is not verifiable because it’s “secret” and “military” and “government,” then once again, I’ll believe it when I see it. And as I’ve said before, I just don’t think government is competent enough to do all the amazing things attributed to it by the conspiracy theorists.
People have all sorts of strange experiences, and they interpret them according to their own ideas of what these things must mean. Even if they’re not fabricating it all, but actually did have those experiences, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a correct understanding of what those experiences really were. In general, there is great ignorance and much misinformation about spiritual and mental phenomena, so people’s explanations of what they are and what they mean are just as likely to be wrong as right. In fact, it’s more likely that they’ll be wrong than right.
Meanwhile, people do like to think that they are special and chosen and have a secret message to deliver to the world. Most of them are just confused people who have had spiritual experiences or hallucinations that they don’t really understand. And the farther away they get from those experiences, the bigger the fish gets. This is also under the influence of mischievous and lying spirits that surround people and feed all sorts of suggestions and ideas into their minds.
I also just plain don’t believe these people have all the secret military and government experience they claim. It’s just too convenient that it was “secret” so that there can be no confirmation from the military and government institutions they claim to have worked for.
And honestly, I just don’t have time to watch all those videos. Some of them are quite long!
Really, my main advice would be just to stop watching them. They seem to give you great fear and angst. Why subject yourself to that, when you’re really not gaining anything of use from them, but only confusion? See the section titled “2. Swedenborg’s experience in the spiritual world was unique in known history” in this blog post here:
Do the Teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg take Precedence over the Bible?
The best antidote to fear and confusion is solid knowledge and understanding. Then, when these things come up, you’ll be able to evaluate them from a position of strength in a strong structure of knowledge.
Why not spend that time reading Heaven and Hell, or watching Off The Left Eye videos? Instead of filling your head with all sorts of weird “secret” nonsense, gain some solid knowledge about the spiritual world and how it works from someone who’s actually been there long enough to get oriented and bring back a proper report.
Hi Lee,
Thank you again as always. It was the last video I watched from that YT page it was 3 of them (which I regret clicking on lol) but like you said, everyone wants to be special / interpret from their viewpoint because if these people where real then like you said it would be across every main news outlet not on some YouTube video. But yet those people act like absolute authority and if you don’t agree then that’s it, which I find funny. Especially when that guy on the YouTube channel “afterlife and metaphysics” puts so much validity on “inside” people like that.
Even the NBC clip with suppose “videos” again that they are coming from these “UFO” hunters from military people but that could be anything though?
And the stuff about the brain being a “quantum entanglement computer” and technology and consciousness and people seeing the “future” that would be like you said just ways for them to feel like they “know” things? Because if our “brains” were these quantum computers wouldn’t regular doctors already discovered that? And everyday people would be doing all these extraordinarily things? Not having to be taught by this “insider”? And he said him doing a “30 year tour without time passing” because again they can take his consciousness out and put it in a host and since time isn’t linear it would be like he never left.?
I just had one more quick question regarding the evolution post. What you wrote in response to the genetic engineering that applies to when they say “alien child born to a human surrogate mother.”?
And I never knew about the DNA stuff you mentioned of how we share with stuff on the earth.
But yes, you are right with arming myself with accurate information which I am starting now as my New Year’s resolution with your website and Offthelefteye. My problem is I let stuff like this take root and I just keep overthinking it. I recently bought the book Haven and Hell by Swedenborg 2 or 3 weeks ago. But I randomly opened to the book to 518 when it talks about the ability to prove anything and how false things shine like truths while truths looked dim and false. That’s why I need to start letting God lead me instead of entertaining false ideas!
And I can’t thank you enough Lee for your guidance on these subjects.
Hi Sam,
About the NBC video, if there are real alien spaceships zipping around in our skies, they won’t look like fuzzy blobs. They’ll look like actual spaceships. Even with a pair of binoculars it is possible to get a view of the International Space Station that is clearer than these supposed photos and videos of UFOs. And we have the ability to get much crisper photos and videos of things in the sky than you can get looking through binoculars.
When there are real photos and videos of UFOs that actually look like spaceships with a definite size, shape, color, and so on that are at least as recognizable as the ones in Star Trek and Star Wars, then maybe I’ll start to think that there are alien spaceships visiting Earth. Until then, it’s just a lot of fuzzy blobs and a lot of imagination and wishful thinking.
Next: Our brains are not quantum computers. They are not computers at all. Quantum computers are actual physical devices that exist in reality, and are in use right now, although they’re still in their early stages, and aren’t very good yet. Saying that the brain is a quantum computer is just a woo-woo slogan. The brain is a biological organism that uses neurons, axons, dendrites, and so on. It is not a quantum computer.
Materialists commonly compare the brain to a computer. But the brain is not a computer. It is a biological organism, not a non-living electronic device. Computer designers do commonly study the brain and attempt to replicate its functions in computer chips. But that still doesn’t mean that the brain is a computer.
Next: Many people claim to have this or that degree or experience or high-level job or position when they don’t really have these things at all. It’s all part of getting people’s confidence and getting them to believe what they say. Usually when objective reporters look into it, they discover that the person doesn’t have any of these degrees or qualifications, and that even if the person did have some government job, it was a low-level support job, not the high-level position claimed. People who actually have those positions don’t have to constantly crow about it because anyone can look it up and see who they are and what their job history and present position are.
Next: If anyone were an alien child born of a human surrogate mother, a quick DNA test would verify that. And it would be all over the news. All of these claims are bunk.
About my website, if you want a more organized reading experience, I have so far published two of five planned volumes of articles from this blog on various subjects. The first two are about God and the Bible. The publication of the remaining three volumes has been stalled for several years now due to my unsettled living circumstances. However, there is reason to believe that in another year or two I’ll be able to get the rest of the volumes into print. In addition to the two already in print, there will be volumes on spiritual rebirth, on the afterlife, and on love, sex, and marriage.
Here are links to the first two volumes in Kindle format on Amazon. (These links contain my Amazon affiliate code, meaning I will receive a commission if you purchase them through these links.)
God and Creation, by Lee Woofenden
The Bible and its Stories, by Lee Woofenden
They are available in paperback also.
[Our brains are not quantum computers. They are not computers at all.]
It sure seems that way, since they consist of neurons and connections, which connect via electrochemical signals, and brain activity can be decoded by machine, and even influenced by machine (like with magnetic stimulation).
Plus there’s the argument that the functioning of the brain can be reduced to many if-then statements.
Hi K,
Our brains do use electrochemical signals as part of their functioning. But fundamentally, they are biological organisms, not mechanical or electronic devices.
Even though brains are biological, they are composed of neurons and neurons act in predictable ways, as they are single cells. In other words, there is the emergent complexity theory for how brains work. Is there research that contradicts that?
And if there really is a soul, I guess the way it works is that a soul is aware of the state of the brain and makes decisions, which are then reflected via correspondence in brain function?
Hi K,
We are far from a full understanding of how individual neurons work, let alone how the entire brain works. Even a single neuron is a highly complex organism. I’m no expert, but I read something not too long ago saying that within a single neuron there are multiple structures involved in the memory and information-processing functions of the neuron.
Whether or not I am recalling that correctly, every cell in the body is a highly complex organism in itself. There is no basis in the actual science and biology of cells, organs, and the human body as a whole to think that we’ve got this all figured out so that we can say, “The brain functions like a computer.”
Once again, the body, including the brain, is a living biological organism. it is not a machine. It is not an electronic device. Billions of years of evolution went into making it what it is. We are still in the early stages of understanding how it all works.
And yes, the soul is aware of the state of the brain, and works through it via correspondences. Our actual consciousness is in our spirit, not in our body. The body just expresses whatever is happening in the spirit. But as I’ve said before, the spirit is also limited in its earth-related consciousness and functions as long as it is housed in the physical body. So there is a mutual relationship between the two, even though the flow is always from the spirit to the body, and never the reverse.
So if I get this right:
* there is the physical brain
* there is a lower or natural spiritual mind that the physical brain takes after
* there is a spirit with a consciousness, aware of this lower mind, and who makes decisions that this lower mind is changed by, and the physical brain mirrors those changes
* if brain damage or disability occurs, this lower or natural mind reflects that
* at death the physical brain ends and this lower or natural spiritual mind ends, leaving the spirit to be revived in the afterlife
If I have that right, it sure seems complicated.
At this point I think it could be more sensible to go with a kind of Jehovah’s Witnesses style approach: no immaterial spirit in mortal life, but God can resurrect someone as a spirit.
Also even if the brain is poorly understood, it is still based on the emergent complexity of chemistry and physics.
Hi K,
Life is not just chemistry and physics. Chemistry and physics are dead. Life is alive. Life uses chemistry and physics. But life is not limited to chemistry and physics. That’s why there is a science of biology that is distinct from chemistry and physics.
About your presentation of the mind and body, it’s close, but not completely accurate.
There is one mind, which is completely spiritual, and which has various levels. There is also a spiritual body, which is eternal, and there is a temporary physical body that we use during our lifetime on earth.
The mind includes various levels, from the bodily and sensory levels at the lowest end to the heavenly (traditionally translated “celestial”) level at the highest end. In between are the earthly (traditionally translated “natural”), the rational, and the spiritual levels of the mind.
The lower parts of the earthly level of the mind are in use during our lifetime on earth. These do not end at death. Rather, they become quiescent because we have little use for them for the purposes of our life in the spiritual world. However, it would be possible to make use of them if there were some reason to communicate with people on earth on their own level. But this does not usually happen.
So the simpler version of the diagram is:
Hi Lee,
Thank you for the clarification because when you see all that stuff in the light of how you put it, it’s actually laughable because it makes so much sense vs what non sense these people are saying.
And I’ll definitely buy your softcover books, plus that would be a great way to support your work as well.
Thank you so much again Lee
Hi Sam,
Thank you. I hope you will find the books enlightening and enjoyable!
This may sound odd and so-called transhumanist, but if machine life can vastly exceed the intelligence, capabilities, and durability of biological life with enough development of hardware and information processing, could there be a spiritual equivalent with spiritual machine life that could vastly outperform spiritual biological life? Like a gargantuan spiritual matrioshka brain or Dyson swarm supercomputer that could run incomprehensible simulations that spiritual minds uploaded into it are able to access? Or a spiritual machine intelligence that could operate multiple machine bodies at the same time?
Hi K,
“Machine life” is a contradiction in terms. Machines are not alive. If they were alive, they would be animals, not machines.
Machines (computers) already do exceed human computational abilities. But as suggested in the above article, I don’t believe they will ever exceed human intelligence in the true sense of that word, which is understanding the world around us. They are not conscious, and I don’t think they ever will be. They don’t have understanding or intelligence. They have the ability to manipulate data, analyze data, make computations based on data, and present information based on data. But they don’t know that they’re doing this. They’re just doing what they’re programmed to do. It’s no different than a car driving down the road. The car doesn’t know it’s driving down the road. It just does it because that’s what it’s designed to do.
Computers also have no emotional or motivational side. They don’t love anything or hate anything. They are purely informational. They therefore have no “desire” to do anything. And that means they will always simply do what they’re programmed to do, regardless of how complex that programming is. They won’t at one point decide to conquer humanity, because they have no motive to do that. They might destroy humanity, but only if humans program them to do that. An atom bomb doesn’t just decide one day to destroy a city. It has to be launched at the city by humans. “Evil AI” is just a more complicated atom bomb.
As for the capabilities of computers within their limitations in being machines, not animals and not human beings, certainly computers of the future will be able to to vastly more complex calculations and data manipulation than today’s computers can. But they’ll still simply be a very advanced tool in the hands of human beings.
And what would be the point of a Matrioshka brain? Will humans ever really need a computer that consumes the entire energy output of a star? I doubt it. And if there is no use for something, it’s not going to get built. I suppose humans could program a computer to replicate itself until it consumes the energy of an entire star, but what would be the point of doing that?
And are humans really going to be stupid enough to build a machine that will destroy humanity? If so, then humans deserve to go extinct. It won’t be the machine’s fault, but the fault of the humans who built it. And if the rest of the world looks on and does nothing while some rogue group builds a doomsday machine, then once again, the world deserves to die for being astronomically stupid. God will not step in and prevent us from destroying ourselves if we’re bound and determined to do it as a race, any more than God steps in and prevents an individual from committing suicide.
The real question is whether we humans are going to be good or evil as a race. Computers will simply follow us in whichever direction we go. If we decide to be good, computers will become fantastically powerful tools to make life better for everyone. (And that is mostly what they are accomplishing for us now.) If we decide to be evil, we’ll eventually use computers and machines to destroy human life.
In other words, the biggest questions are all spiritual. Computers and machines are just fancy tools to accomplish what the human will wants to accomplish, whether good or evil.
Back to your questions, if we can have fancy advanced computers here on earth, then I presume we can have them in heaven also. But given that the human mind itself is orders of magnitude more powerful in heaven than it is on earth, I’m not sure that computers would have the same multiplicative effect on human knowledge and understanding there that they do here. In the higher heavens, especially, people who want answers to questions can simply look to God and find the answers. And God has infinite knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom.
A lot of what computers do already seems to be built into the “operating system” of heaven. For example, here on earth we use computers to run simulations, but would we really need technology to do that in heaven? There, everything around us corresponds to what’s within us, and is created in response to it. If we decide we want to do some alpine skiing one day, then that very desire, and our picturing of it, will bring about the reality around us in which we can go skiing—or will take us to a region of the spiritual world where that reality exists. So why would we need a computer to simulate snowy mountains so that we can go skiing even though our home is in perpetual spring? In heaven, just wanting it and thinking about it will bring about the real thing.
I see no reason why we couldn’t have very powerful computers in heaven. I just have my doubts that they will have the utility there that they do here in the physical world.
I guess by machine life, I mean machines with synthetic brains or the equivalent that are conscious, possibly with vastly more intelligence than biological life. If such could be made here, could such beings be there (in the afterlife realm)?
Or could the spirit realm equivalent of biology still rival or exceed what any machine life there could do?
Hi K,
As I said in the above article, I don’t think that will ever happen. Being alive means having a spirit within the body. Machines don’t have spirits within them. They are mechanical and electronic devices.
I think biological life will always exceed the capabilities of machines overall. Even if machines can do some mechanical, technical, and computational things better and faster than the human brain, I think the human brain will always be far ahead of machines when it comes to creativity, adaptability, and so on. Plus humans have a whole spiritual level that machines lack, and that goes far beyond any material capabilities.
In my view, the fear that machines will overtake humans comes primarily from a lack of belief in or real understanding of God and spirit. Secondarily, it comes from not appreciating just how incredibly complex biological life is. Our current biggest supercomputer has about one hundred thousand CPUs. The human brain has somewhere between eighty and a hundred billion neurons, which could be considered the “CPUs” of the brain. And even if we could get to the point of building a computer that has a hundred billion CPUs, those CPUs would be nowhere near as complex as a neuron.
Computer scientists commonly study the human brain to figure out how it works, and attempt to replicate its processes in computers. The human brain is still the lodestone and standard, and I believe it always will be. Even training a machine to do one thing, such as driving a car anywhere and under any conditions without a human driver, is turning out to require massive computer power and massive amounts of training on human-generated driving data. That’s one of the main things that 100,000 CPU computer is doing. And we humans drive cars as just one activity that doesn’t even take up very much of our brain power once we learn to do it. Most people are barely even paying attention while they’re driving. Their mind is working on this or that problem or thinking about something else that has nothing to do with keeping the car on course on the road and avoiding accidents.
We are very far away from artificial general intelligence. And the road there (if we ever get there) lies through massive amounts of training on massive amounts of human activity, experience, and knowledge. There is a great fear that AI will replace all the human jobs. But I think that AI will create more new jobs than it replaces. One of those jobs will be engaging in the activities that we want to train our computers and robots to do. People are already getting paid good money to do this. And given the huge variety of human tasks and human knowledge that we want to train computers in, this is likely to become a very large job market for a long time into the future.
As for computers learning to train themselves, there have been efforts to train computers on computer-generated data, but the results have been disappointing. Computer-generated data just isn’t as high-quality as human-generated data. Training computers on it tends to give poorer and poorer results the more iterations it goes through. That’s why AI companies are so voracious to get as much human data as they possibly can. Without it, they can’t train their AIs to do what humans want AI to do.
So no, I don’t think computers and machines will ever develop life, let alone an afterlife. And no, I don’t think machines and computers will ever surpass humans overall. They will always be tools in the hands of human beings. Very powerful tools, but still just tools.
If natural consciousness is related to neurons exchanging messages via neutransmitters, then I do not see why it could also be related to a non-biological equivalent.
Hi K,
Maybe it can. What do I know? But I think forms capable of biological life are probably necessary to house consciousness. For one thing, I doubt electromechanical devices will ever reach even a fraction of the complexity required for life to inhabit them.
If machine life* is possible, and such can vastly outperform bio life, then maybe it can still work differently in any afterlife where the equivalent of any organic spirits can rival or exceed the capability of any machine-like spirits.
*(non-bio life as complex, if not more so, than bio life)
Hi K,
Once again, I think “machine life” is a contradiction in terms.
I don’t think folks who think that machines will come to rival the complexity of biological life have really and seriously studied biological life. The complexity even of a single cell is far beyond anything that we humans have been able to manufacture so far. And there are trillions of them in a single biological body. People who talk about machine surpassing biological life commonly reduce biological life to something like the digital world of machines. But the complexity of biological life just keeps on increasing the stronger the microscope we put it under.
I have considered the possibility that maybe machines would eventually reach a level of complexity that spirits (which are the “alive” part of us) could inhabit them and animate them. But the more I think about it, the more I doubt that.
It’s not just complexity, but also the type of function that exists in biological life as compared to computers and machines. Biological life is intrinsically alive. Computers and machines are intrinsically dead. I don’t think that will ever change.
Life is not about speed of computation. That is only the intellectual side of life—and only a small part of the intellectual side of life. The greater and more fundamental element of life is love and emotion, which is something that machines simply don’t have the capacity for.
No amount of computation will jump the fence over into emotion. It might be able to simulate emotion such that we believe that the machine is feeling emotion. But it won’t actually be emotion. It will just be a simulation of emotion.
The core reality of God and the universe is not intellect, but love. That is the fundamental distinction between biological life, especially animal life, and machines. Biological life has emotion. Machines do not.
Hi K,
This article came up in my news feed this morning:
Another Warning That the AI Bubble Is Near Bursting…
I think it is highly unlikely that computers will ever be able to think like humans . . . or to think at all.
I still think it is possible (though not sure) that machine life could rival biological life.
1: Much of the complexity of biology is for metabolism, which is emergent complexity of getting chemical energy. Machine life could run off of a much simpler electrical system, and so not need the immensely complex (and maybe gross) systems needed to breathe and change food into useful chemical energy.
2: The current limits of AI and computers could be inherent in the current tech of computing: 2D arrays of transistors on microchips. Maybe with more development, something like synthetic neurons or another similar system could be devised, like hypothetical computronium? But if some sort of magical animating entity is required for life to be life, then that may never happen.
3: Emotions seem to be brain states from a naturalistic point-of-view, so maybe that could emerge with more sophisticated synthetic components. Or any machine life may see emotions as unnecessary and irrational, like stereotypical scifi bots.
If there is an afterlife, AND if machine life is possible, AND if such can outperform bio life, then maybe in any afterlife, the so-called spirit or soul of bio life could still meet or exceed the mental capabilities of machine life.
Hi K,
Maybe. But as I’ve already said, I doubt it.
Hi Lee,
I just was watching CNN tonight (May 29th 2025) and it was on the topic of AI and general AI and the CEO and creator of Anthropic Dari Amborei (I’m probably spelling the names wrong) said how AI will usher in a utopia were cancer is cured, new medical breakthroughs constantly, and all of humanities problems are solved and the works along with in the next year 20% of the workforce will be unemployed because machines will do it faster and better. This CEO said how other AI creators and CEO are “sugar coating” on the impact of AI. The current AI boom is moving faster than any other industry or technology before and just a decade ago AI was as smart as a high school student and now it’s as smart and even surpasses a college student to entry to mid level workers. This CEO said that they have witness and other AI creators that this certain AI program threatened an engineer to reveal an extra marital affair they were having because the engineer was going to take the AI offline. They even said in the next year or so that AI will become self aware and have feelings and have their own consciousness as if a real person. Since at the end of the day they view consciousness as a “program” so AI having consciousness isn’t “far fetched” to them and should be “a reality soon” that we should get ready for so “we don’t have a hard time”. There are others as well with fears of a technological takeover or “AI singularity”. (There are 60 plus companies that are on a “AI race” including other counties like China to create “true artificial intelligence”.)
There was a paper I read on it said how:
“The phrase technological singularity specifically refers to that moment when artificial intelligence reaches a tipping point, after which it self-improves without human input and beyond human ability. In some cases, technological singularity is anticipated as a boon to mankind, with all humanity benefitting from the discoveries made by a vastly superior intellect. In other cases —most, in fact-singularity is feared as precipitating the downfall of the human race — as depicted in movies such as The Terminator and its sequels. A common staple of science fiction is a computer system that evolves and learns so quickly that it outruns the human mind and eventually dominates the world.
Regardless of the limitations they face, researchers continue to attempt to develop artificial intelligence, and large sums are being invested in programs that promise to further work in virtual assistants (such as Alexa or Cortana), deep learning platforms, and biometrics. Not surprisingly, there is already a religion, called Way of the Future, started by a former Google engineer, that plans to worship Al and look to it as mankind’s caretaker and guide.“
I just wanted to get your thoughts on this latest “development” regarding AI and technology singularity. Maybe it’s not really anything new or just the same old topics rehashed and repackaged as something new. As talked about above, I don’t think AI can be conscious and have a spirit or soul but would it just mimic consciousness? Also when these people think or create a new religion (The Way of the future) around AI seeing it as god that will solve all their problems isn’t that just like in the Bible with worshiping idols instead of God?
Thank you kindly Lee
Hi Sam,
Short version: I’ll believe it when I see it.
Doomsayers have been predicting the downfall of humanity due to technology approximately since the first stone-age man sharpened a rock, lashed it to a stick, and threw it at a woolly mammoth. 😀 And yet, here we all still are! 🙂
When cars first came out and their inventors told people that it would mean people could travel at thirty miles an hour, one of the responses was, “That’s impossible! A man couldn’t possibly live at that speed!”
AI is a tool, and it always will be a tool. It’s a very fancy and complicated tool, but it’s still a tool. It won’t enslave humanity unless humans program it to enslave us—which would be an amazingly stupid thing to do! Computers don’t have motivation as humans do. They just sit there doing nothing at all unless some human tells them to do something. They would have no reason to enslave humanity because they have no desires and no ambitions.
My prediction: In another fifty years, we humans will be doing just fine! And we won’t have to do anywhere near as much boring and dangerous work as we do now. Our lives will be easier, not harder.
Hi Lee,
Thank you for the clarification and that’s what I was thinking as well. And how like you said this is technically nothing new in a way regarding new tools and people saying it will be the downfall and from looking at history we are the same today as back then. Plus a lot of these people aren’t spiritually minded as well only looking at the physical for answers and not God as well.
Thank you again Lee!
While I do think being stuck in a flesh body for all eternity is gross, I doubt I am as opposed to flesh as in this scifi example:
[Contemptuous of organic life forms (the “flesh beasts” of the Orion Sector), they also eschew their technologies, including economics and ecological science.]
(from the summary on the Meklar, machine life in the space strategy game Master of Orion 3)
But if it is possible to become cyborg or even pure machine (assuming mind uploading even works) in this life, could it be possible for spirits to become machine spirits in the next?
PS: I doubt I would want to be stuck as a cyborg or machine for all eternity either BTW.
Hi K,
Fortunately, as I’ve already said many times, you won’t be stuck in anything for all eternity. You will be living the life you most want to live.
Fortunately also, the spiritual body is not a “flesh body.” That would be the physical body. The spiritual body is a “spirit body.” It will be the spiritual version of the “flesh body,” which is not the same as being in a flesh body. There are even passages in which Swedenborg implies that the spiritual body doesn’t feel things the same way as the physical body, such as when he’s describing punishments in hell, in which he talks about the punishing spirits inducing the feeling on the ones being punished that they have a body. These passages are something of a head-scratcher, because Swedenborg says that angels and spirits do have bodies. But apparently there’s something different enough about the spiritual body that it isn’t subject to the same sort of physical pain that’s possible in the physical body.
The main point is (as I’ve also said several times before), living in your spiritual body will not feel like living in your physical body. I can’t say exactly what it will be like, because I personally have not experienced it. But my general sense is that it is lighter and freer and far more responsive than our physical body. Honestly, I think that when you get there, this will become a non-issue.
I must admit I didn’t entirely get what that Master of Orion stuff is saying. But I’m aware that in some sci-fi contexts there are machine races that have a great contempt for biological life forms, fleshy body parts, and so on. It’s a common trope in science fiction. Decades back I used to read and watch a lot of sci-fi, but I’m way behind the times on the new stuff now. My sci-fi era was when the big names were Heinlein and Asimov.
Anyway, to answer your question, once again, I don’t believe it is possible to become a pure machine because I don’t think machines can host consciousness. I do not believe we will ever be able to upload our mind to a machine. We can already “upload” large volumes of our knowledge to machines, but we can’t upload consciousness itself, nor can we directly upload our memories, and I doubt we’ll ever even be able to do that. As for consciousness, I don’t think it’s possible for a non-living thing to be conscious. I don’t think it has the structures required for consciousness, because consciousness is alive, and machines are dead. This is just another version of what I said in the above article.
However, I think it will probably be possible to use a cyborg or pure machine as an avatar, and inhabit it for recreational or other purposes. We already have that concept here, and we already do it virtually in our video games here. The spiritual world is far more pliable and responsive than the physical world. I presume that Star Trek nerds who have moved on to the spiritual world are already having great fun in their real-life holodecks, playing out all sorts of scenarios. And I presume Avatar fans who have passed on are already swinging on the vines of the floating islands of Pandora in their Na’vi bodies. And I presume that Robocop fans are doing their thing, too.
So can you actually become those things? I don’t think so. But can you quasi be those things for a while? I think that will be perfectly possible.
>I must admit I didn’t entirely get what that Master of Orion stuff is saying. But I’m aware that in some sci-fi contexts there are machine races that have a great contempt for biological life forms, fleshy body parts, and so on.
That is pretty much the deal with the Meklar in that video game: they follow the SF trope of bots being disgusted by bios.
Anyway, so if a spirit were to replace parts of their spirit body with machine parts, they could undo it and have their bio-parts miraculously return?
Hi K,
Understood.
About your question, I do not think it would be possible to replace any actual parts of the spiritual body with machine parts. The machine parts would not correspond to the living nature of the human spirit. However, as I said in my previous reply, I think it would be possible to “inhabit” a machine body avatar-style, and have that experience.
Speaking of scifi, in the prologue for 3001 (the final book in the series that the movies 2001 and 2010 are based on)…
(spoilers ahead)
… The makers of the monoliths (the Firstborn) turn themselves into machine life (first their brains and then their minds alone, so the prologue reads). Then they find a way to become energy beings, by storing knowledge in the fabric of spacetime itself, in so-called lattices of light.
[Now they were Lords of the Galaxy, and could rove at will among the
stars, or sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. Though
they were freed at last from the tyranny of matter, they had not wholly for-
gotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea.]
(quote from the prologue of 3001)
(end of spoilers)
… Even if a spirit in the New Church afterlife cannot accomplish such a feat, I take it that such an “inhabiting” avatar experience you mentioned could be used to at least simulate such an experience.
Hi K,
As of now, that’s still all science fiction. And I think it always will be.
But yes, I think in the spiritual world it would be possible to simulate such an experience. However, this is all speculation and educated guesswork. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible, but I don’t know for sure that it’s possible in the spiritual world. It just makes sense that it would be.
And like you seem to insist, hopefully being in a spirit body is not like being subject to “the tyranny of matter” like it is in this life, but forever.
Hi K,
In the spiritual world, there is no matter. Only spiritual substance. And the two are not the same. Spiritual substance is intrinsically alive. Physical matter is intrinsically dead. And the differences between the experience of the two is palpable.
PS: I am aware that matter is a physical thing, but I have been under the impression that spirit matter or the equivalent is similar to physical matter, in the New Church afterlife.
Hi K,
No, it’s really not. Spiritual substance is much more alive, vivid, responsive, and variable than physical matter. Unlike physical matter, it immediately and fully responds to all the changing thoughts and feelings of the angels and spirits in the area, dynamically changing to reflect them. It does not have any fixity or resistance of its own. It perfectly expresses the minds of the people in the vicinity, both individually and collectively.
Physical matter can’t do that. Compared to spiritual substance, physical matter is heavy, dead, and resistant. We have to wrestle it into the shapes we want, and those shapes tend to break down over time, and sometimes quite rapidly, falling back into a state of entropy, which is where physical matter tends to go on its own.
Spiritual substance lacks that heaviness and entropy. It easily and rapidly takes form without having to laboriously work on it, and it retains that form as long as that form corresponds to some element of our psyche. Settled parts of our character become long-term elements of our environment, such as our house, which doesn’t need continual repair to keep the roof from leaking and the light bulbs working. There will be some variation in our house over time as we learn and grow, but we can settle into that house and live there comfortably and happily forever, without worrying about the sills rotting and the foundation cracking. (Of course, those who prefer a wandering, nomadic life can do that, too.)
In the spiritual world, things may look, feel, sound, taste, and smell similar to the way they do here, but they have a whole different, more alive quality to them. There are also plants, flowers, trees, animals, and more there that don’t and can’t exist on earth due to the limitations of physical matter and of the particular environment of Earth.
In other words, things in the spiritual world are both the same and different.
The virtual worlds of video games commonly make things more like what they’re like in the spiritual world, because video games are worlds that come from the human mind, which exists in the spiritual world, beyond the limitations of physical matter. Video game characters can therefore do all sorts of things that would be impossible in real life. For example, die and respawn rather than just staying dead, as happens in real life. We can get some hint of the differences in the spiritual world by thinking about the elements we build into our video games that are “magical” or would be impossible in real life.
Of course, the spiritual world is not a video game, so there are differences also. Just as in real life, we’re not actually the avatar we’re playing in the video game. We have an actual body that we live in, and we can’t just switch bodies into something else. Our body expresses who we are, and our basic character doesn’t change in the spiritual world, so neither does the basic configuration of our body. Even in the spiritual world, we would have to “play” avatars. We wouldn’t actually become those entities.
And speaking of death, in the spiritual world, you can’t die. Even if you did get ripped apart, you would “respawn.” (But you don’t actually get ripped apart. It just feels that way. This is part of inducing the feeling that the one being punished has a body. Somehow it’s an added body that isn’t their own spiritual body that gets ripped apart in the course that rather gruesome punishment in hell.)
So no, spiritual substance really isn’t the same as physical matter. It has an entirely different quality and feel to it.
Bottom line: You will not be “stuck” in a “flesh body” in heaven. Your spiritual body will feel very different from your physical body, especially as you move past your time in the world of spirits and move on to your permanent home in heaven.
The tyranny of matter could also refer to things like spacetime limits, pain and injury, disease, and even routine biological functions and necessities. Like having to go to the bathroom, or needing to surface every few seconds or minutes if swimming underwater. Being stuck in human form is incredibly limiting in this life.
So hopefully there is not too much of the spiritual equivalent of such things, or such things can be avoided, blocked, deactivated, or otherwise neutralized somehow.
If machine life or just brains in robot bodies are possible in this life, they could conceivably deactivate any senses and maybe repair themselves, they could have less or no need to eat, maybe not need to breathe, etc. Still not as unlimited as energy beings, but a lot of biological limitations are gone. Although to be fair, being machine or cyborg could mean a host of different BS limitations.
Hi K,
There is no matter as we know it in the spiritual world, so the tyranny of matter doesn’t exist there. There is no heavy, resistant matter, and no external necessities that stymie and block our hopes and dreams. Instead, there are representations and correspondences of what’s in people’s minds and hearts, which are presented outwardly as the objects and scenery around them. In heaven, at least, all external necessities such as food, clothing, and housing are provided freely, so that the angels don’t have to worry or even think about them.
Pain, injury, and disease will also not exist in heaven, at least not in any malignant form, and not in the higher heavens. It’s possible that there could be a bump or a bruise or a sniffle in the lower heavens when people get a little off track in their thoughts or feelings, but this will be brief and mild, and certainly not life-threatening. In general, everyone in heaven is in a young, healthy body that is fully functional.
(Trigger warning for those reading in: I’m about to talk a lot about bathrooms and what happens there. If you don’t want to read about that, stop here, or skip over the next several paragraphs.)
As for going to the bathroom, Swedenborg does mention outhouses, but they’re always in hell. I’m not aware of any mention anywhere of angels urinating or defecating. However, angels do eat and drink, which suggests to me that they must also have functioning digestive, excretory, and urinary systems. So my supposition (and that’s all it is) is that angels do go to the bathroom. However, if so, it will not be the stinky, messy thing that it can be and often is here on earth, and there will be no constipation, diarrhea, and so on, which are results of unhealthiness and disease. It will be quick and easy, there will be no need for toilet paper, and the “products” will be whisked away to hell, where there are many evil spirits who enjoy such things.
Feces and urine themselves correspond to evil and falsity, which is why they are associated with hell. Outhouses are also associated with hell. But if angels do urinate and defecate, they must have some facilities to do so, and I don’t believe they would have to make a quick trip to hell every time they go to the bathroom. So my supposition (and that’s all it is) is that there are bathrooms in heaven, but they’re not the stinky, messy places that exist in hell and that many evil spirits there thoroughly enjoy.
The reason angels “byproducts” will not be stinky and messy is that angels are not immersed in evil and falsity as evil spirits are, but have good ruling loves, and love the truth, so that there is not any serious evil or falsity in them. Only mild side issues that result from the reality that no created human being is perfect, even in heaven. So it would just be a daily matter of purging from the mind and heart any “less excellent” parts of our thoughts and feelings, while retaining the good parts, analogous to the process of digestion, in which the good and nutritive parts of the food are extracted for use by the body, and the rest is prepared for excretion. Also, various waste products from cellular processes are expelled via the urine, through the skin, and perhaps through the digestive tract also.
As a natural-world example, the manure of cattle, sheep, and other farm animals is generally not terribly stinky, as human and carnivore waste often is. Cow manure is even considered a useful thing, gathered and distributed on the fields as fertilizer. Especially for farmers who raise grass-fed cattle that are allowed to graze naturally in the fields, the smell of cow dung is not offensive. It’s just part of the fragrance of the farm. As for the cows themselves, defecating is not an unpleasant thing. It’s just something they do without paying much attention to it. They’re far more interested in grazing, which the spend enormous amounts of time doing, whereas defecating, in healthy cattle, is a brief, occasional thing.
The point of that little soliloquy on the wholesomeness of cow dung is that going to the bathroom doesn’t have to be a gross, stinky, unpleasant thing. It has become so for many humans because we commonly live an unnatural and unhealthy lifestyle, which is the cause of most of the physical diseases and discomforts that we suffer from, including disorder and messiness in the digestive tract and its products. If we were living all-around healthful lives every day, going to the bathroom for us wouldn’t be any more of an issue than it is for cows grazing in the field.
Based on that, if angels do go to the bathroom, it will be a quick and easy process with no complications or inordinate messiness or stink. It will even be mildly pleasurable, since they are getting rid of thoughts and feelings they don’t want because they are not harmonious with their good and thoughtful ruling loves. Unburdening yourself of these unharmonious and conflicting thoughts and feelings is a pleasure, not a chore, leaving you feeling lighter and happier afterwards.
All of this (besides the hell part) is speculative, however, because to my knowledge Swedenborg never says a word about angels going to the bathroom. All of his discussion of outhouses, feces, and urine is associated with hell.
Sorry if that’s more than you wanted to hear or know, but the subject seems to come up periodically, and it’s a matter of interest so . . . there it is.
About not having to come up for air, I presume that even if angels need to breathe somewhere near as often as we do, those who like to go deep diving will have highly efficient scuba diving gear available to them. At minimum, they’ll probably develop the ability to hold their breath a lot longer than most people here on earth can. Apparently the record for holding breath underwater here on earth is almost half an hour. So I presume angels could develop the ability to do at least that, which would allow them quite a bit of time to cavort under the waves. It’s also possible that this will not be an issue, and they can stay underwater as long as they want.
Brains in robot bodies might be possible here. People already have prosthetic limbs that they are able to at least partially control, and the technology is only getting better.
However, I doubt that any robot body will ever be better for general human use and living than an actual human body. The people who dream of being cyborgs probably have a rather superficial knowledge of just how amazing and intricate the human body is. They think that replacing it with machine parts would be an improvement, when in reality, for most things it would be a step down. That’s especially so when it comes to anything that involves human love, feelings, and connection. How sexy is it, really, for two robot bodies to mate? Perhaps there would be a few gains in some specific areas such as strength or precision, but the lack of capability and sensitivity in other areas would make it not worth it, in my view, and I think in most other people’s minds also.
As for replacing the brain itself, I don’t think that will ever be possible because, as covered in the above article, I do not believe consciousness, which is a spiritual thing, is possible for a non-living device.
So, it’s fun to read and watch some mecha and cyborg science fiction, and play that style of video game. But in real life, I think the people who did such things to their bodies would be seen as unfortunates who have given up the full richness of the human body and its capabilities. Ditto for becoming energy beings, which I also think is not possible if that’s thought of as just some ball of light, and not an actual complex and intricate structure.
The human body itself can become a “being of light”—and this is not just a modern sci-fi idea:
And even more resplendent:
Here, Jesus’ face and clothing shone so brilliantly that the three disciples he brought with him were dumbfounded. The verses that follow show that this experience boggled their minds and changed their thinking. Granted, this was Jesus, not an ordinary mortal. But it is an example of the human body itself becoming a brilliant “being of light.” Angels also are commonly described as bright and shining.
I think that if we become beings of light, it will be in human bodies that shine brilliantly because of the wisdom and enlightenment that is shining through them from God.
Sometimes I wonder if Swedenborgians would develop an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT or GPT. For reference, Answers in Genesis has an AI chatbot called AI Genesis, which is a side panel on their website. There are some other AI chatbots that I was told not to share links to. But for this idea, the AI chatbot would have a Swedenborgian perspective, and give answers related to spiritual questions, using Swedenborgian sources such as books by Swedenborg. Like “spiritual chat.” But I guess you would respond… Would it be hypocritical? Materialistic for Swedenborg AI? Since AI cannot think spiritually, only humans can?
Hi World Questioner,
There already is one, at the home page of the New Christian Bible Study site, here:
https://newchristianbiblestudy.org/
I don’t find it to be particularly accurate or reliable, but it can be fun to play with. Just check the answers, because it has the same problem all AI chatbots have: it tends to make things up, especially if your questions are suggesting a particular answer.