Gnosis Schwamedingen

An interpretation by Mark Sedgwick, Tracie Matysik, Renée Bergland, Lisz Hirn, Isaiah Berlin, Aquilino Morelle, Dirk Hoffmann, Suzan Blackmore, Roman Yampolskiy, James Lovelock, Emily Riehl, Martin Brandenburg, Jack Miles, Rolf Pfeifer, Josh Bongard, among many others.

Aim

The question commonly asked in our societies is: Are artificial intelligences new gods? In the following essay, I dare to reverse the logical sequence and ask: Are the ancient gods the first artificial intelligences created by humanity?

Love is not the subject of this essay. Thanks to, or because of, a strict Calvinist upbringing in western Switzerland in the 1960s, I developed a method of thinking that has shaped my life. Discussions with new friends here in the Hirzenbach-Schwamendingen-Wallisellen area have led me to rudimentarily describe this way of thinking.

Audio Block

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This Postcast is an excerpt from the essay. It is argued that religions are artificial superintelligences created by humans. Several key themes examinated include the history of gnosticism, the role of memes in cultural transmission, the nature of consciousness and the implications of artificial intelligence for our future. Category theory and logic help to explore philosophical and religious questions. Inspired by the antic poet Archilochos, the essay concludes with the idea that humans are 'foxes' rather than 'hedgehogs' in their approach to understanding the world. They are open to multiple interpretations rather than fixated on a single perspective.