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Abstract

Things of the Earth: Simulation and transcendence

The fast pace of technological progress has seduced us into living on its own terms. The hyperreality created by being always online has expanded to subsume much of our time and attention, as we accept its Faustian offer to remake us in its own image. But whatever heights of definition the simulation brings our confected conscious, it cannot offer a true escape from the material world. Create, subjected as it is to futility, is nevertheless good, and is the only way for us to be elevated to a transcendent state of being. All that is required of us is to humble ourselves and accept its - and God's - terms.

Outline

Hyperreality

  • "Hyperreality" consumes offline reality (Carr 211, 212, 215)
  • We want this stimulation (Carr 217, 219), but it is empty and is a response to isolation (Carr 220, 221)

Simulation and Reality

  • AI is the next logical step - simulated life can live our simulation for us.
  • Greg Egan's simulated people - always tethered to reality for sustained existence - "high fidelity"
  • People often resort to an essentialist view of reality as good "just because"
  • Nevertheless, we intuit its truth: "'Experience' has become a telling term for what we cannot have online." (BK 174)
  • "Reality is something that resists and exceeds our capacity to will, something that can occasionally catch us off guard, make contact, and elate." (Barba-Kay 183)

Goodness

  • The first "not good" in Genesis was when Adam was alone.
  • Reality isn't just the material world, but the material world is integral to how God reaches out to us, and how we find God.
  • The purpose of the physical world is to lead us to God
    • Creation has meaning that points to transcendent reality. Maybe explicitly (ToE 58), or implicitly.
    • Johnson's Rock (Carr 230-232)
    • Transcendent virtues (Schindler)
    • Johnson's Rock (Carr)
  • Meaning is not exclusively the domain of the material, information also reveals God
    • Math as an example - mandelbrot set
    • New forms of language (code)
    • New forms of art
    • Access to information
    • Digital systems that encourage Goodness (CHT)