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Another extension is that Gods are distributed software installed in the hardware of believers. Aquinas seemed to believe essentially this. Gods exist and act v

Another extension is that Gods are distributed software installed in the hardware of believers. Aquinas seemed to believe essentially this. Gods exist and act via humans in the same way that human minds exist and act via human.

lisper 3y ago
> Aquinas seemed to believe essentially this. That seems improbable. Aquinas was a Christian, specifically, a Catholic, so he believed in Jesus and the Trinity. On that view, there are no Gods, there is just the One God, embodied in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The idea that "Gods are distributed software installed in the hardware of believers" is not just wrong on that view, it's non-sensical. Now, I can certainly believe that Aquinas believed that God (singular) acts in humans in a similar manner that human minds act in humans in that both God and human minds (souls) exist in some non-material realm and act on material human bodies in some mysterious way. But that is not the same thing at all. Software does not exist in some spiritual realm that is separate from material reality. There is nothing metaphysically mysterious about software. There is something essentially metaphysically mysterious about God, and almost certainly on Aquinas's view, about minds as well. I am far from being an expert on Aquinas, but I would be shocked to learn that he was not a dualist.
- rck 3y ago
  You're right that Aquinas would have rejected the notion that gods are software installed in the hardware of believers, but he was not a dualist - he advocated a kind of hylomorphism that doesn't map neatly onto contemporary philosophical categories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism#Thomistic_hylomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism#Thomistic_hylomor...
- chairhairair 3y ago
  What I described is not at odds with dualism. Software in some sense does exist in a spiritual realm in the same way Aquinas talked about "incorporeal beings". You can't hold or point to software or souls or gods. You can hold and point to hardware and bodies. Of course, I have no idea what Aquinas actually believed. I just find his conclusions around the existence of "incorporeal beings" and "souls" to be consistent with the emergent-agent idea we're talking about. For instance, in a very un-catholic view, Aquinas argued that - to some extent - animals and even plants have souls in this way.
  - lisper 3y ago
    You need to read this: https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.h... Software does not exist in any spiritual realm, it's just that the word "software" refers to a state rather than a system. There is nothing "spiritual" or "mystical" going on there. It's completely mundane physics. You can't point at software for the same reason you can't point at sleep or death or urgency. It's just a quirk of natural language that we overload nouns to refer to both systems and states.
    - chairhairair 3y ago
      I absolutely love your writing BTW! I wasn't aware of it before today. It's really derailed my whole workday. It's fun to discover a new author like this, thank you for responding to my comment :) I don't mean to argue that anything spiritual/supernatural is going on when I'm talking about an emergent god agent here. I'm arguing that gods are in the same ontological category as individual human minds are. I'm sure most religious people, Aquinas included, would need quite a lot more mysticism to be injected into the idea before they would recognize it as their own. I don't fully believe it, to be honest. Mostly because I have no way of testing it or experiencing it. But, it's a fun idea and it's fun to imagine how my own little caricaturized model of Aquinas' mind might find some things to agree with. As far as I can tell, he was a person that desperately wanted a cohesive model of the "full stack" of things. Unfortunately for him, the best understandings at his time were pretty rough by today's standards.
      - lisper 3y ago
        Thank you for the kind words. > I'm arguing that gods are in the same ontological category as individual human minds are. Sure. But I doubt Aquinas would have agreed.
    - ganzuul 3y ago
      You might enjoy the Urantia Book.
uoaei 3y ago
This actually makes a lot of sense. God as egregore.
thro1 3y ago
It is. I remember listening to some AI or neuroscience podcast in 2019, it was an interview where one guy made a digression about religion being an internal control system which may be common and shared by people and works on mind level - the opposite, external control systems we make because people don't belive (in the same), so the first one doesn't work for them but CCTV (over them) does. I can not find that podcast anymore. Any clue ?

lisper 3y ago

> Aquinas seemed to believe essentially this. That seems improbable. Aquinas was a Christian, specifically, a Catholic, so he believed in Jesus and the Trinity. On that view, there are no Gods, there is just the One God, embodied in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The idea that "Gods are distributed software installed in the hardware of believers" is not just wrong on that view, it's non-sensical. Now, I can certainly believe that Aquinas believed that God (singular) acts in humans in a similar manner that human minds act in humans in that both God and human minds (souls) exist in some non-material realm and act on material human bodies in some mysterious way. But that is not the same thing at all. Software does not exist in some spiritual realm that is separate from material reality. There is nothing metaphysically mysterious about software. There is something essentially metaphysically mysterious about God, and almost certainly on Aquinas's view, about minds as well. I am far from being an expert on Aquinas, but I would be shocked to learn that he was not a dualist.

rck 3y ago
You're right that Aquinas would have rejected the notion that gods are software installed in the hardware of believers, but he was not a dualist - he advocated a kind of hylomorphism that doesn't map neatly onto contemporary philosophical categories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism#Thomistic_hylomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism#Thomistic_hylomor...
chairhairair 3y ago
What I described is not at odds with dualism. Software in some sense does exist in a spiritual realm in the same way Aquinas talked about "incorporeal beings". You can't hold or point to software or souls or gods. You can hold and point to hardware and bodies. Of course, I have no idea what Aquinas actually believed. I just find his conclusions around the existence of "incorporeal beings" and "souls" to be consistent with the emergent-agent idea we're talking about. For instance, in a very un-catholic view, Aquinas argued that - to some extent - animals and even plants have souls in this way.
- lisper 3y ago
  You need to read this: https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.h... Software does not exist in any spiritual realm, it's just that the word "software" refers to a state rather than a system. There is nothing "spiritual" or "mystical" going on there. It's completely mundane physics. You can't point at software for the same reason you can't point at sleep or death or urgency. It's just a quirk of natural language that we overload nouns to refer to both systems and states.
  - chairhairair 3y ago
    I absolutely love your writing BTW! I wasn't aware of it before today. It's really derailed my whole workday. It's fun to discover a new author like this, thank you for responding to my comment :) I don't mean to argue that anything spiritual/supernatural is going on when I'm talking about an emergent god agent here. I'm arguing that gods are in the same ontological category as individual human minds are. I'm sure most religious people, Aquinas included, would need quite a lot more mysticism to be injected into the idea before they would recognize it as their own. I don't fully believe it, to be honest. Mostly because I have no way of testing it or experiencing it. But, it's a fun idea and it's fun to imagine how my own little caricaturized model of Aquinas' mind might find some things to agree with. As far as I can tell, he was a person that desperately wanted a cohesive model of the "full stack" of things. Unfortunately for him, the best understandings at his time were pretty rough by today's standards.
    - lisper 3y ago
      Thank you for the kind words. > I'm arguing that gods are in the same ontological category as individual human minds are. Sure. But I doubt Aquinas would have agreed.
  - ganzuul 3y ago
    You might enjoy the Urantia Book.

uoaei 3y ago

This actually makes a lot of sense. God as egregore.

thro1 3y ago

It is. I remember listening to some AI or neuroscience podcast in 2019, it was an interview where one guy made a digression about religion being an internal control system which may be common and shared by people and works on mind level - the opposite, external control systems we make because people don't belive (in the same), so the first one doesn't work for them but CCTV (over them) does. I can not find that podcast anymore. Any clue ?