If God Was One of Us…
A hundred thousand years from now, technology has progressed
almost beyond what anyone today could have imagined. A man, an R&D engineer
named Bob, is fiddling with his company's latest model of long-distance
transporter, and serendipitously discovers how to transport himself outside of
space-time. Excited at his new discovery, he grabs a couple of instruments that
will let him measure and manipulate the non-space. After a few years, he's figured
out how do things in the non-space nothingness.
Using his futuristic technology, Bob creates a universe -
our universe, the same one that he came from. Ignoring the paradox, Bob
nurtures the universe. Existing outside of space-time, Bob is eternal, and
unconstrained by time. His instruments allow him to monitor everything about
the universe, and he knows everything that happened/is happening/will happen in
the universe. He wants only the best for the inhabitants of the universe, and
he can use his technology to manipulate the universe at will. As intelligent
beings evolve, Bob gives them instructions for how to best live their lives. Unfortunately
these instructions are almost always clothed in mythology, but Bob decides not
to interfere too much, and lets the various intelligent species get on with
their lives.
Bob is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent,
created the universe and has given revealed wisdom. Is Bob God?
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On a completely unrelated note, I came across something
really interesting today. Apparently the leading theory for why repeating a
word over and over makes it sound like gibberish is that repeating the word
causes the neurons that code the meaning of the word to fire over and over. After
a few repetitions, the neurological response becomes less and less, much like
how when you walk into someone's house you may notice its unique smell, but
after a few minutes it fades as your olfactory nerves stops responding to it.
As the neurological excitement ceases, you stop noticing the smell - or stop
attaching meaning to the sound that you're making.
I think it's fascinating that we have answers to "weird"
things like this. And it shows how our experiences really can be reduced to
brain functions.
