Theology: Beginnings, Ends, and Metaphysics
What does it mean to have a secular religion or a secular theology?
We won’t get too deep into theology to avoid a terrifying descent into pedantry. Nevertheless, we do need to record something explaining how we think the underlying fabric of reality functions, if only to illustrate how a freshly-designed secular cultivar can present its own theology (we see far too much the assumption that secular cultures just leave big question marks where theology would otherwise rest).
Recall that you can often graph an equation. The line described by the equation exists as a property of the equation even before you put pen to paper to show what the line looks like. In a way, the line is the equation.
Alternatively, imagine that you plug a calculation into a calculator. The answer to the equation does not come into existence just because you hit the “=” button. The answer was an intrinsic property of the equation itself. The “=” button merely reveals it to you.
Essentially, we believe the universe is an emergent property of a single (probably pretty simplistic) equation.
Life, matter, perception: It’s all just a series of complex emergent properties produced by complicated patterns resulting from the basic structure of reality. This is similar to a Conway’s-Game-of-life-type sequence, should you be familiar with that.
An emergent property is a product of a complex system that is not one of its component parts. Examples of emergent properties include living organisms (made up of just cells), cities (made up of just material and people), and consciousness (produced by a bunch of electrical impulses among neurons).
The human brain isn’t optimized to process the concept of emergent properties well, so we often just ignore them despite seeing them all the time. You can, for example, consciously know that water is made up of molecules consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. You can logically understand how those molecules interact and produce certain outcomes. However, the human brain can’t conceive of those molecules literally being the same thing as “wetness” or the substance filling a glass of water even though it knows they are.
The same goes for reality: We don’t naturally perceive that a graphical representation of an equation is that equation because our brains did not evolve an ability to intuitively handle those sorts of facts (at no instance in human history has a human been more likely to survive because they understand the concept of emergent properties), but concepts don’t become untrue merely because they are difficult to understand. Just because you can’t simultaneously conceive of wetness as a collection of H2O molecules doesn’t mean it is not.
So, in short, we believe:
- Basic mathematical principles are a constant across all realities—two things and two things together are always four things. While math can be superficially modified by semantics (e.g., you could use something like non-Euclidean geometry to change the answer to an equation), in the end, math must exist in the way it does in our reality across any conceivable realities.
- If this is true, math exists independent of our reality as a constant outside of this universe.
- If math exists outside of all realities, then all possible mathematical permutations exist outside of all realities (it would make no sense for just a few preset equations to exist as immutable, extra-reality truths).
- Separately, we hold that whatever a mathematical equation describes is an emergent property of the equation itself (e.g., You don’t need to draw the line an equation describes for that line to exist as an aspect of that equation—or hit enter on your calculator for two plus two to equal four).
- If all the above is true, our universe is an emergent property of the equation describing it. By Occam’s razor, we don’t need to hypothesize a physical reality of any universe that can be described with a single equation, as said reality would exist independently of any physical manifestation.
This understanding of reality may not be immensely comforting, but to us, it is the most plausible explanation (given the evidence we have on hand at present). As you can guess, this secular theology presents a deterministic, predestined view of reality, just as Calvinism does.
This secular theory of ours implies that:
- All realities that can be described by a single, cogent equation exist as an emergent property of said equation, so we exist in multiple, but not infinite, realities. If two realities are described by different equations, there is no moving between them. However, if two realities are described by the same equation, there may be a method for moving between them, depending on how the equation is structured.
(Though even the concept of moving between realities loses value when you see humans as just patterns. If you impose your “pattern” on another reality, have you traveled there or just written an iteration of yourself into that reality?)
- The unidirectional flow of time is an illusion created by the fact that our brains utilize a unidirectional time flow as the medium through which we process consciousness. Every permutation of variable arrangement within the equation describing our universe already exists, meaning the present, past, and future exist “concurrently” as manifestations of the equation describing reality.
- Ideas that we may be living in a simulation worry us less than they may worry others. “Simulated” reality isn’t wildly different from our take on reality as a whole. The cycle of creative destruction, of which we are manifestations, is functionally the same inside and outside of any simulating machine. Our lives are given purpose as an emergent property of the cycle. We are brief, sentient flashes within the cycle, but said sentience isn’t a particularly important part of who we are. (If you somehow programmed Conway’s Game of Life within an instance of Conway’s Game of Life, a pattern running within the second instance would not be less meaningful than one running in the first.)
Theologies, secular and otherwise, are important to cultures as they often frame the underpinnings of that culture’s “meaning of life.”
To the Conway’s Game of Life analogy, we think the “simple” answer to the purpose of life is to create a pattern of constantly growing and heterogeneous complexity. We believe we “win” by becoming a universe-spanning heterogeneous empire that escapes the end of time through mechanisms we may not yet understand. That said, things are not quite that simple (we will elaborate on this in future chapters). To this end, our core values—framed using the perspectives and vocabulary of our society today—are individual agency, freedom, and diversity.
We keep using Conway’s Game of Life as an analogy for reality because it exemplifies how a simple set of rules for interaction can evolve into extremely complex, self-replicating patterns in a way that bridges the “emergent property” gap, which can be difficult for the human consciousness to jump.
The patterns created in these kinds of systems have three end states:
- They disappear entirely
- They become simple and repeating
- They constantly and forever expand and increase in heterogeneous complexity
We see ourselves not as individuals but as facets of the pattern, aiming for a type-three (forever expanding and complex) outcome, with type-one and type-two outcomes representing “death” of the pattern.
If you are constructing a theology for a cultivar of your own invention or refinement, some sort of metaphysical framework or hypothesis like the one described above will be a core component (though it can certainly be much more spiritual, simple, or blunt—e.g., “We’ll never know what reality is, but House X believes in acquiring resources” or “We don’t know what reality is yet and figuring that out is a core value of House Y.”). We encourage you to take time to think deeply on your stance regarding the nature of reality.
Finally, as you construct your secular theology, recall that the feeling of profoundness can be hacked using psychedelics, chanting, and other techniques we discuss in the chapter on psychedelics. Feelings of profundity do not correlate with true profundity. Similarly, something that is truly meaningful and profound will not necessarily feel profound. Profundity represents an emotional set, shaped by evolutionary pressures, like any other. Nothing about the environments in which humans evolved rewarded people for an emotional response to truths about the nature of reality. Unshackling yourself from this expectation will greatly increase the diversity and clarity of any secular theologies you construct.