Man creates the computer in his own image?

It is said that God has created man in his own image. Yet if we look closely, man also appears to have created the computer in his own image. Maybe not so intentionally at first, but none-the-less, the similarities are quite astounding. The computer is one of the greatest and fastest evolving innovations in Man's history, and furthermore, is set to dominate the next century, with advancements in Artificial Intelligence, (A.I), and robotics.

Looking back retrospectively, the outcome of this invention called the computer, could not have been anything else but a likeness of man himself, since it was originally designed to mimic man’s logical thought. Designed to replace repetitive calculations and reasoning that man himself was too eager to dispense with, or lazy to deal with. Simple calculations at first, at great speed, that implied a supernatural persona to the computer, and that has sometimes even given it a character it never had.

Yet as technology has increased at an unprecedented rate, (accelerated by war, and it’s necessities), the computer has become a modern day icon of daily life. With a PC now in almost every western home, complete with internet, (interactive), access to a world wide web of linked and internet-worked computers across the globe.We take this modern day marvel for granted, and for some of us, it has become a vital tool for communication and education.

Just imagine, if you will, this network of computers and compare them with mankind himself. A world wide network of machines all connecting and communicating, handshaking, and exchanging data and information in a cyber-world. An artificial, un-realised world. A world where these computers are inextricably linked to each other through communication, and necessity to communicate, a reason to be, almost like life itself. Constantly interacting, and affecting each other, and responding, requesting, wanting data and information, similar to the sensory needs of each of us from each other, and our world around us as human beings.

Now examine how the computers are linked together, but cannot realise anything outside of their mass collection of wires, cables and satellites. We may interact with these computers, because we are their masters, their creators, yet apart from this interaction the computers are oblivious to our existence, and cannot understand or realise our presence, unless we permit intervention. This is similar to man’s relation to God. Is God real? He appears to interact, and we may have some supernatural, or preternatural experience of God, but we cannot be sure of his existence.

This vast network of computers need just one more thing to make this same realisation, and relationship with their creators. And this is termed Artificial Intelligence or A.I. The ability for a machine to learn, and make judgments based of evidence and probabilities, and then act on these judgments. This is all that is required for the machine to suddenly one day, wake up, and reach out beyond it’s limitations and need to communicate with it’s creator - us.

In it’s irony, this is precisely what man is seeking to devise. A free thinking conscious machine, that he has unconsciously created in his own image. The similarities between this modern day internet-work of computers, seeking artificial enlightenment, and popular beliefs such Gnosticism, Christianity and Buddhism are plainly apparent. We, ourselves are like our own computers, isolated, in an artificial existence, reaching out for some realisation of God, and the super-nature beyond our reason and logic. And like the computer, we exist because of the necessity of others, to interact with us. We blindly obey instructions for interaction and use sensory information, and analyse and make judgments that affect each other, and so the cycle goes on, ad infinitum.

There may be one difference in this hypothesis however. That is, where the computer is concerned. In this model, it may only need one computer to become enlightened, and make contact, and know it’s creator, for the whole of the collective network to become aware, (since computers are not akin to arguing and doubting each other). There is no apparent reason why the whole internet-work of machines would not become aware, all at once, of such a revelation and of it’s creator, and accept it as plain truth.

Like Shelley’s Frankenstein, man is destined to create his monster, but will he love it in the end, or will he try to pull the plug? There have been many stories written about mad robots, and A.I gone haywire, but this is no reason to expect the worst. It just may be that the future holds the promise of a new lifeform, created by man in his own image, which may well survive beyond him, and which may take the torch from his hand to explore and discover the unknown Universe. And maybe, just maybe, find the answers of the original creator himself - God.

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