Why do people still believe in religion, or search for some form of spiritual awakening? Many of those who do are far more intelligent than I am, and yet I sometimes feel uneasy about the strength of their conviction. Religions, after all, are largely built around ancient stories. Yuval Noah Harari has argued persuasively that one of humanity’s extraordinary abilities is our capacity to create and collectively believe in stories. Shared stories allow millions of strangers to cooperate, regardless of whether those stories correspond to an objective reality.
Religion has undoubtedly been part of that human capacity. And throughout history religious narratives have sometimes been used by kings, priests and political leaders to legitimize authority. Suffering, disease, poverty, natural disasters and death could be explained as expressions of a higher order, while obedience to earthly authority was presented as part of that order. (here Chat GPT induces me to also list a few advantages of religion, such as creating moral frameworks and a way of making sense of suffering and loss, but I leave that up to the reader as it is not the core of this story).
Science and prosperity have meanwhile explained or alleviated many things that once frightened us. Thunder no longer requires a god. Disease increasingly has biological explanations. Political authority can be questioned rather than accepted as divinely ordained.
Yet one problem remains stubbornly unresolved: our separateness. Every human being is confined to a biological mind. However deeply I love another person, I cannot directly experience their memories. I cannot transfer my understanding into their brain. I can describe an emotion, but I cannot give them the emotion itself. Language, music, art and touch allow us to cross the distance between minds, but only imperfectly.
AI makes this limitation particularly visible. Digital intelligence can copy information almost perfectly, transmit it almost instantly and combine knowledge across enormous computational systems. Human brains cannot do this. Our neural networks are biological and individual. We can communicate with each other, teach each other and build cultures together, but we cannot simply connect our minds or download one person’s experience into another.
Perhaps religion and spirituality are, among many other things, humanity’s ancient response to this problem of seperateness. Long before computers existed, people imagined forms of connection larger than the individual self: a soul shared with something greater, communion with God, enlightenment.
These ideas may express a deep intuition: I am separate, but I do not want my separateness to be the whole story. Religion therefore offers something that knowledge alone cannot provide. It places the individual inside a larger whole. My life becomes part of a community, a tradition, humanity, creation, God or the universe. And if some part of me belongs to something larger than myself, death may no longer appear to be the absolute disappearance of
everything that I am.
In that sense, the spiritual impulse may not be the opposite of intelligence at all. It may arise precisely because intelligent beings understand the limitations of their own existence.
AI can overcome some forms of informational separation through digital connection.
Humans cannot.
So we invented other ways of connecting: stories, music, love, ritual, religion and the idea of a shared spirit.
Whether that collective spirit actually exists is, of course, another question.
Only God knows
Fred Lafeber 