Finding a great book by fluke :-)

That happened in Edinburgh, during my first trip to Scotland and its beautiful capital...

I was passing by a street full of little bookstores - mostly antiquarian, when I dropped into this one:

And there among mostly old books of Philosophy, I found this very recent one: „Apocalyptic AI” by Robert M. Geraci. Minutes later I read a couple of chapters while sitting in a little French restaurant....

And I must say, I'm deeply and positively surprised. The author, who is a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, wrote an extremely interesting account about the parallels between certain "hard" AI theories and predictions and ... religious experiences and attitudes. In the conclusion to the first chapter he writes:

„Apocalyptic AI is a technological faith that directly borrows its sacred worldview from apocalyptic Judaism and Christianity”

Sounds interesting ...

I started to think  a bit, and when I recalled my first encounter with Ray Kurzweil thought (despite my criticism there) I came quickly to a realization that there indeed must be a deeper link between highly technological belief in the possibility of uploading our mind with our consciousness to a computer and the beliefs in human immaterial soul. What at the first glimpse looks like the strong anti-religious argument (i.e. the mind can be „run" by a machine) is paradoxically just the argument for the opposite view. If one, indeed could upload our mind - that means this mind is completely different from the brain and indeed is the soul sought by religious people through our history....

Well, don't take me wrong. As the author in the introduction, I'm not a strong AI faithful..
However, the argument and the whole idea — and The Book — seems to be extremely interesting ...

The review will come ... :-)

Written in Edinburgh ...