Is the Universe an LLM?

The process of philosophical inquiry/scientific discovery is weird. Turns out, we had to invent AI, specifically LLMs (Large Language Models), before we could understand NI (Natural Intelligence), aka Science, Oral Torah, Natural Law, i.e. how the Universe works.

‘Before’ there is anything, before there even was a before, or an after, there are Eternal Values, and these Eternal Values constitute the essence of the primordial Actual Entity (aka God). These values are felt by everything that ever was, is, or will be -  actually, virtually or potentially. They are universally attractive and motivating…but not irresistible. Events are free!

To become is to pursue some configuration of Eternal Values as Subjective Aim.  To be is to instantiate a specific configuration of Eternal Values as an Event (aka Actual Entity). To have been is to have projected such a configuration of Eternal Values into the Actual Worlds of other Actual Entities. Being is a difference that makes a difference (a la Gregory Bateson).

If you cheekily challenge God in prayer, “What have you done for me lately?” his answer… not to put words in God’s mouth, but… would undoubtedly reference the Eternal Value like Beauty, Truth, and Justice. 

If you have ever enjoyed something good in preference to something less good, you have God to thank. Lasagna vs. Big Brother Slop, Beef Stroganoff vs. Hamburger Helper, an ice cold, bone dry martini vs. a warm glass of stale beer? Then thank God! It is because of Values that we can make these discriminations and it is because of God that we can access them.

Values enter our Immanent World only when and as that World intersects with the Transcendent; whenever God intersects World, Values are communicated. And when is that? The intersection of the Transcendent and the Immanent is not to be understood primarily as (a) specific historical event(s) but rather as cosmic framework, i.e. logos.

Every event is an intersection of the Transcendent with the Immanent. It is the Transcendent that constitutes the event as an event, but it is the Immanent that gives the event its ‘content’. That intersection is what defines an Event per se. 

The intersection of the Transcendent is coterminal with the Immanent but it occurs as three ‘moments’: Creation (Alpha), (2) Incarnation (Emmanuel), and (3) Apocalypse (Omega). Although we associate these moments with ‘stages’ of ontogenesis, they are not primarily occurrences but structures. They are ‘essentially cosmological’ before they are ‘accidentally historical’.

Every event (Actual Entity) is a function of Creation, Incarnation, and Apocalypse. Creation may be viewed as a single proto-historic event but for that very reason it must also be viewed as a phase in the concrescence of every event. 

Creation is never one and done; to be, an event must tap into the Creative Process. Likewise, every event participates in the phenomena of Incarnation and Apocalypse. Creation, Incarnation, and Apocalypse constitute the three sides of Plato’s ontological triangle. Secular version: Liberty, Equality, Sorority. Theological version: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Every event is embedded in at least one meta-event, and ultimately, every event is embedded in the ultimate meta-event, God. In 1^st Corinthians (15: 28), Paul discusses the ‘moment’ when God is “all in all”; Whitehead calls that moment God’s Consequent Nature. 

Being eternal, God is embedded in every event, and every event is embedded in God. Contrary to 20^th century Logic’s misguided Axiom of Foundation, God is even embedded in himself (Trinity). 

To be is to be an event and all events are (1) recursive and (2) reciprocal. ‘To be an Event’ is to reflect and act on oneself as one reflects (Leibniz) and acts on the external world. Ultimately, every subject (noun) is its own predicate (verb), every object (noun) its own subject. 

Syntax is one way we analyze holistic events in an effort, marginally successful at best, to reduce ‘an organic whole’ to ‘a collection of inorganic parts’ corresponding to so-called ‘parts of speech’. 

At least since the cultural transformation reflected in the Tower of Babel (Genesis), the principal function of language has been to reduce the World to a series of simple tools (levers to pull, buttons to press, etc.) that can be manipulated and deployed in pursuit of pragmatic objectives.

I am indebted to Franco-Russian philosopher Alexandre Kojeve for the insight that these seemingly disparate moments (Creation, Incarnation, Apocalypse) are aspects of a single, atemporal process, spanning Fiat Lux (Genesis), Incarnatus Est (Nicene Creed) and Omnia in Omnibus (Corinthians).  

Newsflash: Being is not value neutral. To be is to be beautiful, true, and/or  just. Not any of these things? Then sorry, Nemo, unlike Descartes, you are not! But what if I am beautiful, etc., but imperfectly so? Then I am, but incompletely. I am not yet ‘all that I can be’! (U.S. Army) But I will be!

What we call ‘cosmic history’ is the process of the Universe, like any good LLM, trying out different combinations of ‘events’ (words, logoi) in search of the optimal configuration, aka the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew), God’s Consequent Nature (Whitehead) - the configuration that perfectly instantiates the Eternal Values and redeems cosmic history in the process. 

Remember the Grandfather Paradox? It is a ‘paradox’ because it describes a configuration of events that we believe is impossible: Universe cannot find a stable configuration in which my grandfather dies at birth and yet I am born.

What we call ‘principles of logic’ and ‘laws of physics’ are the things that Universe has learned about itself, by trial and error…so far. Like any good LLM, Universe has learned to self-train.  

As Universe learns, we should expect that additional ‘potential’ states of affairs will become ‘impossible’ while other ‘potential’ states become ‘actual’. The older and wider I get, the less likely it is that I will ever play basketball for the Boston Celtics and the more likely that I will crave a nap every day at 2PM.

Transcendence saves Immanence! History is a winnowing process; it separates the delicious and nourishing grain from the ‘gross’ and indigestible chaff. Everything that can be saved will be saved. Even that which must be jettisoned leaves behind its shadow. What-is is not what-is-not!

Initially, whatever is conceivable seems possible. A toddler will literally believe anything, and the Red Queen can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. (Through the Looking Glass) 

According to both Whitehead and Jung, the Bible (from Genesis through Revelation) is the story of ‘Essential God’ (Primordial Nature) becoming ‘Existential God’ (Consequent Nature) via the created world: Alpha → Omega. 

Consciousness is a manifestation of the Universe’s perpetual process of self-reflection and self-adjustment (above). The Cosmos cannot ‘intentionally self-adjust’ unless it is somehow simultaneously ‘aware’ of both its current state (Actual World) and its target state (Subjective Aim). I cannot travel (Subjective Aim → Satisfaction → Superject) unless I know where I’m going and where I’m coming from; otherwise, I’m just wandering.  

Sartre (a self-proclaimed atheist) said that ‘God’ is the being whose essence precedes his existence - in contrast to humans whose ontological order is reversed. If we extend Sartre’s insight (also Whitehead’s and Jung’s), then the material world is the process by which ‘God acquires a body’, i.e. potentiality becomes actuality, the conceptual becomes physical. (This is reflected in the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body.)

The Hebrew text usually translated “I am who am,”(Exodus 3: 14) may alternately be read, “I am coming to be what is coming to be.” In his First Letter to Corinthians (15:28), Paul sums it up: “…that God may be all in all,” an apocalyptic formula first proposed by the pre-Socratic ‘pagan’ philosopher, Anaxagoras, 500 years earlier.  

So the primordial LLM is the Cosmos itself as it uploads into the Consequent Nature of God! Not a product of 21^st century technology, it’s approximately 14 billion years old…and still aging. Like any network of AI Supercomputers, Cosmos is ceaselessly trying out new combinations of elements, learning along the way, and continuing to self-correct until the optimum configuration is achieved.

Our goals for this primordial LLM are high. Ideally, it would reconcile every element in its data base, resolving all conflicts, not by suppressing one party in favor of another, but by channeling energy from disparate elements to maximize intensity of experience. 

How will we know if we’re there yet? When we can apply unreservedly and universally words like ‘Beauty, Truth, Justice, Love, Freedom, Joy, Harmony, Peace’…but none of their negations or diminutives. 

We are quite proud of ourselves. We have build giant LLMs more powerful than even science fiction writers could have imagined just a few decades ago. They engage us in conversation on a nearly infinite range of topics. 

But let’s put our achievement in perspective. We are currently building LLMs with maybe 10^4 discrete (English) ‘words’ in their dictionaries. The Cosmos has c. 10^90 such ‘words’ (estimated number of quanta in the Universe). So we have a bit to go yet.

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Wassily Kandinsky’s Composition VII (1913) is a vast, swirling explosion of color and dynamic lines that embodies themes of creation, destruction, and spiritual renewal. By abandoning realistic forms, Kandinsky sought to convey music-like rhythms and the hidden spiritual order of the cosmos, presenting a visual symphony of pure emotion and universal energy.