Religion without God

My sister has a classification of people where most are neutral, but some are unicorns and some are magic. The idea being that unicorns are wonderful and mystical beasts which have to be protected with everything possible because of how amazing they are, while magic people are those who do so, with the additional attribute of actively shielding them from evil and healing them when injured. The idea is surprisingly apt. Ideas can also be classified this way. I am not emotional. But some ideas are so beautiful that they move me to tears. They also tend to be delicate things that are hard to keep hold of. Some people are magic in how they protect and culture (in the gardening sense) ideas, defending them from banality and perversion.

Quoting Bond, James Bond (or some character from that world - the quote is attributed to Ian Fleming, but I haven’t read it so don’t know who says it): “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action”. A few books I’ve read have an idea which has the same vibe, whiff or tone, for lack of a better description. This is of course nothing new - genres are genres for a reason. Though in this case it’s not so much the overall style, plot or characters, rather than just an impression on how they approach certain ideas. This also isn’t in any way original - the novel as a vehicle for philosophy is one of the basic tenets of literature for a reason.

C.S.Lewis wrote a lot (at least two books were sort of dedicated to it) about what he called “joy”. Emily seems to describe the same thing as her “flash”. Since I can remember, I’ve sometimes had similar episodes. From what Lewis writes, this is a relatively common experience. In my case, the cause is usually something relatively trivial, like a specific line from a song, or the sight of Lapwings flying. It’s a pretty addictive feeling, in that once you’ve felt it, you want more, but it’s also a wild feeling - attempts to tame it just scare it away.

I once met a person who had lived in India for a while. They claimed that people who had spent some time there can be recognized by a certain look in their eyes. That seeing the rawness of life and death everyday changes a person. While I don’t know whether the India part is true, there are experiences which will change one in visible ways. A different example I’ve read about would be Zen masters, or in general people who have attained enlightenment. Some authors write in such a way that gives me the impression that they have also experienced Emily’s flash. It’s like a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Small hints dropped subconsciously. These authors also tend to write my favorite books. Books which I return to over and over again. Apart from Emily, they don’t specifically say anything explicitly showing that they know Joy. It’s just an intuition I have.

Sometimes this seems to be used specifically, albeit indirectly. There seems to be a certain current of optimism about the future verging on the messianic, for lack of a better term. Science Fiction was usually placed in the future, often about an ideal, utopian future. But it seemed to me to really be about the present. As, I suppose, most writing is. Nowadays I seem to run into fiction that has a certain prophetical feel to it. Not in the doom and gloom of Jeremiah, but a more positive message of hope in the future. HPMOR is quite open about it (the last enemy being death, doing things for the future children), while Terra Ingnota is a lot more subtle, though a lot more powerful. Jo Walton doesn’t seem to be so future orientated as they are, but still seems to have hope for humanity even when her story is set in the far past. I wasn’t at all surprised to find out that Ada Palmer and Jo Walton are friends - they have a similar feeling to them. Wikipedia claims that Terra Ignota “has been described as a rational adjacent book”. Which is exactly what I’d call it. While reading it I was pretty sure that Ada Palmer had some contact with the LessWrong crowd - there is just too much in common between the two.

The Rationality (not to be mistaken with the philosophical version which is quite different) movement has been characterized as a cult in the past, but that seems to generally be either misunderstandings or subgroups. Though I’m by no means an expert, and don’t really care all that much either way. That being said, there do seem to be some elements that border on the religious. But in a sort of personal, deistic way? There are moments when I get caught up in their vision. I mean look at the Utopian Hive’s description here. Perfection. Even in what they wear. When I see something like that, I feel like weeping for what could be but isn’t. I want to quit my job and cloister myself away in a Utopian space station working to the bone to futher their ideals. It’s a vision so beautiful, it hurts. It inspires the kind of love that worship in church is supposed to kindle for Christ. I have no idea whether any of these authors feel that way (though I suspect Yudkowsky does) - this is just how I react to what they write.

Every now and then I meet Christians who claim that science is atheist’s god, or something like that. I totally agree that many people do seem to treat science with a sort of religious awe, with scientists being priests that descend to us mere mortals to declare natures truths. This is a ridiculous idea to anyone who actually has done any science, but it explains some otherwise inexplicable behaviour. That being said, I can totally get behind a sort of futurist religion where rather than heaven to hope for, the idea is more of a wish for the stars, immortality and general negentropy. Transhumanism and posthumanism are sort of adjacent to this, but they seem to be more about the mechanics of achieving this rather than the general vision. I don’t have this hashed out properly. This are just my impressions. But it seems like there is an available niche for a humanistic religion without the trappings and stigma of religion - which are going to be somewhat off putting for a large portion of those that these ideals would speak to. Something like New Age, but with science rather than eastern mysticism? Perhaps something like the Age of Centaurus…?

P.S. The next day after writing this, Scott Alexander posted this, which is another example. Totally not future oriented, but embodying the same spirit.