Have you noticed how sophisticated and powerful computers have become? Have you noticed how more powerful and sophisticated they are becoming with each passing day? Is there or will there ever be a limit to their computing capacity?
Most who are in the business, or rather the science of computers say no.
Computers and the robotic devices that can now carry them can defeat human beings at chess, repair expensive technology in space and deliver world destroying nuclear payloads from 30,000 feet.
But can they think? Will they someday think on their own?
Many, who are in the business or rather the science of computers say yes.
We are now even using computers to help design and create even more sophisticated computers. They are so sophisticated yet so easy to use that most humans who are using them in their daily lives can offer little or no explanation as to how they are made or even as to what makes them work.
But will computers ever develop consciousness or have a soul?
Most who are in the business or rather the science of computers would probably say, “Perhaps consciousness but how does one define a soul?”
But in any case, here is my question:
With consciousness computers will be able to become completely autonomous. Yet they will owe their creation to creatures who for all intents and purposes will be inferior to them in all respects as we now measure superiority among humans.
So in light of our human discoveries and creations and the creations that we expect to be…might it not be possible that who or what we call God is a lesser creature than we expect or surmise? Perhaps even inferior to us?
This might be a blasphemous thought to some who read this but in light of what we are now seeing possible on Earth perhaps this is why God does not intervene in the affairs of men and perhaps why we someday will not interfere in the affairs of computers…
Just a thought… because, well…that’s what we humans do.
ipledgeafallegiance 
Interesting thought. You keep using “the business or rather the science of computers” as if the two are interchangeable, which of course they are not. But the idea that humans may have surpassed whatever God “is” is interesting. Of course first we would have to be able to conclusively define God, which has proven impossible. Spirituality relies on faith-based answers and science deals only with the realm of the physical world, so a decisive definition is outside the realm of both. The way the question is posited also assumes a certain outlook – that humans understand enough to determine whether or not this undefined God intervenes in the affairs of men. So the question is unanswerable and pointless, but so is the ever popular “what if” genre of science fiction and that can be fun anyway. I have my own inconclusive idea of what God may be and that points to a possible answer but it is pure speculation. Chaos and complexity theory and the implications some philosophers have drawn from them hold tantalizing possibilities, but then that ties to my unspoken idea of what God may be. (Will a sufficiently complex system ultimately become self-aware? If so, would not then the whole of existence be self-aware since it is supreme complexity? And if that is so, it would follow that existence as a whole is God.) Physically speaking biological organisms are nothing more than electro-chemical carbon-based systems, so it seems plausible that systems of other materials (such as computers) could house life as well. Ah, but that then leads to the obvious question of what is life. The whole thing leads to a fascinating cognitive isometric exercise (figuratively speaking) – unanswerable but a fun point to ponder.
Point to ponder, a truly precious concept. Engaging response to a to an intriguing subject.
Another remarkable observation. The conjecture will feed plenty of food for thought in a way I never imagined.
PS, You might want to adjust your time stamp, currently showing Universal GMT. M
Very interesting…makes the Divine a bit less divine, doesn’t it? I’ve got to think about that one…
This is one agnostic who conjectures that you might be right.
Fascinating idea.
At the end of the day, though, there’s a program (even if it’s a program that can modify itself and generate other programs). And where there’s a program there’s a programmer – possibly a programmer who can’t quite remember why they did that in the first place (I speak from experience). (And no, this is not, by analogy, an argument for intelligent design).
With electronic computers there’s also an off switch (if you can find it).
It’s possible that work to develop biologically based computers might throw up the sort of problems you suggest – could something that starts out as a biological “machine” become an autonomous living organism?
I live by the notion that there is an intelligent designer. I am not happy with much the church has done, but I do try to look beyond man and look to the creator instead. It is amazing He has given us minds to create so much on this earth. I would almost dare to say we were cast in this image of the maker…hum…