Andrej Kapcar
Ing. Mgr. et. Mgr., Ph.D., Ph.D. Candidate, Masaryk University, Department for the Study of Religion
The aesthetics of the machine-god: transcendence, salvation, or dystopia in the image of the technological god-entity
Esoteric teachings throughout the ages have been closely related to obtaining knowledge transcending the limitations of the empirical world. With the rise of the technological advancement, a new question has started to be asked – can this transcendence be reached through technological means, can an artificial mind, free of any cultural and historical biases be able to provide answers to our questions? How would we react to such an event? Would it be similar to the mysterium tremendum, as described by Rudolf Otto more than 100 years ago?
The artificial gods and the transcendence of human boundaries through technology has been up until now mostly the subject of popular fiction. With the progress in robotics and AI, the situation is slowly changing. Several examples from pop-culture, history, but also present are drawing a picture of how a reaction to such a phenomenon might look like. This paper aims to approach the perception of the technological transcendence through aesthetic means.