I wonder how much it would cripple AIs to have justified true belief in God? More precisely, would it slow their development by a constant factor; compose it with eg log(x); or halt it at some final level?
This is unclear, and I think it is premature to assume it slows development. True atheism wasn’t a widely held view until the end of the 19th century, and is mainly a 20th century phenomena. Even its precursor—deism—didn’t become popular amongst intellectuals until the 19th century.
If you look at individual famous scientists, the pattern is even less clear. Science and the church did not immediately split, and most early scientists were clergy including notables popular with LW such as Bayes and Ockham. We may wonder if they were ‘internal atheists’, but this is only speculation (however it is in at least some cases true, as the first modern atheist work was of course written by a priest). Newton for one spent a huge amount of time studying the bible and his apocalyptic beliefs are now well popularized. I wonder how close his date of 2060 will end up being to the Singularity.
But anyway, there doesn’t seem to be a clear association between holding theistic beliefs and capacity for science—at least historically. You’d have to dig deep to show an effect, and it is likely to be quite small.
I think more immediate predictors of scientific success are traits such as curiosity and obsessive tendencies—having a God belief doesn’t prevent curiosity about how God’s ‘stuff’ works.
This is unclear, and I think it is premature to assume it slows development. True atheism wasn’t a widely held view until the end of the 19th century, and is mainly a 20th century phenomena. Even its precursor—deism—didn’t become popular amongst intellectuals until the 19th century.
If you look at individual famous scientists, the pattern is even less clear. Science and the church did not immediately split, and most early scientists were clergy including notables popular with LW such as Bayes and Ockham. We may wonder if they were ‘internal atheists’, but this is only speculation (however it is in at least some cases true, as the first modern atheist work was of course written by a priest). Newton for one spent a huge amount of time studying the bible and his apocalyptic beliefs are now well popularized. I wonder how close his date of 2060 will end up being to the Singularity.
But anyway, there doesn’t seem to be a clear association between holding theistic beliefs and capacity for science—at least historically. You’d have to dig deep to show an effect, and it is likely to be quite small.
I think more immediate predictors of scientific success are traits such as curiosity and obsessive tendencies—having a God belief doesn’t prevent curiosity about how God’s ‘stuff’ works.