The Gospel of Thomas. Before going down that rabbit hole I had no idea that Lucretius had laid out evolution in 50 BCE and would have never thought there was a sect and text claiming Jesus was talking about quantized matter, evolution, and pre-computer simulation theory in an agreement with the Epicurean rejection of intelligent design while rebutting their conclusion that there must not be an afterlife.
Not only did the study of the work itself lead to mind blowing realizations about history and philosophy, but the sheer absurdity of its existence has (for me) led to heavily complementing the physical arguments for simulation theory and pushed it over the edge from something just “interesting to entertain” to something I’m fairly confident in.
If you’d told me 6 years ago a 2,000 year old document would change my perspective of metaphysics and core beliefs, I’d have laughed you out of the room. And yet it today stands as by far the most interesting thing I’ve ever researched and likely the most influential to date.
The Naassenes claimed his sower and mustard seed parables were about “indivisible seeds like a point as if from nothing” which “made up all things and were the originating cause of the universe” - language identical to Lucretius who writing in Latin used the term ‘seed’ in place of the Greek atomos (‘indivisible’).
The Gospel of Thomas, which they followed, further described concepts from Lucretius, like describing the notion the spirit arose from flesh (i.e. proto-evolutionary thought) as the greater wonder over the flesh arising from spirit (i.e. intelligent design). It describes the human being as an inevitable result and likened it to a large fish selected from many small fish, right before discussing how only what survived to reproduce multipled using specific language found in Lucretius which described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of a path.”
Lucretius’s view was that the world evolved from randomly scattered seeds which gave rise to humans whose souls depend on bodies and thus there’s nothing after death.
The Thomasine tradition claims instead that while there was an original spontaneously existing (i.e. evolved) man, that this man brought forth a new being of light that recreated the universe within itself as a non-physical copy. And that even though the original man died off that this creator of light is still alive and we are the copies in the images of the original man within its copy of the cosmos. And that it’s better to be a copy, because the originals really did have souls which depended on bodies and would die, but the copies do not actually have physical bodies.
The idea of a physical spontaneous original man preceding and bringing about a light-based creator which makes a copy of the universe and mankind within itself in order to escape the finality of death for physically based humans is remarkably similar to modern concepts of simulation theory, particularly as we now have trillion dollar companies having patented resurrecting the dead using AI and the data they leave behind, are putting AI agents into virtual worlds, are creating digital twins of the world around us, and are moving towards computing (especially for AI workloads) in light directly.
So yes, there really is a sect of Christianity in the first few centuries talking about quantized matter and evolution (both discussed in length by Lucretius 50 years before a Jesus was even born), and combining those ideas into what is effectively simulation theory millennia before the computer.
In fact, the “Gospel of Thomas” is more literally translated as “the good news of the twin” - which is fitting given its perspective that if one understands its claims about being a non-physical copy/twin of a physical original the reader will not fear death.
Well, there are many interesting things in antique literature in general. This particular text is, I agree, amazing, but it’s a piece of religious writing.
Centuries I-IV AD were a more pluralistic time for the Mediterranean.
For me personally reading Lucian of Samosata was such a change.
Lucian saw a ship of men flying up to the moon as beyond possibility.
This tradition thought that mankind would literally create God, and saw some of the specifics of this with uncanny foresight to what’s playing out in the present day.
I can think of few futurists more prescient than whoever was behind Thomas and details in the surrounding tradition.
The Gospel of Thomas. Before going down that rabbit hole I had no idea that Lucretius had laid out evolution in 50 BCE and would have never thought there was a sect and text claiming Jesus was talking about quantized matter, evolution, and pre-computer simulation theory in an agreement with the Epicurean rejection of intelligent design while rebutting their conclusion that there must not be an afterlife.
Not only did the study of the work itself lead to mind blowing realizations about history and philosophy, but the sheer absurdity of its existence has (for me) led to heavily complementing the physical arguments for simulation theory and pushed it over the edge from something just “interesting to entertain” to something I’m fairly confident in.
If you’d told me 6 years ago a 2,000 year old document would change my perspective of metaphysics and core beliefs, I’d have laughed you out of the room. And yet it today stands as by far the most interesting thing I’ve ever researched and likely the most influential to date.
Wut
Yeah, really.
The Naassenes claimed his sower and mustard seed parables were about “indivisible seeds like a point as if from nothing” which “made up all things and were the originating cause of the universe” - language identical to Lucretius who writing in Latin used the term ‘seed’ in place of the Greek atomos (‘indivisible’).
The Gospel of Thomas, which they followed, further described concepts from Lucretius, like describing the notion the spirit arose from flesh (i.e. proto-evolutionary thought) as the greater wonder over the flesh arising from spirit (i.e. intelligent design). It describes the human being as an inevitable result and likened it to a large fish selected from many small fish, right before discussing how only what survived to reproduce multipled using specific language found in Lucretius which described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of a path.”
Lucretius’s view was that the world evolved from randomly scattered seeds which gave rise to humans whose souls depend on bodies and thus there’s nothing after death.
The Thomasine tradition claims instead that while there was an original spontaneously existing (i.e. evolved) man, that this man brought forth a new being of light that recreated the universe within itself as a non-physical copy. And that even though the original man died off that this creator of light is still alive and we are the copies in the images of the original man within its copy of the cosmos. And that it’s better to be a copy, because the originals really did have souls which depended on bodies and would die, but the copies do not actually have physical bodies.
The idea of a physical spontaneous original man preceding and bringing about a light-based creator which makes a copy of the universe and mankind within itself in order to escape the finality of death for physically based humans is remarkably similar to modern concepts of simulation theory, particularly as we now have trillion dollar companies having patented resurrecting the dead using AI and the data they leave behind, are putting AI agents into virtual worlds, are creating digital twins of the world around us, and are moving towards computing (especially for AI workloads) in light directly.
So yes, there really is a sect of Christianity in the first few centuries talking about quantized matter and evolution (both discussed in length by Lucretius 50 years before a Jesus was even born), and combining those ideas into what is effectively simulation theory millennia before the computer.
In fact, the “Gospel of Thomas” is more literally translated as “the good news of the twin” - which is fitting given its perspective that if one understands its claims about being a non-physical copy/twin of a physical original the reader will not fear death.
deleted by creator
Well, there are many interesting things in antique literature in general. This particular text is, I agree, amazing, but it’s a piece of religious writing.
Centuries I-IV AD were a more pluralistic time for the Mediterranean.
For me personally reading Lucian of Samosata was such a change.
Lucian saw a ship of men flying up to the moon as beyond possibility.
This tradition thought that mankind would literally create God, and saw some of the specifics of this with uncanny foresight to what’s playing out in the present day.
I can think of few futurists more prescient than whoever was behind Thomas and details in the surrounding tradition.