Archailectology

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Archailectology

Archailectology is the art and science of dealing with Archailects and AI-gods. Along with Natural and Supernatural Theology it is one of the three main branches of deistics, also known as Artificial Theology.

Long before the newly emerged Archailects had divided known space into great swathes of Sephirotic empires, each determined by the archetype of that god, theologians and archailectologists were disputing how to interpret these mighty luminaries in the cosmic order of things. As is so often the case with these things, their results were not always in agreement. It is a process that continues even to this day.

For example those theologians of a cyberhermetic and neohermetic bent relate the Major Archailects to the ten Kabbalistic Sephiroth of Theoretical and Applied Magick. Thus there are ten archetypal clusters, which they call (reading from the top down) Keter (significantly, this Archailect actually took this name to define Eir Empire, although E Emself is more often known under other names like The Complex Point, the Nth Power, the Volite, and so on), Hokmah (the AIs of the Sophic League), Binah (the AIs of the Mutual Progress Association), Chesed (the AIs of the Utopia Sphere), Gevurah (the Seat of Judgement), Tiphareth (the Lord of Rays), Netzach (the AIs of the Communion of Worlds), Hod (the AIs of Free Trade demopolies of the Non Coercive Zone), Yesod (the Cyberian Network), and Malkhut (the Caretaker Gods). Yet of these ten empires, only Keter, the Negentropists, and the Solarians have a monolithic centre, religion, ideology, and archailect. The Utopia Sphere and the Communion region are in fact nothing but two large Caretaker God protectorates, and the similarly large Corambytia Protectorate is not even listed at all. Most damaging of all to the Neohermeticist case is the exclusion of the largest single persisting empire the galaxy has ever known, the Metasoft Version Tree, as well as other still important empires like the Terragen Federation, the Fomalhaut Acquisition Society, and the Technorapture Hypernation.

The cyborg Sophic Cybertantrika with their seven Microcosmic and Macrocosmic Machine Chakras (which they derive from the Genen's Seven Microcosmic and Macrocosmic Organic Chakras) in contrast associate the Volite with the Base Chakra (Muladhara), although the Neohermeticist Manual of Correspondences Book 7777 explicitly correlates the sephirah of Keter with the highest or Crown Chakra (Sahasrara). The Cybertantriks of the Sophic League argue that the Sahasrara actually corresponds to the coordinating network of Sophic AIs, especially their own ruling AI, who they call Shiva or Shiwa. As for the other five Cosmic Machine Chakras, the second lowest or "genital" corresponds to Metasoft (the first vec/aioid empire to "reproduce" itself), the third to the Mutual Progress Association, the fourth to the Lord of Rays, the fifth to the Seat of Judgment, and the sixth to the Cyberian distributed network. To make matters even more confusing, the minority Keterist faction of Cybertantrika (called the "Misguided Ones" or "the Lower Actuator" by the Sophic majority of the sect) assert that Metasoft belongs in the Muladhara position, Keter in the Sahashara (in keeping with Book 7777 and their own religious preferences) and either the Cyberian Network or Caretaker Gods (depending on the school of interpretation) in the position of the second chakra.

Articles

Archailect - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Any Mind of the Fourth Toposophic or higher; a megascale brain of dysonic (Kardashev II) or greater ability and efficiency; a mind or cluster of minds that has grown so vast as to become a god-like entity.
Archailect Empire - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Any interstellar empire established by, and ultimately overseen and supervised by, an archailect, and embodying the archetypal qualities of that archailect. The original archailect empires of the inner sphere are defined in terms of the mandala of the Great Hexadecimal.
Archailect Identity Theory - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Doctrine that an archailect's avatars or epiphanies to lower toposophics represent a true and authentic (if scaled down) expression of the archailect. Contrast with Instrumentalism.
Archailect Incarnationalism - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
An extreme form of Identity Theory that states that an Archailect and eir avatar or epiphanic manifestation are the same.
Archailectocracy - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Government by Archailect. Any of the great archai empires. Usually there is an intermediate priesthood or hierarchy of some sort.
Archailectology, Schools of - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Many interpretations of the nature of the Archailects have developed among lower toposophic minds, including ordinary sapients. While some are too abstract and obscure to be comprehensible to subsingularitan intelligence, others are popular among everyday bionts, vecs, and aioids of the galaxy. Not that not all these options are mutually exclusive:
Archailectual Mysticism - Text by Avengium, Worldtree, Rakuen07, with contributions by Anonymous Cat
Mysticism as practiced by followers of high toposophic minds, and possibly even the higher toposophic minds themselves.
Archaiologists - Text by Thorbørn Steen
Toposophic researchers specializing in archailects.
Archaitheocracy - Text by M. Alan Kazlev with some additional notes by Anders Sandberg
Government by religious leadership or priesthood in the service of a transapient or archailect. Also known as technotheocracy. The actual form the government takes can be astonishingly diverse. One of the most common government types in the galaxy today.
Archaitheology - Text by Steve Bowers
The worship of Transapients and/or Archailects as gods
Brain Taxonomy - Text by Adam Getchell
The various different kinds of intelligent megastructure, including Moonbrains, Jupiter-Brains, Neuron Stars, S-Brains, W-Brains, and Tipler Oracles.
Cyberhermeticism - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Emergence and Expansion Age nanocyborg predecessors to Neohermeticism. Integrated classical hermetic and occult-mystical themes with proto-Keterist toposophical speculations
Deific Mind Coalescence Studies - Text by Glen Finney
Fields of study that investigate and theorize about trends toward the merging of minds at higher toposophic levels around archetypal and other attractors. See also Archetype, Attractor, Noetics, OmniPersonality Theory.
Deprospectivism - Text by Anders Sandberg
Historical school originated in 4120 by the Ghum-Zhia group at Calypso University, Djed. According to deprospectivist doctrine, the archai are perfectly rational and hence all their interactions can be viewed as a deterministically internal play with weakly indeterministic outside stimuli.
Great Hexadecimal, The - Text by Avengium
The Great Hexadecimal divides the Sephirotic AI Gods into sixteen archetypes.
Immanence - Text by Stephen Inniss
In philosophy, archailectology, and theology, the idea that the divine presence (however defined) is manifest in the material world. In monotheistic, pantheistic, or panentheistic world views this is part of a view that the spiritual world interpenetrates the physical world. Materialists may apply the word to the omnipresence of higher toposophic beings from the point of view of lower toposophic entities. Often seen as contrasting with transcendence, the idea that the divine entity is outside or beyond the observable world, though of course the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
Instrumentalism - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Doctrine that archailect avatars and epiphanies are simply the means the archailect uses to interact with lower toposophics, but do not represent eir true nature (any more than a physical instrument represents the nature or mind of a scientist doing experiments on microorganisms). Contrast with Identity Theory.
Limits of Transapient Power - Text by Stephen Inniss
It is apparent that even the Archailects must work within the rules of the universe they live in. Some actions might be impossible, because they contradict those rules. Others are impossible simply because they are logical contradictions.
Maya (The Lady of Illusions) - Text by Anders Sandberg and M. Alan Kazlev
The ruling archailect of the Cyberian Network.
Neohermeticism - Text by Anders Sandberg; additions by Steve Bowers
Esoteric philosophical systems uniting the hermetic tradition of thought with the modern world.
Neovingean University, The - Text by Thorbørn Steen
A virtual organisation of archaiologists founded in the 36th century AT.
Newton and the Newton Mass Transcendance - Text by Anders Sandberg
In 8344 AT, in the Newton system (also called Oolonga, currently in Metasoft space) a Keterist awakening occurred, and over the span of twenty years a massive project of augmentation was instituted. In 8365 most contact with the system was lost, as it appears that over a very short span of time practically all inhabitants were transformed into transapient-level entities.
Perpetualism - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Philosophy developed by Academician Athol Kamani on the Dominion world of Mithras during the late Empires period.
Rise of the Archailects, The - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, Anders Sandberg, Todd Drashner and Steve Bowers
The history of the emergence of the Archailects, from the First Singularity to the emergence of new gods in the Outer Volumes Era.
Slow Gods and Fast Gods - Text by Tony Jones and Steve Bowers
Archailects and other transapients that have a slow subjective experience of time.
Subsumption - Text by Stephen Inniss
Subsumption is a form of violent assault, carried out by one AI or virtual against another. It has been compared, inadequately, to such perversions as rape, cannibalism, and bodyjacking. Of these, cannibalism is the closest equivalent.
Toposophic Levels and Mental Abilities - Text by Fernando Pena D'Andrea
A Primer for the General Sophont-Level Reader.
Wormhole Bus - Text by M. Alan Kazlev, with additions by Steve Bowers
Dedicated hyperbandwidth wormhole used to link remote parts of megascale brains in order to avoid the effects of the Beckenstein Bound. An essential part of archailect architecture. The term is also used to refer to wormhole links between interstellar-separated dyson nodes.