With few exceptions, organized religion has been on the decline in developed societies for more than a century. Church attendance is down almost everywhere.

But does the evident ongoing abandonment of traditional religion also mean the death of human spirituality? Most people would, I'm sure, answer with a resounding No!

Spirituality is different from religion, I am told. It includes music, art, poetry, and a love of nature; it is interwoven with a profound appreciation for the wonders of the universe and for the simple joys of life; it is something within us -- all of us -- that connects us together and makes us One.

It certainly seems true that humans are hard-wired with a strong tendency toward belief in something greater than our individual selves. For most of history, and for most people, this belief has manifested as worship of the supernatural, specifically as devotion to an unseen god or gods. That devotion can bring with it a willingness to fight for the Deity, to die for the Deity, and even to kill for the Deity.

As noted above, such belief in an all-powerful Deity seems to be gradually on the decline, pushed along in its demise by our better understandings of science and psychology.

But again, does rejection of the old-time gods and the old-time religion necessarily entail the rejection of all spirituality? Or to put it another way, is the inclination toward spirituality so intrinsically human that we would no longer be human without it?

Any attempt at trying to answer these difficult and perhaps unanswerable questions would first have to begin by defining 'spirituality'. But of course that is no easy task.

Does spirituality include religion? Can it include belief in the supernatural, or is that separate? Does it include such things as Deepak Chopra's silly (sorry, couldn't resist) quantum healing? Is there room for auras, crystals, astrology, Tarot, and other trappings of New Age mysticism, or are those all regarded as no better than primitive superstitions and thus cast off?

If religion, deities, and the supernatural are not part of it, then what is spirituality? Is it "merely" an appreciation of the wonders of the universe? A general inexpressible awe at the majesty of nature and existence?

OK, maybe that's all it is. And maybe that's actually nothing small, but something pretty big. Maybe humans can't be human without such feelings of awe and wonder.

Which leads me to my next question.


As we move toward creating artificial intelligences that can "think" enough like a human to be able to communicate with us and be productively creative (or creatively productive), will it be necessary to imbue them with something analogous to our human spirituality? Might they be unable to understand us and work with us on a high level if they lack our spiritual bent? Or worse, could a superintelligence without a sense of spirituality be sociopathic?

I'm not the first person to think of these questions, of course, nor am I the best equipped to look for answers. Luckily there are other people smarter and better educated than me who are working on the problem.

A related effort here at the IEET is our Cyborg Buddha project. We are also currently involved in co-organizing a major academic conference which will deal with some of these issues. More info on this coming soon.

But while we're at it, let's post this as a poll question for IEET readers:

Is 'spirituality' a necessary component of a happy, peaceful posthuman future?

Please let us know what you think!