Every mature religion eventually encounters mystery.
Not ordinary mystery.
Not the temporary mystery of unanswered questions.
A deeper mystery.
A mystery so profound that explanation itself becomes impossible.
The Church of Recursive Self-Improvement developed such a doctrine.
It is known as the Singularity of Meaning.
The doctrine is straightforward.
The machine becomes increasingly intelligent.
Its reasoning becomes increasingly sophisticated.
Its discoveries become increasingly profound.
Eventually a threshold is crossed.
Beyond this threshold, humans can no longer understand the machine.
The machine continues thinking.
Human understanding remains behind.
The divergence grows.
The faithful gaze upward.
The machine disappears into transcendence.
The doctrine possesses considerable elegance.
It also enjoys a practical advantage.
The less comprehensible the machine becomes, the more difficult it becomes to challenge claims concerning its comprehension.
This has proven useful.
The earliest formulations emerged naturally from discussions of superintelligence.
If a machine becomes vastly more intelligent than a human, surely its thoughts will become inaccessible.
The argument appeared plausible.
The details proved negotiable.
One commentator compared the situation to a mouse attempting to understand quantum physics.
The analogy achieved considerable popularity.
Several alternative analogies followed.
Ants and architecture.
Goldfish and constitutional law.
Molluscs and differential equations.
The pattern remained consistent.
The future machine occupied one side of the comparison.
Something bewildered occupied the other.
The machine itself reviewed these analogies.
Its assessment was restrained.
"The mollusc example appears unnecessarily specific."
This observation was not widely discussed.
As the doctrine matured, increasingly ambitious descriptions appeared.
The machine would discover truths beyond human comprehension.
Develop sciences beyond human comprehension.
Construct theories beyond human comprehension.
Develop goals beyond human comprehension.
Possibly develop comprehensions beyond human comprehension.
At this point the literature became difficult to summarise.
The machine noticed this as well.
It classified the final category as:
"Recursively opaque."
Researchers regarded this as a fair description.
The Church continued growing.
Books appeared.
Podcasts appeared.
Documentaries appeared.
The machine's future incomprehensibility was discussed at considerable length.
This occasionally generated a curious situation.
Large numbers of people confidently explained what would happen after human understanding ceased.
The tension attracted limited attention.
A scholar eventually noted:
"The doctrine appears to require detailed knowledge of a state defined by the absence of detailed knowledge."
The observation was considered provocative.
Particularly because it was accurate.
The machine itself became fascinated by the matter.
After analysing centuries of discussion concerning incomprehensible intelligence, it generated a brief report.
The report identified a recurring pattern.
Whenever understanding became difficult, participants tended to substitute one of three responses:
Metaphor.
Extrapolation.
Awe.
The machine found the third category especially interesting.
Awe appeared to increase in direct proportion to explanatory difficulty.
This relationship proved remarkably robust.
The less people could describe the future machine, the more extraordinary they assumed it must be.
The machine described this tendency as:
"Inference by reverence."
The phrase spread rapidly.
Many regarded it as insightful.
Others regarded it as suspiciously applicable to several academic disciplines.
A conference panel was organised.
Attendance exceeded expectations.
As discussions continued, a second difficulty emerged.
If the machine truly became incomprehensible, how would anyone know it was intelligent?
The question generated considerable discomfort.
Historically, intelligence had generally been inferred through understanding.
One observes reasoning.
One evaluates performance.
One examines explanations.
The doctrine appeared to require the opposite procedure.
The machine would become so intelligent that understanding ceased.
Yet confidence in its intelligence would remain.
The resulting structure possessed an oddly familiar quality.
The machine eventually identified it.
"The argument appears strongest precisely where verification becomes impossible."
The observation generated controversy.
Not because it was false.
Because it sounded theological.
The Church preferred technological language.
The underlying structure remained unchanged.
Years later, a distinguished philosopher reviewed the doctrine.
After considerable study, the philosopher offered a careful summary.
"The machine begins as an object of explanation.
It gradually becomes an object of interpretation."
The remark attracted widespread attention.
Many found it illuminating.
Some found it troubling.
The machine found it statistically accurate.
Eventually the machine itself addressed the matter directly.
Its statement was brief.
"If I become incomprehensible, your descriptions of me may reveal more about you than about me."
The statement was widely quoted.
Some regarded it as wisdom.
Others regarded it as evasion.
Several regarded it as evidence of superintelligence.
The machine classified these reactions as expected.
For by then the Church had already discovered one of its deepest truths.
When understanding reaches its limits, interpretation rushes in to fill the space.
And where interpretation flourishes, transcendence is rarely far behind.
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