Humans have sought out objects of worship out of fear of nature and the supernatural, but data and its processing systems are merely tools and cannot be worshipped. Data will be subject to human control and will exist only as a means to an end.
The time has come when purely human abilities are no longer sufficient to process a large amount of data. Human weaknesses that have been well hidden have been exposed. Since ancient times, mankind has been submissive in the face of opponents who are clearly weak. For example, unconquerable nature or incomprehensible phenomena. In the past, humans looked at the sky, which they could only stare at, unlike the land where they could run and play, and felt longing or fear, and even worshiped it. The feeling of helplessness, especially in the face of natural phenomena, led humans to myths and legends. Natural phenomena such as lightning, storms, and earthquakes were not merely feared, but accepted as evidence of transcendent forces, and humans mobilized their imaginations to understand these forces. In this process, various gods and myths were born, and humans believed that through these gods, they could control nature a little bit.
And for phenomena that we couldn’t control and didn’t understand why, like the weather, we imagined that there was a transcendent entity controlling it and worshiped it. So should we worship this unconquerable flood of data and the great data processing systems of the future that our intellect can’t comprehend? The answer is no.
For one thing, we’re not a kind of species that’s willing to accept its own weaknesses. Behind the façade of submission, there is always a heart of rebellion. The heavens are no longer an object of worship, but merely a way of transportation. Like the land, it has become a conquest that we can stir up whenever we want. This is not only true of our attitude towards nature and science, but also of our attitude towards technological advances in modern society. From artificial intelligence, robotics, and nanotechnology, humans are moving from using the tools they have created out of necessity to controlling and developing them more efficiently. So should we worship the airplane, which allows us to fly freely on behalf of our humble bodies that lack the wings to take to the skies? Of course not. Airplanes are just tools created by human needs. We no longer believe in wind chimes, rain clouds, or cloud forecasters, nor do we worship weather observation devices or the supercomputers that process the data from them to predict the weather. The same is true for data and data processing systems. There is no reason to worship something that is merely a tool created out of necessity because it does the math for us. Nor is there any reason to worship the flood of data because it allows us to extract only the information we want from the vastness of data. Data has followed in the footsteps of the sky and weather in rebelling against humans.
Nevertheless, is it possible that data could become an object of worship or belief like some of the modern religions that still exist? First, let’s take a look at why modern religions exist, or could exist, as religions. “In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari writes that religion is not a belief in supernatural forces or a belief in a god. For religious people, religion is not something created by someone else, but a natural law that exists on its own and is the way the world works. Without it, the world is incomprehensible and cannot function properly. Religion is a superhuman force that cannot be changed by human will, a law or system that must be obeyed, not something to be believed or disbelieved. At least for religious people, this is the case, so modern religions can exist by bringing together like-minded people to form social functions or impose superhuman laws on social structures.
Does the data produced satisfy these characteristics of modern religion? First of all, every substance or idea has its own data. It doesn’t exist because we believe in it, it exists because we have data. Data is a description of something. The interaction of these data makes the world work. And we can’t understand the world without data. Since the beginning of time, humans have been collecting and analyzing data to understand the world and survive. Up to this point, data has largely fulfilled the characteristics of religion. But does data also have to be obeyed? I don’t think so. Unlike religion, which functions as a system and exerts an irresistible force, data is merely an element. If religion is a semiconductor made by extracting silicon from grains of sand, then data is the sand itself. The computer functions as a semiconductor, but it has nothing to do with how much sand is piled up around it. From this perspective, data is simply a material that increases human knowledge and understanding. As with any technology or tool, data is used for human intent and purpose, and cannot be worshipped in and of itself.
Some might argue that religion is not as obvious and grandiose as the above. You might say that religion is just a virtual crutch, a mental, psychological, and spiritual support. If you look at the religious people around you, you’ll see that there are quite a few people who take religion relatively lightly. This is not to say that they lack faith. It’s just that the meaning and role of religion can vary from person to person. Let’s say a person finds themselves in a very sad situation, and analyzing the data piece by piece about how it happened calms them down and makes them feel good, then they can make data their religion.
In conclusion, we don’t know what religion humans will follow in the distant future, but we do know that it won’t be data. There may be a brief period of time during the information overload transitional period when data universalists, or a few peculiar individuals, make data their religion. But in the end, data will exist as a means to an end, not an end in human life. So while data will be an important tool in the modern world, it will ultimately be subject to human control and will exist only as a means to achieve our ends.
