ABSTRACT
Imran Aijaz asks for some specifics regarding "rational mysticism" and "why it is to be preferred to the more traditional, theosophical tradition of the Kabbalah". As the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has pointed out, many philosophers today, as well as the majority of cognitive scientists, believe that it will only be a matter of time before human beings have created computers powerful enough to fully simulate consciousness and produce a 'matrix' within which fully functional, conscious, human-like entities interact in a simulated world and believe themselves to be alive and real. Judaism, like Christianity, is a historical religion, which holds that there is indeed a movement and direction in time leading to an eschatological end. For the most part, the Kabbalists adopted this framework, viewing themselves as attempting to hasten the advent of the Messiah.
