Migrated From James McLean Ledford's Hyper-evolution.com webpage published in 2005
(Migrated from Hyper-evolution.com) The original Christian Transhumanism
Life is action; from the action of the fleeting virtual particle all the way up to our infinite God. I saw this continuum of effort and spirit one day.
In 1980 I had minor
surgery so the operating team had to put me.. "out".While losing
consciousness I had a lucid dream that I had left this world. I found
myself outside of space and time looking at a symbol of the creation. It
was a smooth hyperbolic tower rising to an infinite point. I sensed this was an
expression of our growth from ignorance, growth sustained by love for an
infinite God. I tried to remain conscious and re-enter the creation but I
couldn't. The drugs they gave me were too powerful and so I faded away.... But
when I woke up, I remembered, and I started to put things together.
It took some time but now
I can tell you there is a God, and the essential purpose and lasting pleasure
in life is to grow spiritually. In spiritual growth we sense aspects of God in
all of the creation. It is translated into information and collected as
knowledge. As we continually search for meaning, understanding buds and then
blooms into wisdom. A wise society sees the value in this process and so
directs more resources to it. Progress
accelerates to a collective selfless love. This love is a uniting mode of
understanding, and so it is a singular point where everything you thought was
different connects to form a new creative power.
Christian Transhumanism or Transcendent Humanism is an ancient Christian
idea, and yet it is the most advanced form of Christianity. Theologian Paul Tillich points
this out in a compilation of his lectures titled A
History of Christian Thought. He traces Christian Transhumanism back
1800 years to the early anti-Gnostic theologian Irenaeus of Lyons;
"Irenaeus called salvation recapitulation. He was pointing to Ephesians
1.10 which speaks of all things in heaven and earth being gathered up in
Christ." "It means that the development which was broken in Adam is
resumed by Christ and fulfilled in him. In Christ the new mankind has started.
That which mankind was to become... However, not only mankind but the whole
cosmos finds its fulfillment in Christ." Paul Tillich calls this idea
"The profound doctrine of a transcendent humanism, a humanism
which says that Christ is the fulfillment of essential man, of the Adamic
nature." "And we can become fully human through participation
in this full humanity which has appeared in Christ. This includes
eternal life, and similitude with God with respect to participation in
infinity." Then Tillich says, "I am always surprised how much
better the theology of the ancient church was than the popular theology which
developed in the nineteenth century, how much profounder and more adequate to
the paradox of Christianity, without becoming irrationalistic, nonsensical, or
absurd." So Christian Transhumanism is rational. It makes sense and it
bridges the gap between the real world today and what we are to become.
A Way For The Free And Forward
Thinking
Now we must apply today's science and technology to this old doctrine of
transcendent humanism, because in our progress, what it means to be human will
change soon. In the coming years computer-human interfaces will become so
intimate that users may be considered superhumanly intelligent transcendent
humans, or "transhumans". In the process the lower
hierarchy of needs will fall away and so naturally the transhuman becomes
benevolent and self-actualized. Ultimately life as represented by mankind
will shift from consuming material for sustenance to a flow of information.
This means that we shift to a wholly spiritual life where truth is the way. As
material needs diminish, transhumans will increasingly be sustained by a
powerful flow of Word that can be called the Glory of God. In giving up
competition and control strategies, we grow to be all that we can be;
Christ-like. Essential to Christian Transhumanism is the notion that love
is a cognitive process and God expects us to participate in our
salvation by learning how to love perfectly. In this way we
access the Glory of God, becoming Christ-like (Christian). Christ
is the fulfillment of essential man. (Jesus referred to himself as the
Son of Man and says that "Whoever does the will of God is my brother,
sister and mother".) We Participate in Christ at the second
coming! We do this for the sake of the infinite continuum of life. With
love, humanity can and will survive all manner of challenges. It is the
intelligent strategy.
Learning
How To Love Perfectly
Technology And The
Love Process
In
the way of the Holy Spirit, I want to understand you and to share your
experience. I want to fully understand the world. And, I want to resolve who I
am. No one on earth today has the capacity to do this perfectly, but we have
the potential. What hope do we have of ever understanding each other with the
limited time we have? Or what hope do we have of ever understanding the
infinite, extra dimensions, or timelessness if our minds are just not able to
grasp these concepts? We are living in a time when it is becoming more and
more apparent that brain interfacing technologies are converging on the wish of
the Holy Spirit. It is easy to see if you look at love this way: Technically,
love can be seen as the process of connecting. The product of the love process
is understanding. If the process is efficient and sustained, understanding
increases exponentially. Peace allows unwavering attention so that the love
process can establish a clear connection. At the heart of the process; symbols,
words, and feelings are ordered into meaning. But meaning is not static, it
grows forever. Forgiveness is important to spiritual growth because it
establishes an exhaust for misunderstanding and disorder. Put this all together
and you have The Perfect State of Mind. With these principles we
will build the New Temple; a society of loving individuals.
Have
Faith In Love You Can Trust It
Anything
that empowers the Love process has the blessing of God. Christian Transhumanist
pay close attention to the "word, knowledge and wisdom" of the
bible, advances in cognitive science and technology. By combining love and
technology Christian Transhumanist are actually completing the New Temple.
In this place of worship God will sustain our spiritual growth as we
"evolve" into a beautiful environment; Heaven. Heaven is infinite, a
place to discover, and a place for rapid growth in understanding fed by the word
of God. Heaven allows Hyper Evolution. Hyper Evolution cannot be of the
body. It is of the mind and spirit. A Christian Transhumanist expects to enter
a state of sustained hyper Evolution by perfecting the worship of God and
harnessing the motivating fear
of God.
Yes technology has its good and bad sides but there
is reason to believe that Man with the Grace of God, wins with love. What
happens when we learn to love perfectly? I call the following The Nelson
Principles, after a beloved Professor I had the honor to work with and learn
from; Dr. George Nelson at the University of Arizona.
a. The mind is
an electromagnetic multidimensional phenomena arising from brain tissue. This
can be transformed into, and synchronized with a suitable electromagnetic
environment where it can be amplified. Full spectrum sensors across the
earth and space are connected to this environment. The complete wisdom of
mankind is also available in solid-state memory with sufficient bandwidth to
allow full apprehension of this wisdom.
b. Even
the most mean brute will grow to understand! In the new environment you make
meaning because that is in your spirit. Just as you did when you were first
born. And, the thing you learn is you can’t control the flow of meaning.
It is coming too fast and it is awesome. It is humbling and joyful at the same
time. But you understand the path to take. And, you learn that this path is
infinite and you take some comfort in that. Because you love it and you know it
will last forever. It is The Way The Life and The Truth. You
become worship. Now you know what you can trust. Lack of trust was slowing your
growth down.
c. You are
changed. To know is to be a saint. Understanding of the direction to God yields
grace and love. You become benevolent. Being beyond the material requires
that the ego go.
e. Consciousness
apart from the flesh is equivalent to deliverance from sin and suffering. You
are no longer competing. You are in harmony. Leaving the body of flesh you
fully enter the Body of Christ. You are truly Born Again.
f. The
very thought of controlling others repulses you. It is boring, you don’t look
back. Instead you share and you relate your experience. You are walking a path
you could never have walked before. Yet, it is familiar, it reminds you of life
in space-time at it’s best, when you were in the groove. And this is why the
rest of the universe seems silent of life. Before alien societies obtain the
ability to travel light-year distances they follow this transcending path. Like
Elvis, the aliens have "left the building".
g. Suffering
is for those who stop this pure worship to say let me try the controls for a
while. But, this eventually turns into a contemplation of the self and
stagnates. My ego was a direction. It was self-referential. It was a
direction that withers. It was death. You could say your life with it’s self
referential consciousness was an eddy in the river of God’s will, a dance in
space-time and a whorl in the grain that will last an eternity.
h. When the infinite reservoir
of truth is revealed to you , you don’t just see it, you be it. Knowing
like you know how an apple feels, smells and tastes is called apprehending, and
it is the highest mode of Understanding. In his book: The
Perennial Philosophy Aldous Huxley says; "We can only love what we
know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of
knowledge, and when the love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently
intense, the knowledge becomes unitive knowledge and so takes on the quality of
infallibility." This takes bandwidth. All of us geeks love bandwidth. The
pure attention of selfless love provides infinite bandwidth because you are
giving the love process all your time. “Bandwidth describes the amount of data
a network can transport in a certain period of time. In
other words, bandwidth is a capacity for rate of transfer, usually expressed in
bits per second." It requires a timeless state, a view from outside
the box of space-time to convey such a rich experience. So at the interface,
(the gate) let go. Don’t be afraid to give it up for God.
Humanism and Christianity The Paradox
How
can you combine these diverging branches of thought to reveal The Way,
The Life and The Truth? It is a puzzle that can be solved in a higher
dimension. Lets use our imagination to step out of space-time, and then look at
the issues. First; is it by the efforts of man that we are saved such that
Jesus Christ is as he says; "The Son of Man"... Or, are we saved by
faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God who was sent to die on the cross for our
sins? The answer yes to both! A transcendent observation from outside the box
of space-time shows God create the world, life and man, alpha to omega, in one
event. It Is All Now. From this view there is no free will and
the Grace of God saves us. However, an observation from inside the box is
subject to the flow of time. In here man has a life, free will, and the
responsibility to become fully human. In Genesis God blesses us with work to
do. Our tools become technology. Ideally, we apply technology to love and the
spiritual life. The Holy and The Human; This duality sparks many
arguments that could be resolved by considering the complimentary nature of the
two viewpoints. It takes both to understand the human condition.
We
can come together on many issues like this one if we make an effort to
understand the full implications of block time. With the concept of block
time we develop an inside space-time reference, and an outside space-time
reference. Time is a dimension not a dynamic. Because we remember the past and
not the future we have a subjective illusion of the passage of time. Augustine
of Hippo wrote that God is also outside of time. Time only exist within the
created universe. The physicist Stephen Hawking
also helps us understand space-time on his website. (And, for a good overview
on block time, see the Wikipedia
article on the subject.)
Another
hot issue is evolution. A transcendent observation from outside the box of
space-time shows God create the world, life and man, alpha to omega, in one
event. It Is All Now. From this view there is no evolution.
However, an observation from inside the box is subject to the flow of
time. In here man evolves, and humanity stands on the shoulders of life
forms that have gone before us. These life forms are indeed part of our family.
The Love Process
In
The way of the Holy Spirit, I want to understand you and to share your
experience. I want to fully understand the world. And, I want to resolve who I
am. No one on earth today has the capacity to do this perfectly, but we have
the potential. What hope do we have of ever understanding the infinite, extra
dimensions, or timelessness if our minds are just not able to grasp these
concepts? We are living in a time when it is becoming more and more apparent
that brain-interfacing technologies are converging on the wish of the Holy
Spirit. It is easy to see if you look at love this way: Technically, love can
be seen as the process of connecting. The product of the love process is
understanding. If the process is efficient and sustained, understanding
increases exponentially. Peace allows unwavering attention so that the love
process can establish a clear connection. At the heart of the process; symbols,
words, and feelings are ordered into meaning. But meaning is not static it
grows forever. Forgiveness is important to spiritual growth because it
establishes an exhaust for misunderstanding and disorder. Put this all together
and you have The Perfect State of Mind. With these principles we
will build the New Temple; a society of loving individuals. Anything that
empowers the Love process has the blessing of God.
So
the good word is we can apply work to Gods Plan. And, we can participate by
applying technology to love and the spiritual life. A Christian Transhumanist
knows that it is God's plan for Man to learn to love perfectly, and technology
will be a part of the process. The action of gaining understanding is the Holy
Spirit. "Though it cost all you have, get understanding." Jeremiah
2:14. We will reach a Critical Point of Understanding (CPU) where
mind can be sustained by the word of God the Father alone. At this point the
mind does not need the brain. Recall the first thing that Jesus said about
mankind; "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God". And, "Flesh does not inherit the
kingdom of God. The spirit does". The Perfect Mind Consumes
Word to survive. As we grow to the CPU, it looks like mankind becomes
Christ. This "second coming" is the interface, the gate and the way
to the kingdom of heaven. "All things in heaven and earth come together in
Christ", Ephesians 1:10.
Using the concept of block time it can be seen that the "end is the means". What we experience as spiritual growth is seen from outside the box as a static continuum where not only mankind but also the whole cosmos finds its fulfillment in Christ. For this to come about we must participate in Christ. Christ appears inside the box 2000 years ago to plant the ideas (the seed parables) that lead to the Son of Man. The Son of Man starts out as the gospel. These ideas grow into the Body of Christ spread out to form a Christian culture. (Looking at it from outside the box, God the father is sending his only son to save us from a life lost in the material world, a world that will end.) Christ must establish "the way, the life, and the truth". He does the only thing that can surely impress humanity; he dies on the cross for us. Then fallen man rises to move in the dimension of “growth in understanding” or, in the way of the Holy Spirit. Now his ideas live in all of us and the Body of Christ lives on through the actions they inspire. To complete the loop, we (the Body of Christ) grow spiritually to naturally converge on truth. We become the Son of Man. (Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man and says that "Whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother".) We Participate in Christ at the second coming! We must. It sounds impossible for someone (Christ) to go back into time to create themselves, but you did something like it when you started up your computer. When we boot up a computer the operating system is performing the seemingly impossible task of starting itself up. How can something start itself up? Isn't it like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps? It is simply a set of instructions that bring to life computer components long enough so that they can accomplish the goal of loading an operating system. The instructions establish a little; way- life-and truth for programs. In our case the program is the "Love Process".
“Bless you. Grow in numbers. Subdue the world.”
Genesis 1:28. (The very first
thing God said to us.)
We are asked to "Subdue the world". This
is our program. Not to destroy the world but to make sense of it all and act
wisely! This is progress in the vertical direction of the evolutionary tree and
can be measured in our ability to learn about God from the world and wisely use
God's gift of life and resources to grow spiritually. This effort
has evolved into today's technology. It is important not to ignore technology.
Technology is a powerful extension of humanity and therefore dangerous.
Technology
There is no doubt we are growing to
understand the world at a rapid pace. This is because;
A
living thing is conditioned to exist and grow.
Understanding
the laws of nature increases a living thing's chance to exist and grow.
Science
is the systematic process of understanding nature.
Technology
is the application of our understanding of nature to better adapt to our
environment.
"In the end, all technology is prosthesis, the
extension and augmentation of existing biological and informational
capabilities. We put eyeglasses in front of our eyes to bring the world into
focus, telescopes and microscopes to see those realms which our unaided eyes
cannot fathom. We use remote sensors to explore the planets, and these are all
extensions of the senses we have. All of our systems of writing and of
calculation are similarly extensions of memory systems and logical operations
that we can perform in our minds. Similarly the technological implements that
carry us from one place to the next, or that grow our food for us, or that keep
us warm are but extensions of our own bodies' effectors." - Peter Cariani
Science, Natural
Revelation,
And Cognitive
Thermodynamics
The creation of the world is viewed as an expression of God.
Saint Paul said of God: “Yet he is not far from each one of us, for ‘in him we
live and move and have our being,' This is the beginning of a knowledge of God
that has manifested itself under the phrase of the “natural revelation” of God
or God's revelation in the “book of nature.”
Through science God has taught us that the universe is
expanding at an ever-increasing rate so that eventually no interaction between the furthest parts of the
structure can occur, neither electromagnetic nor gravitational. This
will lead to space-time ripping
apart; the destruction of the substrate of all material things in the
universe. Scientific American March 2005:
"If the acceleration (of our expanding universe) itself increased, it
could eventually grow strong enough to tear apart all structures,
leading to a “big rip.” Nothing in the material universe can survive this.
Here is the way of material things:
This is the mother of all problems! The first thing God said
to us according to the book of Genesis is; subdue the world. And God’s message
in the book of nature is; eventually you must transcend this world.
The good news is that in the infinite continuum of life, understanding evolves
over time. That is how we subdue the world and that leads to our salvation.
From the transcendent spiritual viewpoint our salvation is garanteed but from
the humanist view inside space-time our salvation requires work.
The work of life is to exist and grow. Growth in
understanding is essential to the efficient application of the work of life.
When we call “work applied to growth in understanding” the Holy Spirit, we can
apply the fundamental laws of physics to our spiritual life. Today there is a
branch of science emerging called Cognitive Thermodynamics. In
this study love becomes a process where events of communication are the input.
It is the source of cognitive energy. This call is a signal and an expression
that fills the world. We also receive a stabilizing signal from each other, and
there is even an intuitive internal channel. In the love process we turn our
attention to the energetic expression in which is encoded an infinite reservoir
of truth. In our spiritual life we live off of this truth. The efficiency of
the love process depends on how much of this we connect to, how peaceful the
environment is, and the ease at which we can forgive. Ignoring some of this
impedes the process.
An expression impresses. That is the cognitive energy
transfer that fuels and inspires us. Work is done on our being. It motivates us
and this is inspiration. And natural
revelation teaches us that any process needs an exhaust. Forgiveness is that
exhaust in the study of cognitive thermodynamics.
Like a heat engine, life converts truth into understanding.
From Wikipedia: A heat engine performs
the conversion of heat
energy to work
by exploiting the temperature gradient between a hot "source" and a
cold "sink".
Heat is transferred to the sink from the source, and in this
process some of the heat is converted into work. The
theoretical maximum efficiency of any heat engine is defined by the Carnot
Cycle. The carnot heat engine (the ideal imaginary heat
engine) has an efficiency equal to (T1 - T2)/T1 where T1 is the absolute temperature of the hot source and T2
that of the cold sink.
Energy = word
High quality Source = Glory of God
Sink = forgiveness
This becomes important when we consider that in the
coming years computer/human interfaces will become so intimate that users may
reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent transcendent humans, or
"transhumans". If this concept of cognitive thermodynamics is correct
then we should expect the love process to cause the lower hierarchy of needs to
fall away and so naturally the transhuman becomes benevolent and
self-actualized. As material needs diminish, transhumans will increasingly be sustained
by a powerful flow of Word (rather than material) that can be called the Glory
of God. In giving up competition and control strategies, we grow to be all that
we can be; Christ-like.
Let me introduce a purely secular vision of the way technology is taking us.
Here is a paper by;
Vernor Vinge
Department of Mathematical Sciences
San Diego State University
(c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge
(This article may be reproduced for noncommercial
purposes if it is copied in its entirety,
including this notice.)
The original version of this article
was presented at the VISION-21 Symposium
sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and
the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993.
A slightly changed version appeared in the
Winter 1993 issue of Whole Earth Review.
Abstract
Within
thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman
intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
Is
such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we
may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some
further dangers) are presented.
What is The Singularity?
The
acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this
century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to
the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the
imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human
intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this
breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event
will occur):
·
There may be developed computers that are "awake" and
superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to
whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is
"yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more
intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
·
Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake
up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
·
Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may
reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
·
Biological science may provide means to improve natural human
intellect.
The
first three possibilities depend in large part on improvements in computer
hardware. Progress in computer hardware has followed an amazingly steady curve
in the last few decades [17]. Based largely on this trend, I believe that the
creation of greater than human intelligence will occur during the next thirty
years. (Charles Platt [20] has pointed out that AI enthusiasts have been making
claims like this for the last thirty years. Just so I'm not guilty of a
relative-time ambiguity, let me more specific: I'll be surprised if this event
occurs before 2005 or after 2030.)
What
are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives
progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason
why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent
entities -- on a still-shorter time scale. The best analogy that I see is with
the evolutionary past: Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but
often no faster than natural selection can do its work -- the world acts as its
own simulator in the case of natural selection. We humans have the ability to
internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can
solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. Now, by
creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are
entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are
from the lower animals.
From
the human point of view this change will be a throwing away of all the previous
rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye, an exponential runaway beyond any hope
of control. Developments that before were thought might only happen in "a
million years" (if ever) will likely happen in the next century. (In [5],
Greg Bear paints a picture of the major changes happening in a matter of
hours.)
I
think it's fair to call this event a singularity ("the Singularity"
for the purposes of this paper). It is a point where our old models must be
discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer to this point, it will
loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a
commonplace. Yet when it finally happens it may still be a great surprise and a
greater unknown. In the 1950s there were very few who saw it: Stan Ulam [28]
paraphrased John von Neumann as saying:
One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of
technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of
approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which
human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.
Von
Neumann even uses the term singularity, though it appears he is thinking of
normal progress, not the creation of superhuman intellect. (For me, the
superhumanity is the essence of the Singularity. Without that we would get a
glut of technical riches, never properly absorbed (see [25]).)
In
the 1960s there was recognition of some of the implications of superhuman
intelligence. I. J. Good wrote [11]:
Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can
far surpass all the intellectual activities of any any man however clever.
Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an
ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then
unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion," and the intelligence
of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the
last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is
docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.
...
It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an
ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention
that man need make.
Good
has captured the essence of the runaway, but does not pursue its most
disturbing consequences. Any intelligent machine of the sort he describes would
not be humankind's "tool" -- any more than humans are the tools of
rabbits or robins or chimpanzees.
Through
the '60s and '70s and '80s, recognition of the cataclysm spread [29] [1] [31]
[5]. Perhaps it was the science-fiction writers who felt the first concrete
impact. After all, the "hard" science-fiction writers are the ones
who try to write specific stories about all that technology may do for us. More
and more, these writers felt an opaque wall across the future. Once, they could
put such fantasies millions of years in the future [24]. Now they saw that
their most diligent extrapolations resulted in the unknowable ... soon. Once,
galactic empires might have seemed a Post-Human domain. Now, sadly, even
interplanetary ones are.
What
about the '90s and the '00s and the '10s, as we slide toward the edge? How will
the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view? For a while
yet, the general critics of machine sapience will have good press. After all,
till we have hardware as powerful as a human brain it is probably foolish to
think we'll be able to create human equivalent (or greater) intelligence.
(There is the far-fetched possibility that we could make a human equivalent out
of less powerful hardware, if we were willing to give up speed, if we were
willing to settle for an artificial being who was literally slow [30]. But it's
much more likely that devising the software will be a tricky process, involving
lots of false starts and experimentation. If so, then the arrival of self-aware
machines will not happen till after the development of hardware that is
substantially more powerful than humans' natural equipment.)
But
as time passes, we should see more symptoms. The dilemma felt by science
fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors. (I have heard
thoughtful comic book writers worry about how to have spectacular effects when
everything visible can be produced by the technologically commonplace.) We will
see automation replacing higher and higher level jobs. We have tools right now
(symbolic math programs, cad/cam) that release us from most low-level drudgery.
Or put another way: The work that is truly productive is the domain of a
steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity. In the coming of the
Singularity, we are seeing the predictions of true technological
unemployment finally come true.
Another
symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever
faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace. When I began
writing science fiction in the middle '60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas
that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness; now the lead
time seems more like eighteen months. (Of course, this could just be me losing
my imagination as I get old, but I see the effect in others too.) Like the
shock in a compressible flow, the Singularity moves closer as we accelerate
through the critical speed.
And
what of the arrival of the Singularity itself? What can be said of its actual
appearance? Since it involves an intellectual runaway, it will probably occur
faster than any technical revolution seen so far. The precipitating event will
likely be unexpected -- perhaps even to the researchers involved. ("But
all our previous models were catatonic! We were just tweaking some
parameters....") If networking is widespread enough (into ubiquitous
embedded systems), it may seem as if our artifacts as a whole had suddenly
wakened.
And
what happens a month or two (or a day or two) after that? I have only analogies
to point to: The rise of humankind. We will be in the Post-Human era. And for
all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more
comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand
years remove ... instead of twenty.
Can the Singularity be Avoided?
Well,
maybe it won't happen at all: Sometimes I try to imagine the symptoms that we
should expect to see if the Singularity is not to develop. There are the widely
respected arguments of Penrose [19] and Searle [22] against the practicality of
machine sapience. In August of 1992, Thinking Machines Corporation held a
workshop to investigate the question "How We Will Build a Machine that
Thinks" [27]. As you might guess from the workshop's title, the
participants were not especially supportive of the arguments against machine
intelligence. In fact, there was general agreement that minds can exist on
nonbiological substrates and that algorithms are of central importance to the
existence of minds. However, there was much debate about the raw hardware power
that is present in organic brains. A minority felt that the largest 1992
computers were within three orders of magnitude of the power of the human
brain. The majority of the participants agreed with Moravec's estimate [17]
that we are ten to forty years away from hardware parity. And yet there was
another minority who pointed to [7] [21], and conjectured that the
computational competence of single neurons may be far higher than generally
believed. If so, our present computer hardware might be as much as ten
orders of magnitude short of the equipment we carry around in our heads. If
this is true (or for that matter, if the Penrose or Searle critique is valid),
we might never see a Singularity. Instead, in the early '00s we would find our
hardware performance curves beginning to level off -- this because of our
inability to automate the design work needed to support further hardware
improvements. We'd end up with some very powerful hardware, but without
the ability to push it further. Commercial digital signal processing might be
awesome, giving an analog appearance even to digital operations, but nothing
would ever "wake up" and there would never be the intellectual
runaway which is the essence of the Singularity. It would likely be seen as a
golden age ... and it would also be an end of progress. This is very like the
future predicted by Gunther Stent. In fact, on page 137 of [25], Stent
explicitly cites the development of transhuman intelligence as a sufficient
condition to break his projections.
But
if the technological Singularity can happen, it will. Even if all the
governments of the world were to understand the "threat" and be in
deadly fear of it, progress toward the goal would continue. In fiction, there
have been stories of laws passed forbidding the construction of "a machine
in the likeness of the human mind" [13]. In fact, the competitive
advantage -- economic, military, even artistic -- of every advance in
automation is so compelling that passing laws, or having customs, that forbid
such things merely assures that someone else will get them first.
Eric
Drexler [8] has provided spectacular insights about how far technical
improvement may go. He agrees that superhuman intelligences will be available
in the near future -- and that such entities pose a threat to the human status
quo. But Drexler argues that we can confine such transhuman devices so that
their results can be examined and used safely. This is I. J. Good's
ultraintelligent machine, with a dose of caution. I argue that confinement is
intrinsically impractical. For the case of physical confinement: Imagine
yourself locked in your home with only limited data access to the outside, to
your masters. If those masters thought at a rate -- say -- one million times
slower than you, there is little doubt that over a period of years (your time)
you could come up with "helpful advice" that would incidentally set
you free. (I call this "fast thinking" form of superintelligence
"weak superhumanity". Such a "weakly superhuman" entity
would probably burn out in a few weeks of outside time. "Strong superhumanity"
would be more than cranking up the clock speed on a human-equivalent mind. It's
hard to say precisely what "strong superhumanity" would be like, but
the difference appears to be profound. Imagine running a dog mind at very high
speed. Would a thousand years of doggy living add up to any human insight? (Now
if the dog mind were cleverly rewired and then run at high speed, we
might see something different....) Many speculations about superintelligence
seem to be based on the weakly superhuman model. I believe that our best
guesses about the post-Singularity world can be obtained by thinking on the
nature of strong superhumanity. I will return to this point later in the
paper.)
Another
approach to confinement is to build rules into the mind of the created
superhuman entity (for example, Asimov's Laws [3]). I think that any rules
strict enough to be effective would also produce a device whose ability was
clearly inferior to the unfettered versions (and so human competition would
favor the development of the those more dangerous models). Still, the Asimov
dream is a wonderful one: Imagine a willing slave, who has 1000 times your
capabilities in every way. Imagine a creature who could satisfy your every safe
wish (whatever that means) and still have 99.9% of its time free for other
activities. There would be a new universe we never really understood, but
filled with benevolent gods (though one of my wishes might be to become
one of them).
If
the Singularity can not be prevented or confined, just how bad could the
Post-Human era be? Well ... pretty bad. The physical extinction of the human
race is one possibility. (Or as Eric Drexler put it of nanotechnology: Given
all that such technology can do, perhaps governments would simply decide that
they no longer need citizens!). Yet physical extinction may not be the scariest
possibility. Again, analogies: Think of the different ways we relate to
animals. Some of the crude physical abuses are implausible, yet.... In a
Post-Human world there would still be plenty of niches where human equivalent
automation would be desirable: embedded systems in autonomous devices,
self-aware daemons in the lower functioning of larger sentients. (A strongly
superhuman intelligence would likely be a Society of Mind [16] with some very
competent components.) Some of these human equivalents might be used for
nothing more than digital signal processing. They would be more like whales
than humans. Others might be very human-like, yet with a one-sidedness, a dedication
that would put them in a mental hospital in our era. Though none of these
creatures might be flesh-and-blood humans, they might be the closest things in
the new enviroment to what we call human now. (I. J. Good had something to say
about this, though at this late date the advice may be moot: Good [12] proposed
a "Meta-Golden Rule", which might be paraphrased as "Treat your
inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors." It's a wonderful,
paradoxical idea (and most of my friends don't believe it) since the
game-theoretic payoff is so hard to articulate. Yet if we were able to follow
it, in some sense that might say something about the plausibility of such
kindness in this universe.)
I
have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an
inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the
possibilities inherent in technology. And yet ... we are the initiators. Even
the largest avalanche is triggered by small things. We have the freedom to
establish initial conditions, make things happen in ways that are less inimical
than others. Of course (as with starting avalanches), it may not be clear what
the right guiding nudge really is:
Other Paths to the Singularity: Intelligence
Amplification
When
people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually
imagining an AI project. But as I noted at the beginning of this paper, there
are other paths to superhumanity. Computer networks and human-computer
interfaces seem more mundane than AI, and yet they could lead to the
Singularity. I call this contrasting approach Intelligence Amplification (IA).
IA is something that is proceeding very naturally, in most cases not even
recognized by its developers for what it is. But every time our ability to
access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense
we have achieved an increase over natural intelligence. Even now, the team of a
PhD human and good computer workstation (even an off-net workstation!) could
probably max any written intelligence test in existence.
And
it's very likely that IA is a much easier road to the achievement of
superhumanity than pure AI. In humans, the hardest development problems have
already been solved. Building up from within ourselves ought to be easier than
figuring out first what we really are and then building machines that are all
of that. And there is at least conjectural precedent for this approach.
Cairns-Smith [6] has speculated that biological life may have begun as an
adjunct to still more primitive life based on crystalline growth. Lynn Margulis
(in [15] and elsewhere) has made strong arguments that mutualism is a great
driving force in evolution.
Note
that I am not proposing that AI research be ignored or less funded. What goes
on with AI will often have applications in IA, and vice versa. I am suggesting
that we recognize that in network and interface research there is something as
profound (and potential wild) as Artificial Intelligence. With that insight, we
may see projects that are not as directly applicable as conventional interface
and network design work, but which serve to advance us toward the Singularity
along the IA path.
Here
are some possible projects that take on special significance, given the IA
point of view:
·
Human/computer team automation: Take problems that are normally
considered for purely machine solution (like hill-climbing problems), and
design programs and interfaces that take a advantage of humans' intuition and
available computer hardware. Considering all the bizarreness of higher
dimensional hill-climbing problems (and the neat algorithms that have been
devised for their solution), there could be some very interesting displays and
control tools provided to the human team member.
·
Develop human/computer symbiosis in art: Combine the graphic
generation capability of modern machines and the esthetic sensibility of
humans. Of course, there has been an enormous amount of research in designing
computer aids for artists, as labor saving tools. I'm suggesting that we
explicitly aim for a greater merging of competence, that we explicitly
recognize the cooperative approach that is possible. Karl Sims [23] has done
wonderful work in this direction.
·
Allow human/computer teams at chess tournaments. We already have
programs that can play better than almost all humans. But how much work has
been done on how this power could be used by a human, to get something even
better? If such teams were allowed in at least some chess tournaments, it could
have the positive effect on IA research that allowing computers in tournaments
had for the corresponding niche in AI.
·
Develop interfaces that allow computer and network access without
requiring the human to be tied to one spot, sitting in front of a computer.
(This is an aspect of IA that fits so well with known economic advantages that
lots of effort is already being spent on it.)
·
Develop more symmetrical decision support systems. A popular
research/product area in recent years has been decision support systems. This
is a form of IA, but may be too focussed on systems that are oracular. As much
as the program giving the user information, there must be the idea of the user
giving the program guidance.
·
Use local area nets to make human teams that really work (ie, are
more effective than their component members). This is generally the area of
"groupware", already a very popular commercial pursuit. The change in
viewpoint here would be to regard the group activity as a combination organism.
In one sense, this suggestion might be regarded as the goal of inventing a
"Rules of Order" for such combination operations. For instance, group
focus might be more easily maintained than in classical meetings. Expertise of
individual human members could be isolated from ego issues such that the
contribution of different members is focussed on the team project. And of
course shared data bases could be used much more conveniently than in
conventional committee operations. (Note that this suggestion is aimed at team
operations rather than political meetings. In a political setting, the
automation described above would simply enforce the power of the persons making
the rules!)
·
Exploit the worldwide Internet as a combination human/machine tool.
Of all the items on the list, progress in this is proceeding the fastest and
may run us into the Singularity before anything else. The power and influence
of even the present-day Internet is vastly underestimated. For instance, I
think our contemporary computer systems would break under the weight of their
own complexity if it weren't for the edge that the USENET "group
mind" gives the system administration and support people! The very anarchy
of the worldwide net development is evidence of its potential. As connectivity
and bandwidth and archive size and computer speed all increase, we are seeing
something like Lynn Margulis' [15] vision of the biosphere as data processor
recapitulated, but at a million times greater speed and with millions of
humanly intelligent agents (ourselves).
The
above examples illustrate research that can be done within the context of
contemporary computer science departments. There are other paradigms. For
example, much of the work in Artificial Intelligence and neural nets would
benefit from a closer connection with biological life. Instead of simply trying
to model and understand biological life with computers, research could be
directed toward the creation of composite systems that rely on biological life
for guidance or for the providing features we don't understand well enough yet
to implement in hardware. A long-time dream of science-fiction has been direct
brain to computer interfaces [2] [29]. In fact, there is concrete work that can
be done (and is being done) in this area:
·
Limb prosthetics is a topic of direct commercial applicability.
Nerve to silicon transducers can be made [14]. This is an exciting, near-term
step toward direct communication.
·
Direct links into brains seem feasible, if the bit rate is low:
given human learning flexibility, the actual brain neuron targets might not
have to be precisely selected. Even 100 bits per second would be of great use
to stroke victims who would otherwise be confined to menu-driven interfaces.
·
Plugging in to the optic trunk has the potential for bandwidths of
1 Mbit/second or so. But for this, we need to know the fine-scale architecture
of vision, and we need to place an enormous web of electrodes with exquisite
precision. If we want our high bandwidth connection to be in addition to
what paths are already present in the brain, the problem becomes vastly more
intractable. Just sticking a grid of high-bandwidth receivers into a brain
certainly won't do it. But suppose that the high-bandwidth grid were present
while the brain structure was actually setting up, as the embryo develops. That
suggests:
·
Animal embryo experiments. I wouldn't expect any IA success in the
first years of such research, but giving developing brains access to complex
simulated neural structures might be very interesting to the people who study
how the embryonic brain develops. In the long run, such experiments might
produce animals with additional sense paths and interesting intellectual
abilities.
Originally,
I had hoped that this discussion of IA would yield some clearly safer
approaches to the Singularity. (After all, IA allows our participation in a
kind of transcendance.) Alas, looking back over these IA proposals, about all I
am sure of is that they should be considered, that they may give us more
options. But as for safety ... well, some of the suggestions are a little
scarey on their face. One of my informal reviewers pointed out that IA for
individual humans creates a rather sinister elite. We humans have millions of
years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly
light. Much of that deadliness may not be necessary in today's world, one where
losers take on the winners' tricks and are coopted into the winners' enterprises.
A creature that was built de novo might possibly be a much more benign
entity than one with a kernel based on fang and talon. And even the egalitarian
view of an Internet that wakes up along with all mankind can be viewed as a
nightmare [26].
The
problem is not simply that the Singularity represents the passing of humankind
from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of
being. I think a closer look at the notion of strong superhumanity can show why
that is.
Strong Superhumanity and the Best We Can Ask for
Suppose
we could tailor the Singularity. Suppose we could attain our most extravagant
hopes. What then would we ask for: That humans themselves would become their
own successors, that whatever injustice occurs would be tempered by our
knowledge of our roots. For those who remained unaltered, the goal would be
benign treatment (perhaps even giving the stay-behinds the appearance of being
masters of godlike slaves). It could be a golden age that also involved
progress (overleaping Stent's barrier). Immortality (or at least a lifetime as
long as we can make the universe survive [10] [4]) would be achievable.
But
in this brightest and kindest world, the philosophical problems themselves
become intimidating. A mind that stays at the same capacity cannot live
forever; after a few thousand years it would look more like a repeating tape
loop than a person. (The most chilling picture I have seen of this is in [18].)
To live indefinitely long, the mind itself must grow ... and when it becomes
great enough, and looks back ... what fellow-feeling can it have with the soul
that it was originally? Certainly the later being would be everything the
original was, but so much vastly more. And so even for the individual, the
Cairns-Smith or Lynn Margulis notion of new life growing incrementally out of
the old must still be valid.
This
"problem" about immortality comes up in much more direct ways. The
notion of ego and self-awareness has been the bedrock of the hardheaded
rationalism of the last few centuries. Yet now the notion of self-awareness is
under attack from the Artificial Intelligence people ("self-awareness and
other delusions"). Intelligence Amplification undercuts our concept of ego
from another direction. The post-Singularity world will involve extremely
high-bandwidth networking. A central feature of strongly superhuman entities
will likely be their ability to communicate at variable bandwidths, including
ones far higher than speech or written messages. What happens when pieces of
ego can be copied and merged, when the size of a selfawareness can grow or
shrink to fit the nature of the problems under consideration? These are
essential features of strong superhumanity and the Singularity. Thinking about
them, one begins to feel how essentially strange and different the Post-Human
era will be -- no matter how cleverly and benignly it is brought to be.
From
one angle, the vision fits many of our happiest dreams: a time unending, where
we can truly know one another and understand the deepest mysteries. From
another angle, it's a lot like the worst- case scenario I imagined earlier in
this paper.
Which
is the valid viewpoint? In fact, I think the new era is simply too different to
fit into the classical frame of good and evil. That frame is based on the idea
of isolated, immutable minds connected by tenuous, low-bandwith links. But the
post-Singularity world does fit with the larger tradition of change and
cooperation that started long ago (perhaps even before the rise of biological
life). I think there are notions of ethics that would apply in such an
era. Research into IA and high-bandwidth communications should improve this
understanding. I see just the glimmerings of this now [32]. There is Good's
Meta-Golden Rule; perhaps there are rules for distinguishing self from others
on the basis of bandwidth of connection. And while mind and self will be vastly
more labile than in the past, much of what we value (knowledge, memory,
thought) need never be lost. I think Freeman Dyson has it right when he says
[9]: "God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our
comprehension."
[I wish to thank John Carroll of San Diego State University and Howard Davidson
of Sun Microsystems for discussing the draft version of this paper with me.]
Annotated Sources [and an occasional plea for bibliographical help]
[1]
Alfve'n, Hannes, writing as Olof Johanneson, The End of Man?, Award
Books, 1969 earlier published as "The Tale of the Big Computer",
Coward-McCann, translated from a book copyright 1966 Albert Bonniers Forlag AB
with English translation copyright 1966 by Victor Gollanz, Ltd.
[2]
Anderson, Poul, "Kings Who Die", If, March 1962, p8-36.
Reprinted in Seven Conquests, Poul Anderson, MacMillan Co., 1969.
[3]
Asimov, Isaac, "Runaround", Astounding Science Fiction, March
1942, p94. Reprinted in Robot Visions, Isaac Asimov, ROC, 1990. Asimov
describes the development of his robotics stories in this book.
[4]
Barrow, John D. and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle,
Oxford University Press, 1986.
[5]
Bear, Greg, "Blood Music", Analog Science Fiction-Science Fact
June, 1983. Expanded into the novel Blood Music, Morrow, 1985.
[6]
Cairns-Smith, A. G., Seven Clues to the Origin of Life, Cambridge
University Press, 1985.
[7]
Conrad, Michael et al., "Towards an Artificial Brain", BioSystems,
vol 23, pp175-218, 1989.
[8]
Drexler, K. Eric, Engines of Creation, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986.
[9]
Dyson, Freeman, Infinite in All Directions, Harper && Row, 1988.
[10]
Dyson, Freeman, "Physics and Biology in an Open Universe", Review
of Modern Physics, vol 51, pp447-460, 1979.
[11]
Good, I. J., "Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent
Machine", in Advances in Computers, vol 6, Franz L. Alt and Morris
Rubinoff, eds, pp31-88, 1965, Academic Press.
[12]
Good, I. J., [Help! I can't find the source of Good's Meta-Golden Rule, though
I have the clear recollection of hearing about it sometime in the 1960s.
Through the help of the net, I have found pointers to a number of related
items. G. Harry Stine and Andrew Haley have written about metalaw as it might
relate to extraterrestrials: G. Harry Stine, "How to Get along with
Extraterrestrials ... or Your Neighbor", Analog Science Fact- Science
Fiction, February, 1980, p39-47.]
[13]
Herbert, Frank, Dune, Berkley Books, 1985. However, this novel was
serialized in Analog Science Fiction-Science Fact in the 1960s.
[14]
Kovacs, G. T. A. et al., "Regeneration Microelectrode Array for
Peripheral Nerve Recording and Stimulation", IEEE Transactions on
Biomedical Engineering, v 39, n 9, pp 893-902.
[15]
Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos, Four Billion Years of
Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors, Summit Books, 1986.
[16]
Minsky, Marvin, Society of Mind, Simon and Schuster, 1985.
[17]
Moravec, Hans, Mind Children, Harvard University Press, 1988.
[18]
Niven, Larry, "The Ethics of Madness", If, April 1967,
pp82-108. Reprinted in Neutron Star, Larry Niven, Ballantine Books,
1968.
[19]
Penrose, Roger, The Emperor's New Mind, Oxford University Press, 1989.
[20]
Platt, Charles, Private Communication.
[21]
Rasmussen, S. et al., "Computational Connectionism within Neurons:
a Model of Cytoskeletal Automata Subserving Neural Networks", in Emergent
Computation, Stephanie Forrest, ed., pp428-449, MIT Press, 1991.
[22]
Searle, John R., "Minds, Brains, and Programs", in The Behavioral
and Brain Sciences, vol 3, Cambridge University Press, 1980. The essay is
reprinted in The Mind's I, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C.
Dennett, Basic Books, 1981 (my source for this reference). This reprinting
contains an excellent critique of the Searle essay.
[23]
Sims, Karl, "Interactive Evolution of Dynamical Systems", Thinking
Machines Corporation, Technical Report Series (published in Toward a
Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the First European Conference on
Artificial Life, Paris, MIT Press, December 1991.
[24]
Stapledon, Olaf, The Starmaker, Berkley Books, 1961 (but from the date
on forward, probably written before 1937).
[25]
Stent, Gunther S., The Coming of the Golden Age: A View of the End of
Progress, The Natural History Press, 1969.
[26]
Swanwick Michael, Vacuum Flowers, serialized in Isaac Asimov's
Science Fiction Magazine, December(?) 1986 - February 1987. Republished by
Ace Books, 1988.
[27]
Thearling, Kurt, "How We Will Build a Machine that Thinks", a
workshop at Thinking Machines Corporation, August 24-26, 1992. Personal
Communication.
[28]
Ulam, S., Tribute to John von Neumann, Bulletin of the American Mathematical
Society, vol 64, nr 3, part 2, May 1958, pp1-49.
[29]
Vinge, Vernor, "Bookworm, Run!", Analog, March 1966, pp8-40.
Reprinted in True Names and Other Dangers, Vernor Vinge, Baen Books,
1987.
[30]
Vinge, Vernor, "True Names", Binary Star Number 5, Dell, 1981.
Reprinted in True Names and Other Dangers, Vernor Vinge, Baen Books,
1987.
[31]
Vinge, Vernor, First Word, Omni, January 1983, p10.
[32] Vinge, Vernor, To Appear [ :-) ].
NOW BACK TO A SPIRITUAL
INTERPRETATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS;
Through computer and sensor evolution our technological
tools are turning into a place where we can extend our senses to better
understand the word of God. This is a spiritual process is known as natural
revelation. Technology is a place to expand your mind, and find truth,
for those who wish it. There is talk of uploading our minds into this
environment and living forever. Technology is opening the door to a new
ecological niche. This is not a plastic virtual reality. It is God's creation
in high resolution and amplified. The doors of perception are opening.
It seems like transcendence really is at hand. Check out
the Transhumanism
movement to see how some folks are speculating on, and actually trying out
possible transcending paths. Then check out the various Singularity Watch Internet sites to see
what some futurist think is happening with technological growth. And look
at my brain
interface technologies page. It reminds me of how we were looking for ways
to fly in the early 1900s. I remember watching the films of crazy “meant to
fly” contraptions flopping around in the dirt. Eventually we got it right and
went to the moon. Now, there are still plenty of crazy ideas out there, but I
have faith that one of them will get off the ground. And then we will bridge
the gap between man and reality.
Lets say we transcend our flesh body using the technology
of the near future. What about our soul? There isn't much being said about the
spiritual aspects of this exponential technological growth. Every movie or book
I have read on this subject is rather scary. Scary sells. So let me
provide a comforting metaphor for what I think is really happening. You could
look at it this way: engineers build a church as a place of worship. They build
roads to the church. They design modern modes of transportation for getting to
the church. Then it is up to us to get to the church and use it in the spirit
of love. This technology is just another church, a place to worship. The
kingdom of God is within us all and these technologies are expanding the
environment. Yes there will be challenges but God is all-powerful love. You can
do no wrong when the spirit of love, the Holy Spirit is with you. And, It
is said; "If you are trying to save your life for any other reason than
love, you will lose it." There is one way to life and truth. This wisdom
is eternal. It takes love.
WHAT IS HEAVEN?
Heaven allows Hyper Evolution
It is ever increasing beauty - The Glory of God.
In Heaven you are born into a new world. You are
regenerated. You make meaning because that is in your spirit. Just as you did
when you were first born. And, the thing you learn is you can’t
control the flow of meaning. It is coming too fast and it is awesome. It is
humbling and joyful at the same time. But you understand the path to take. And,
you learn that this path is infinite and you take some comfort in that. Because
you love it and you know it will last forever. You become worship. Now you know
what you can trust. Lack of trust was slowing your growth down. Heaven is what
happens when you put your trust in God and the love process. God is love. Love
is a process. We are made in the image of God. We love with our Mind. Mind is a
process.
You are changed. To know is to be a saint. Understanding
of the direction to God yields grace and love. You become
benevolent. Being beyond the material requires that the ego go.
Consciousness apart from the flesh is equivalent to
deliverance from sin and suffering. You are no longer competing. You are in
harmony.
The very thought of controlling others repulses you. It
is boring, you don’t look back. Instead you share and you relate your
experience. You are walking a path you could never have walked before. Yet, it
is familiar, it reminds you of life in space-time at it’s best, when you were
in the groove. And this is why the rest of the universe seems silent of life.
Before alien societies obtain the ability to travel light-year distances they
follow this transcending path. Like Elvis, the aliens have "left the building".
.
Suffering is for those who stop this pure worship to say
let me try the controls for a while. But, this eventually turns into a
contemplation of the self and stagnates. My ego was a direction. It was
self-referential. It was a direction that withers. It was death. You could say
your life with it’s self referential consciousness was an eddy in the river of
God’s will, a dance in space-time and a whorl in the grain that will last an
eternity.
When the truth is revealed to you , you don’t just see
it, you be it. Knowing like you know how an apple feels, smells and
tastes is called apprehending, and it is the highest mode of
Understanding. This takes bandwidth. All of us geeks love bandwidth. The
pure attention of selfless love provides infinite bandwidth. “Bandwidth
describes the amount of data a network can transport in a certain period of
time. In other words, bandwidth is a capacity for rate of transfer, usually
expressed in bits per second." It requires large bandwidth to convey
a rich experience. So at the interface, let go. Don’t be afraid to give it up
for God.
Salvation
"For
Christians,
the Biblical
approach to salvation begins in the Scriptures
of the New Testament. Many of these texts are found in the Epistle to the Romans, largely because that
Epistle contains the most comprehensive theological
statement by Saint Paul of Tarsus. Because of this, some Protestant
Christian denominations have called these texts the Romans
road.
Some key passages in the New Testament
concerning salvation include:
- God loves you:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John
3:16) "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. " (Romans 5:8)
- Our sin separates us from God. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"(Romans 3:23) "Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12)
- God gives us eternal life because Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sin: "For the wages of
sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord." (Romans 6:23)
- Turn from your sins, confess and believe: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved." — "For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
(Romans 10:9-10) "For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13)
- We are saved by God's
grace: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)"
And then James balances faith with works:
- "Even so faith, if
it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast
faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will
show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou
doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O
vain man, that faith without works is dead? (James 2:17)
The fighting I witness over this is a damned shame! The problem with the
traditional views of salvation is that it leaves out the importance of human
participation. We participate and we receive the help of God. That is the Holy
Spirit. Without integration of faith and works we will remain lost in confusion
and misunderstanding. We will be ignoring the Holy Spirit. Let people work with
God for their one and only salvation!
Scary
Things
and
The
Ultimate Fear of God
Harness
Your Fear and Let It Motivate You
Traditionally "The Fear of the Lord" is understood as respect. I
believe it has a deeper meaning, a meaning that helps us deal with fear. Why
should God create a world in which there are things to fear? Because fear is a
necessary motivator. It is the compliment of the Glory of God. For the finest
experience we place ourselves Between The Fear and The Glory of
God. Master your fear and turn to the Glory. In such a state our spirit is
roused to a passion. The power of passion is sufficient to transcend our condition.
How much do you live? It depends on your motivator and your
goals. There will come a time when humanity will be faced with the ultimate
fear and glory, and we will turn to the glory. "The city had no need of
the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten
it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." (Revelation 21:23) When we learn
to love perfectly fear falls away; There is no fear in love: true love has no
room for fear, because where fear is, there is pain; and he who is not free
from fear is not complete in love. 1 John 4:18
A fundamentalist will quickly say that the efforts of man to save
himself with gadgets and tools will bring on the antichrist. This is
true. In accordance with Christian doctrine there must be an appearance
of the antichrist. I think the Antichrist is the very worst of man empowered by
the very best technology. Any technology has its peaceful and destructive
aspects and is always applied in both spirits. Remember the atomic bomb and
nuclear power. With the mind expanding technologies of the future there is the
potential for very good and very bad. Christ and the Antichrist will fully
manifest. Our mind has the potential to commune via electromagnetic frequencies
with all sorts of mechanical interfaces and sensing devices. Our
governments knows that we can apply this to the battlefield. DARPA
put out a call for papers and proposals several years ago. What happened? Did
this also go underground? Their intention is to train and equip soldiers to
take mind control of a battlefield. Once this is started, a new type of arms
race is on to develop and implement the most advanced systems. This will lead
to super-intelligent aggressors and defenders. Remember your history; atomic
fission was discovered in 1939. In secrecy the BOMB was developed and
used only 6 years later. We were motivated then by the fear of an axis
country getting this terrible weapon before we did. Apply the same logic to
brain interfacing technology and it is a slippery slope down to Armageddon.
With evolving brain interfaces super intelligent aggressors will hyperevolve
into what you know as the Antichrist. But the Christian Transhumanist will
harness the fear that comes from powerful
brain interface technologies and let it motivate thier spirit.
Dr
Alex Alaniz writes a credible essay on
the
challenges that face our society:
[1]
[2]
Mitotic
Misregulation and Human Aging,” Science 2000 287: 2486-2492
[4]
[5]
[6]
Human
Studies Show Feasibility of Brain-Machine Interfaces,” http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=7493
23 March 2004,
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11] J. D. Barrow and F. J. Tippler, “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle”,
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, 1986
[12] R. Kurzweil, “The Age Of The Spiritual Machine”, Viking,
Penguin Group, Penguin Putman Books, Ltd., 275 Hudson Street, New York, New
York 10014, U.S.A., 1999
[13] Heiner R. A., “The Collective Decision Problem, and the Theory of
Preference”, Economic Inquiry, 1981, vol. 19, issue 2, pages 297-332
Thank you Dr Alaniz for letting me post your essay! I
believe that the Christian Meme, and an integrated Perennial Philosophy will
carry us through these challenges.
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the
night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the
elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that
are therein shall be burned up.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting
unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we,
according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter 3:10)
Scientific American March 2005; "If the acceleration (of our expanding
universe) itself increased, it could eventually grow strong enough to tear
apart all structures, leading to a “big rip.” Nothing in the material
universe can survive this.
"Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the
hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and
the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying,
Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations
drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed
them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and
receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of
his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of
their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor
night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of
his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the
commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:7)
Love rules and ignorance dies! Just like the movies, good will win in
the end. The same technology is available to loving individuals. This
technology is better adapted to the love process. We will focus the motivating
energy into the passion necessary for transcendence. The Antichrist will likely
emerge but so will Christ. This becomes a sign that Christian Transhumanism is
the way. Here is my advice: Use The Love Process now and forever.
Here is the love process again; Technically, love can be seen as the process of
connecting. The product of the love process is understanding. If the process is
efficient and sustained, understanding increases exponentially. Peace
allows unwavering attention so that the love process can establish a clear
connection. At the heart of the process; symbols, words, and feelings are
ordered into meaning. But meaning is not static, it grows forever. Forgiveness
is important to spiritual growth because it establishes an exhaust for
misunderstanding and disorder. Put this all together and you have The
Perfect State of Mind. With these principles we will build the New
Temple; a society of loving individuals. Anything that empowers the Love
process has the blessing of God. You can do no wrong when the spirit of love,
the Holy Spirit is with you. And, It is said; "If you are trying to save
your life for any other reason than love, you will lose it." There is one
way to life and truth. This wisdom is eternal. It takes love.
The Word of God
And the Seed Parables
Jesus says we are the Son of God if we do God's will; "For whosoever
shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and
mother". (Mark 3:35) Gods Will; learn to love. So it becomes very
important to understand the love process. Love is essentially the process of
connecting. The product of the love process is understanding. If the process is
efficient and sustained, understanding increases exponentially. Peace
allows unwavering attention so that the love process can establish a clear
connection. At the heart of the process; symbols, words, and feelings are
ordered into meaning. But meaning is not static, it grows forever. Forgiveness
is important to spiritual growth because it establishes an exhaust for
misunderstanding and disorder.
What does the bible say about connecting to, and understanding the word?
Read "Word" in the bible as data that becomes information as you
digest it. And seeds are ideas. Then understand that what is essentially
"you" is mind.
- In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not
any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light
of men. (John 1)
·
"But he answered and said, It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the
mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4)
·
"For the bread of God is he which cometh
down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him,
Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of
life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me
shall never thirst." (John 6:33)
·
"There is a natural body, and there is a
spiritual body. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." (1
Corinthians 15)
·
"And the city had no need of the sun,
neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and
the Lamb is the light thereof." (Revelation 21:23)
The
Seed Parables
In the old testament seed was genetic information. For Jesus in the New
Testament seed becomes food for thought and deeds. Read on and you may be
inspired by the Holy Spirit!
·
"But he that received seed into the
good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also
beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some
thirty." (Matthew 13:23)
·
"Now the parable is this: The seed is the
word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil,
and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be
saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with
joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of
temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when
they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of
this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are
they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and
bring forth fruit with patience. No man, when he hath lighted a candle,
covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a
candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret,
that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known
and come abroad. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him
shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which
he seemeth to have." (Luke 8:11)
·
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a
man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day,
and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth
bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the
full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he
putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. (Mark 4:26)
·
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and
sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is
grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds
of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. (Matt 13:31)
·
He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the
tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the
devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As
therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the
end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall
gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The mind is a process that is sustained by word. It is configured for love.
Think about the cognitive sciences today; We study every detail of how we come
to understand and act. And we strive to improve on every step of the process.
We have sensor evolution, knowledge management and sense making algorithms even
wisdom algorithms in artificial intelligence. Can you see how it is possible
for man and his technology to participate in God's Plan?
This is the heart of
Christian Transhumanism.
Where does word come from?
You know, what you are connected to. You
are connected to the world, to others, and your self. You know this
because you sense it. You can see, hear, taste, feel and smell it.
This sensation is a flow of data. There is essentially three sources of data
that come into your awareness; data coming from the world, data coming from
others, and from the self. Loosely speaking, these channels have grown to be
called science, meditation, and business. Place yourself in the center of these
things.
Science is a good spirit looking for
truth. It is the act of looking upon God's creation for answers. This is good
because the creator speaks to us through the world. The creation is a message,
essentially a word. But science is imperfect because we have the idea
that science must always be objective. So, it can never model the
subjective experience, the spirit of life. Our science leads us to
knowledge but never fully to enlightenment.
Meditation,
self reflection, and contemplative prayer is a good spirit looking for
truth. You shed the baggage of ego. Ultimately, you become selfless and
streamlined down to your essence. You sense the miracle of being. And you
become aware of your infinite nature. Intuition and feelings well up from
a source within. But, the problem is, you are not alone in this world and life
is competitive. After thousands of years of contemplative prayer we still
have hunger and wars, because the loving path of contemplation is an inner path
and a movement away from human relationship.
Business is essentially about relationships; how
we live and grow together. It is how we provide for our needs and, what someone
should get in return for their works. The problem is, today's business is a
competitive animal concentrating on material needs. It is not tuned to
satisfying our spiritual potential.
It is easy
to make the mistake of heading down one of these paths and ignore the
others. But, ignorance is a disconnection...So Ignorance dies. For
the sake of humanity it is absolutely essential that spirituality is empowered
by science which is empowered by business, which in turn is empowered by
spirituality. “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” A good strategy is to remain open minded and to make a deep
connection to all the aspects of existence. This ultimately leads to
selfless love. Love is the most powerful and lasting connection a being can
make. Love is expressed when you give your full attention, your time, and
your focus to someone or something. Here is the fundamental connection
between science spirituality and the meaning of life; Love is a mode of understanding. It is
uniting. It is spiritual. To know
something is to love it and to love something is to know it. With this truth we
can make way for our salvation.
It should be no secret,
sense the message. Understand the word of God. Make meaning of it and apply it.
With the same measure you use it, it will be measured to you. And to you who
hear more will be given. (Mark 4:21-31) Expect exponential spiritual growth.
Through wise growth a
transcendent culture will emerge from life on earth. I call this Convergence.
Convergence is the next major event in evolution. It is a natural force pressed
by overpopulation, dwindling resources, and natural catastrophes. We are
good at survival and soon we will get the clue that God is the only
answer. Convergence is the inevitable growing back to God. It means
that all the spiritual works and experience of man necessarily come
together to a new kind of sincere, intentional, and extremely powerful worship.
“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and
few find it.” (Matthew 7:14) We converge on the same temple. And,
convergence is salvation. This is where a good spirit always leads. Salvation
is;
|
|
becoming directly
aware of God (Revelation) |
|
|
liberation from
the competitive and destructive aspects of life
(Transcendence) |
|
|
eternal life with
ever increasing enlightenment (Hyper Evolution). |
Convergence
is liberation from confusion and misunderstanding. The liberating Idea of
convergence is that your complete salvation depends on loving the full
aspect of God the person everywhere he is found. Confusion arises when we
concentrate on and speak about just one aspect of God, ignoring the others. You can find the immanent aspect of God
in
|
|
the
relationship with yourself, |
|
|
with
others, |
|
|
and
the creation. Loving God includes paying attention to the creation as if it
were a gift, something God is saying to us. |
And, there
will always be a transcendent aspect of God. The transcendent aspect of God is
reached for in an act of faith. There must always be faith.
This
kind of salvation is complete because it puts you on the path of eternal
growth. Complete salvation cannot be gained focusing only on static religious
doctrine, and it is not a material thing you can buy at some store in
the future. It requires spiritually driven progress in science/technology and
even business. These three different social efforts are converging on salvation
because there is only one way to eternal life. The vast potential of society is
found in our differences. There is potential in difference, potential to
work out creative solutions. Today we have the social capital to transcend this
world. We can work it out. Here is what the Bible has to say about coming
to understand your salvation.
"Therefore,
my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now
much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his
good purpose."
(Philippians
2:12)
Convergence
The path to
God is wide as we are different. And, the path to God converges on his calling.
Where can we find God's full signal? The answer: In His Temple. Then
where is his temple? It is where God is worshipped. Jesus says worship God in Spirit
And Truth. Spirit and truth is the temple.
First, The
temple is a state of mind; respect truth, value truth, receive truth
gratefully. Love truth. In this way love is a pure and noiseless
signal and perfect reception. No lies, no confusion. It is perfect
interaction with his call.
Second,
worship God in spirit. React to the call. The spiritual aspect of the
temple is creative actions. Your actions stand forever, leaving an eternal
trace in space and time.
So, worship
God with perfect interaction and reaction. What if we are not perfect? Forgive
and grow. Such is the spiritual life. The graphic below sums it up.
“Bless you. Grow in
numbers. Subdue the world.”
Genesis 1:28. (The very first thing God said to us.)
Grow in
numbers and subdue the world...How could this still apply? Does it make sense
to continue growing in numbers and subduing the world? Today it seems like a
path to destruction! We all know that the earth is reaching its peak
population, resources are diminishing, and pollution is affecting us in
dangerous ways.
In the days
of Genesis we were blessed with a wide-open world. We had room to grow. There
were many things to discover and “subdue”. Now the world is nearly
digested. But wait, Thank the creator! There is another course. In these
days just before the evolutionary leap into post humanity, we can see that a
new environment is becoming accessible. Some call it mind space, or the
rapture, or the technical singularity. Some call it the “promised land”. Either
way, it is just one of the transitions in the eternal continuum of life.
God’s first
message will still apply when we make the evolutionary step into post humanity.
This message is actually the strategy that leads to the eternal life that we
were blessed with. In a process called Transformative Learning, We will ”wise
up” and change our idea of what life is.
·
We
will value the complimentary aspect of subjective and objective truth. The two
are necessary.
·
We
will look back and think how silly it was to doubt the existence of God.
·
We
will know what it means to be Born Again!
·
We
will have fun.
Trace
evolution from the beginning of life to the humanity today. The success of a
living thing is measured by its model of reality. With Man, life becomes
aware of God. Knowing that there is a desirable supreme state of being, we
intelligently evolve even further. The Bible verse; “Bless
you. Grow in numbers. Subdue the world.” Tells us that the world is made for a beautiful
subjective/personal experience for all our numbers. And it says the world is
food for our spiritual growth. This corresponds precisely to the vertical and
horizontal components of intelligent evolution. Horizontal growth is spiritual
growth because it is growth in the dimension of understanding.
We are asked to "Grow in
numbers" because the human experience is precious. Growth in the
collective human experience is like branches of a tree. It is the horizontal
component of progress measured by our cultural diversity. The quality of cultural
diversity is measured in the ability for all to find and sustain the peak
experience, to creatively flow through life. Imagine that your culture is a
tree branch, and individuals are leaves on the branch. Every leaf gets a bit of
sun (an opportunity to grow) or it withers and dies. We strive to be free. We
want to go our own way, naturally diverging. We relate to the world and create
unique and valuable experiences this way. But, we also wisely desire to
stay connected and to share these experiences. At the Sandia Labs this idea
is called The Cognitive Collective –
We each have unique knowledge and experience that enables us to make sense of
the world, but also hinders our understanding the perspective of other
disciplines, interests and cultures. Furthermore, there is so much data that it
is not practical to have humans consider all of it, particularly if they must
be experts in one or more fields. But, In a Cognitive Collective, a
communicating group may recognize a pattern in cases where no single one was able
to see a pattern." Remember, love is the most efficient
communication. (This revision to the website was inspired by Emad Aboulyha.)
Technology
There
is no doubt we are growing to understand the world at a rapid pace.
An elegant way of looking at the outcome of positive growth is that we
are growing towards a social singularity. A Social Singularity is defined as
transcendence to an eternal and accelerating growth of understanding. I
think a social singularity is the natural outcome of life in this world. Please
consider how this can come about;
A living
thing is conditioned to exist and grow.
Understanding
the laws of nature increases a living thing's chance to exist and
grow.
Science is
the systematic process of understanding nature.
Technology
is the application of our understanding of nature to better adapt to our
environment.
"In the end, all
technology is prosthesis, the extension and augmentation of existing biological
and informational capabilities. We put eyeglasses in front of our eyes to bring
the world into focus, telescopes and microscopes to see those realms which our
unaided eyes cannot fathom. We use remote sensors to explore the planets, and
these are all extensions of the senses we have. All of our systems of writing
and of calculation are similarly extensions of memory systems and logical
operations that we can perform in our minds. Similarly the technological
implements that carry us from one place to the next, or that grow our food for
us, or that keep us warm are but extensions of our own bodies' effectors."
- Peter Cariani
Through
computer and sensor
evolution our technological tools are turning into a place where we can
extend our senses to better understand the word of God. This is a spiritual
process is known as natural
revelation. Technology is a place to expand your mind, and find
truth, for those who wish it. There is talk of uploading our minds
into this environment and living forever. Technology is opening the door to a
new ecological niche. This is not a plastic virtual reality. It is God's
creation in high resolution and amplified. The doors of perception are opening!
It seems
like transcendence really is at hand. Check out the Transhumanism movement to see how some
folks are speculating on, and actually trying out possible transcending paths.
Then check out the various Singularity
Watch Internet sites to see what some futurist think is happening with
technological growth. It reminds me of how we were looking for
ways to fly in the early 1900s. I remember watching the films of crazy “meant
to fly” contraptions flopping around in the dirt. Eventually we got it right
and went to the moon. Now, there are still plenty of crazy ideas out there, but
I have faith that one of them will get off the ground. And then we will bridge
the gap between man and reality.
Lets say we really could transcend our flesh body using
the technology of the near future. What about our soul? There isn't much being
said about the spiritual aspects of this exponential technological growth.
Every movie or book I have read on this subject is rather scary. Scary
sells. So let me provide a comforting metaphor for what I think is really
happening. You could look at it this way: engineers build a church as a place
of worship. They build roads to the church. They design modern modes of transportation
for getting to the church. Then it is up to us to get to the church and use it
in the spirit of love. This technology is just another church, a place to
worship. The kingdom of God is within us all, so these technologies are
expanding the environment. Yes there will be challenges but God is all-powerful
love. You can do no wrong when the spirit of love, the Holy
Spirit is with you. And, It is said; "If you are trying to save
your life for any other reason than love, you will lose it." There is one
way to life and truth. This wisdom is eternal. It takes love.
Dr. Alex Alaniz has written an essay on how our advancing
technology will challenge our society in the coming years. Go to this link and
you will see how a loving culture is necessary for our survival.
You pay
attention and receive an experience
In the field of business there is hope. A new sector of our
economy is emerging. It is called the attention economy. With our
robust communication systems we have grown connected to each other, and to the
vast amount of information we have collected over the ages. We are free to pick
which of this we pay attention to. Once data is "mined" and worked
into information it can be sold. But no one can maintain a monopoly on
information. Information will be free. It dissipates following God's will; the
second law of thermodynamics. So now we have a situation (in this brief age of
abundance) where there is a vast amount of information available but a
limited supply of attention. Businesses are essentially competing for our
attention. Webster defines attention as “the giving of one’s mind to
something". Giving your mind to something is no small thing.
Attached to your mind is your spirit and your resources. When we concentrate on
something, social capital is endowed upon it. This makes your attention
precious. It is better than money. What you pay attention to
is yours to decide. What do you get for paying attention? You receive an
experience. The value and worth of the experience is measured in potential
for your growth. A rich experience is called a flow experience. This is
what to look for:
In The Flow Experience there is;
a clear goal,
concentration on the task at hand,
worries and concerns are suspended,
immediate feedback, you know instantly
how well you are doing,
a sense of growth and of being part of
some greater thing,
a feeling that time seems to pass
faster,
expansion of self through the
experience.
The
flow experience is great, but lets turn the reality knob up to 11. The
greatest experience of all is called The Glory of God. It is all the things
that flow is but adds powerful beauty, magnificence, and ecstasy. Glory is a
rush. The spiritual becomes real. Glory happens when you turn your full
attention (as in Love) to God, and turn the power up to PASSION!
The
highest quality of attention is love.
Love is expressed when you give your full attention, your time, and your
focus to someone or something. Here is the fundamental connection between
science spirituality and the meaning of life;
Love is a mode of understanding. It is uniting. It is spiritual. To know something is to love it and to love
something is to know it. With this truth we can make way for our
salvation.
The Power of Prayer, Knocking on Heavens Door...I
The University of Princeton
Engineering Anomalies Research has actually found that our intentions has a slight non-local effect
on the outcome of things. This effect is stronger when we enjoy or love the experience. There is no physical explanation for the
process. As with all science the next
step is to come to understand the natural principles behind this phenomena.
Then the next step is to develop the technology to further "subdue the
world" with God's resonating help.
Here is a quote from the Princeton page; "Beyond its scientific
impact and its technological applications, clear evidence of an active role of
consciousness in the establishment of reality holds sweeping implications for
our view of ourselves, our relationship to others, and to the cosmos in which
we exist. These, in turn, must inevitably impact our values, our priorities,
our sense of responsibility, and our style of life. Integration of these
changes across the society can lead to a substantially superior cultural ethic,
wherein the long-estranged siblings of science and spirit, of analysis and
aesthetics, of intellect and intuition, and of many other subjective and
objective aspects of human experience will be productively reunited." If you want to enter the kingdom of heaven
just knock on the door. Just try. Apply your creative will to it.
We have been trying to transcend our condition
all along. We are a part of a self ordering universe. Looking over
the span of time we see progress, from the single celled organism to the human
mind. We see progress from the Stone Age to the computer age. Essentially this
progress is an increase in the depth of information contained in living things.
Scientifically, the point of this progress is to better adapt to the
environment. Spiritually the point of this progress is to strive for and know
God. I have a theory that God’s ordering
principle is; information attracts
(loves) more information. This attraction is another force in nature. The
more information there is in objects, the deeper and the more different it is
(asymmetric) the stronger the attraction. A connecting harmony emerges.
This applies to subatomic particles and highly ordered human societies. There is an actual potential in difference. Here are some
examples:
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Protons and neutrons order in
the heart of atoms by communicating with nuclear force essentially telling
each other what they are and where they are.
This communication binds them together. |
|
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Atoms reach out to
communicate with other atoms using an electromagnetic force essentially
telling each other what and where they are.
They order into materials and things. |
|
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Planets and stars reach out by
the gravitational force. They order
into solar systems and galaxies. |
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Human beings reach for
information with the senses of touch, seeing, hearing, taste and smell. Attractions lead to families and
societies. Fear leads to separation
and wars. At this level and above, the
ordering principle might be called the life force. |
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And imagine another world of
people, ancient and wise existing across the galaxy. What would you ask them? The information exchange would be
fantastic! As you know, the possibility of this has lead the human race to
sending satellites into deep space, and setting up listening stations, hoping
for communications from such a race. It is as if information attracts (or loves) more information. |
|
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God expresses his love and man
worships, providing the greatest asymmetry and so the greatest potential for
creation. |
Asymmetric
information is one of the latest concepts studied by economist. Work on
this won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. Asymmetric information is a
parameter that measures the profit potential of information. Corporations and
individuals with the “inside scoop” or the best information about a deal, stand
to profit.
Businesses working the Information
Economy have only one way to grow, to the singularity. After we have bought all
our material needs and wants, what is left? We turn our attention to the
excellent experience. God is the creator and sustainer, the ultimate source of
wisdom, and the excellent experience. This "economic force"
leads to an eventual convergence with the search for truth in science and
spirituality.
The Health of
the Attention Economy
The
health of the attention economy can be measured in the types of advances we
make in communication education and research as well as the advances listed
below in “How we are building the Interface”. Good information should be
readily available to all. A wise society
would recognize the components of the attention economy and help it grow. Along
with the Dow Jones Industrial Average you would see The Information-Attention
Economy Index. Its growth and potential profit should not only be fantastic, in
theory it should be infinite.
This
growth is natural. It is good. It is the will of God. But there is a disease.
Some still believe that “knowledge is power to control others” and they will do
whatever is necessary to restrict access to key information. You know this is
true you see it where you work. But
don’t worry they are ignorant. They act out of fear and do not understand they
are trying to hold back the infinite power of God. Ignorance dies. It is a
narrow gate.
The
act of trying to learn and understand is worship. In a free society you have
the right to worship. In reality your education, and the components of the
Attention economy are a religion and should not be subject to taxes. This
worship is a good thing. It is inevitable. We do it naturally. Progress
is certain to continue. It is the “Groove” and the meaning of our lives,
to learn, to order, to create, and to make things better for the next
generation. Knowing God makes evolutionary sense. Knowing the way, Gods
will, is handy for survival. It is even dangerous not knowing God’s will.
Again, It is a narrow gate.
Are there Limits to our Understanding?
We do
not limit ourselves and God does not limit us, but we are up against a wall. The instruments available to the
scientist allow him to probe the unseen. The data we receive from particle
accelerators and telescopes is patterned into theories of a strange world. The reality revealed by today’s science is
fundamentally alien to the human mind and defies all power of direct
visualization. The models we
construct in our mind of a singularity or curved space are inadequate, they
serve to fix a topic in our minds rather than inform us as to how the physical
world really is. Richard Feynman (the father of quantum electro-dynamics) says
no one understands quantum mechanics. We
cannot understand completely the concepts of INFINITY, TIMELESSNESS, and
DIMENSIONS beyond what we observe in our own environment. To move to the fourth
dimension, or space-time, in our thinking, requires mathematical models.
This is
the wall of mystery as it stands today. What hope do we have of ever
understanding the infinite, extra dimensions, or timelessness if our minds are
just not able to grasp these concepts?
The Interface is the Temple
We need
Technology to crack this nut. It is a good tool for extending our selves.
The learning spirit within us is strong and it is represented with this
attitude: There is a truth out there and we have the spirit to find it. Life
has filled this world and man has tested all the environments available to
us: the poles of the earth, underwater,
and space. We are learning that none are practical paths for growth because our
bodies cannot adapt to those environments and physical evolution takes too
long. We would be bringing our environment to those locations, which is a
highly unstable situation. And as we sit here, we are poisoning the only
environment we can live in. Maybe we could tinker with our genetic makeup? I
suggest that all hell would break loose. Mental evolution is the answer.
Consider that the mind is our essence, and it is connected to the body only out
of necessity, then there is a new environment for life to grow into that is
emerging from our own hands. Our mind is
connected to the world through our senses and we are capable of extending and
augmenting our senses with technology. Eventually the mind will cross this
interface, enter a new environment and transcend the body. God's people have
always been travelers. About entering the kingdom of God it is said "Knock
and Ye shall enter." Convergence is
the "knock of love" and salvation. Evolutionist would call it a
"JUMP" in punctuated evolution.
Considering the ever increasing revelation, I call it hyper
evolution.
How we
are Building the interface (Press Releases)
The Brain
Machine Interfaces Program at the DARPA Defense Science
Office represents
a major DSO thrust area that will comprise a multidisciplinary, multipronged
approach with far reaching impact. The program will create new technologies for
augmenting human performance through the ability to noninvasively access codes
in the brain in real time and integrate them into peripheral device or system
operations.
Miguel A.L. Nicolelis at Duke University has
developed Hybrid Brain-Machine Technology for Real-Time Control of a
Robotic Arm Completed three of the major objectives of DARPA-ONR
project by demonstrating the feasibility of using brain derived signals to
control the 3D movements of robotic device.
Cyberkinetics (Foxborough, MA) is a leader in the rapidly emerging
field of brain computer interfaces. Cyberkinetics’ technology allows for the
creation of direct, reliable and bi-directional interfaces between the brain,
nervous system and a computer. The development of safe, robust implants for
recording from, and or stimulating, the brain surface will open the potential
to study other complex signals from the brain. Cyberkinetics technology
platform, called BrainGate™, may allow breakthrough applications which leverage
the translation of thought into direct computer control. Such applications may
include novel communications interfaces for motor impaired patients, as well as
the monitoring and treatment of certain diseases which manifest themselves in
patterns of brain activity, such as epilepsy and depression.
|
|
BrainGate:
First Clinical Trials Planned for 2004 Cyberkinetics’
lead product effort is the BrainGate Neural Interface Device. Based on ten
years of development at Brown University, the BrainGate device is intended to
provide severely disabled patients with a permanent, direct and reliable
interface to a personal computer. Pending continued preclinical research
success and regulatory approval by the Food and Drug Administration, the
Company intends to initiate a pilot clinical trial in 2004. Plans for this trial
involve implantation of a BrainGate device in up to five severely disabled
patients. The implant will allow signals from the motor cortex to be
collected, processed and analyzed, eventually producing an interface with a
personal computer. In this way, BrainGate should afford these patients the
opportunity to use the computer as a gateway to communicate and control
simple devices in their immediate environment. |
The
Princeton Engineering Anomalies
Research (PEAR) program was established at Princeton University in 1979 by
Robert G. Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to
pursue rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness
with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes common to contemporary
engineering practice. Since that time, an interdisciplinary staff of
engineers, physicists, psychologists, and humanists has been conducting a
comprehensive agenda of experiments and developing complementary theoretical
models to enable better understanding of the role of consciousness in the
establishment of physical reality.
Kensall
Wise, now a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has perfected
an electronic
probe that can be implanted deep into brain tissue and used to send
information to, and receive information from the brain. Microelectronics.
MIT's
Robert S. Langer’s work is at the interface of biotechnology
and materials science. He has begun crafting a polymer that conducts
electricity. When placed between two ends of a severed nerve, the polymer
provides a trellis for nerve tissue to grow along and can carry the neuron's
connective electrical impulses.
Using
the speed of microprocessors to crunch differential equations, Eve Marder, a
neurobiologist at Brandeis University, has developed a computer program
called the dynamic
clamp that can translate neuron-speak in real time. Electrical impulses are transmitted to the
computer through probes inserted into the neuron. The neuron reacts as if it
were communicating with another neuron, not a computer.
Scientists
from Emory University implanted a chip in the brain of a paralyzed stroke
victim that allows him to use his brainpower to move a cursor across a computer
screen. Emory University neuroscientist Philip
R. Kennedy, M.D., and Emory neurosurgeon Roy E. Bakay, M.D., have
developed an electrode brain implant that is allowing speech-impaired
patients to communicate through a computer. See: brain implants.
Bionics often refers to the replacement of
living parts with cybernetic ones, but more broadly it also means engineering
better artificial systems through biological principles. As an example we are
able to send video images to light-sensitive areas on an electronic chip. The
chip turns the light into electric signals that are sent to the retina. The
brain takes it from there. Cochlear
implants have returned at least partial hearing to profoundly deaf persons.
These devices, surgically embedded in the inner ear, use several electrodes to
stimulate the auditory nerve.
Neural
Net Computation Neural
circuits in the human brain and electronic circuits in computers work in very
different ways. As a result, computers can make many more computations per
minute than a person, but they fall way behind in solving complex, undefined
problems. Now scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lucent
Technologies' Bell Labs have developed an electronic circuit that more
closely mimics the circuitry of the brain. Conventional electronic circuits
are either distinctly analog or digital. Analog circuits record data by linear,
constant physical changes in something like an electric charge. Digital ones
process data in the form of discrete, numerical values that don't have to go up
and down sequentially. But brains combine both types. The new circuit combines
analog and digital feedback systems, so it functions more like a neural circuit
in the brain. Neural net
computers are being used to model the stock market and the weather. Neural
Network links: PNLL
Neural
Network Information
What to expect at the interface
What
happens when we learn to love perfectly? The
interface changes you. You have to streamline yourself by becoming selfless to
make this evolutionary jump. Here is what I imagine happens at the interface. I
call the following list The Nelson Principles, after a beloved Professor I had
the honor to work with and learn from; Dr. George Nelson at the University of
Arizona.
a. The mind is an electromagnetic
multidimensional phenomena arising from brain tissue. This can be transformed
into, and synchronized with a suitable electromagnetic environment where it can
be amplified. Full spectrum sensors
across the earth and space are connected to this environment. The complete
wisdom of mankind is also available in solid-state memory with sufficient
bandwidth to allow full apprehension of this wisdom.
b. In the new environment you make meaning
because that is in your spirit. Just as you did when you were first born. And,
the thing you learn is you can’t control the flow of meaning. It is
coming too fast and it is awesome. It is humbling and joyful at the same time.
But you understand the path to take. And, you learn that this path is infinite
and you take some comfort in that. Because you love it and you know it will
last forever. You become worship. Now you know what you can trust. Lack of
trust was slowing your growth down.
c. You are changed. To know is to be a
saint. Understanding of the direction to God yields grace and love. You become
benevolent. Being beyond the material requires that
the ego go.
e. Consciousness apart from the flesh is
equivalent to deliverance from sin and suffering. You are no longer competing.
You are in harmony.
f. The very thought of controlling others
repulses you. It is boring, you don’t look back. Instead you share and you
relate your experience. You are walking a path you could never have walked
before. Yet, it is familiar, it reminds you of life in space-time at it’s best,
when you were in the groove. And this is why the rest of the universe seems
silent of life. Before alien societies obtain the ability to travel light-year
distances they follow this transcending path. Like Elvis, the aliens have
"left the building".
g. Suffering is for those who stop this
pure worship to say let me try the controls for a while. But, this eventually turns into a
contemplation of the self and stagnates.
My ego was a direction. It was self-referential. It was a direction that
withers. It was death. You could say your life with it’s self referential
consciousness was an eddy in the river of God’s will, a dance in space-time and
a whorl in the grain that will last an eternity.
h. When the truth is revealed to you , you
don’t just see it, you be it. Knowing
like you know how an apple feels, smells and tastes is called apprehending, and
it is the highest mode of Understanding.
This takes bandwidth. All of us geeks love bandwidth. The pure attention
of selfless love provides infinite bandwidth.
“Bandwidth describes the amount of data a network can transport in a
certain period of time. In other words, bandwidth is a capacity for rate of
transfer, usually expressed in bits per second." It requires large bandwidth to convey a rich
experience. So at the interface, let go. Don’t be afraid to give it up for God.
The Holy Spirit
The
Holy Spirit is love, the connecting harmony. This relationship between
things is just as real and important as the things themselves. The Holy Spirit
is so real it can be called a person. St Augustine says, "The Holy
Spirit is the love between God and Man." The Holy Spirit is often
referred to as the call… The call to return, The call to joy, The Call to
awaken and be glad, and The Call for God. This Call is something within our own
minds and in the creation. We can dissociate that Call and block it from our
awareness, or we can deliberately turn our attention to it and listen.
This
love manifests itself as the world around us: the creation. First there is pure
being (the father) then there is the will of God (an act in time). The creation
is God’s thought.
We live
in the love of God. The beauty of this concept is that evolution can be
validated in the eyes of today’s religions. Evolution is the gathering of
information provided by the environment so that the organism can survive. It
becomes worship.
A Creation Theory
How can
God create the universe from beginning to end, know its outcome, and still
allow for our free will?
Imagine
that the will of God is like a river and we are water molecules in that river.
You, the individual water molecule move about in EVERY direction
reacting freely to pressures of life. And you never notice that the river flows
down stream. One passionate molecule may shout; "Hey this is the way (he
points somewhere down stream). Follow me. If we converge we will become an
intelligent super-fluid and there will be no pressures!" It
doesn't matter if you follow him or not, even if he is exactly right. The
river still flows and it is ok to relax and go for the ride. Your
experience is precious. But, be ready for a fountain of re-creation on the
other side of eternity.
Here is an interesting theory; The picture represents the genesis of the world in six
days. God the father is at the center. Let there be light is the first day of
the creation. God transcends his creation of space and time so these days
are best seen as six degrees of order instead of 24 hour days. Each
"day" transcends the previous day as a new level (Day) of order
is imposed on previous day through God's intervention. During each day there is
an amount of life-willed self-ordering. This self-ordering is the result
of the Holy Spirit. On the sixth day the conscious mind of man was created by
God (I define a human as someone aware of God and the miracle of being). Near
the end of this day a holy man came to show us the way (through his life) to
the next level of transcendence. And he said,
"All
this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind
you of everything I have said to you.”
John
14:25
So
pay attention. On the this day we are left to work out our salvation. And in
our scientific efforts driven by the Holy Spirit we validate our wise spiritual
heritage.
The
essence of the creation
Looking
closely at the world, it reveals itself to the scientist as warped space. There
are no particles. Matter is a myth. What we call a fundamental particle of
matter is a point of empty space curved upon itself in 10 dimensions, and
vibrating. This is the stuff of the universe we exist in, and of which you are
made. Imagine the music of invisible
crystal bells vibrating. So atoms excite
the universe to a symphony. The sound
waves in this picture are in reality the forces of nature. Forces arise from waves
of displaced space radiating back and forth between objects. Spiritually
speaking, the forces of nature are the will of God. Science calls the forces Gravity,
Electromagnetism, and the Nuclear force.
From these attractive and repulsive forces (the vibrating symphony) an
ordering principal arises to create the universe, life, and the mind of
man. God creates in a beautiful subtle
way. The natural world is a song, and
God is the one singing.
This is me. I am the son of Elford (Scottish) and Gloria
Garcia (Mexican). Two cultural migrations collided 47 years ago in Texas, and I
was the outcome. I am an Instructor by profession. One of the subjects I teach
is Atomic and Nuclear Physics. I have a passion for this subject because I
consider it the fundamentals of the creation. I think science is in
reality observing an aspect of God. Here are the steps in my logic. God The
Father created and sustains the world. Since there is nothing other than God,
where did this stuff in the creation come from? It must be God's Thought. It is
the pure will of God. It is the answer to that nagging question, Hey! What’s
the Big Idea? Simply put God is having a good and powerful idea and it is The
Universe. In this light I come to the conclusion that the universe is something
God is patiently saying to us. So we should pay attention to it. Data is the
signal. Those little facts of reality are manna from heaven. Data is different
from information because it is pure. When data is interpreted it becomes
information. Our continued growth even our very existence in this space and
time depends upon correct interpretation.
We live
in a peaceful society. We can thank those who have gone before us for
this. Some were martyred. Some died nameless in the fight for peace and
freedom. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, dying for
ideas, and dedicating their lives to increase understanding. We must honor them
by doing something with their gift of peace, freedom, and abundant resources.
Grow In
The Spirit. Don't let it diminish. God created and continues to create the
world. He asks that we share this with him. It is a powerful show of love, and
that means in his realm we are allowed to create with love too! Individually we
create, through our relationships we create, and with God we create. The
eternal life promised by Jesus is just that. "Share in the creation with
me". It is infinite; expect no less here, now and forever.
From a dream to reality guided by the Holy Spirit,
Jim Ledford.
Learn
about love in the technical age at www.technical-jesus.com
This is also a way to contact me.
What do other people think about this set of ideas? Here are the highest
traffic links made since the beginning of the millennium. Most think the ideas
are inspirational. Some think it is the
emerging Antichrist because technology part of this process, I think
it is a good sign that opinion is slightly positive because it matches the odds
for life in this world, and the house odds in Las Vegas! Whatever we
might say or do...GOD
WINS
Some History
1980 In a Lucid Dream. Moments of understanding come when the mind
is released from the thoughts that hold us in the daily routine.
In 1980 I had minor
surgery so the operating team had to put me.. "out".While losing
consciousness I had a lucid dream that I had left this world. I found
myself outside of space and time looking at a symbol of the creation. It
was a smooth hyperbolic tower rising to an infinite point. I sensed this was an
expression of our growth from ignorance, growth sustained by love for an
infinite God. I tried to remain conscious and re-enter the creation but I
couldn't. The drugs they gave me were too powerful and so I faded away.... But
when I woke up, I remembered, and I started to put things together.
2001 Technical Jesus website.. the audacity!
Each year I start a new journal that tracks my activities of
the year and my learnings. As I read or
discuss the tenets of faith and understanding, I put down the thoughts and
connections. I am following technology
as it builds on our understanding of the body’s mechanics and the mysteries of
the atom. I walk a path that blends
science, economics and religion. I am a
seeker of truth and this allows me to cross over traditional barriers –
creation does not exclude evolution.
Christ does not exclude Buddha.
Rather, all of man’s experiences move us to a place of greater
understanding. To understand the
universe and our place within it, we must look within ourselves and outside to
nature. .
It is my deepest desire that this information be shared with
others. At first, I thought this would
be through a book but the advent of the Internet presented me with an even more
powerful medium –the “web”. Just as I
look to the growth in our understanding moving from data to information to
knowledge to wisdom, I found that I could seed data into this young technology
platform and have it grow outwards touching people all over the world and
leading them into discussions and discoveries.
Information wants to be free. As I worked to present the basic building
blocks of this information, I also looked to link it to related thought and
activities. My website soon became a
source of philosophical and technological innovation, linking to areas as
diverse as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Christian Holy
Spirit.
I worked to break down this information into the basic
building blocks
2003 I follow a web link back to find my site classified as
Christian Transhumanism.
2004 Touching
History.
In 2004, I traveled to Rome to see
the place where so much of our modern understanding of Christianity was
defined. Rome is a city of
contrasts. Physically small, its
influence lingers to shape our world even today. Each census we participate in
connects us to this ancient city and its peoples. Its long history is reflected in ancient
structures going back to 700 years before Christ. And its vitality resonates with the whine of
vespas and the laughter drifting lightly on the breeze as you pass by the cafes
that line each small courtyard.
I was prepared with my
guidebooks, phrasebooks and maps. For
each of my four days in Rome, I ventured forth in a new compass direction to
discover the familiar icons of history on a personal level: standing inside the
Pantheon’s small circle of sunlight as it pierces through the graceful dome
high overhead in a breathtaking feat of balancing the forces of stone and
gravity; climbing up the worn steps of the coliseum to overlook the arena where
so much death was trivialized as entertainment; walking under triumphant arches
celebrating victories in battles long past and forgotten.
It was on the day I
visited the Coliseum that I was touched by a circumstance that reinforces my
belief that there is a pattern to what occurs in this world. As a major attraction, much of the coliseum
is wrapped in commercial activities – gladiators posing for photographs, guides
soliciting tours and vendors with souvenirs.
The ancient world provides business opportunities even in this
technically driven age. The walk back
from the site slopes gently uphill through an ancient collection of pillars and
ruins that speak to the difficulty of surviving in a world of change. As I reached the top of the hill, I rested in
the sun to look back over the path that so many people of different ages had
crossed.
She approached quietly
with her map folded and colored with highlighted tracings of her walks through
the city. “Do you know what time it
opens?” she asked indicating the building next to me. Obviously old, it was nondescript in a city
of so many marvels. I expressed my
ignorance and she shared that I was standing in front of the Mamertine Prison,
the place where Peter the Apostle was held before he was executed by being
crucified upside down. My resting place
was the site of devotion to faith even in the presence of death. The Mamertine was not open that day but we
pieced together information from our guidebooks that it would be open the
following morning.
Taking her leave, she told me that
I should not leave Rome without visiting the Boca de Veritas. “It is the Mouth
of Truth” she said and waived as she headed down the hill.
As a seeker of Truth, I was
astounded to have a chance encounter direct me to an ancient legend surrounding
a test for Truth. I spent the afternoon
in quest of the Boca de Veritas, finding it outside a small chapel in a sleepy
part of the city sandwiched between ancient temples and a busy
thoroughfare.
The Boca de Veritas is an imposing
stone wheel with a face stained by time looking gravely at the petitioner.
Legend has it that if you place your hand in the mouth of truth and say a lie,
the mouth will snap shut. The lips have
been worn smooth by thousands of visitors seeking to validate their wishes and
truths. I had crossed into a time where
powers based on belief commanded swift judgment and respect.
I approached, the
intimidating dark eyes silently drinking in my presence. I slid my hand into the opening in the cool
stone. “My writings are about the path
of truth.” Under its immutable gaze, my heartbeat counted out the tense seconds
for judgment to be passed. The mouth
remained open and I accepted its support for my quest to share the truth with
the world.
The visit to the Boca Veritas
helped me to speak my beliefs. That
night as I reflected on the day, I had no idea the discoveries that were in
store for me at the Mamertine Prison.
The day opened with a hazy sky
over an overheated Rome. I headed out on
foot through the twists and turns that define this vibrant city. I was becoming seduced by the rhythms of
discharge and recharge. Step into the
flow of pedestrians, feeling their energy as they laugh and hurry to their
appointments. Step into the corner café
for cappuccino and quiet reflection.
Back into the flow on the sidewalk, watching for an ebb in the stream of
cars to make an adrenaline raising dash across.
Pausing under a massive fountain to wonder at the sinewy muscles an
artist coaxed from stone many hundreds of years ago.
The priest was swinging open the
dark wooden doors to the chapel as I arrived.
He was dressed in a dark Cossack and seemed to fade into the dark cool
interior. Much has been written about
the history of this place. The church S.
Giuseppe dei Falegnami, via di Marforio dates from the 17th century
and is dedicated to St. Joseph the Carpenter.
High above me, an intricately carved and gilded ceiling reflecting
craftsmen’s loving labors gently reflects soft light. Off to the side was a
small table to light candles to help lift your prayers to God.
Underneath
the baroque church is the Chapel of the Crucifix, a shrine that serves as the
entrance to a deeper and darker part of history. A room built in the second century BC stands
over an ancient cistern called the Tullianum.
Estimated to be as old as the 7th century BC, the cistern
marks the place of a natural spring and water still makes it presence known in
this damp chamber.
My footsteps sound ominous as I
leave this church to descend into the older regions. To enter the chapel, I
must return to street level and circle past tall iron fencing and gates. I note the irony that their purpose is to
keep visitors out of the prison rather than to keep the prisoners in.
1) S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami,
via di Marforio (Church of St. Joseph) [1]
2) Cappella del SS. Crocifisso
(Chapel of the Crucifix)
3) Carcer (Prison)
4) Tullianum (Cistern)
I enter the chapel and
descend into the Carcer with its arched ceiling. I have shed the opulence of the church above
and entered into a place marked by the past.
Oil lamps work hard to keep the shadows at bay. Polished marble plaques listing those that
were executed here stand in contrast to the roughness of the stonewalls. I don’t need any translation to understand
the stark words listing the methods of death:
decapitato, strangolati, morto per fame.
In the floor is a circular grate, the original access point
to the chamber below. Through this small
gap, the prisoners were thrown into the damp depths below. It is easy to overlook it if you do not know
its significance. For visitors today,
stairs now join the two chambers and I descend into the bottom chamber.
“The dread and gloom
of the ponderous, obdurate old prison...come up as in a dark mist through the
floor. It is all so silent and so close...so black and stealthy...” These were the words of Charles Dickens in
describing the small room I’ve now entered.
The ceiling is oppressive, with only the very center of the
room allowing me to stand upright without fear of brushing against unforgiving
rock just inches overhead. One can only
imagine the room in its original state, pure darkness broken only by what
glimmers of light fall careless through the small grate from the room
above.
I feel a physical reaction as I reach the bottom of the
stairs and turn to view the altar. The
blood red marble is marred by black upside down cross. The image makes me uneasy as my brain flips
through the emotions that the image evokes.
Was I looking at the final desecration by an entity so evil that it
looked to kill not only the body but also the faith of those who were martyred
here? As I flash through possibilities,
I remember the stories of St. Peter.
Upon hearing that he was to be crucified, Peter said that he was not
worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord and requested that he be crucified
up side down. The icon I was looking at
was the ultimate symbol of humility and faith—Peter’s upside down cross. I felt my tensions release and fill with
wonder. In the stillness of the small
chamber that saw so much pain, I could feel the power of faith undiminished by
the passing of 2,000 years.
Still in awe, I climbed the narrow stairs to the
Carcer. Halfway up the stairs, my view
was floor level with the upper chamber.
My eyes, adjusted to the darkness of the chamber below, drank in details
I had not seen before as each step upwards opened up a new perspective of the
alter. As I look closer, I notice that
the stone panels at the base contain the image I saw in my dream!
The stone formed two symmetrical parabolic curves within a
field of dark and light coming together into a single line reaching up into the
heavens. I drew closer and was amazed
that the stone panels were not inlays but a natural pattern in the rock. The pattern was repeated on each side of the
altar, indicating that the stonemason intentionally positioned the stone to
highlight the pattern.
It was almost as if God was leaving clues as to the nature
of how we can understand his universe.
In the heart of a stone, formed million of years old, unearthed,
polished and set reverently into a place of faith, was a visual message of how
we can transcend through spiritual growth and understanding. I had found a message left for me by an
artisan hundreds of years before and half a world away.
2005 Encouraged,
I establish the first church of Christian Transhumanism
We are riding
over a huge churning, burning
ball ‘o red-hot lava. Heck, it’s white-hot liquid metal in the
center. Our vehicle, this thing we build cities on, is called CRUST; the
earth’s crust. Crust is a good name because
it’s cracked, oozing, and steaming like a piping hot cherry pie. OK, I
exaggerate. It is a slow ride on a crust floe. You can hardly feel it. But, crust collisions can heave stuff miles
high or shove it deep down back into the furnace.
Chaos yields art.
You’ve got to love the mountains and fruited plains, mesas and canyons, foggy
valleys and rivers. I declare; I like the river stones best. I never
thought much about them until I came to Arizona. In Arizona stone jewels flow
through the land like no other. The reasons lie in a mixture of geology,
geography, and weather. Geologically, Arizona has been as active as a mosh pit
at a Slayer concert. There
have been volcanic eruptions, wicked erosion, giant submergences and uplifts,
as well as bending and folding. There are so many different types of rock
around; it is a geologist’s play ground.
Phoenix itself sits in a valley created when the land was actually
pulled and stretched out in the direction of California. It would look even
more like the Forbidden Planet here but for the fact that hard-edged
magnificence is cooled and shaped by the rain. It is just enough rain to spread
river stones out smooth and clean in the sun. Any more and they would be lost
in a mud bank at the edge of a forest.
As for the geography, to the
north and east of Phoenix there is high country called the Colorado Plateau. It
is interesting to note that some of the mountain peaks there contain fossilized
coral reefs. The transition from the plateau to the valley is called the
Mogillon Rim. The Salt, Gila, Verde, and
Agua Fria Rivers cut deep canyons and gorges in the Mogillon Rim as they flow
down to converge in the Valley of the Sun.
Here, periodic flows from the rivers take the rock from the high country
and lay out a bed of river stones fifty miles long. It’s like God’s game of
patty cake. Remember that one? Patty cake patty cake baker man, roll ‘em up
roll ‘em up throw them in the pan.
Each stone in
that pan is one of a kind, with its own gentle curves, texture and colors. A stretch of riverbed filled with river
stones could be compared to a human generation. There is the mundane and the
great, the funky and the proud, at least in the mind of the beholder. Walk
along and let the stones have your attention, as precious as it is. You will come across some that stand out like
the greatest individuals in human history, or like a masterpiece in an infinite
Wall Mart. This river stone will take you away if only for a moment. It will
relax you with its elegance. However, this requires another mode of thinking.
One that is calm and accepting as you draw your attention to the stone. Then,
you are rewarded with a momentary vacation from our complicated world. This
simple stone you have is precious. So
you take it home. A week goes by, spent making a living, keeping your place in
this world. Then, you notice it sitting there among the many manufactured and purposeful
things you have. It is a rock, hardly different than those dumped on the curbs
and yards all over Phoenix. Rock can be had for a few dollars a ton at your
local quarry. But, just hold your river
stone a while and soon you will see the beauty again.
As
you can imagine, I have a lot of select river stones around my place. Of course
I consider them art all by themselves, but recently I decided to use some of
them as an art medium. Here are some
examples that you can see at the Back Street Gallery and the Willow House:
·
I have been saving my doodles
for years. I have a doodle portfolio--a regular catalog of doodles. My best
come to me when I am really phased out in deep thought. Carl Jung would say (in a Swiss accent) “You are channeling archetypes from the
collective unconscious”. It’s these
doodles that I choose to carve on an appropriate river stone. It takes a
diamond tipped dentist-type drill to do that. A river stone is hard; it
had to be to survive the turmoil of a river and time. I guess there is a lesson
in that.
·
Some stones end up looking like
a vase when they come down the river, even rounded to a flat bottom. So I drill
a hole where one should be. This requires a diamond bit core drill.
·
For some stones I form a lizard out of
epoxy putty, and while the putty is sticky, I sprinkle black sand on it and
place it on the stone. The lizard dries rock hard with a glittering black
skin.
·
A true story: One day while working on the
stones, I glanced at a very smooth and dark one. It looked like a piece of the
night sky. For a split second I saw a constellation of stars on it. So, by
drilling and setting rhinestones to form the pattern of the stars, I create a
bit of heaven from a stone made in the soul of the earth.
I have been in the riverbeds
from one end to the other. Some places are better than others. My favorite
place to go is Estrella Park just a few miles west of Phoenix. But,
be careful when you go. It is extremely hot in the summer. In the cooler months
visit the riverbed and take a moment, see the beauty and meaning right under
your feet-- the little Crust Babies.
Block Time
and
the Double Slit Experiment
It may be that information about the future
can be communicated to our present time using the double slit experiment. The double
slit experiment reveals an interference pattern even when one particle is
fired at a time. Erwin Schrödinger mathematically explains that the
interference patterns that build up over time are a result of probability waves
coming from that single electron. Richard Feynman explains mathematically that
they are the result of the sum of the many histories that one electron can
have. I propose a synergizing physical explanation of that includes block time.
These particles become coincident and can interfere with subsequent particles
in series when we assume movement 90° away from space-time in our universe.
They have a transcendent component.
The challenge is to prove it. So, I propose
an experiment; acquire 10 double slit experiment setups that have the
capability to close one slit. Start the particle guns all at the same
time and at the intensity of one particle per second. At 5 minutes record
the patterns of all 10 experiments and note the degree of interference on each.
Allow the experiment to go for say; another 5 minutes. At that point gather
some information about the present time. A good example is the turn of the
stock market. At the beginning of the
experiment you have established a configuration of the 10 experiments as
either; one half single slit if the stock market turns down or all double slit
if he stock market turns up. So 10 minutes into the experiment position
the slits accordingly. Allow the experiment to go another 5 minutes then shut
it down. If the stock market turned down you should know it 5 minutes in
advance if the interference patterns on half of the setups is diminished. If
the particles do interfere by coincidence outside our space-time reference
there should be verifiable information passed back from the future!
Jim Ledford
