Technology and Theology

Divinity and DNA, eternality and here/now, the spiritual and the material.

Push and pull, past and future.

Are we nearer to Singularity? AI or we who are asleep at the wheel!

I always appreciate a good story, like the one about a chapel of New College in Oxford whose beams finally gave, but with foresight and anticipation, early builders had already planted replacement oak (5) centuries ahead.

We water the plants, raise a kid, save a little, because we believe tomorrow will come ( no where truer than for the LOC – loss of crew – 2 astronauts currently awaiting for a Space X taxi to fetch them – perhaps after the holiday).

We’re all hostages, in a different sense: stuck on Earth, not knowing how to get home (Paradise).

Some are more aggressive than others i.e. Icarus, just fly toward the Sun, on wings of wax.

Others, more conservative, brush, comb, spray, vitamins, weight on the scale, gym, annual checkups. The Crusaders were trying to usher in the Kingdom of God (supposedly spiritual) on Earth. The Buddhists just stoically let go, as far as the material realm.

We live with an illusion, that technology will save the day. Others, on Sundays or Holidays, believe otherwise (Theology). Waiting for Superman, for a rescue party.

For the UN, the UNHCR, the UN vaccines and supplies.

In a way, we’re all like LOC’s longing for a better tomorrow on the one hand, while cherishing our selective collective memory on the other. Our life, like a Super 8mm film, projected on the wall, showing our younger selves. Wedding ceremonies, birthdays and reunions zooming at breakneck speed.

It’s technology that reminds me nowadays of past uploaded photos. The Cloud reaches down to me, for fear I might forget my own “sum of selves”.

I was the youngest son of the clan (at the time). My younger uncle had died a martyr’s death, hence, leaving behind no younger heirs my supposedly younger cousins. From that vantage point, I kept looking up to the older adult: how they interacted (wearing Ao Dai whose collar covering up their neck; on a hot summer afternoon, everyone fanned themselves and in so doing, generated more heat – chicken and the egg).

Jacques Ellul eluded to “technique”. And how what we worked “technique” into our everyday life, the way we do things and solve a problem,; then generated its own problem. Hence, “the medium is the message”. Progress, electricity, rare Earth, competitive race and trading, social effects (kids don’t read), and obvious obesity.

Theology, however, pontificates. Faith first. a priori. Deductive vs inductive learning. Top down vs bottom up (scientific observation, problem ID, hypothesis, experimentation and conclusion).

Faith and reason, religion and society. Many scientists are still holding on to their faith. Many of the faithful have abandoned theirs (“Losing our Religion”, Russell Moore). From the future and from outer space, an alien (anthropologist) would conclude that: Earth is over-heated and saturated; uneven distribution of supply-demand, too many “gods” and creatures are tribal, trivial and trite.

Ask the crew once they are taxied back to Earth, their re-entry first impressions. In Gravity, the movie, Sandra Bullock woke up as if from a dream (George Clooney already drifted away in space and into Infinity). Now, that’s a fresh perspective and a good reset. Mine when coming back from overseas trips, was that we ‘ve got more broadband, but less desire to interact with our neighbors.

Talk is cheap. Has been and always will be. Action (unhooking oneself for others – as in Gravity) speaks, much louder, more impactful and is lifesaving.

I was overreaching and misleading with the title. It’s just that I did spend some time in my younger years learning Theology instead of Technology. I hope that the former will paint a clearer picture of what’s out there, as oppose to what’s over here. But it’s the latter that occupied me (in the name of time and money saving) with this password and that reminder, a ping here and a ping there. To the point, that its immediacy seems to be an end in itself. T=T in our world. That which occupies becomes and dominates. The perpetual present, here and now, ping and no pong. Just ping.

Tomorrow, I hope, will come. So plant a (oak) tree, teach a kid and say a prayer for the lost crew in space.