spiritual age vs. information age...
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:09:09 -0500
Dear, beloved and long-time friend R.
Has been an interesting time for me since the date you wrote the message below. Won't go into any of that now, because I've been wanting to reply to your message and to your Christmas note, the hand written bit especially.
Hallal's statement below ---"I suspect... can only do so much with information... approaching a domain beyond knowledge... the earth will be wired... able to do everything we want with information"--- I view this as hubris on behalf of our species.
Viruses seem to be the lowest form of "life," they seem to be pure information, and we have the full instruction set, the algorithm if you will, for several of them, and eventually we will have it for all of them. Yet I do not believe, as Hallal's statement implies to me, that in the next 10-20 years, or even the next 300 years, we will have absolute control of viruses, able to prevent all of their ravages upon us, no matter how much the Earth is wired then.
So in my view the Information Age is certainly not going away, it has been here longer than viruses. The Stone age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Industrial Age never went away either; using and studying those is still part of human life and science. Nor will the Scientific Age, which in my view has been around since life itself, because it is greatly about curiosity: all plants and animals are constantly seeking information, constantly monitoring within themselves and without. Even viruses must do this somehow, for how else could they replicate even after being crystallized.
Thus I do not see anything Hallal said as being anti-science. But then, it appears to be rather uncommon to be both a devoted scientist and a person devoted to a specific faith, which itself encourages both science and faith, so perhaps my view is odd. Well, yes, we Baha'is are odd, because we are rather uncommon, there are so few of us at this point. Numbers are what define oddness, no?
As a person of faith, I believe that there is Good, Justice, Love, Courage, Humility, Compassion, etc. and the absence of Good, Justice, Love, Courage, Humility, Compassion, etc... (on another page --- faith1.html --- another chunk of my personal views on faith is written, in response to another friend's questions about faith itself).
And an Ultimate Causality exists that is the ultimate reason for this dichotomous state of affairs in this particular universe, and all the possible universes. For me, the Ultimate Causality must be the source of the positive side of the dichotomy---the source of the universal virtues---and the negative side results from turning away from the source, like darkness is turning away or hiding from the light. I think "must be," because I observe that's how nature is set up: darkness is the absence of light, cold is the absence of heat, etc. Seems like a reflection of the Ultimate Causality.
This will seem unrelated, but it is related: Culturally, I am very much Caribbean and South American Indian --- Carib, Arawak, Warau, Warahoon (the last is my grandmother's word for us, a word I've never encountered anywhere else) --- a fact that I have become more and more aware of as I grow older. Reading about North American Indians together with D. what's-his name (the part-Indian guy I dated for awhile who worked in your lab), was probably the initial spark that evolved into this awareness over the years since then. (My mother does not analyze things the way I do, she takes it all for granted, and never explains any of it. Her mother, who ascended in 2003 at the age of 90, liked to explain.)
Our mitochondria lived on the islands of Trinidad, Tobago, other islands in the Caribbean, as well as on Venezuela, long before Columbus' 3rd voyage, when he gave the island its name, Trinity (after three little hills in the south). He attacked and killed some of us, we fought back and killed some of his, and then we lived in the mountains and interior reaches of the island, safe from their gunboats, for the next 300 years, when the British took over. The Spanish never conquered us, because Trinidad has no gold, so they could never get enough Spaniards to go live there. (Caribs would sometimes pour molten gold down the throats of Spaniards they caught.)
The females in the lineage were healers, "medicine women." My grandmother, and her mother before, and hers before that (who was found by Jesuits wandering in the forest alone and sick, about 8 years old, her entire Warahoon village dead from disease), would take walks and come back home with medicines, ("bush tea" we call it, and I hated every nasty-tasting drop of it I was forced to swallow), that really worked.
My grandmother did this even in Hawaii, where the plant life is rather different from Trinidad's. T hey were sought out for healing, general advice, childbirth, and "seeing." My daughters were both separately becoming more aware of this aspect of our heritage, before I brought it up with each of them, and told them more of Mama's (my grandmother) stories.
Before I mentioned any of this, Kelana took some test that declared her an "empath"; I could have told her that without any test. Kiele uses intuition as an important tool in her law work, she seemed at a loss to explain what was happening in her mind with certain cases, until I told her of the family history. She said, "You mean I come from some sort of Caribbean voodoo heritage!?!?!" Well, the proper word in Trinidad is Obeah...
. But my family has never used it to make money; Mama was very, very poor and raised her children, my sister and me, without using those skills for profit.
The point of all this, is that combining science and spirit is part of my cultural heritage. It isn't spirit that leads to success with healing plants, it's good observation and careful testing. It isn't science that creates empathy, which can be "inherited", but I think the inheritance is cultural learning from infancy.
My mother and step-father became Baha'is within a couple of months after we moved from Trinidad to Hawaii in March of 1960, when I was 8. It is a good fit for me, because it has no clergy (who needs clergy when you are an inherited Obeah Woman?
It encourages science, indeed demands that we take science very seriously, because the independent investigation of truth is one of our primary spiritual principles, and always on any list of our principles. (I just Googled "independent investigation of truth" with quotes and the first two sites were info.bahai.org and bahaiprinciples.org. The third site, is that of a group trying to create their own sect. Even they list the "independent investigation of truth" as a primary principle. From a quick glance, I see that where they get off-based is a unique interpretation of historical events that are amply documented by independent sources, that paint a different picture of the development of the Baha'i Faith in the 20th century from what this site publishes. They reject the current status of the Baha'i Faith, which has only elected or appointed, no inherited, members of the administrative system.
Anyway, this means all Baha'is, even those trying to create a separate sect (an oxymoron when the primary overall principle is unity) are, or should be, seekers of knowledge and the truth, even if it is unpalatable. Some Baha'is who grow up in the Faith take that to an extreme, and become inactive in the Faith for a time, seeking to learn what else is out there. I took that to a greater extreme than most, I was inactive from age 18 to age 30, twelve years, which was most of the time I lived in Austin. Indeed, it was going back to Trinidad in 1979-1981 that helped me realize I was judging the Baha'i Faith unfairly because of the very un-spiritual behavior of a few Baha'is. I realized in Trinidad (drum roll please), all Baha'is are Human, so that judging the whole organization, all of its adherents and its unique system, due to the behavior of a few individuals, was an unreasonable thing to do. Perhaps it was standing on the soil of my female lineage that helped open my eyes, and continue seeking without being stubborn. I checked out the Faith in Trinidad without telling anyone there that I had grown up in it. The results of that is a long and very interesting story, for another time.
I hope you don't mind if I go on... seems to be what my mind and spirit want to do right now. I am guessing you will print this, set it aside, and read in stages, I'm going on so long...
I want to briefly examine the Biblical statement that we are "created in God's image." I prefer to say the Ultimate Causality's image, because that three letter "God" word is so severely freighted with inappropriate images from movies, cartoons, etc., that I prefer to avoid it when talking about these things. As for "image" in the phrase, I think that is used in the sense of "created with the capacity to display the Ultimate Causality's attributes." It means to me that we (and I think probably all sentient species) have the capacity to reflect the positive attributes of the Ultimate Causality, like a mirror has the capacity of reflecting the light of the sun.
In this particular universe, sentient creatures are bestowed with free will. (It was Zoroaster's mission to bring to humanity's attention on Earth, the ying/yang nature of free will and personal responsibility.) Which to me means, I may choose whether to polish my mirror, to more perfectly reflect the Light emanating from its Ultimate Source. Or not. I do not believe we can ever fully comprehend the Ultimate Source, any more than a painting can comprehend its painter. But it is very clear to me that I have a choice over which general direction I choose to travel during my time in this particular universe. And that I can actively and willfully strive to polish my mirror, or do it only when I feel like it, or not do it at all.
Calculus gave me the perfect mental image for how I feel about this: I seek to travel toward the limit of each attribute or virtue: Good, Justice, Love, Courage, Humility, Compassion, etc. Of course, since I am on the curve approaching the limit, I can never reach it. But I know it is there and it is real, and I know when I am traveling, or at least when I am trying to travel, toward it or away from it.
I also love the theoretical image of hyperspace "branes" vibrating: each time two rebound off each other, there's a Big Bang and a new universe, to be followed by a Big Crunch. I like to speculate that if this "brane" idea is true, the instruction set for each of the resulting universes, i.e. the physics of each, is created in that touching instant, a result of the particular momentary attributes of the vibrating branes. I speculate that the instruction set in some universes includes the eventual development of sentient creatures who possess free will, who will constantly question even such things as why they exist, precisely because they do possess free will. They will seek, because they are built such that they feel the spiritual dichotomy in their bones (or whatever else passes for structural support). So for me, "God created" means the Ultimate Causality caused information content to be imparted during the not-yet-fully-known (and perhaps never fully comprehensible) development of hyperspaces, universes, Big Bangs, Big Crunches, strings, hyperstrings, non-empty vacuums, foams of universes, and so on, whatever Nature is made of.
By the very definition of the term that I prefer, there can only be one Ultimate Causality, regardless of what wayward sentient beings have done in the name of religion and faith through the ages, into the present. I have faith that there is a positive spin to creation, which results in ever-advancing civilizations (even if messily advancing, with much back-sliding) wherever sentient species exist.
much love, s.a.r.
At 07:30 AM 9/30/2005, my beloved friend R. wrote:
Interesting. I'm not sure that is a prediction I would have made. When I went back to the original interview I was even more surprised at the suggestion of a change in corporate culture. Certainly during most of my life the gap between rich and poor has been getting bigger and I haven't seen many who are concerned about it.
Good to hear from you.
R.
On Sep 29, 2005, at 2:45 PM, simonett @ alum . mit . edu wrote:
Very Cool.
(I added the emphasis.)
much love, s.a.r.
---------forwarded message-------
From: H.K.
To: MitBahai @ mit . edu
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:27:41 -0400
Subject: Interesting Quote: Spiritual Age vs. Information Age
This quote comes from an interview with William Hallal, the Director of George Washington University's "Emerging Technologies Forecast" -- a program that tries to predict when new technologies will hit the mass market.
It appeared in the World Future Times -- a futurist magazine that a lot of respected people have written for, including Al Gore, Robert MacNamara, B.F. Skinner, Isaac Asmiov, Arthur C. Clarke and others ..
Here's the quote (link to full interview below) :
Question: Is there a "wild card" among the breakthroughs you cite for the next century, something that could have an unexpectedly dramatic impact on the future, either negatively or for the good?
Answer:
I suspect the wild card is going to be the realization that you can only do so much with information, that we are approaching a domain beyond knowledge. Infotechnology is going to mature in the next 10 to 20 years. The systems will be up, the earth will be wired, and we will be able to do everything we want with information. (emphasis added by s.a.r. 2/23/06)
We will then enter an era of spirit. You can see it starting today as people embrace values, beliefs, and vision--all of those things that are essential to navigate through the mass of information, to find meaning and purpose. The emergence of this era of spirit is going to become startlingly clear soon.
There will be a change in basic assumptions. For example, the concept of the corporation will be scrutinized. How are you going to justify corporate profit-taking in a world of values, meaning, and purpose? The flaunting of wealth and materialism may be reversed as people reconsider the gap between the rich and the poor.
In about 10 years, certainly no more than 20 years, we will talk about a spiritual age the way we now talk about the information age.
... and here's the interview in full: http://www.wfs.org/inthalal.htm
