If Knowledge is Power, Than a God Am I: Man's Technological Road to Redemption

If Knowledge is Power, Than a God Am I: Man’s Technological Road to Redemption -

A Less-Than-Perfect Review by a Mere Mortal

           

 

            When people think of the relationship between religion and technology, the two are often seen as opposing forces: faith vs. fact.  However, if one were to dig just below the surface soil in which the tree of life we’ve come to know as technology roots itself, one would discover religious belief as the primary yet overlooked nutrient.  David F. Noble is a professor and historian currently of York University in Toronto and visiting professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California.  His resume also includes a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Drexel University, as well as once being a curator of modern technology at the Smithsonian Institution.  With several publications under his belt, it’s safe to say that yeah, this guy is just that good.  In his book The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention, Noble uses a historical approach in explaining the relationship of religion and technology through a thorough yet concise examination of man’s documented religious intention behind his pursuit of technological progress.

            Upon first reading the book’s preface in which Noble explains the beginning inspirations of this particular text, I was highly intrigued to find out he would tackle more than simply the relationship of religion and technology, by instead speaking of said relationship as being mankind’s evolution through the desire of godly ascension.  Due to profound advancements in technology, man rests upon the precipice of such power once thought as being only befitting of a god.  Physicist Richard Seed, unheard by many in his 1998 statement regarding cloning and the reprogramming of DNA as being an evolutionary step towards becoming one with God, confirmed for Noble that much of man’s advancements in technology have been primarily fueled by the desire for religious redemption in regaining the paradise lost in man’s restriction to an imperfect mortal world.  It is therefore Noble’s intention with The Religion of Technology “to demonstrate that the present enchantment with things technological"the very measure of modern enlightenment"is rooted in religious myths and ancient imaginings,” (3) and by recognizing this, we can be more aware as we move forward in our technological pursuit and “learn to disabuse ourselves of the other-worldly dreams that lie at the heart of our technological enterprise, in order to begin to redirect our astonishing capabilities toward more worldly and humane ends” (6).

            The text is organized into eleven chapters presented in two parts.  The first part, “Technology and Transcendence,” begins with the introduction of man’s “divine likeness,” the idea of man being inherently divine as in accordance with the religious belief that God made man in his own image and therefore perfect and all-powerful.  As Noble continues through the next chapters of Part I, he offers insight into some of the leading technological minds of civilization’s early history.  As it turns out according to those guys, even though Adam and Eve really screwed up our solid gig in paradise, God was merciful enough to give us a sort of “Get Out of Jail Free Card” through our astounding brain power and technological ingenuity. (It’s okay, Adam. I was never too good at Monopoly either.)  The trick of it all would be unlocking and mastering such power"only then could man once again lay claim to paradise.  Part I ends with “The New Eden” as Noble refers to it, presenting proof again from some of history’s greatest figures.  Where Part I began with focusing on man himself, it ends with focusing on the new world man has created from centuries of attempting to retain divinity through innovation.  Although it was popular belief that technology would play a major role in man’s deliverance, figures such as Karl Marx and Edward Bellamy provided another perspective that warned against such blind and fervent excitement of mechanical progress.  In Marx’s case, he argued against such for religion as well, deeming it “the “opiate” of the masses"and the capitalist use of machinery [degraded] and [enslaved] human labour” (87).  This did not, however, stop him too from depending upon the transcendental promises of technology for the betterment of mankind.  Bellamy, like Marx, argued both for and against the religious state of technology.  Noble quotes Bellamy’s Equality in a tasteful conclusion of Part I:

“This craze for more and more and ever greater and wider inventions for economic purposes, coupled with the apparent complete indifference as to whether mankind derived any ultimate benefit from them or not […] can only be understood by regarding it as one of those strange epidemics of insane excitement which have been known to affect whole populations at certain periods, especially of the middle ages.  Rational explanation it has none” (100).

            “Part II: Technologies of Transcendence” starts with a chapter covering one of the most anticipated yet feared technological advances in human history: the possible “Armageddon” through atomic weapons.  This chapter strongly echoes Noble’s well-chosen Bellamy quote.  In man’s mass hysteria to advance as quickly as possible to higher levels of progress, we now teeter on the edge of our own destruction coupled with the conflicting tensions of deliverance and damnation.  Where Oppenheimer saw death in the atomic bomb, William Laurence of The New York Times saw “a new era […] the Birth of the World” (107), indicating the still blending combination of annihilation and salvation (113).  Man’s awe of himself in the creation of such power fed religious fervor in the belief of an approaching apocalypse and therefore progression toward the ultimate power of God.  Mankind’s ego was to ascend next into somewhat of sainthood among the stars as space exploration saw liftoff.  Despite our ability to send a man far enough away from our own planet so that he may squint his eyes and pretend to squish our lovely blue rock between his heavenly fingers, there is just no pleasing us (as giggle-worthy as such an experience might be).  Noble next examines man’s discontent with the intellect and ingenuity that allowed his transcendence over the centuries.  Artificial intelligence is still on the brink of the new modern, promising more efficient thought processes through not only the symbiotic relationship of man and machine but also through the hope of the still-distant AI technology that would enable a machine to think like a human.  Furthermore, the concept of the complete assimilation of man’s mind with machine could mean the immortality that man has been obsessing over all this time (160).  Another level to attaining immortality through technology is through the advancement of genetic engineering as explained in Noble’s final chapter.  René Descartes introduced the concept that the body is a machine itself.  Thus the curing of disease and the full transformation and reproduction of the human body could be attained through the extensive study of its processes (173).  Through genetic engineering, man could have complete power over creation.

            To conclude his text, Noble raises the issue that the redemption of man to his original God-like state was not meant to be universal as most minorities have, for centuries, been excluded from the ideal.  Thus, man’s religious pursuit of divinity through technology has been an incomplete and romanticized perspective, self-serving to those in power of such, yet not simply for self-service.  As Noble states:

“When people wonder why the new technologies so rarely seem adequately to meet their human and social needs, they assume it is because of the greed and lust for power that motivate those who design and deploy them.  Certainly, this has much to do with it.  But it is not the whole of the story.  On a deeper cultural level, these technologies have not met basic human needs because, at bottom, they have never really been about meeting them.  They have been aimed rather at the loftier goal of transcending such mortal concerns altogether” (206-7).

            David F. Noble’s The Religion of Technology is certainly a significant text for anyone that wishes to gain insight into the evolution of man and his history, as it represents, rather than the next level of technology, the next level of technological reason and where to go from here.  Noble suggests that instead of mindlessly pursuing century-old religious excursions of fantasy and escapism, we put our efforts into more fruitful and productive endeavors that will not only see the continued evolution of man but allow us to truly value our shared existence in this reality.  Such a shift in values would require a complete reworking of the world as we know it “and presupposes that we disabuse ourselves of our inherited other-worldly propensities in order to embrace anew our one and only earthly existence” (208). If we were to do so, I think we would find that we already exist in a paradise all our own and it is more beautiful and perfect than we could possibly imagine.