To Become GODS? | Transhumanism and Orthodoxy | Christian Reactions & Perspectives | YBT009 CWP051
Feb 16, 2024Episode 51
Cloud of Witnesses cast and crew
Could the next step in human evolution be an upgrade installed in our brains? Prepare to navigate the thought-provoking waters of transhumanism as we consider the future of human enhancement through technology. With the advancements like Neuralink, the line between humanity and machinery blurs, raising profound questions about consciousness and identity. Through the lens of Orthodox Christianity, we delve into the spiritual implications of such technology, balancing the seductive promise of augmented capabilities with the wisdom of ancient spiritual traditions.
Embark on a journey where science fiction edges into reality, and the quest for godlike powers meets the humility of spiritual growth. We grapple with the human attraction to the metaphysical, the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and the enduring hope for transcendence beyond our physical forms. As the conversation unfolds, we contrast the allure of instantaneous superhuman abilities with the Orthodox Christian path of self-denial and prayer, ultimately illuminating Christ's embodiment of true power through humility. Join us for a compelling exploration that intertwines progress, spirituality, and morality, and challenges us to reflect on the essence of our humanity in an age of unprecedented technological advancement.
Join in the conversation! We love discussing with you in the comments.
*****
Please consider supporting Cloud of Witnesses Radio! https://www.patreon.com/CloudofWitnessesRadio/posts
Could the next step in human evolution be an upgrade installed in our brains? Prepare to navigate the thought-provoking waters of transhumanism as we consider the future of human enhancement through technology. With the advancements like Neuralink, the line between humanity and machinery blurs, raising profound questions about consciousness and identity. Through the lens of Orthodox Christianity, we delve into the spiritual implications of such technology, balancing the seductive promise of augmented capabilities with the wisdom of ancient spiritual traditions.
Embark on a journey where science fiction edges into reality, and the quest for godlike powers meets the humility of spiritual growth. We grapple with the human attraction to the metaphysical, the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and the enduring hope for transcendence beyond our physical forms. As the conversation unfolds, we contrast the allure of instantaneous superhuman abilities with the Orthodox Christian path of self-denial and prayer, ultimately illuminating Christ's embodiment of true power through humility. Join us for a compelling exploration that intertwines progress, spirituality, and morality, and challenges us to reflect on the essence of our humanity in an age of unprecedented technological advancement.
Join in the conversation! We love discussing with you in the comments.
*****
Please consider supporting Cloud of Witnesses Radio! https://www.patreon.com/CloudofWitnessesRadio/posts
Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!
Speaker 1:
Recording in progress. I'm really nervous, f***.
Speaker 2:
The God of the Sun and the Old, the Supreme being.
Speaker 1:
I am not an atheist. I've never been an atheist. I've never been an atheist.
Speaker 2:
People are too afraid to believe that they have control over their own actions.
Speaker 3:
We are cloud of witnesses radio.
Speaker 1:
Let's do it. Lizad John, let's do it. Hi, I'm Jeremy. Hey, I'm Nick.
Speaker 2:
Hey, I'm John.
Speaker 3:
This is cloud of witnesses radio.
Speaker 1:
This is our new mini series called yes but.
Speaker 3:
But it's not even a mini series. Hopefully we'll be doing this for a long time to come.
Speaker 1:
A real series yeah we've got a really really interesting series. Yeah, big series. It's an interesting clip today that we're going to be looking at. It's all about transhumanism, immortality, placing your skull with a circuit board. Let's check it out.
Speaker 3:
Which we can all. We can all get on board with right yeah motherboard, the motherboard. God, just start hitting brother.
Speaker 1:
Someone ultimately does get a neural link installed, what will take place? What exactly?
Speaker 2:
is it basically implanted in your?
Speaker 1:
skull.
Speaker 3:
I'd be a boy, sign me up.
Speaker 1:
Replace, put the neural like device in there in principle, Joshua Graham approves. So it could be something that helps your eyesight, like if you return to your eyesight, even if you've luster up.
Speaker 2:
Really, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
Hearing okay, restore little functionalities.
Speaker 3:
I love the music in the background.
Speaker 2:
Somebody who's a quadriplegic to full functionality like the cool ground you know Well, so maybe slightly better.
Speaker 1:
Slightly better over time, and you wouldn't even know that somebody helped fixing any kind of brain injury.
Speaker 3:
That's yeah, lord, have mercy. It's fascinating on so many levels. Joe Rogan cracks me up, you know, because I feel like in some ways, elon Musk is he's just riffing. Elon Musk, don't get me wrong, he's brilliant and I like a lot of what he says. Right, it's? Yes, you know Elon Musk, a lot of things he says, but there's a lot of butts as well, and I feel like Joe Rogan is just like anything he says. He's like yeah, really wow, you can do that tomorrow. You know, like when he doesn't realize, like yeah, maybe hypothetically, you know that guy's too much.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's entertaining stuff, but I can't deny that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, you can't deny.
Speaker 3:
So, if I can start this off, guys, this conversation off, because I actually, kind of ironically, I study philosophy in college Some of you guys know that and one of the philosophers we read was this philosopher who was named Chalmers, and he became famous for the reason he was. We were studying him because he had kind of really popped onto the scene. He was talking about basically consciousness, right? And can consciousness be experienced outside of the human experience? And one of his kind of analogies that he would draw is and it's tied directly to this video he said okay, look, if you were to take one simple little thin apps right in your brain, just one little one out of the gazillion that are in there, you just take one and replace it with one little computer chip, right?
Speaker 3:
He says is anyone gonna say that this is not a human being? Still right? And think we'd all agree. Yeah, no, it's still human, right. Just one little chip, right? He's like okay, well then what if you replace two synapses Now with two little tiny little chips? Clearly it's still a human being, none of us are gonna deny it. You're still yourself. All that chip is doing is passing an electrical signal along, just like the regular synapses do.
Speaker 1:
Why am I scared?
Speaker 3:
I know right, and the idea is as well. Okay, take that forward, you know a gazillion times okay. Well then, what if half your brain is these chips and they're all just doing the same thing? He argues that because that, ultimately, if you can do that, you'd have to still conclude that you're human, you're still you, you're still your consciousness. So I want to throw that out there, because I think that's behind a lot of what's going on in that video this idea of this chip that can Save and solve all your medical problems.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, lord of Mercy, this stuff really needs to be tackled from an Orthodox Christian perspective. It's out there, people are talking about it, people are chomping at the bit to really figure out what's. You know what's down the pike, if you ask me. And it is, it's much like a Thriller, horror movie, in the sense that it's both exciting and very scary. And I I say exciting in a ironic sense because I think that as Orthodox Christians it's imperative that we would see this as a Serious, serious falling away from the holistic Spiritual worldview that we have as Orthodox Christians. So I say exciting ironically. I say it exciting for those who maybe don't believe right, and for them it might be this exciting, horrific story where they're, you know, the brave new world basically. But anyways, I don't want to launch off, I'm just kind of laying that as kind of my perspective of taking this in.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, john, we're gonna add something there real quick.
Speaker 2:
Well, I was gonna say To the question if you replace this sign apps with a chip or, yeah, a couple or more, right, is it still a human being? Well, I think this question comes from a more lock-in Anthropology, where they assume that human beings or persons are reducible to minds, and in this case, in modern times, it's reducible to brain, brain matter or a biomass that allows you to Cogitate ideas, and that's not what a human is Fundamentally. A human being to us is body, soul and spirit, amen. So even if we were to tweak the brain itself, part of the biomass that we possess in our bodies, it's a twisting of the body, but it doesn't reduce the humanity, it's just humanity in a different mode, in a different manner. It's twisted, it's broken, like the rest of the fallen world mmm.
Speaker 3:
I, I love that, john, and I think that's gonna deserve some conversation. I want to buttress this a little bit with you know, these notions of Nick. You mentioned the chomping at the bit right to get this kind of thing and I think there's so much truth to that. You know, and I would point to you know, vr, right, when VR came out, everyone wanted to do it. You know, there, you see people you know to this day I still do they're in the living room right now with their VR goggles on and they're doing, having their fun, do whatever they're doing, right.
Speaker 3:
I think about remember smart glasses. I think Google came out with smart glasses a while back and you can, you know, see things up here where your eyes look. It's the computer people are. Those are like. You know, everyone wanted them. They were like only in beta and they gave them to certain people you know in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 3:
And then I think about well, let's take a step back from that. Right, smartwatches right, I'm sure you I don't have one, but I'm sure many, you know many people that have smartwatches. Right, they're used all the time your Fitbit, your this or that, your Apple Watch. But then you go back even another step Right here. Yeah, I gladly I Line up right. Give me my cell phone. I want a top of the line, I want my good cell phone, which we all know. Right, this is.
Speaker 3:
Google knows where I'm at at all times. You know what I mean. All the apps, this. They know what I buy. They know what I mean, what kind of foods I like, right, all these things. They know where I go to church, and Yet I do this willingly, not even willingly. I Want to. In a sense, you're right, I want a good phone because I want to be able to do all these things, and I guess what I'm getting at is Some of this stuff. Right, the music was sounds a little funny and you think about someone doing putting something in your brain. I Think people absolutely will line up when this technology actually is released. I think there is.
Speaker 1:
You guys agree well, yeah, if I may say, you know, going back to what I was saying, that it doesn't align with our worldview. The part where we could say yes To this is that, yes, people want a savior. By the end of the clip you get this feeling that Elon Musk is a Messiah bringing a miraculous Fountain of youth. Right, oh, the paralyzed, oh the Impedant. In whatever you know, however, someone is handicapped, right, it'll be cured. It sounds very Messy, annick, to some extent right. And the question is at what point you know to play a, to flip the table on the question of the synapse is at what point does technology, instead of helping us, hurt us in the sense that, in what's? How much does it take With technology, to take away our spiritual worldview? Because how can we disagree that a paralyzed person to be helped through a computer chip, right, I mean, how can we say that's wrong to some extent?
Speaker 3:
How is that we do it right now in some ways. Yeah Right, there's certain medical treatments use electrolysis and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:
But then the question is for me I would pose is, to some extent, okay, we can agree with some of these things, some of these things, but at what point do we only have our eyes on Earth and not on heaven because we have the power of the gods?
Speaker 1:
in our hands right and I think that's to some extent. That's the real question. That's the real horse, that's not the cart. If you want to put the horse in front of the cart and have the, that that is the driving question is why are we chomping at the bit to have these earthly questions, these heavenly questions, answered in earthly terms? I think that's the real question, because at the end of the video it's very messianic, if you ask me, it has very strong religious, spiritual, metaphysical themes being played.
Speaker 3:
Anyways, sorry, I know I love it, john, go ahead, then I'm going to go.
Speaker 2:
There's a quote from a pretty popular tabletop game and slash video game now called Warhammer 40k, and there's a faction in that game called the Adeptus Mechanicus, and this is a cult that is dedicated to the worship of this thing called the machine spirit, and they believe that the spirit pervades every technology in the Imperium of man. It's overblown and out over the top on purpose to demonstrate the absurdity of this. But there's a quote from a trailer that goes like from the moment I discovered the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I aspire to the purity of the blessed machine, your kind cleaving to your flesh. Your kind cleaves to your flesh, but as if it will not decay and fail you, and one day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the machine is immortal.
Speaker 1:
That's such a. It's very.
Speaker 2:
Gnostic too.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I mean, yeah, there is that the yes. The thing that we'd say yes to is death, of course, a temporality. Death itself is unnatural. We are fleeing from death, and Father Josiah Trenum has made some really good talks about transhumanism and its presuppositions, and the presupposition, ultimately, is that we don't like death, we want to escape from it, we want to get it, we want to get away from mortality and we want to find the means to do so and to make our life longer or permanent. So immortality is again. The desire for immortality is baked into the system. It's built into our nature to seek after life, and life everlasting.
Speaker 2:
There are different means that people seek to attain that.
Speaker 3:
And so, you know, I loved everything that you both said. It's, you know, this Elon Musk as this Messiah figure, in the sense that you know he can, in the sense, give you that eternal life, right, because did you catch that that one moment where he said not only heal the paraplegic, but maybe even making better? Yeah, right, that's the transhumanism, right? Like you said, john, this flesh it's all right, yeah, but if we can improve it, right.
Speaker 3:
Yes, right, the bionic person if we can make, if you put my bionic arm here, then I can really punch you, or then I can lift up a car. And wouldn't that be useful? Right, it's even better than being human, right? And I think that gets back, like Nick, you had mentioned as well. We've talked about another episode. What is the desire of the human? Not only that, that eternal life, john, that you're talking about, but it's that transcendence. Right, we do desire to that. There's a transcendence to reality, but that requires an orientation to truth. And for me to want some bionic armor I can lift up cars, that's a want. But is it what God intended, right? Is it a need? Is it, is it needful for my salvation and does it orient me to Christ? And I think if the answer to that question is no, then we've already left the path of wisdom.
Speaker 1:
And I think, yeah, that's why it goes back to that question of reversing the synapse. Question you asked is you know at what point does all this technology replace the Christian spiritual worldview? And next thing you know you have this it's still a spiritual worldview, but it's been completely flipped upside down into this cyborg.
Speaker 3:
Messiah. Exactly what spirit? Yeah, what's, what's exactly?
Speaker 1:
So it's very interesting that there's these parallels and still you've got questions of afterlife, you have questions of immortality, you have questions of messianic figures, messianic prophecies, if you want to call it that. Right, there's all these things and it's people think that they've that, they've left this behind, but still it's there, you know right.
Speaker 2:
There it's used to inhabit idols made from stone and clay and wood and gold. In the ancient times there were stories of the Saints that would mention something about a possession of these objects. But now that we have a machine that is capable of interacting with us In a much more sophisticated way, the possibilities become even more frightening, because spirits can't interact with matter. Spirits can interact with human bodies. If they can interact with human bodies, which is far superior to these impersonal objects, then you can believe for sure that these things can be used as a vehicle for, yeah, something spiritual and dark.
Speaker 3:
God forbid, God forbid you know this is gonna sound like a non sequitur, but there's a point in, as I promised, let's have a conversation with my mom the other day, and she's you know, she watches these like UFO TV shows, right? I didn't know whatever, and I always I'm always like well, why are you watching that stuff? You know what I mean. She loves it though, but but one of the conversations we had is you know, she talks about these sightings and people say you know, you know, I saw these aliens and this and that, and what I can't help but think about, is that that same concept that we're talking about right here and now, which is, if there are aliens from some other planet, they're not telling us about Christ? And I hate to sound like a broken record, but if anything is a distraction from our, from our main purpose in, in becoming like Christ, in emanating him right, sorry, imitating, in imitating Christ, then it's, it's of the devil, right?
Speaker 2:
I believe it was talked about in the homily today.
Speaker 3:
exactly all things that come from God are good, and if it's not, if it's something other than it's not from God, yeah, and so you know as much as I Myself. I'm a sci-fi nerd myself, I love science fiction, I love these types of Conversations and I love cyborgs and movies and all that. Yeah, but ultimately, if it's not taking me closer to God, if it's not humbling me, it's of the devil.
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, you know what's funny is that Sci-fi is becoming more and more reality and I feel like this video that we watched, this should be a thought experiment pitch for a movie, right. But I mean this is stuff. This is Elon Musk. I mean you know how many cars do we see on the freeway owned and made and manufactured Through his name, right? So I mean, this is this is no, this is not fringe. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:
So I don't know.
Speaker 1:
It's very interesting to see that in one sense it's very cutting edge, this line of thought, but then at the same time I feel like people are kind of very passive about being boiled in this water, you know what I mean it's kind of like well, no, no, I'll just, you know, I'll go to church or I'll do my thing and they'll do their thing.
Speaker 1:
But at the same time, everyone's like, yeah, I can't wait to like see what the next, like, what can we do? What's our next superpower? It's, it's this very weird, like we're very passively. Yes, timeline, and it's kind of scary because it's like I wish you know, I remember talking about this, you know 2019. I'm like guys, does anyone see like where things is, think where things are headed? You know and everyone's like yeah, well and not everyone. But I don't know, it's just very interesting this kind of activeness and passiveness at the same time.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's like Everybody wants these superpowers and amazing abilities to go beyond their limits. People want to reach for the sky. What they're seeking is godhood. They want to become gods. They want to become something more than a human. They don't want to be tied to the Gravitational limits that we currently have, and so they want to fly. They want to shoot lasers out of their eyes, they want to be able to lift heavy objects, they want to thunderclap Trees away and they want to, you know, levitate objects with their mind. They want to force, choke their enemies, something right. People want to transcend their limits, and so that Comes together with their desire for immortality.
Speaker 2:
In orthodoxy we recognize the desire for immortality, for eternal life and subsistence, permanent subsistence. But human beings also have a desire for potential, for more potential to increase their potential, to gain more power, in a sense, more possibilities, the more possibilities to enact good in the world, and God did put us on this earth to do that to cultivate the good, to till and soil and cultivate and to grow and to increase and to be fruitful and to multiply. That's a good thing, and ultimately we were made in God's image and likeness, and so we were created to be Godlike. So that desire for divinity, it is natural there is a primordial element to it, and people are again alongside immortality. They are seeking that Godlikeness that we're all missing.
Speaker 3:
They want the Godlikeness yes, they want the Godlikeness, john, without the sacrifice. They want the transcendence. They want the Godlikeness without the repentance, without having to turn from their ways presently.
Speaker 1:
They want to eat the forbidden fruit. They want to become God without listening to God.
Speaker 3:
That's exactly it, Nick. I was thinking the same thing, John. As you were talking, I was thinking of what the serpent said to Eve, that original it's like. No, actually, Eve, he just didn't want you to become like him. You know what I mean. It goes back to that very poor base desire of man to be able to have that, to be able to have that which Orthodoxy offers. That's the ironic thing, Right, Because you think about from glory to glory. This is one of my favorite things about Orthodox eschatology, and it's such a beautiful thing, and that is God is infinite. Infinite. We will never, ever, fully understand and know and have. We'll never hit a wall and say that's it, we finally got there. It took 38 gazillion eons, but we finally figured out God, he got it.
Speaker 1:
That's great, it's amazing.
Speaker 3:
It's amazing. We will continually grow and grow and grow in the knowledge of God and through that, I believe in this participation with God, in his righteousness, in that God created all these things. We will have new bodies. It's an incredible thing and that is truth. That's reality, and you don't need cyborgs or Elon Musk to get to it. You do need Christ.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's really their option. That's option one, and then their option number two is like a decomposed version. It's like this rotted flesh trying to grasp for grasp for error or something. It's this you know. Going back to what John said that you know Saint Paesios. He said that God would give us powers, but because we have egos, our miracle working powers would become black magic.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we become Dr Doom.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly. So it's very interesting that, god, we become Saruman? Yeah, exactly. But if we humble ourselves and get ourselves out of the way, that's when God grants us the gift of prophecy, miracle working, clairvoyance, et cetera. Right, what is one of the main virtues, the queen or crown of the virtues that many of the saints say? It's humility. Humility, right. It allows us to get out of the way and allows God to work through us, synergically. Synergically.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so usually it's funny. But with regards to powers and gaining superpowers in comic books, typically you're either born with it or you're bit by a spider and you immediately receive those powers, or you're injected with a serum yeah, or you're like Tony Stark and you work your way up to building this amazing robot suit, right. So there's a bit of work ethic for some heroes who have powers, but there's no cultivation of virtue Right In our paradigm. In order to gain the power to move mountains and resurrect the dead and to see angels, it's humility. Humility is the key to those divine powers to move mountains and to color the sky. In other words, divinity is only accessible through the virtues, through kindheartedness and charity.
Speaker 3:
I can't help but think about our patron saint, saint Anthony the Great. To point exactly what you're saying, john, he highlighted is one of the most powerful right of saints of the entire church in terms of his ability to transform people's lives and change the world Right. And how did he do it? By going to the middle of nowhere and praying.
Speaker 3:
Yeah right, and, and, and Denying himself that humility you talked about, nick, right, yeah? And yet he's a man, by God's grace, that we're still, to this day, trying to learn from it, to emulate and, to you know, to ever achieve that kind of power, like you said. That's, that's real power.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's the stumbling block right, christ himself, the icon behind me. He is both the panto crotter, the all-powerful, but yet right, the famous icon, as well, of Extreme humility the most the all-powerful one submits himself to extreme humility and in this Christmas season, to be incarnate in the most humble Situation possible. Really it's. It's unimaginable the the situation that he was born into. Yeah, both the meager situation of being born in a, a food trough, and then leaving his own country, his own people, because his king wanted to slaughter him, right? So what does he do? He sacrifices everyone in his generation and every male under two years of age on on the altar of his own ego To keep his power. Yep, yep.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, it's true, that's a great you know point. You have that. The creator of the universe, you know, god, the infinite God of all, deemed to empty himself, right, as scripture says, and Philippians, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant. Right, he's just For us and he think about the, the passion, right, what he endured on our behalf. I loved when, when he was being tempted in the wilderness and the devil said to him you know, I'll give you all of this right, you just just worship me, I'll give you, you know, the world, and or throw yourself off or forget what it was. I mean, I misspoke the part where he's saying to him you know, jump off, and Christ eludes to. I could have a legion of angels, right, defend me, like that Power, and yet he was willing to submit himself, even to death on the cross. It's, it is truly a juxtaposition of what power is, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:
indeed a stumbling block.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, a.
Speaker 1:
Stumbling block.
Speaker 3:
Yep. There's plenty of examples of kings, of emperors, who have actually passed by their firstborn son because they saw he didn't emulate what they wanted and they would give it to the second or the third or the fourth Time. That's a great point. Yeah, we can close it out. Then we'll just do a quick little ending, like we did last time. Yeah, right?
Speaker 2:
Yes, of course.
Speaker 3:
You guys. Thank you so much for listening today. It's been an absolute joy to discuss this, really, john, having you today. Thank you so much for joining us again. My name is Jeremy and Just want to leave you with the idea that when you watch the show the show black mirror You're carrying a black mirror in your pocket. Yeah, let's be mindful of that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, if I can just close off with one thing is keep your eyes above, keep your eyes looking heavenward. That's the way to be oriented by God's grace. Thank you guys.