I wrote this article as a result of a brief exchange that passed between another blogger and myself on her blog about the nature of modern technology and informational overload. I began discussing with her that her observations were reflective of several of the problems associated with God Technology and from her responses I understood that she did not really understand what I was speaking about. Which is completely understandable as the term is of my own coinage (I am not aware of anyone else using the term and especially not of using any related term as I define it) and I have, outside of discussions with a few close friends and closely guarded and tightly circulated papers, never before made the details of these ideas public.
But after the exchange described above I felt it would be easier to start to more widely publish these ideas and essays in order to avoid having to explain them at length every time I mention the term God Technology.
I have over the years developed several papers and essays regarding the ideas surrounding God Technology (and related theories and applications) but have always resisted fully discussing the term, or publishing my own theories concerning God Technology. But I’ve come to a point where I now feel it is the appropriate time.
So, after my exchange with Heather I sat down and wrote this basic introductory work to the theory.
If after reading this article you wish to comment, send me an email, or discuss these ideas here in more detail, please feel free to do so. I would both enjoy, and find interesting, the feedback of the public.
If you like this article please encourage your friends and family to read it as well and let me know what they think.
I’m also going to post this article to Digg. If you like the article then you can Digg it too.
This will be only the second article I have ever posted to Digg.
In the future I’m going to be posting other papers, theory papers, essays, and articles generally related to this subject. Sometimes on this site, the Missal, and sometimes on one of my other blogs, on the B-Reader, or in my newsletters. Perhaps also I will do some publishing in certain magazines and periodicals. But for now I am posting this introductory article here, so as to establish a foundation and basic definitional set for a more fully developed discussion of these ideas at a later time.
Jack.
An Introduction to God Technology: A Basic and Working Definition
God Technology is simply the theory I have had for years now concerning technology that mimics or replicates powers traditionally ascribed to God, and the stages by which that technology is manifested in human society, and what form that manifestation takes in each separate stage.
For instance the television is God Technology, though because we are so used to it and it is so ubiquitous few people ever think of it that way. But the television intercepts hidden and invisible and otherwise undetectable (without the use of technology) radio waves, in real time, which also are capable of carrying visual data and through use of an interface allows the viewer to see things occurring well beyond the range of their own optical senses. God can see distant places which no human could perceive because of sensory limitations, and yet now through devices like the television, internet, radio, radio antennas, satellite transmissions, cell phones, etc men can partially and practically mimic more and more of those same capabilities of perception and communication.
With computers men can accumulate, store, and replicate data that would normally be inaccessible to any ordinary individual, no matter the context, content, or volume of the data point.
Video and computer games allow people to enter virtual environmental mock-ups of the real world and practice real world skills in game form (though this application is rarely if ever fully and properly exploited by either player or game designer/manufacturer), thereby developing latent or nascent talents in an individual that might otherwise never be exploited or exercised. These skills of course in no way need necessarily be limited to "game skills in an artificial and unreal environment" but could also include the practice of real world mental, psychological, behavioral, spiritual, and (as control schemes and devices become ever more biologically and one day even genetically interactive) probably even physical skills.
And that's what I mean by God Technology. God has the ability to intercept, perceive and make use of, as well as decode and decrypt, huge amounts of data and information which no other individual or singular operative could possible perceive (because of sensory and physical limitations) and then discern or even create practical patterns in that informational background environment in a useful way. Instead of the general background radiation field of the universe, think of it as a General Background Informational and Data Field of the World.
Because there is currently so much data available in the world no human being, or even corporate cluster of human beings, can efficiently absorb and employ such a swell of information and such an array of indecipherable data patterns. Technologies are now being developed, and will continue to be developed, to sift this almost constant and ceaselessly changing data stream to better allow humans to perceive such patterns and to make better use of a stream that is moving far too fast and is far too large in volume for individuals to properly exploit. However much more work needs to be done in the area of developing technologies that make God-like data fields understandable and useful to the ordinary and average human consumer of information. Or even to the technical specialist.
If I may use a simplistic analogy, several centuries ago data streams were just that, small streams of basically disconnected data and information which were available to relatively few individuals who could make relatively little use of that data (in comparison to the full potential implications of the data) and could access that information in what was in effect only a very limited number of ways. A century ago that data began to collect in larger and larger tributaries and eventually into huge rivers, which might be compared analogously to the Mississippi or Amazon Rivers, or like the Nile.
Now data is clustered into huge, but as still not fully connected or linked, seas similar in many ways to the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. And these data seas are accessible at numerous points. But because these data seas are in such a constant state of flux, are so huge, and in some cases, still so difficult to access it is impossible for an individual to successfully fish that Sea for everything they want, or could even potentially make use of for simple reasons of physical limitations and geography. (I'm speaking about data and informational geography, not just physical geography.) And in some cases real geographic, political, and cultural barriers prevent "sea-hopping" from one body of data, information, and even intelligence, to another.
Eventually technologies will have to be developed to allow humans to better "fish" the Seas for what they want, can make use of, or to be able to better discern patterns and information hidden beneath the surface. Because soon enough those Seas of Data will become Oceans of Data, Information, and Intelligence.
But suffice it to say that God Technology is simply any technology that allows man to mimic powers and capabilities and abilities traditionally ascribed throughout history to God. To see the invisible, hear the silence, reduce distance, manipulate time and space, discern behavioral patterns, deduce intuitive answers and solutions in a real time fashion, solve complex problems interactively and/or near instantly, and so forth and so on. As a matter of fact most any piece of human technology can be used as God Technology if it is properly employed in that way and is thought about in that way. God Technology is not simply the technology itself, but the application and how it is employed.
I've written, or am in the process of writing, several papers on this and related subjects, such as:
"The Stages of God Technology in Human Historical, Cultural, and Scientific Development," "Private Intelligence and Investigative Networks," "Methods of Predicting, Anticipating, and Interdicting Individual Criminal Behavior," "Can God Technology Be Used Successfully Against International Criminal Cartels?" "Military Applications of God Technology," "Non Lethal and Less than Lethal God Technology," "God Communications (Transmitting and Transceiving as God Might)," "The Intelligence Applications of God Technologies," "Spiritual, Psychological, and Societal Implications of Mimicking the Capabilities of God in the Form of Human Technology," "Transferable Real World Skills: The Virtual Transference of Real Human Skills Through Game and Media," “God Technology and Animals: Developing Parallel Human Intelligence in Higher Animal Species,” along with a few other papers.
Eventually I hope to tie several of these related ideas into a sort of grand scheme or structure which will allow God Technology efforts in several spheres of human activity, such as the scientific, religious, artistic, cultural, military, intelligence, law enforcement, exploratory, communicative, and academic arenas to proceed in an interrelated fashion of cross fertilization.
For now I'll just close this introductory article with a simple, Basic and Working Definition of God Technology:
God Technology: Any technology or technological device that allows the user or users to mimic, imitate, or replicate those abilities, capabilities, powers, and capacities historically and previously ascribed only to God. God Technology is not simply the matter of the functional capability of the technology itself, but also the manner and method of the applications of the various functional capabilities of a given technology.
© JWG, Jr. 2006
Post Script: For the interested Reader you may also wish to read a rather fascinating and extensive essay by Neal Stephenson (with secondary source annotations) which indirectly addresses somewhat related matters.
See: The Command Line of God
1 comment:
I think the Israelites may have hit this on the head 4000 years ago
with the tree of knowledge. Even they recognized back then with their
limited data pools that human beings will always seek to harness the
powers of gods. And as Adam ate fruit, I use a computer or a
television. This may be why humanity created gods--to give us an
example to strive for. By imagining the limitless things God could
do, humans were essentially imagining the limitless things we have
potential to do if we only learn how.
But that could not be the only reason the notion of a higher being was
conceived. The conception of God and His powers also served as a sort
of reservoire (to continue with water the example) to bolster the
small wells of data availabe to people at the time. We might look at
God's reservoir as a body of salt water, while the data being built up
by humans is fresh water--meaning that the presence of the huge body
of water was a comfort to people fearing a drought while
simultaneously failing to provide any practical use (as far as
consumption goes.) Looking at it this way, the people responsible for
identifying data take scoops out of God's reservoire, boiling it down
to that which is useful to us and adding it to our growing streams and
seas of data. As they take more scoops from God's reservoire, His
shrinks and shrinks until it need no longer serve as a source of
comfort to us (1--because it has become so small; 2--because we have
enough fresh water that we don't worry about going thirsty.) So as
God Technology progresses, the need for a god regresses. It makes you
wonder how much longer people will continue to drink salt water when
there is so much fresh water available to all.
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