The biblical myth of the Tower of Babel has numerous interpretations, but basically, it is a story of people building a tower to reach the heavens. Here, I will use the tale as a metaphor: Building the Tower of Babel is like humans building the World Wide Web, the Internet, and Artificial Intelligence. As a species, we are coming to the point where it has become so much a part of our existence that most of us cannot function without it.
Where I’m going with this is so complex that I’m wondering if I should even approach writing about the subject. Credentials? I have none except that I’ve lived a full life for almost eighty-eight years, lived in various cultures, and raised amazing children, who are smart, hard-working, and admired by their peers. I also read. A lot.
Dr. Sally J. Goerner, in her book After the Clockwork Universe, gives a history of eras of thinking/reasoning and goes on to unravel the most recent Darwinian method that we have used for so long. (By the way, I must reassure you that Dr. Goerner is a far better writer than the reviewer linked above. She uses simple language to help explain some very complex ideas, and her book is filled with diagrams that help. The book After the Clockwork Universe is out of print, but you can find copies in thrift bookshops where I found mine or perhaps in well-stocked libraries. It is well worth reading!)
Amid all the other things happening in our world, we are in the midst of a cultural shift that is waking us up to possibilities never before imagined. An awakening is occurring in all areas of our civilization: economics, science, politics, and even spirituality.
Goerner summarizes the cultural shifts of the past and then contrasts the current culture, the machine world (also known as “the clockwork universe”), to what is happening now. We are shifting to thinking about a CONNECTED UNIVERSE, also called a WEB universe.
It seems complicated when we think of the universe's order, including our world's, as a web, but this is my understanding of this new cultural shift.
As we learn more about the Universe and its micro- and macrostructure, we discover that it is made of the same elements throughout. These elements may vary in how they combine or when and where they appear, but in the aggregate, they are the only ones that make up our Universe.
Of course, nothing is simple. Theories abound about multiple universes, parallel universes, wormholes, and on and on, much of it based on pseudoscience and wishful thinking. I’m not dismissing these theories but for now,
Let’s look at what we know:
Our Universe had a beginning. Countless videos on YouTube describe how this happened and what is continuing to happen in its evolution.
Life on our small planet has been almost eradicated and then restarted at least five times, leaving just a remnant to jumpstart the next iteration of life. We are the only known life in our Universe. The only one. No other has been found or proven to exist.
Many believe we are in the sixth extinction now and blame the proliferation of humans for causing the climate crisis that is wiping out wild creatures all over the world.
Our Creator seems to be trying very hard to make this work. Something is at stake that we just aren’t grasping….
What we must do going forward, and it won’t be easy.
Stop all wars wherever they are happening. Now!
We must promote peace throughout the entire world, and that means replacing those governments that are oppressing their citizens through misinformation, invasive surveillance, violence, and other means.
Create ways for cybercriminals to “come in from the cold” and to help build and improve rather than destroy the virtual world called Cyberspace that we now can’t live without.
Make the penalties for Black-Hat hacking so severe that it won’t be worth the risk.
We must give law enforcement the resources it needs to track hackers internationally and bring them to justice in every country where damage was caused.
Root out conspiracy theories and misinformation. For example, Sean Kirkpatrick, the first director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the U.S. Department of Defense, writes in the April 2024 issue of the Scientific American about how the United States government has spent countless dollars tracking UFO reports and has found that not one of them is credible. Yet policy-makers continue to fantasize about aliens and unidentified flying objects.
We must be very careful who we vote into office at any level. Vet them carefully based on their background, beliefs, values, and connections.
We can no longer afford to waste the tremendous variety of intelligence that inhabits this planet, whether it is mammals, mollusks, birds, plants, or something else. Humans have evolved their intellects to accomplish many things, and in our arrogance, we have negated the many kinds of intellects that have evolved in other forms of life right alongside us.
Conclusion
It has taken me too long to think this through and write down my thoughts, so I will end here even though there is still much to say. I would appreciate your help in further developing the concept of the Connected Universe and what it means for our existence.
You see… I want to preserve our species and allow it to thrive. Do you?
Incredibly fascinating. You are amazing. I need to ponder all of this some more.