Technology is advancing at a speed that is hard for us to wrap our minds around. Artificial intelligence is making art and writing papers for students, even Snapchat has released its own version of AI and is encouraging its users to befriend it.
A biotech company named Colossal says they plan to reincarnate the wooly mammoth by 2027. It remains to be seen whether that happens, but the existence of such a promise is bewildering. We’re also witnessing major advancements in the world of virtual reality, most notably Mark Zuckerberg’s “Metaverse”. All of these to a certain degree are examples of humans “playing God”. The rapidness of advancement in these technologies demands that questions be asked regarding potential negative impacts and future regulations.
Who am I to say whether “playing God” is a bad thing, perhaps the world I’m living in now is just a much more evolved creation of some Zuckerburg type dude from another planet. Hopefully not, because that would be pretty lame, but a part of me does take comfort in that idea.
Growing up I was instilled with religious values that I give some credit to in making me the thoughtful and empathetic person I am today. But it also made me unnecessarily hard on myself in ways that I had to unlearn. As a kid I’d often ask myself who is this “God” thing and whose to say I can’t disagree with it? So, Imagining God as Mark Zuckerburg really just solidifies that thought in my mind. I’m like “Okay Zuck, this is a pretty impressive world you created here and I appreciate you including me in it but you and I have our own ways of thinking and that’s cool”.
This is my first year back at Cortland after taking a couple of years off. Before I took a break I was a political science major and when I returned I decided to major in communications and minor in anthropology.
I wanted to become better at communicating so I chose communications (pretty sure I nailed that one). I chose to minor in anthropology because it has some similarities to political science but I find it less divisive and I find the history of anthropology more interesting. I also chose these subjects because science and spirituality are often viewed as oppositional to one another but I think these subjects can be useful in exploring how we can combine innovation with tradition.
Learning about some of humans oldest belief systems in some of my anthropology classes has been enlightening for me. A common theme of these belief systems is that the followers have a strong connection to nature. For example, many of the oldest belief systems have elements of animism.
Animism has been named by some as “the original religion”. Those who believe in animistic belief systems are most commonly part of hunter-gatherer societies and believe that they and the nature that surrounds them are connected. For example, in Inuit culture a belief is held that there is a certain spirit that exists in everything called “inua”. In this culture and countless others, nature is not something that humans act upon and extract from. Instead, humans are part of nature, they work together with their surroundings, and treat the land they exist with as extensions of themselves.
Science attempts to define nature through observation and experimentation. It’s important that we continue pursuing our understanding of nature through science, but it’s always going to result in our best guess. There are dangers to overvaluing science, as there is still far more science can’t explain than it can. To quote Terrence Mckenna, “Modern science is based on the principle: Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.”
Scientific discoveries have also been crucial in developing the technology that surrounds us. We use this technology to flood ourselves with information and mental stimulation via the media we consume. As a result, each one of our individual experiences are greatly affected by the multiplicity of voices penetrating our consciousness. This effects our outlook of the world around us and makes it harder to decipher what thoughts are truly our own. I think it could be beneficial to apply the animistic worldview to our technology, and view it as an extension of ourselves.
In some ways technology has begun to define itself this way. Algorithms on apps like YouTube and TikTok examine our habits and recommend us videos they think we’ll watch. The accuracy can sometimes be scary, but by viewing this technology as extensions of ourselves we can claim more personal responsibility and rather than mindlessly consuming, we can use these technologies to shape our minds in healthy ways.
Technology is advancing exponentially and as this growth continues it becomes increasingly more important that we respect the impact technology has on us. By being more conscious of its impact we can maximize the potential for collaboration and connection and build a better world.
