Biochemistry & the Soul

Riots Against Technology

penguin heading to the mountains. See appendix for explanation

In 1830, a French tailor by the name of Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a sewing machine that used the chain stitch; the first such machine to replicate sewing by hand.  By 1841, he had a factory with over 80 machines and a contract with the French army for uniforms.  The factory was destroyed by a group of French tailors… Thimonnier never recovered and died in poverty.

This story struck a deep chord in me, a chord with plenty of overtones.

Tone #1 Humanity must follow this technology train all the way down to some wretched bottom.

Tone #2 Something in us is repulsed by this endless incorporation of technology

Looms in Lowell MA c1880

Why is technology so attractive to us? I was taught that in the 18th & 19th century people left the dreary, back-breaking, boring life on the farm to come to the exciting city and work in factories. I did plenty of farm work in my youth. I have not done any “factory work”. Is working all day making steel barrels in a room with oily air really less dreary than taking care of horses or bailing hay? In the 1800’s these factory workers tended the machines for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Perhaps the new workers only came because rich white guys swindled the gullible with promises of riches. I think there are other forces involved. There is something about technology itself that attracts us, even compels us.

Ford Factory c1920

Overtone 1: Resistance is futile

Of course the sewing machine decimated the art & profession of tailors. What were the French tailors actually rioting against? Didn’t they know that resistance to technological advance is futile?

People have been protesting machines regularly since the industrial revolution. The famous “Luddites” in early 1800’s protested the machinery in the fabric making trades. Seems they accomplished nothing? Before this there were similar violent outbursts, such as by textile workers in England in 1768 after a machine was developed to make spinning faster. Seems that protest did not affect my life.

Since 1800 are there any cultures becoming less technological?

Overtone 2: What is Agency?

(Thanks to Jonathan Pageau for his lecture on Agency, which spurned me to write this essay.)

This plunge into material technology is being facilitated by a non-human agency. What is agency, and what might be meant by a “non-human” agency? Definition for Agency:

• ”a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved” - Merriam Webster.

• ”the ability to take action or to choose what action to take” - Cambridge Dictionary

In the army, when the General gives an order, the power & authority is manifested through the Colonel, Major, Captain, etc. These lower ranks are not the source of the power, nor does the decision come from them. The Colonel, Major, Captain, etc. are “agents” through which the power is manifest.

Above is a cosmological map I found in the house-museum of William Herschel in Bath England.

The street of Herschel’s house, which aside from the cars looks much like it did in the late 1700’s

The bottom third of the cosmological map is the earthly realm, with substances such as minerals, water, air. The middle third is the planetary & solar realm. The upper third is the Angelic Realm, beginning with ordinary angels, ending with the Cherubim and Seraphim.

Zooming into the upper region, the Angelic Realm, you can see the levels: angels, archangels, virtues, potentates, principalities, dominions, thrones, cherubim, seraphim.

This map of the Universe has 27 levels, all of which are contained within the Prime-World. Each of these levels is populated by citizens. Citizens of the Mineral Level are things like rocks. Citizens of the Planetary Realm are things like planets - duh. Note that we are rather far down on the chain of command. Each citizen in this cosmology has “agency” at its own level. You as an individual person living in the Earthly realm, have some agency in your life. You can make things happen at your level, like asking a girl out for a date, or deciding to study a new subject so you can get out of a dead-end career. But you do not have agency to change the orbit of the Earth.

Since World War 2, human behaviors have become collective on a massive scale. What sort of agency is involved to organize hundreds of millions of people? Is the electronic media the agency for this phenomena? ”a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved”. I would say that the cell phone/TV/radio is the agency at the level of an individual person, to get the individual integrated into the collective. To continue the army metaphor, the cell phone/TV/radio might be likened to the Corporal, who gives orders to individual private soldiers. The cell phone itself is not the source of the power. The phone is very far down the chain of command.

From whence does the cell phone get its instructions? Do you think that the CIA / MI6 / Mossad are the source of the power & authority currently directing mass surveillance and social engineering? If William Burns, Richard Moore, and David Barnea (current heads of those organizations) were to be removed , would they not immediately be replaced by people who would just continue the same work? If you think there are secret people behind the public face, would not all the same agendas be continued if any one of these secret individuals were removed?

My point being, that we must admit a level in our cosmology that has agency to create and continue these complex structures and functions that affect billions of people. The force must be comparable to the effect. How do you get billions of people to spend hours a day on facebook/twitter/google/Instagram, orchestrating $billions of investment so psychologies can be mapped & directed?

If you are a materialist you perhaps do not find the need for a cause beyond DNA. But I doubt many materialists are reading this essay.

An individual person the likes of Bill Gates simply does not have the power to bring about a world-wide healthcare system that provides real-time updates of every person’s blood chemistry to a global data center. Why would billions of people go along with it? Leaders and citizens are equally imbued with the love/desire for these collective system.

Getting back to the 27-level cosmological diagram in Herschel’s house, we see that in other eras people had names for these agents that are a “thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved“ when the realm is all of humanity. For now, I will call it “Principalities”. There is a principality that has the agency needed to get all of humanity to rush headlong into social media, cybernetic fusion, genetic engineering, and total financial surveillance. The Principality does not care about individual people’s wellbeing. Everyone knows by now that all social media make their money by preying on our fears & hates. So let’s see… what Principality do we know about that would care most about getting people to live in fear & hate, all the while forfeiting their individual reason?

Overtone 3: How technology affects the human soul

The human spirit manifests into matter. A higher world penetrates into a lower. Dust comes to life. When we die, the two worlds are separated - the dust returns to Earth, the spirit returns to its home. The details of “spiritualizing matter” are complex and mysterious. The union of matter & spirit manifests in all of biochemistry. Every one of the thousands of chemical reactions in our bodies is needed to make the union possible. There are also an enormous number of electric transformations always happening in your body. Each of those is also needed for the proper union of matter & spirit.

We live our ordinary lives in a truly magical union between spirit & matter. This finely balanced system can be modified in several ways.
1) The person’s spirit can be developed - this would cause a change in the biochemistry & bioelectricity. It is not so far fetched to imagine that St Francis of Assisi had different chemistry & electricity than you and me.
2) We can change the bio-electro-chem of the body. Now spirit and matter become differently connected. This is the origin of drug-induced experiences. When the drug is eventually flushed from the body, the electro-chem goes back to usual, and the person is back to experiencing things in the usual way. If the chemistry cannot return to normal, then the poor person is lost between two worlds.

When we use mRNA transfection technologies, such as the shots billions of people took these last two years, we are permanently changing our genetic machinery. Those who told us that “this technology cannot change your DNA” have not taken a biology class since about 1996, or they are just outright lying.
1) This technology was DESIGNED to change your DNA, and,
2) all human cells have some reverse transcriptase machinery and will therefore incorporate a certain amount of RNA data into your DNA.
3) Babies have the most reverse transcriptase machinery, adults have less, so the furor to get the babies injected seems evil.
If we change our foundational genetic machinery, how will this alter the way our spirit manifests? I almost answered “no one knows”, since everything about this is so complex; but then a darker thought occurred to me, that perhaps a Principality DOES know exactly how this tech will change the fusion between matter & spirit, and that truly makes my heart sink.

Summary

We live in a multi-dimensional, multi-leveled cosmos. Some part of this cosmos has agency to influence the mass of humanity into seeking ever-greater fusion with technology. Technology on Earth is based in a level beneath the human ( in metals, minerals, etc). The influence ( which has the agency to affect human history) comes from a higher level than individuals, from realms previously called “Principalities”, but don’t get hung up on those words if the term bothers you. This particular Principality has an agenda, as I said, to further mechanize people, and if possible, to fundamentally alter the way spirit & matter are fused in humans. Individual humans might have the same desire; but I am not focusing on the level of individual people; this essay is focusing on something else.

We could venture one more question: what results if this influence goes all the way… to its end… where does this lead?
1) It leads to the human spirit becoming completely encased in matter, with no possibility of returning to its source.
2) It leads to the human spirit being no longer capable of entering matter.

Appendix - Penguin

This blurry shot of a penguin scooting away is from a documentary about penguins. A snow storm was approaching, and this one penguin started boogying away from the tribe, heading out into the bleak landscape. One of the researchers thought the little guy must surely be confused, so the man picked up the penguin and placed it back in the group. The penguin immediately went running off, once more heading in the direction of a mountain range now disappearing in the snow storm. The scientist, now convinced the penguin would quickly die away from the group and his food source, once more picked up the penguin and placed it in the group. The little guy once more waddled in the direction of the mountains.

The penguin wanted something. Something was calling him. Sometimes when I want something strongly, it make no sense given everything else you might be able to see about me. The reasonable ones around me try to “bring me back to the tribe, close to the food source.” And even if the penguin did die half way to the mountains, is that any proof that he should have done differently? “Never let failure decide for you if the endeavor was the right thing to do.” - Florence Nightengale.

The artistic connection for me? I feel a genuine impulse to leave the technological world, now that being part of society might very soon require implants, digital IDs, regular transfection shots to alter my genetic machinery, etc. Of course this would result in me being largely separated from the mass of humanity, which could certainly end badly for my biological side.