Tag: science

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Emerging on a New World, Part Three: Magical Dysfunction

I review a lot of children’s books for a website called Redeemed Reader. A common theme in children’s fantasy is “magic” as a lost element in a disenchanted world. The protagonist is born with some supernatural gift or sensitivity that no one appreciates, but once presented with a problem he (or she) forges fearfully ahead and discovers calling, power, and purpose. The plot unfolds against a background of skepticism or outright hostility. In the Harry Potter series, muggles provide the contrast to magic, who are often irritating but generally harmless.

In Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series, the Magisterium, a cartoony stand-in for organized religion, play the villains. I just read a delightful children’s fantasy that followed the Pullman plotline closely (but less dogmatically), complete with a monk-like order of naysayers intent on stomping out all witchery and wizardry.

I’m also seeing a lot of magical realism, where supernatural events occur in a real time and place, among characters with quirky names and personalities. The magic in these stories doesn’t have a source; it’s just there, or it’s somehow passed down through families, coming to rest upon an unassuming protagonist. A common element in all these books is the need to believe—in yourself, in your abilities, and especially in the “magic.”

I’m not sure what the increase in fantasy and magical realism for middle-schoolers tells us, except perhaps that when God goes out the door, magic creeps down the chimney. We have our supernatural yearnings, and need our supernatural fix.

Magic is one thing in literature; another thing in public policy. Some of the most ideological politicians like to claim science as their guide, as though “science” were a magic word. And in a way, it is. “The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins,” wrote C. S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man: “one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse”—that being, to control nature and bend reality.

That Hideous Strength, Lewis’ fictional exposition of The Abolition of Man, pictures Science going full circle and merging with Magic in order to remake humanity. In his 1945 review of the novel, George Orwell approved the premise of THS, but “On the whole, novels are better when there are no miracles in them.”

Still . . . when God goes out the door, the supernatural creeps down the chimney. In the secular public square, life can’t be seen as a gift, because gifts imply givers. Life is therefore more of a problem, or series of problems, to be solved with facts and stats repeated like incantations. Capital-S Science becomes a religion–even a Magisterium–and imagination retreats into fantasy, e.g., children’s literature and the Marvel universe, offering hope that the world really is a fantastic place and there’s a little magic in all of us.

And you know what? It’s true. “Organized religion,” in the form of Christian doctrine, tells us that the world is fantastic, and humans are spiritual beings as well as physical. But since public policy can’t acknowledge that in any meaningful way, suppressed spirituality comes out in magical thinking via “science,” all the more as it drifts away from traditional forms of religion. In That Hideous Strength, every nation has its own spiritual genius—its “magic,” you might say, that defines its place in the world and calls it back to its truest self. Our truest self combines initiative and altruism in a dynamic that self-corrects as it progresses: at its best, something like the abolitionist movement. At its worst, Karenism.

That’s why, in the United States, I can’t see us either buying in to a massive socialist restructuring, or going back to small-government federalism. We keep drifting leftward while our peculiar American genius pulls us back, so that we’re stuck mid-stream. The pressure of the current will keep tugging our freedoms away, but even as that happens, our resistance may grow deeper roots.

No political solution will work very well. We’re seeing that already, with a patchwork of openings and closings, conflicting data, escalating anger, and a looming election that looks more like a bloodbath. When the smoke clears, I doubt anyone will be happy. This state of affairs will not be fixable by science or magic. But if we can’t fix it, I think there’s a way to navigate it, by a combination of practical thinking and spiritual muscle. And that’s a topic for next week.

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Emerging on a New World, Part One: Doomsday Is Imminent (again)

My husband was raising the alarm early in the 1990s. Even wrote a booklet about it, which he distributed to friends and family. Our government was overspending—there was a hockey-stick graph that showed the federal budget shooting up in the stratosphere (a billion-dollar deficit!!), with certain consequences for the near future. We were in our forties at the time, and did not expect to collect our Social Security. Black Monday, when the Dow dropped by 22% in one day (10/22/87) was just the beginning: once the bond market collapsed, we’d be plunged into another Great Depression. We would have to start saving now: even stock up on commodities like paper products and imperishable food staples. So we built columns of toilet paper until we ran out of room and lost interest. Because nothing happened.

Around 1997, rumors about Y2K began. This would be an unprecedented catastrophe—payback for the hubris of linking the whole world in a network of 1’s and 0’s. Once every electronic clock in the world rolled over to 2-0-0-0 our mainframes would lose their collective minds and crash into incoherence, with planes falling out of the sky and money frozen in cyberspace, life-support machines malfunctioning and millions starving. It sounds crazy now, but I knew dozens of computer-savvy people who took it very seriously, to the point of moving to the country and storing up flour and ammo (like we did). Needless to say, the clock rolled over and nothing happened.

But the damage was done; everybody was hooked up to the internet now, and Doomsday predictions popped out blatting alarms with the regularity of wooden figures on a cuckoo clock. On the left it was Mother Earth crying for help as she was alternatively parched and flooded. On the right it was deep state, Illuminati, global currency reset causing massive social upheaval, stolen elections, martial law. Depending on which newsletter you subscribed to, the powers-that-be would make their big move THIS MONTH or BY THE END OF THE YEAR or SOON. And then, brothers and sisters, hang on, because it’s going to be a rough ride.

So . . . you think maybe it finally happened? Not with a bang, but a whimper?

As good as the postwar modern age has been to us westerners, with its abundant food and comforts and diversions, we seem addicted to unease. It’s almost as though we’re worried about having it too good. Not that there weren’t reasons for alarm. When I was a kid, the US and USSR apparently came very close to a nuclear showdown over Cuba. When I was in high school and college, two major assassinations and colleges literally on fire. In the 70s, a huge presidential scandal, double-digit inflation, an oil embargo, a general sense of “malaise.” That’s about when Paul Simon wrote

I don’t know a soul that’s not been battered; I don’t have a friend who feels at ease.

I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees . . .

In the 1980s, I was old enough to grouse about Kids These Days, but that was a pretty sunny decade except for media scares about nuclear holocaust and the ozone layer. Then came the 90s, when broadband access pulled us deep into the conspiracy weeds.

To my knowledge, though, nobody in the Alex-Jones fever swamp or the Greta-Thunberg eco-horror show predicted that a virus—mere scraps of DNA—would cut us off at the knees. Now I’m wondering if the collapse I always half expected has finally arrived. Time to head for the country, plant a garden, start sourcing a supply of meat from stock-raising neighbors?

Has dystopia finally come for us?

Probably not. And yet, there are some disquieting features about this crisis that I’ll have to work through in the next post.

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What Is “Color”?

Close your eyes and count to three.   Then open them and focus on one stationary object.

Where’s the light coming from, and how does it reflect off the object?  Where are the shadows?  What is the object’s depth—could you calculate it in inches or feet?  How accurate do you think your calculation is?  How are you estimating it?  Would the object still be recognizable if you reduced it to two dimensions (in other words, if you drew it)?  Can you imagine how the object would appear if you are looking straight down at it from above?

Finally: What color is it?

Are you sure?

These appear to be questions about perception, but actually they are questions about philosophy.  In fact, one of the very first philosophy questions is, if we perceive the world around us through our senses, can our senses be trusted?

The “Problem of Color” has plagued both scientists and philosophers for centuries—or that’s what Mazviita Chirimuuta says, in a provocative piece called “The Reality of Color Is Perception.” At first the title proposition seems obvious: Why, sure.  Light reaches our eyes in wavelengths and the brain perceives those various frequencies as color.  But . . . does that mean there really is no such thing as “color”?  That color is not a real property of the things we see, but it’s all in our head?  Or does color consist of some objective quality of the light? What is color?

Scientific theories tend to lean in a subjective or objective angle.  Color is either a brain phenomenon or it’s a light phenomenon.  But there’s another theory, the “relationist” theory, that  sees it as both.  Janus, the Roman god of time, serves as a metaphor because he looks both forward and back—the two-faced god.  Likewise, color relates both to the objective world and to the individual mind.

Ms. Chirmuuta likes that idea: “This is a common thread in scientific writing on color vision and it has always struck me that the Janus-facedness of color is its most beguiling quality.”

She goes on: “Indeed, I argue, colors are not properties of minds (visual experiences), objects, or lights, but of perceptual processes—interactions that involve all three terms.”  In that way, color perception is the same kind of process as consciousness itself.  “[C]onsciousness is not confined to the brain but is somehow ‘in between’ the mind and our ordinary physical surroundings, and . . . must be understood in terms of activities.”

Let’s say then that color is mind, object, and light.  Three perspectives, one phenomenon that we associate with recognize lilacs, sunsets, oceans, autumn.

Consciousness is mind, world, communication.  Three perspectives, one process.  St. Augustine, without the benefit of an electroscope, defined vision as eye, brain, correlation.  Three perspectives, one capacity that most of us never think about.

Object, word, meaning.  Frequency, ear, music.  Father, Son, Spirit—is anyone seeing a pattern here?  Maybe I’m just being philosophical, but once you’ve adopted a Trinitarian Creator you see Him echoed everywhere.

In the comments section below the article, one snarky responder calls out “the arrogance of philosophers who don’t know their place as they are just pseudo scientists filling the valleys and cracks of ignorance until real knowledge makes them obsolete.”  As for that plaguey problem of consciousness: “all philosophy has to offer there is confusion as well which will try to persist after inquisitive scientists have solved that puzzle too.”

Might be a long wait.

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A New Creation?

About twenty years ago, a close friend learned that her youngest son had Duchenne MD, the worst form of Muscular Dystrophy.  It meant gradual weakening, teen years in a wheelchair, and an early death, perhaps by his mid-twenties.  She told me it changed everything: how she thought, how she planned her day, how she cleaned, how she cooked.  The only hope for that boy, then as now, was gene therapy.

Earlier this year, the scientific world buzzed with news about a method of gene therapy called CRISPR.  Without getting too technical, CRISPR uses an enzyme at the molecular level to cut harmful genes out of a subject’s DNA; “gene editing” is an accurate description.  The effect not only alters the subject, but all of his or her descendants.  CRISPR is not yet approved by the FDA for test purposes in the USA, but that hasn’t stopped scientists in Asia and Europe—or even here in the USA.

A few weeks ago this headline from the New Scientist website grabbed me: Biohackers are using CRISPR on their DNA and we can’t stop it.  It seems that one Josiah Zayner , a kind of science auteur, wowed multitudes on Facebook by injecting himself with the Cas9 enzyme that will theoretically alter his muscle mass.  And you can do it, too!  He’s published a DIY Human CRISPR Guide online and will sell you a kit to get started.

Well—that was fast.

Zayner’s enterprising spirit sounds like the good ol’ American hustle.  More seriously, Brian Hanley of Davis, California, got approval from a UC academic review board to test a self-designed gene therapy.  He didn’t tell them he planned to use it on himself, but . . . too late now.   Just last week, at Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, a 44-year-old with a rare genetic disease became “The First Man to Have Genes Edited inside His Body” using a procedure similar to CRISPR.

All these experiments may or may not succeed: the record of science is roughly two steps forward, one step back, with casualties strewn along the way to progress.  But it’s still progress, right?  Isn’t it good news that genetic diseases like Duchenne will, in all likelihood, be eliminated?  And if that’s so, why do we feel so nervous about it?

Granted, some people aren’t nervous at all.  The coming age of transhumanism can’t get here fast enough (provided we’re not overtaken by robots first).  But for the rest of us, what exactly is a bridge too far?

On the plain of Shinar, a people long ago proposed to build a tower to the heavens—the first application of technology to human progress (post-flood, anyway).  Observing this, the Lord noted, “This is only the beginning—nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”  He wasn’t ready for that, so he broke up their communication, forcing them into ethnic groups that separated from each other.  That pretty much did it for science, for the next 2000 years—the great strides that began in the Scientific Revolution came as a result of shared information across national boundaries.  That communication continued and shows no signs of slowing down now; in fact, it’s sped up exponentially.  But where will it end?

Back to Babel, and “nothing they propose to do will be impossible for them.”  The Lord seems to have a higher opinion of our abilities than we do, and I guess he should.  He knows what we’re capable of, both the positive and the negative.

It remains to be seen if 21st-century science can change the very nature of humanity, or if unintended consequences will overwhelm any real gains.  But even if we could change the nature of humanity I still wonder if he’ll let us get away with it.  Mankind is his image—will he put up with altering the image?

I don’t think so.  I think he’ll stop it, by somehow confounding our communication, or hoisting us on our own petard of unintended consequences.  Or—he’ll stop everything.

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Spirit in the Qubits

Just when you think you might have a grip on Schrodinger’s cat, along come qubits.  I started hearing about this when a theoretical 7-qubit computer made the news in the spring of 2000.  Now teams are experimenting with a 20-qubit computer, and a 49-qubit machine is supposed to be just around the corner.  49 is the magic number that smashes the frontier established by classical computers (“classic” in the sense of classic Rock, i.e., less than 40 years old).  A 49-qubit computer will be able to solve mathematical problems far beyond the capacity of the swiftest AI today—specifically, factoring very large numbers.  Since most encryptions are based on factors of very large numbers, one practical effect of quantum computing is that no encryption is safe.  Yippee!

If I have my facts straight, quantum computing is based on two principles of quantum mechanics: that a subatomic particle can be in two positions at the same time (superposition), and that compatible particles affect each other even if they’re separated by millions of miles (entanglement).  Unlike classical computing bits, each of which can have only one value—either 1 or 0—a qubit can hold both 1 and 0, depending on its position and its relationship to other qubits.  Thus its capacity in combination is vastly greater and much more versatile than the clunky, value-exclusive bit.

Those are the facts, but what they mean and how they apply is beyond me.  Quantum mechanics gave us transistors, semiconductors, and laser technology, leading to personal computing, MRIs, GPSs, and smartphones.  Where quantum computing might lead is all the buzz, especially now that Google, IBM, and Microsoft (among others) are sinking tons of money into it.  Genetic manipulation is child’s play–why not just rearrange matter to create news substances?  Einstein was uneasy at the very thought of separated particles affecting each other—he called it “spooky.”  What if fooling around with subatomic consciousness takes us to the point where realities converge and universes overlap?

A culture that accepts “gender fluidity” shouldn’t have any qualms about shifting matter, but I suspect the idea makes most of us a little nervous, like Einstein. It shouldn’t.  No advance on the frontiers of science speaks to the reality of God better than the quantum revolution.  The basic theory states that two mutually exclusive propositions can be true—the cat is dead and alive, the particle is here and there—until the moment they are observed or measured, at which time they “decohere.”  It’s the observer who settles the issue of just where the particles are at any given time.

So, who’s observing the universe?  Doesn’t there have to be a conscious intelligence making it what it is?  Without intelligence, matter is a fog of particles, neither here nor there, randomly spinning.

Quantum theory is the basis for speculation about parallel universes and alternate realities and other notions that make the head spin.  To me, it’s the last nail in the coffin of the rigid materialism that began with the Enlightenment and ended sometime in the mid-20th century.  The theory of evolution is in thrall to materialism, but even rock-ribbed evolutionists will, I think, be forced to concede that something moves the earth besides physical mechanics.

What quantum reality resembles, more than anything else, is Spirit.  We are told that God, in Christ, upholds the universe by the word of His power (Heb.1:3).  Not only did He create, He also maintains.  The particles “decohere” when God observes them; the universe is particular and discoverable because all things are under His powerful gaze at all times.  If He were look away (literally or figuratively), it would all come apart.

The testimony of nature supports the testimony of scripture, and if you ever wondered about certain gospel paradoxes, the subatomic nature of matter offers a clue: Christ can indeed be all God and all man.  Salvation can be a matter of free will and predestination.  The Trinity can be the ultimate reality, and yet beyond our comprehension.  Faith and doubt can coexist.

It all depends on the Observer.