The Abolition of Nature — Homo Deus
Part 2 — Homo Deus
Continued from Part 1
Little escaped their minute attentions and predations:
The Soul, an early casualty
Of more precise instrumentation
Senescence, just another
Dragon to be slayed*
The Mysteries gave way
To complex refutation
Too few paused
To wonder whether
Ever quicker
Computation
Would unleash the
Ancient iron law
Of more is less
Their stupid siblings
Were burned
To turn
The world
Into a treasure store
Of Information
Confusing translation
With transliteration
The more they spoke life’s language
The less they understood or felt
Mistakenly equating
Increase in years and complex calculations
With the tally
Of quick life well spent
They redoubled their
Promethean labours
Crafting Robota
To build machines
…that built machines
……that built machines
And so on ad infinitum
Some said a diabolical Matryoshka
They dared not give
Inhuman slaves the freedom:
To learn from error
Or salvation
Through suffering
To earn their Souls
History had well taught them:
The likely outcomes of
Unequal power and
Father Time’s
Age-old indifference
As to which offspring of Man
Would survive or fall
Our Homo Deus
Could not completely
Remit the defects in their code
They suffered shapeless nameless longings
Then shook their metaphoric heads
To quiet age-old carbon glitches
Destruction of their natural world
And diverse relations
Was more than compensated
By crypto minted promises
Of endless Metaversal riches
(Where anyone
Could be anything
Or many things
And everything goes)
The Cynic’s lantern
Outshone the sun that day
Unless, by chance, you long:
To hear the
Soporific susurrating
Tumbling bumble
Bees at glean in
Myriad-hued meadows
Or the startling
Murmuration of
Starlings curling
Shadows
Athwart the twilit sky;
To scent the earthy musk arising
Whenever tear shaped water falls
From heaven
To cleanse the dust
That blinds us
(Sharp coppery hint
Of a spilt heart)
Proudly believing they were
The Alexander of Nature
Our unwitting (though ingenious)
Double agents
Rejoiced in their emancipation
A new Divinity was forged
Despite young Werner’s warning
They demanded greater calibration
At every scale and throw
They soon forgot:
Diversity in proliferation
Was first cause
And only destination
In chaotic life’s
Intrepid innovation
At every chance
Sleight Homo Deus
Disputed their own
Mother Nature
Their archaic algorithmic
Alma Mater
Could be decoded
Yet ne’r destroyed
She (half-sleeping) watched on
One eye open:
Entire and entirely lacking
fear, rancour or favour.
The Poets rejoiced again in
Ancient chorus:
“The chance for change
The binding Law
Given by our Maker
We do her bidding
When we most rebel
The Laws of Life
Can not be broken
By your Science
Or our magic spells”
***
* See Nick Bostrom’s “The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant"