URANIA: "I wish to go on record having lodged a protest. I shall save the details for the end."
They're Back!!! RD & CJ warned you that they would check in from time-to-time to
determine how you were doing.
The Bible tells a story of Adam. A few passages later it begins a new version. So shall we begin
a new final episode...
DEMETER PRESENTS PLATO'S CAVE:
A SECOND FINAL EPISODE
Sub-title: EATING
by Richard DePersio Janus Citizen Journalist
(Reading previous installments not necessary to enjoy this installment but we wish that you
would as we worked hard on them)
(RD/CJ are multi-tasking: As they compose this...another masterpiece...they are debating
as to composing a short composition with a dramatic ending or go long and hope for
another dramatic ending. Who will win: Short RD or Long CJ?).
As the serpent said to the lady: Chew on this...
In recent years, scientists have been talking about eternal life but not of the Christian
variety; a recent episode of "Through the Wormhole" on the Science Channel delt with this
very issue.
One prospect seems worse than death: uploading and converting the electrical
neurons in the neocortex (the top portion of the brain) where the higher functions reside
(intelligence, personality, memory, morality, self-awareness, etc.) into microchips into computer
software --- eternity in a box! No sensory input or motor output...no enjoyment of sex or eating
or drinking or laughter. We reiterate: No sensory input and motor output. Could you haunt the
computer's of your family or enemies as you float through cyberspace? Would you be able to
find any type of pleasure in such activity? Eternal life in a box.
Eternal life in a body: Others are talking in terms of growing the 78 organs of your body
from a few of your cells and then placing the microchips into your new body. When a body part
wears out or is beyond repair it will be replaced. Others have suggested placing the computer
version of your brain into a android.
As deists, we don't put much stock in the Bible. We reiterate: As the serpent said to the lady:
Chew on this...
Adam and his second woman, Eve, are forbidden from eating the fruit from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil (it doesn't specify an apple as many think). The serpent
successfully temps Eve who, in turn, seduces Adam to do the selfsame thing. Naturally,
our downfall is the result of a woman: they never listen! Close the hatch of this comsat for
the ravenous feminists are coming for thee! ( I shall instruct...nay, kindly request... that Ares
and Athena allow the rare attractive ones to pass so that I -RD- can act on the ravenous
feelings that I shall have and continue to asct until satiated).
God says: "Behold, the man has become as on of us, to know good and evil; and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat and live forever" (Genesis
3:22), he must be driven out of the Garden. God places cherubim with a flaming and floating
sword at eastern edge of Eden to guard the Tree of Life from the ambitions of man. Man plays a
heavy price for wanting to play God.
Are we ready to be god-like? Are we about to eat from the Tree of Life!?!
CJ wins. RD: "He better come up with a dramatic ending equal to mine. Or, I'll fire him!
"It's about time; it's about space. It's about two of the funniest people in the funniest place" is part
of the theme song of a short-lived '70s' series called "It's About Time" starring Sid Caesar. What
would it be like for the first man and woman to be eternal?
What time is it?
Let's look at a case study: God (assuming His existence). How does life-in-the-box correlate
with God's 'life.' Christians, Jews and Muslims believe Him to be eternal. Our friend Plato had a
profound influence on the development of Christian thought. The most real things weren't
susceptible to time: abstract objects - numbers, love, justice, redness, tallness, perfect horse,
perfect chair, etc.; the realm of the abstract and the perfect. They didn't exist in space and time.
How old is the number 3? It just continues to exist. These concepts are eternal and unchanging.
They exist in heaven and outside of space and time. One Christian view of God is that He's
perfect, eternal, unchanging and outside of space and time. The BIG Guy being separate from
His creation.
Plato spoke of the soul existing in heaven and then within a corrupt body and after death
returning to heaven. Plato's view being similar and influencing but not identical to Christian
theology. As heretofore stated (during a previous visit to Plato's Cave), renowned physicist
Roger Penrose (who collaborated with an anesthesiologist) posits that the soul may inhabit the
microtubulars (the skeleton which gives shape and size to the different cells in the body) of the
central nervous system or just the neocortex part of said system.
Getting back to God after our soul interrupted (A victim of A.D.D.)...These theologians hold
the view that God's now is an expanded now encompassing past, present and future
simultaneously. Plato and this Christian perspective of Plato is similar to the deist's position of a
God that doesn't interact or interfere with His cosmos except after death if there is a soul or if
one's memories, personality, etc. exist in the mind (are mind and soul one and the same? -Popes
have said: "No." Some Christian theologians -outside of Roman Catholic Church- think
otherwise) and the brain (contingent on them not being one and the same). It should be noted
that Einstein's Relativity calls for space-time: space and time being one thing. Relativity
describes past, present and future occurring at the same time. Further, Roger suggests three
realms: Material (physical, matter/energy); Mental (Immaterial mind); Mathematical/
Informational. He also considers the possibility that only the latter might be real.
(You might want to glance at other installments after all. While you're there see what happens
when we have Hercules visit Plato's Cave amongst other things.).
This is in contrast to another strain of Christian thinking wherein the Biblical God appears to
act sequentially in space and time. God is concrete and a type of person. He is intimately involved
with His creation via prophets, miracles and the answering of prayers. The problem with this mode
of thinking is that it necessitates a deity of the universe; a deity that would have to have begun with
the universe; a non-eternal deity.
Still other Christian theologians somehow imagine the our now is a subset of His expanded
now and somehow the vastly different 'nows' can interact. It has elements in common with
panentheism (not to be confused with pantheism).
The man-in-the-box is feeling lonely and neglected... Would he exist in one computer or
throughout cyberspace? Would he have a location in space and our sense of flowing time? Would
his space-time be Einstein's space-time or Plato's space and time? Could he relate to us. In the
quantum world a particle can exist in many places simultaneously. Our present computers have
two bits: ones and zeroes. Soon we will have quantum computers with ones, zeroes and
'in-betweens'. Theoretically, a particle can even exist in numerous places and even an infinite
numbers of places. Would our man-in-the-box be like Plato's Man-in-the-Cave after he went
outside. --- possessing a perfect understanding of reality? Will he be everywhere at the same time
in cyber-universe and all knowing --- separate from us and either not capable or desiring to interact
with us. Will he be god-like?
Should we eat from the Tree of Life!?!
Food for thought...Can God or man-in-the-box be cognizant of where he is in space-time?
Would he know where he is only when observed? God can't be observed? (Cat-in-the box
Paradox).
Having a bio-body or android body would position and focus him in space-time. He would
likely be in one place and experience flow of time like the rest of us.
Demeter: "Let's celebrate a thought provoking and Pulitzer Prize deserving article. I'll supply
the food if Dionysus will contribute the wine."
Urania: "I'll party after I register a complaint: I didn't complain when I had to share my
comsat with Hermes and Plato --- but now Demeter!!!
Momus: "To paraphrase Plato {'Wise women or muses speak because they have something to
say; fools} - women and muses - {because they have to say something.'} Truer words hath never
been spoke."
Plato: "Don't employ my own words to get me into trouble with the powers that be. To quote
myself in most apropos fashion {"The beginning is the most important part of the work."}
RD: "CJ's job is secure."
Urania: "I'm going to have the final word!
