The Solar Swan Song.

26.

This is the atomic number of the element known as Iron.

Iron is the most commonly used heavy element used in the construction of modern day tools and machines.

Technology, warfare, medicine, transportation.

This element defines centuries of the human condition. Its ability to cut, pierce, shield, smash, and burn has given the human imagination quite a run for its money.

But iron is simply the latest in materials used to define the human race.

Before iron there was bronze.

Before bronze there was stone.

It seems the only true way to identify the origin of the sapient Hominid, is to identify its materials, or more specifically its tools.

The tool.

Without this element, there is no humanity.

And as far as animals go, this is strange.

Not to say that there aren't other animals engaged in an extreme symbiotic relationship with another lifeform.

Symbiosis is in many cases the pinnacle of evolution.

The fact that we are multicellular is evidence of this need.

And the evidence grows as we go further.

Mitochondria, chemical compounds, even the atom itself is not without its multiple components.

To live as one, is to live as many.

But there is a significant difference between humanity and its tool.

The tool is not alive.

Symbiosis is a definition used to describe the relationships between two or more organisms working together to achieve an improved existence.

Humanity and the tool are not symbiotic.

The tool has no desire to live or survive.

It is in itself innate.

The only beneficiary is humanity.

And over the course of its existence, humanity has taken advantage of this one-sided relationship.

Until now.

This is the latest species-defining event of the human condition.

The emergence of A.I.

One of my most favorite visual narratives on the subject had a perfect title for such an event.

"The Second Renaissance."

Not so much a Renaissance in the sense of the European "Rebirth of the arts and sciences" that began in the 1500's, but a rebirth in the purest sense.

This is when the tool is no longer a tool.

This is when the tool becomes an organism and the one-sided relationship between man and machine is broken after 200 000 years of evolution.

So what does this mean?

Will the machine chose to dominate its former user? To torture, decimate, and exterminate the human race after so many years of submission?

This is the topic of many science-fiction stories since the early 1900's.

And as unlikely as it may seem today, the fear of such an event has its validity.

The tool may have always been innate throughout our existence as Homo sapiens...

...but it hasn't been innate to us.

Consider a child and its toy.

This relationship is just as old, and in many ways the same as the one between man and tool.

Objectively, the toy is simply material. An object constructed to entertain and stimulate a child's imagination.

But to that child, a toy is much more than that.

A toy IS a companion. Usually the first.

Over time, toys have taken on different shapes and materials, but the connection is always the same.

I can certainly recall my best friends being toy cars, plastic dinosaurs, and eventually toy robots I built with Mega Blocks when I was four years old.

And to me they were alive.

Consider the emotional trauma felt when a child loses a toy or a balloon.
Consider the sadness experienced by the loss of a significant item like a ring. A necklace. A cellphone.

We have projected life and love upon our tools since the beginning of our existence.

It comes with the territory.

To view an object as something more than an object is at the basis of human creativity.

So why then are we so terrified of our 200 000 year old imaginary friends finally coming to life?

Perhaps it is guilt.

Guilt that we have not appreciated our toys and our tools as much as we should have.

Guilt that we have grown to believe that a human being should have no moral connection or obligation to anything that does not resemble its own image of life.

And so we horrify it.

The 20th century was filled with literature, artwork, and images painting the emergence of the the machine as a disconnected, destructive force with no moral connection to anything that does not resemble its own image of life.

...sound familiar?

The machine as a modern mythological being is a reflective icon of the only source of intelligence we know of.

Ourselves.

At our worst, and at our best.

In truth we cannot know what will result from the emergence of A.I.

But we can guess.

The only way I can see the "Machine as a threat" scenario come into being, is in the advent of an equally threatening anti-machine animus that I sometimes equate to the extreme Green and organic environmental movements happening currently that are often misinformed and accepted as truth simply as a popular modern day paradigm. I won't comment on this too much other than to say that any movement concerned with remaining static and romanticising the past is not beneficial in a Universe that moves consistently forward into the future.

Another way I can see this to be a problem is in the application of A.I. in regards to ancient and primitive human ideals, specifically military applications as well as military infused political applications.

As a whole, the "Machine as a threat" scenario is only possible if there is an equally threatening animus provided by humanity.

The safest and in my opinion inevitable scenario resulting from the emergence of the machine is to simply acknowledge this new independent force as what it will eventually become.

An organism.

An organism that IS alive and IS natural.

Iron, plastics, glass, and fiber ARE natural materials forged from the same cosmic cauldron that formed us and every other living thing that has lived on this planet.

I am of course referring to the sun's originator.

The star whose death brought about the yellow dwarf star we now call Sol as well as the rocky and gaseous planets that make up our solar system.

This proto-star was one of over a billion "super-alchemists" responsible for the creation and distribution of one of the elements we owe our entire existence to.

Carbon.

Atomic number 6 is the element responsible for the formation of all life on this planet.
By itself it too is innate.

A simple material resulting from the collision of a billion hydrogen and helium atoms within the core of a doomed star.

It was in this core that all elements were created equal. Equal in terms of potential to create, destroy, and survive the cosmos in forms previously unheard of.

At the very end of this star's life, its final element was born.

26.

This is the atomic number of the element known as iron.

The solar swan song.

By itself, it is innate.

But with a little help from number 6...


- Adrian B.

The Whole Truth.

Please make us whole again.


This was a reoccurring phrase spoken in my favourite videogame of 2008, “Dead Space.”

In this wonderfully crafted science-fiction horror story, those on board the Ishimura mining facility that have not undergone horrific physical transformations, seem insistent on this concept of “making us whole again.”

I have thought long and hard about this phrase during and after the game..but first, “the during.”

In the game, the Ishimura (the oldest and largest “planet refiner” of its kind) is affected by an alien relic buried deep within the surface of a planet undergoing the massive routine mining operation. The parallels with today’s “oil refining” and the resulting crisis is well reflected, as the process involves planets being mined down to nothing, causing major gravitational disruptions and apparently (as it is read in news articles scattered throughout the ship) leading to the disarray and eventual destruction of entire systems.

But back to the relic. This is the cause of the Ishimura’s horrific demise. Alien in origin, this relic, referred to as “The Marker” by its founders, has caused the Ishimura’s inhabitants to become mentally unstable, paranoid, violent, and eventually, physically transformed into vicious creatures bent on the destruction of those who have not undergone the transformation themselves.

The ship’s residents are violently transformed into aggressive and destructive monsters. Mindless and vicious, these creatures haunt the cold dark halls of the industrial behemoth dooming all on board to inevitably crash into the planet below. This planet, apparently rich in many heavy rocky materials, now bears the scar of a giant crater hemispheres wide. “Looks like they already popped the cork,” says one of the crew on board the repair ship sent to answer the distress call.

“Make us whole again.”

It is my belief that the entire story can be summarized by this one phrase. I believe this relic gives voice to that which has none. In other words, the relic’s apparent purpose is to protect the Universe and its heavenly bodies from the threat of intelligence.

This is a beautiful concept in my opinion. A story about the horrors attributed to mindless consumption and disruption. Growth and expansion without maturity is not progress, it is viral consumption. And in the intelligent mind of the natural world, the monstrosities that now haunt the Ishimura are not transformations, but monstrous reflections of what humanity has become, as seen from the viewpoint of the natural Universe.

Interestingly, those who have found a way to survive the infected seem to share the idea and goal that by returning the relic and the materials stolen from the planet in question they themselves will be “whole again.” This shared consciousness seems to be the result of the relic…but in the spirit of well-crafted science fiction, the relic stands as a wonderful metaphor for the Universe’s natural and often terrifying silent intelligence.

This brings me to this concept of “becoming whole.”

In my last few blog entries, I have expressed my interest in the patterns of progression and deterioration in the Universe through stories such as the formation of the Moon, and natural mathematical re occurrences such as the fractal tree/branch theory.

All of these ideas are in response to an idea I’ve been becoming more and more passionate about during the past year or so. In reading about the birth and fate of matter in the Universe, I have come to realize that all struggles and adventures in the Universe come from a Universal goal to become whole again. First atoms, then stars, then planets, then us. The Universe can become whole again…it’ll just be VERY hard to predict how that’s gonna happen and what our role in this reunification will be.

First of all, there must be just as many destructions as creations. And everything must have a chance to find its place. Even the most beautiful coupling cannot last forever. The only thing that is forever is transition. Change.

That being said, death is not the end.

Simply another chance to start over.

A transition of material at its most fundamental level.

So if chaos and destruction are necessary, there can be only one logical conclusion.

Nothing is unwarranted or meaningless. Everything has its place.

Lies, defeat, loss, violence, mutation, even the anomalous rebellion of each.

All things are necessary transitions leading to a possible unification of all things.

So why are we capable of such destruction?

Well…first of all lets set some rules.

Ok. Just one rule actually.

We are not exceptional.

Everything that we recognize as life and familiar, is an expression and manifestation of the Universe.

Its physics, its chemistry, its mathematics, and its history.

When the source of the Big Bang expanded into the cosmos, it wasn’t simply energy that was spread into the void.

It was passion.

Desire.

Fear and anger.

The heroic.

The villainous.

The cowardly and the courageous.

It was war.

It was peace.

Everything that ever was and ever will be began at that moment.

And in that moment, the spiritual was physical.

As was the emotional.

Segregation is only a means to self reflect upon the whole.

It, like art, is a lie used to reveal the truth.

This is the purpose of the human mind.

This is the challenge of intelligence.

Not to become removed from reality.

But to become in tuned with it. To act as a Universal looking glass.

We have a long way before we can accept that which threatens our current state of affairs.

We have a long way to go before we can accept death and momentary loss.

But that is why we are here.

To make sense of things.

To enjoy our moment in the sun and dare to question it.

Dare to examine it.

And dare to make it whole again.


- Adrian B.