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George Chyz's avatar

I agree with Sasha, self assembling nano bots are BS, the transhuman cyborg dream is just hype.

I vividly remember a spring morning back in 1987 when I was out in the country watching the sun rise. Back then I was agnostic not knowing whether there's a god or not.

As I sat on the grass I admired a tree that had covered itself with lovely spring blossoms. Little flowers that I knew would grow into seeds. Possibly inside a fruit or maybe a nut in a shell. One way or another some of those seeds would land on the ground here by the tree or somewhere a bird or animal might drop them. And given the right conditions some of those seeds could sprout and grow into another tree, much like the one I was sitting next to. What a miracle, I thought. How magnificently brilliant is that?

Next I wondered, how can a simple seed become a tree? Surely, some sort of intelligence must be involved in guiding that process. The physical material in that seed can't contain all of the instructions encapsulated in a molecule of DNA. Even with instructions, some sort of intelligence must be involved in interpreting the instructions and realizing them to grow a tree from a tiny seed.

Having a masters of mechanical engineering from MIT where I advanced CAD (Computer Aided Design), I was on the leading edge of that field with working prototypes and was just about to receive 6 million in venture capital funding to productize my disruptive technology.

It seems obvious to me that we are never going to make a car that produces seeds that grow into new cars. Or toasters, that produce new toasters. That is clearly out of our reach.

Further guided by intuition, the perpetual cycles of nature came to mind. The transformation of the dead into food for the living. Plants turn air water and soil into carbs, fats and proteins that are eaten by creatures. Then what we wrongly call waste, our poop and pee is food for the plants. No waste, no pollution, no build up of toxic landfills, no dead rivers or lakes. When it comes to life, everything will continue cyclicly until the sun is snuffed out.

But when it comes to human technology, we find a growing problem of waste, poison, deforestation, and general destruction of our living planet, our mother our home.

As I honestly compared human tech to life, it became very clear that we are idiots who will never improve on nature. We might destroy it if we don't wake up. We might cause lots of problems, but we will never get close to the level of consciousness that must be behind life. The consciousness that must be life. The god that must be embedded in life itself guiding the magic that perpetuates health, the magic that brings joy into our hearts, the magic that formed the entire universe, that magic must be what people call god. And in that moment I didn't have to believe in god, I knew there must be a god. There really is no other explanation.

Then, as I sat there I decided to shelve my CAD technology. I knew that I would regret helping to advance human technology because everything we create ends up in giant garbage dumps, we pollute clean water, we pollute clean air, we pollute the mother earth and our life giving food supply.

That spring morning was the final straw that pushed me to change my life. Rather than developing technology, I was going to learn how to live closer to nature, more in harmony with nature, and I was going to open myself to the mystery of god. I knew in my heart, if I didn't change course, I would loose my soul in the pursuit of money. To be sure, there were additional issues, but this lovely spring morning changed my life.

Almost 40 years later, I am very happy with my course change. I live in paradise in a little 170 square foot cabin surrounded by a food forest. We have coconuts, bananas, plantains, mangos, avocados, sugar cane, bread fruit, Hawaiian hot peppers, lemon grass, curry leaf, kefir lime, Tahitian lime, tangelos, white pineapples, tangerines, lemons, pomelos, lychee, and many more of god's gifts to fill our bellies with life, to delight our senses, to savor and be eternally grateful for.

When it comes to God, for me god is an enormous consciousness that is omnipresent, interpenetrating everything, residing in our hearts with enough left over to orchestrate the play we call life guiding everything from within and beyond.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.

albert venezio's avatar

Thank you Sasha for your Courage, Strength, Perseverance and Intelligence!

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