Paranoia on the Horizon

I am getting really paranoid.

Last night I watched a television show in which the premise was that some alien force has been monitoring the human race secretly for God-knows-how-long.   They are benign, and only watching out for us… we think.  Although, who really knows why they are bothering with us?

According to the story, the alien overseers stay secret to prevent mass panic.  If the situation were real, I think their reason for remaining unseen would be to prevent utter loss of confidence and motivation among the entire human race.  What would be the effect on human persons and societies if they knew that all the human history they learned, all the world events they have witnessed, are at worst a lie, and at best a farce on a stage, orchestrated by some extra-human force.  It would destroy our self-confidence, our pride.  It would destroy our sense of what is real.  It would destroy our ability to trust anyone, or even to trust the validity of what we think we know.  It would destroy our sense of being in control of ourselves, our free will.  We would be reduced to the status of dependents, or slaves.  If we learned that alien overseers had been monitoring us, how then could we know even that we would have created or evolved as a civilization if those aliens hadn’t stuck their noses (if they have any) into our business?

Certain humans in last night’s story go to extremes to keep the alien presence secret.  At first they seem like bad guys, aiding and abetting the enemy.  But when called to account for their actions, they protest that they will do anything to preserve our way of life.  Unlike the protagonists, the protectors of the secrets recognize (and the viewers come to recognize) that as long as the aliens remain secret, human events will continue along as before.  Our society will continue, our place in the universe will continue, life will go on.  Once the alien puppet masters are known, however benign though they may be, all human accomplishment is shown to be a lie; the myth of human free will is exposed as a lie.  It’s as if we have been living in a fantasy world, created by and monitored by the others.  Our belief in human worth would be challenged.

Seriously, one of the things that makes me a little paranoid is that even if this premise is contrary to our common experience, it does provide a logically consistent explanation for the explosion in human knowledge, the technological advances, the drastic changes in society that have continually accelerated over the past century…  Or the past seven centuries…  Or maybe for the past 12,000 years.

Then this morning, I read a story about a new development in theoretical physics.  As if the concept of quantum uncertainty wasn’t enough, now we have physicists proclaiming that they have developed a workable plan for “cloaking.”  Okay, I thought - invisibility.  We’ve been thinking about that in a science fiction way forever.  But no, invisibility isn’t the whole story.  This predicted phenomena is like the science fiction concept of being “out-of-phase” and thus utterly undetectable to the rest of the universe.  No, these physicists, not content with mere invisibility, say it is theoretically possible, by manipulating the speed of light (didn’t Einstein say that was against the law of the universe?), to “cloak” something not only in space, but also in time.  Space-and-time cloaking...  According to this theory, we observers might be unable to see a cloaked event happening in our presence, unable to know of it even after it has happened.  This is so far out it seems less like physics than metaphysics. 

A completely meaningless but ironic sidebar… One of the expert commentators on the ‘cloaking’ story has been researching invisibility technology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.  It is possible that I’ve heard of the University of St. Andrews before, but if I have, I don’t recall.  Except that it figured prominently in today’s headline story about the engagement of Prince William, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom.  Apparently it is where the Prince met his future bride, when they were students there.  Hmmmm…. Invisibility… temporal displacement… a future king and queen… a remote Scottish school… I can’t decide if it’s a significant geotemporal confluence of world-shaping events, or an episode of ‘Star Trek meets Hogwarts.’

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is

indistinguishable from magic.”  (Arthur C Clarke)

In any case, according to the cloaking theory, all our human senses may become unreliable.  According to these theoretical physicists, something could be happening in my presence that would be utterly undetectable, yet nevertheless completely real.  Actuality and appearance could be completely divorced... Truth and experience could be completely divorced…  Leaving us adrift in the universe, physically, mentally, emotionally, morally adrift… truthfully not knowing – incapable of knowing – fantasy from reality.

This theory proposes that the universe and our ability to comprehend it might be headed for a fork in the road – universal possibility going one way, our ability to perceive going the other.  This way lies true insanity.  Insanity for all humanity.  Insanity would be the only possible state in a world in which there is no discernable connection between observation and abstract reality.

Add all this to this my recent musings about nature and the supernatural, about God and technology.  Although I am a thinker and a rational person, I am also basically a technophobe.  I champion the supremacy of the analog (that which is perceived) over the digital (that which is mathematically demonstrated).  But a few days ago, I had a thought… What if the creator of the universe intends for us to comprehend the universe, at least in part, through abstract mathematics, divorced from everyday experience?  After all, if the universe can be described mathematically, in terms of quantum probabilities or hyper-dimensional space, then why shouldn’t we attempt to wrap our minds around those alternative ways of perceiving reality?  What if my emphasis on the human experience is misplaced? 

I do not believe this is the case.  I do not believe that the creator ever intended for ordinary human beings to find new ways to experience the universe that are totally separate from our natural means of interaction with the world.  I firmly believe that the human experience, as experienced through the senses, interpreted by the intellect, colored by emotion, is the essence of reality.  I believe that persons who perceive the universe in ordinary ways are perceiving reality, that human self-awareness and emotion and rational thought are the breath of the divine in us.  But I also realize that my understanding may be incomplete.

Here are my thoughts on these matters. 

• In the first place, if there are extra-human forces out there, I want them to go away.  Our destiny is our own.  If we live or die, it must be our own doing.  (Sidebar:  How does this statement color my understanding of the current state of US foreign affairs?  A topic for another time…) 
• Secondly, if there is any theoretical possibility of creating a capability to hide events in both time and space, I want that capability to be prevented or nullified.  The danger to humanity from such a development is greater than the danger posed by nuclear weapons.  We are creatures of time and space, and to remove us from time and space (or vice versa) will destroy us. 
• Our human experience is paramount.  Anything that implies that we are not acting from free will is a damnable prevarication.  Or should be.  Anything that states that the time and space in which we live are not reliably consistent is a damnable prevarication.  Or should be.
• Finally, I believe that we have been created to live in this universe as it is, to perceive this universe as we do, to be fully human.  We were not created to be some other type of creature operating in other dimensions contrary to the actual, universal human experience.  We should embrace our humanity, not seek to escape it.  I acknowledge that the creator of all is unlimited, that anything is possible.  I concurrently affirm that we the people of this time and place and planet and universe were created to live here, in this plane of existence, in ways that are consistent with the universe as it has been revealed and perceived and understood by all persons in all times.

I realize that I have not set forth everything I should have about these matters.  These thoughts are perhaps not fully logical, not fully expressed, not fully coherent.  Nevertheless, they do encapsulate a broad and serious concern for my people, my human race, my planet.  They do state my initial rejection of concepts and entities and forces which may present an unprecedented, exotic, and possibly unfathomable threat to our existence and perhaps even our reality.  

I thought it more important to get these ideas out there in the public arena for discussion, rather than waiting until they are comprehensive, logically consistent, and systematic. 

This is all the more true as we are only two years away from the end-date of December 2012.

I told you I was getting paranoid.

Gryphem