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“Well, the meek were supposed to inherit the earth, but instead it has gone to the young—the technically inclined, those who stare into video screens rather than into their own souls.
It is in hearing the voice of the devil that we can better appreciate the voice of God.”
In modern art, however, masterpieces are often more about the idea than the execution.
The artist had an idea—to run perforated pipes beneath the bridge and blow fog onto the lagoon—but the creation of the piece was performed by local plumbers.”
Edmond’s growing excitement for teaching computers to create algorithmic art—that is, art generated by highly complex computer programs. It raised an uncomfortable question: When a computer creates art, who is the artist—the computer or the programmer?
Five hundred dollars at an electronics store, Langdon knew, being one of several Harvard professors who now used portable cell-jamming technology to render their lecture halls “dead zones” and keep students off their devices during class.
DESPISE CHAOS. CREATE ORDER. “This is our brain’s root program,” Edmond said. “And therefore, this is exactly how humans are inclined. Against chaos. And in favor of order.”
Our predisposition to organization is written into our DNA,
There are only two schools of thought on where we came from—the religious notion that God created humans fully formed, and the Darwinian model in which we crawled out of the primordial ooze and eventually evolved into humans.”
when they try to look back to the instant when the Big Bang occurred—where T equals zero—the mathematics all goes mad, describing what seems to be a mystical speck of infinite heat and infinite density.”
One of Langdon’s Harvard colleagues—a solemn physics professor—had become so fed up with philosophy majors attending his Origins of the Universe seminar that he finally posted a sign on his classroom door. In my classroom, T > 0. For all inquiries where T = 0, please visit the Religion Department.
Köves always found it ironic that humans, despite being God’s most sublime creation, were still just animals at the core, their behavior driven to a great extent by a quest for creature comforts. We comfort our physical bodies in hopes our souls will follow.
my mother’s unwavering zealotry has a lot to do with my abhorrence of religion. I call it—‘Newton’s Third Law of Child Rearing: For every lunacy, there is an equal and opposite lunacy.’ ”
“Memento mori,” the monarch whispered. “Remember death. Even for those who wield great power, life is brief. There is only one way to triumph over death, and that is by making our lives masterpieces. We must seize every opportunity to show kindness and to love fully.
Which would you choose? A world without religion? Or a world without science?
“ ‘First Cause,’ ” Edmond declared. “That’s the term Darwin used to describe this elusive moment of Creation. He proved that life continuously evolved, but he could not figure out how the process all started. In other words, Darwin’s theory described the survival of the fittest, but not the arrival of the fittest.”
In fact, the very notion of cells organizing themselves into life-forms seems to be in direct conflict with the law of entropy!”
“As you can see, sometimes the universe does organize matter—which seems to be the exact opposite of entropy.” Edmond sighed. “So which is it? Does the universe prefer order? Or chaos?”
“We know the universe promotes entropy and disorder,” England said, “so we may be surprised to see so many examples of molecules organizing themselves.”
“Nature—in an effort to promote disorder—creates little pockets of order. These pockets are structures that escalate the chaos of a system, and they thereby increase entropy.”
To efficiently create chaos, Langdon realized, requires some order.
“May our philosophies keep pace with our technologies. May our compassion keep pace with our powers. And may love, not fear, be the engine of change.”
Besides, if Kirsch’s prophecy about technology’s takeover were true, humanity was about to enter a period of almost unimaginable ethical ambiguity. We will need faith and moral guidance now more than ever.
“Evolution favors religion,” a minister was saying. “Religious communities cooperate better than nonreligious communities and therefore flourish more readily.
Anthropological data clearly showed that cultures practicing religions historically had outlived nonreligious cultures. Fear of being judged by an omniscient deity always helps inspire benevolent behavior.
When I became aware of my ‘inclination,’ as they called it back then, I was despondent; I was unsure how to proceed with my own life. A nun saved me. She showed me that the Bible celebrates all kinds of love, with one caveat—the love must be spiritual and not carnal. And so, by taking a vow of celibacy, I was able to love your father deeply while remaining pure in the eyes of my God. Our love was entirely platonic, and yet deeply fulfilling.
Love is from another realm. We cannot manufacture it on demand. Nor can we subdue it when it appears. Love is not our choice to make.
for me, the question of God lies in understanding the difference between codes and patterns.”
“A pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Patterns occur everywhere in nature—the
“Codes are special,” Langdon said, his tone rising. “Codes, by definition, must carry information. They must do more than simply form a pattern—codes must transmit data and convey meaning.
“The other difference between codes and patterns,” Langdon continued, “is that codes do not occur naturally in the world.
Codes are the deliberate inventions of intelligent consciousnesses.”
‘If we all worshipped gravity, there would be no disagreements over which way it pulled.’ ”
Dialogue is always more important than consensus.
Capitalism is nondenominational,
As anyone who read religious history could attest, nothing cemented people’s belief faster than a human being dying for his cause. Christ on the cross. The Kedoshim of Judaism. The Shahid of Islam. Martyrdom is at the heart of all religion.
Unlike machines, humans can be unpredictable.”
actually. I must say, this new notion of entropy—the universe ‘wanting’ to spread energy—it sounds a bit like Genesis. When I think of the Big Bang and the expanding universe, I see a blossoming sphere of energy that billows farther and farther into the darkness of space…bringing light to places that have none.”
We must stop rejecting the discoveries of science. We must stop denouncing provable facts. We must become a spiritual partner of science, using our vast experience—millennia of philosophy, personal inquiry, meditation, soul-searching—to help humanity build a moral framework and ensure that the coming technologies will unify, illuminate, and raise us up…rather than destroy us.”
