I cannot resist replying to Pastor David Hegg with a redimensioning. Here are my thoughts on his Jan. 13 sermon.
Pastor Hegg, I found your inspiring post to be very relevant, useful and a refreshing break from the negativity we humans seem to suffer from. It was another invigorating boost from you for 2020. So, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Though I don’t disagree with anything you have said, I am inspired to plate your wisdom with some practical advice.
In your conclusion, you invoked “hard work.” That meme is distinctly not The American Way, nor is it what civilization has been pursuing over thousands of years. “Hard work” is what we have been avoiding, mitigating, protecting against, and engineering out of the world ever since fire was discovered.
Recent philosophical ruminations by technologists, holy men, politicians, economists, and many others are considering the end effects of the institution of nonbiological intelligence and automation that could well supplant the 10,000-year reign of mankind as the provisional source for “hard work.”
Our avoidance of “hard work” is not only civil, it is practical. NASA engineered a trip to the moon through humans using hand-actuated slide rules, but “the computer” always double checked humanity’s work when the calculation was mission-critical.
If I am correct in my understanding of the Bible, we got kicked out of the garden because we ate of the tree of knowledge, but our fate is that the roots of intelligence underlying the tree of knowledge are becoming predominant.
We could unwittingly embrace intelligence and then allow intelligence to obviate or eliminate knowledge.
It is possible that our freedom from toil will allow us to pursue the meaningful significance and legacy you wisely recommend, Pastor. I truly hope in the core of my being that we can achieve that outcome, but Immanuel Kant would advise that it is unlikely. Since it is also possible that humans will exist as a kennel of well-fed and cared-for free-range Boston terriers, kept happy by the Grand, Intelligent, Universal, Seeking, Triangulating Algorithm, mankind will need to tread carefully in the choice once it is upon us, assuming it has not already passed.
Christopher Lucero, Santa Clarita
