Like you, the Krell forgot one deadly danger: their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction. The beast. The mindless primitive. Even the Krell must have evolved from that beginning. And so those mindless beasts of the subconscious had access to a machine that could never be shut down. The secret devil of every soul on the planet…all set free at once to loot and maim…and take revenge and kill! —MGM’s Forbidden Planet[i]
Some of you may recognize the above quote as a conversation from the ending to MGM’s 1956 science fiction film, Forbidden Planet. This cult classic movie centers on a rather eccentric but brilliant scientist named Dr. Edward Morbius (played by Walter Pidgeon) and his innocent teenage daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). Morbius is the only surviving original member of a doomed expedition from earth sent to discover whether life exists in the Altair solar system. Commander John Adams (Leslie Nielsen) leads a rescue mission to Altair IV, but his team is attacked by an unseen “force”—the same monstrous “force” that killed all but Morbius, including his wife (Altair’s mother). Morbius is a linguistics expert, and he has uncovered ancient instrumentation and records that reveal clues to a long-extinct Altair IV race called “the Krell,” who died after inventing massive machinery that fed off energy within the Krell minds. However, this marvelous invention proved to be their downfall, for the Krell minds—once joined to the machine—had given birth to a great and terrifying monster.
Of course, this is all fiction, right? Humans could never produce an unseen something that would one day destroy us all. Perhaps it’s best that you not read this chapter when alone or at night, because such a monster is developing—even as I type these words, and, as with the Krell on Altair, this monster—this ravenous and very wicked Beast—may soon awaken and pit Christian against Christian, Jew against Jew, and all who worship this Beast against all who refuse to do so. To paraphrase the Second Witch from Shakespeare’s infamous “Scottish Play”: By the typing of our thumbs, something wicked this way comes.[ii]
Need convincing? Let’s begin with a few terms.
Intelligence
One might assume this to refer to problem-solving skills, particularly those required for abstract reasoning. The term is derived from the Latin verb intelligere, which means “to comprehend, perceive, or understand.” In 1994, a group of fifty-two researchers penned their collective definition of intelligence:
A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—“catching on,” “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do.[iii]
I would add one additional modification that intelligence is based on freewill as given to mankind by God the Creator, this being the ability to make choices based upon any given set of options.
Sentience
This term is based on the Latin present participle sentiens, which means “feeling or perceiving.” In some ways, intelligence implies action, externalization, decision-making, and choices, while sentience evokes passion, internalization, thoughtfulness, and evaluation. Sentience serves and informs intelligence. Theologically, intelligence relates to the mind, while sentience relates to the heart. Though technically incorrect, sentience has come to mean “self-aware.” Thus, a sentient entity understands that he or she is a separate being within a complex system. Cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore, I am.”[iv] Theologically speaking, sentience is a gift from God, as mankind is created in His image. God is a sentient being; in fact, He is the Great I Am (the singular, superlative form of Rene Descarte’s “Thinker”). God gave man intelligence, freewill, and a compassionate heart. We can choose to react and act within the parameters of any given construct—be that reaction and or action good or evil; it is our choice.
Life
The traditional definition of life taught to all Biology 101 students is that an organism is considered alive when it possesses and exhibits the capacity to grow, metabolize, respond to stimuli, adapt to changing conditions, and reproduce. Recent revisions of this definition suggest that the organism must be RNA- or DNA-based. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has proposed adding a caveat that true life must demonstrate the ability and/or potential to evolve along Darwinian guidelines. Of course, biologists don’t have the luxury of observing a candidate for “life” over millions of years to prove it has evolved, which is why the “potential” to evolve is included. This merely requires inclusion of transposons (transposable elements that can jump to different positions on a chromosome) within a genome to qualify, and all genomes have these as just one component of a process called epigenetics.
Some biologists have even suggested the creation of an entire field of study with a single mission: to define life. Some say life is based only on carbon, others that life is cell based (excluding crystals). However, without a firm foundation in Christ, no scientist can truly appreciate the beautiful design within carbon-based life forms.
Synthetic Biology
According to distinguished (and very sentient) researcher Dr. Steven A. Benner, founder of the Westheimer Institute of Science and Technology and the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, synthetic biology must be considered a viable contender for “life” as we know it:
The goal of synthetic biology is to get, in the laboratory, a chemical system that can support Darwinian evolution. Our activities as synthetic biologists need not be constrained by any particular model for how life might have emerged on Earth. Any system will do, including one based on a biopolymer, or a collection of metabolic processes, or a mineral assembly.
Further, the system need not be self-sustaining; we would be happy if it were able to evolve and adapt, even if it needed continuous attention from a sentient being. Any synthetic molecular system that reproduces with error, if those errors are themselves reproducible, should be able to adapt to environmental changes, at least to the degree that its fundamental molecular capabilities allow.
Various efforts are underway to obtain such systems. These include work with DNA-like molecules that are built from six different nucleotide “letters”…artificial genetic systems that can be copied, with errors, where those errors are replicable.
Should artificial Darwinian chemical systems be obtained, they present a direct test to the definition-theory of life. They should be able to produce, in vitro, features that we value from living systems. Should they fail to do so, they will be analyzed to learn why they fail. This might lead to the identification of chemical features other than a polyelectrolyte that are needed to support Darwinian evolution. Or they may challenge the centrality of Darwinian evolution in any theory-definition of life.[v] (emphasis added)
Artificial Life
This includes software designed to evolve, robots intended to emulate humans or animals, and synthetic biology that involves an artificially designed, nucleic acid-based “life form” such as Craig Venter’s “Synthia.”[vi] Evolutionists believe that all life on earth “evolved” from nonliving matter, which (either spontaneously or after being acted upon by an outside force) gave rise to self-replicating molecules. These then self-assembled into complex organic structures. This theory is called abiogenesis (no-egg-required thinking—thus, the chicken comes first; of course, it takes this proto-chicken many millennia to spring forth and therefore a very long time to cross the Darwinian road).
Internet
A global system of interconnected computers, based upon ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a military network created by the precursor to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
World Wide Web
A system of hyperlinked documents accessed via the Internet. The World Wide Web (WWW or W3) provides a user-friendly interface allowing anyone to join the Internet with a personal computer, tablet, smart phone, or other connected device (this will soon include appliances, cars, robots, and even external and internal medical and/or personal devices). It is interesting to note that the numerical value of “www” is 666.[vii]
Deep Web
Also called Dark Web, DarkNet, the Invisible Web, and the Hidden Web, this realm of “stealth” websites, pages, images, files, and other documents cannot be accessed by typing in a .www URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Lying beneath the “Surface Web,” these sites are not indexed by search engines like Bing or Google, but require specific web crawlers and/or the manual submission of an Internet protocol or password. The Deep Web is estimated to be many magnitudes larger than the Surface Web. These murky depths provide cover for a shadowy world of illicit trade and criminal activities such as drug traffic, pornography, pedophilia, pederasty, snuff films, organ trafficking, and even slave trade, but they also provide deep cover for covert operations and spying. If you think the Surface Web contains disgusting imagery and ideas, you would be shocked at what slithers just beneath those Facebook “likes,” selfie-ridden Instagrams, and idle Tweets. The Internet that you and I and find so compelling contains both good and bad, but the nether regions of the DarkNet never see, nor do they benefit from, the light of day.
Now that we’ve unpacked a few definitions, let me offer a short history of the Internet, since that is where Leviathan, the monster from the Id now sleeps. ARPAnet was born from the vision of J. C. R. Lidicker, a psychologist cum computer scientist and former director of Behavioral Sciences Command and Control Research at DARPA (then called ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency operated by the US Defense Department). During the 1950s, Lidicker was a major contributor to ARPA’s “SAGE” (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) project that sought to create a defense system based on computer/human responses. Computers fed data to human operators, who then made decisions for action—hence the term “semi-automatic.” However, this exposure to the possibilities inherent in computers stayed with Lidicker, and he eventually proposed what he called the “Intergalactic Network,” which sounds rather far-fetched, but with this vision, he wrote and discussed concepts such as “point-and-click” interfaces, e-commerce, digital libraries, and more. His dreams even included “cloud computing.”[viii]
However, before ARPAnet could form, a subnetwork had to be created as a means to provide structure and connectivity while the “net” formed. This subnet was called the Interface Message Processor (IMP) and conjoined a variety of university scholars with the IPTO (Information Processing Techniques Office) at the Pentagon. Now, I won’t dwell on this, but it is interesting to note that ARPAnet is an anagram of “pan tare.” Pan, a mythological, goat-legged creature, was reputed to rape women and commit all manner of adulterous and lecherous acts. Pan has now come to serve as a prefix meaning “everywhere at once” or “worldwide,” as in “pandemic.” Tares are weeds and were used by Jesus as representing the evil that the enemy has sown in a field:
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field;
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matt. 13:24–30, emphasis added)
The tares are a type of so-called bastard wheat (actually a dark variety of darnel that resembles wheat but lacks nutrition, i.e., a weed). Now, I won’t dwell any more on this other than to say that the hint about tares everywhere riding on the backs of an IMP are metaphorically irresistible as relates to my theme of a slumbering Beast about to waken in this universal “field” we call the Internet.
Now, back to my short history.
Once the subnet and basic protocols were in place, four universities (Stanford, Utah, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of California, Santa Barbara) were selected to provide feedback in four major areas: network measurement, network information, interactive mathematics, and graphics. These four schools received an IMP, and these subnets eventually connected as a Network Working Group. From these humble beginnings arose ARPAnet, Usenet, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the protocol that made modems possible), and eventually HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), which even now forms the backbone of the Internet and websites. ARPAnet grew from a tiny idea to connect computers for use by the US military into the rapid transit system deployed by citizens and soldiers the world over. This system permits Christians to share joys and sorrows, cat pictures, triumphs, cries of despair and calls for prayer, sports scores, and family memories. But it also provides the means for sins of all shapes and sizes—defiance in the face of God, a rising anger and hatred of all things Christian that threatens to erupt from out of the deep web into the sunlit surface any day now. The tares among the wheat are beginning to ripen.
TO BE CONTINUED...
[i] Conversation between Commander John Adams and scientist Morbius in final scene of Forbidden Planet, a 1956 science fiction film from MGM. For more on this film, see Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet (accessed December 25, 2013).
[ii] William Shakespeare’s MacBeth, Act IV, Scene I, Lines 44–45. “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”
[iii] Linda S. Gottfredson, Mainstream Science on Intelligence: An Editorial with 52 Signatories, History, and Bibliography (first published Wall Street Journal, December 13, 1994, but accessed online on January 6, 2014, at http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/
reprints/1997mainstream.pdf).
[iv] Cogito ergo sum, Rene Descartes. Descartes was a seventeenth-century philosopher who strove to sum up mankind’s self-awareness in Principles of Philosophy (1644).
[v] Steven A. Benner, “Defining Life,” Astrobiology, December 2010, pp. 1021–1030. Archived at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3005285/ - (accessed January 6, 2014).
[vi] Synthia, also known as Mycoplasma laboratorium, derived from Mycoplasma genitalium. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium (accessed January 6, 2014).
[vii] The numerical value of a letter is obtained by equating a sequence of letters in any language (in this case, English) to the numbers 1 through 9.
[viii] “Intergalactic Computer Network,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intergalactic
_Computer_Network&oldid=602778300 (accessed April 25, 2014).
