In a recent blog post '100 Years of Rewind', we explored an open letter written by Dr Rachel Armstrong on a new era of scientific endeavour - smart materials, living architectures, synthetic biology. In a recent interview with Josh Howgego from Scientific American, a highly important theme surfaced that I feel is one of the strongest concepts within Protocell:
"There are lots of ‘visionaries’ out there interested in making buildings that are aligned with nature, but their ideas don’t amount to much. Armstrong is disparaging about these guys. “It’s not about just building something and then grafting in nature as an afterthought...”
And explaining this:
"One of Armstrong’s big concerns is that her ideas would just be ignored out of prejudice. The public perception of things like synthetic biology is not great (which is why she prefers to talk about ‘living architectures’). “But why shouldn’t we try using biology to do useful things,” she asks? “We have always been using biological things to do work – I mean horses were used as machines for a long time. It’s just that for the last 150 years we’ve been fixated on an industrial revolution. It’s about changing people’s philosophy, so that they are not scared of synthetic biology”.
This is key, and to further describe why this is such a pivotal concept, and a cause for a necessary shift in direction for our entire civilisation, is captured in poetry. As a non-scientist, non-philosopher from a spiritual tradition and architectural background, who has interest in those subjects and their affect upon our world, it captures a different perspective that should be heard.
Amir Sulaiman's recent poem Drummer Talk lucidly airs this argument which has concerned thinkers from Heidegger to Al Ghazali for thousands of years:
"The Alchemist turning lead to gold, The true Alchemist is not led by gold.
What is to be said of the Scientist that turned gold to lead, And led countless Golden Souls to the edge of the sea?
They wear no shoes on their feet, instead they wear lead, Pushed ahead.
The Golden Rule replaced by the Golden Ruler, the Golden Era, Both Trial and Error, Trials and Tribulations, poured libations And places were Awe meets Terror.
Like an arrow, through the heart of the Sparrow.
Its senseless...the killer of the pretenses"
What could be initially interpreted as a broad swipe at all science, should be considered more thoughtfully.
Physics was considered one of six branches comprising natural philosophy (the others being mathematics, politics, logic, ethics and metaphysics). Its was metaphysics and not physics, that caused more issues within religious traditions; in Islam, Al Ghazali dealt with this at length, in Christianity, it developed into renaissance and post - Christian thinking.
Physics only became disconnected with natural philosophy as a result of the industrial revolution, instrumentalism and the rapidly expanding horizons offered by technology for apparatus and experiment.
Before this, it was always explored in the context of ethics, logic, classical mathematics and politics.The connection with ethics and politics is key here, as it explains a wider dialogue between scientific innovation and society. Langdon Winner's essay 'Do Artifacts have Politics? explains the importance and lack of this concept in modern times.
"The Alchemist turning lead to gold, The true Alchemist is not led by gold."
- So the poem begins as a history. Alchemy in this case referring to its roots (al-kimiya in 'arabic', 'the chemistry') It also explains how the concept of seeking gold, now completely synonymous with alchemy, was essentially a deviation from its true purposes.
This true purpose not only covers seeking to create, isolate or derive living things from otherwise innate matter. It is also about increasing our understanding of the world around us as a reminder of its beauty (in the classical greek sense) and that of its Creator.
"What is to be said of the Scientist that turned gold to lead, And led countless Golden Souls to the edge of the sea?"
- A criticism of the reductionist approach to man and nature; reducing what is golden, valuable, the most prized and noble of thins, to material - the purely quantifiable. .
"They wear no shoes on their feet, instead they wear lead, Pushed ahead."
- The affects of instrumentality in science and technological endeavour, and its now after effects upon politics & ehtics. This is not the symbiotic relationship once characterised by natural philosophy, but a cause and affect relationship where society embraces innovations blindly.
"The Golden Rule replaced by the Golden Ruler, the Golden Era, Both Trial and Error, Trials and Tribulations, poured libations And places were Awe meets Terror."
- Further references to modern scientific method and associated philosophy, which is often projected onto everything in the Universe: an understanding achieved only through the trial and error of apparatus based scientific research.
The Golden Rule, a system which underpinned sacred, cosmological and natural geometry, replaced by the rule of the individual/group that stood not in need of the rules. Instead, they made their own.
Golden eras are now associated with material standards, and not the inward state of human beings or their intentions. For example, the Golden age of Judaism was not characterised by material wealth or social standing, but of deep, insightful thinking, the development and precise use of language and the canonisation of one of the worlds great schools of thought.
Inward states may be too metaphysical for some, but intentions surely arent. What are the intentions, the visions for our science and technological innovation? What drives us? A sense-less pursuit of quantifiable data? Or something that enriches the human experience, that not only improves lives materially but non materially?
What about an experience that doesn't mimic symbiotic, biological relationships, but attempts to understand the importance of why they work outside of pure data, that the intentions behind them were awe-some, and that developing a wide and holistic approach across many disciplines is the only way forward for our civilisation?
"Like an arrow, through the heart of the Sparrow. Its senseless...the killer of the pretences"
Or we can continue to believe that that same philosophy and approach to the world ,which led us to the approaching cliff and abyss below, can somehow, through a natural course, bring us out.
It will take something far more radical than that to break the pretence that modern, consumer based economy is working for our long term future benefit.
How we live and build now, however you tamper, amend and patch it up, doesn't work in the long term as it will only sustain and benefit the few.