This is a grand idea in my mind. Perhaps it has already been written, but I love the thought of it. I don't have the words to make a full book, but I'll summarize and maybe you can get caught up with the idea as well.
"In the future: Mankind has excelled in the medical and technological realms. Plagues are a legend, sickness is non-existent, and lifespans are greatly extended. But by far the most significant progress made by humanity is that of bionics, and neural integration. Learning new tasks is as easy as an inserted chip. Languages, economics, history, and other areas which we used to study for years and even decades are now simple to know, to understand. It's just a matter of input. But man's strength is his weakness. The amazing mind was thought to be ruled by reason, but this never explained behavior well enough, so they added "emotions" to the theory. And after further study it came to the point of the mind being ruled by the core World View. This dictated emotions, effected reason, and clearly distinguished the cause for different cultures, attitudes, and nearly every aspect of difference found in human understanding.
Then came THE program. THE program changed a person's World View. THE program was reasonable, convincing, and demanded action. People of THE program understood so clearly. The rest of the world began to fear THE's people who had a unified World View. THE's people knew that they must spread THE program so that others would understand. And when they gave it to a person.. the person did understand. THE program spread peaceably at first, the inquisitive mind decided to give the perspective a chance or the strong minded thought themselves strong enough to understand the viewpoint without 'giving in' to it. They were wrong, and THE program spread. As the rest of the world began to resist THE program, it began to be more forceful in spreading. People were physically forced to take in THE program."
I'm not sure how it ends, but I thought it was thought provoking enough to dwell on for a bit. I know it's a lot like many modern apocalyptic sci-fi things written, but I really like the idea of a contagious ideaology. The picture of someone being forced to believe something and how it transforms them into a different person is especially vivid in my imagination.
12 comments:
I'd like to make some connection between this idea and this article (which is a VERY recommendable read).
I got the article from Jonathan and Eric's blogs. They discuss the article a bit, so it's interesting to read those as well.
An added thought w/ regards to the pre-THE world: they had lost all meaning in life, what it was for, what it means, etc.. and THE was an answer. The only answer which was aggressive enough to do something about it.
And what about the people who believe and obey the God of the cosmos? At what point is there a conflict? At the knowledge level when their chip knowledge conflicts with bilical truth? Or at the emotion level, when chip emotions are possibly given freer reign that godly wisdom would advise, or at the THE level when personal belief systems are surrendered?
Can Christian Bale and Sean Bean have jaw-dropping martial art infused gun battles?
wow, a book/story idea already gone movie in the prop's mind. but imagine it would be different than that movie which i believe you are referring to (Equilibrium) because they are an "emotionless" society. Ideologies carry their own emotion, and really THE program's people are like normal people, they just have a unified world view that they believe should be spread.
There's a sci-fi trilogy about tripods that has these caps. And when you put on the cap, it makes you one of their servants, but still otherwise normal. You just can't question the tripods.
It's interesting. I suppose it's a bit different than your idea.
Heh, I loved the Tripods series. I devoured all those books.
And I have to say that your idea is awesome Luke. Something similar was done in Snow Crash, where there were information viruses that would mess with people's minds (since people's minds are just meat computers...)
It is a cool thought experiment too. What are the necessary elements for such a worldview? Here's my list:
1. god
3. Morality
3. Reproduction
4. Technology (encompassing humanity too)
Then you also have to figure out what the point of the worldview is. Why does it exist and perpetuate itself? If you want to get crazy you can say that worldviews are actually living entities themselves and their existence is dependent on minds...and that adds a whole new dimension to things.
yeah, that is the "White Mountain" trilogy. I read it a few times when I was young. SUCH a good trilogy. I remember enjoying it a lot.
is a bit different than my idea though.
"THE" already exists...it consists of such beliefs as Islam and is not inserted through a chip but through brainwashing (usually from a very early age)!
~Luke K.~
luke, though you are certainly correct in your statement, I'd challenge it a bit by saying that all world-views are a brainwashing that we get. It's an permanent mark made on us as a result of the culture we grow up in. It does shift and change a bit, but for the most part, I think it remains constant. Maybe I'm touching a bit too inexperiencedly on philosophy here.
mom, i don't know how the rest of the book-thought would play out, as i hadn't even thought of the christian/religious implications. I saw "the" program as very reasonable to those who had it, and that can look however it may by whoever authors. Irrational people aren't really full people, according to modern philosophy, and so bringing them to reason in an aggressive way is not really wrong, as.. it is essentially treating an illness/deficiency.
as a response to Peter's jabs at what "THE" means, here's what I wrote to his blog:
"why does THE have to mean anything? how about it being an abstract assigned name for the particular program. What program? oh, everyone knows.. THE program. You know, the one everyone knows.
but if you insist: Technologically Holistic Explanation. how is that? Or Total Human Experience."
Very intriguing idea, Luke, as evidenced by all the comments you've gotten! Here's an interesting twist... What if the program or chip changed one's world view to correspond with reality? Even if we believe there exists absolute truth and a world view that would correspond to that truth, we all err in many ways. We suffer the consequences of our faulty world views, how they affect our emotions and choices.
A means of making everyone embrace the same world view, even if 'mostly true' is a scary thought, since it still would not correspond to reality and the 'missing truth' would really be lost.
What if on the other hand, it caused us to see reality, in all its true material and spiritual dimensions. And like Paul said, "then I shall know fully, just as I have also been fully known". What would be the effect then, if everyone was thinking, feeling and acting in accordance with the real universe, one which included God's character, the purpose for which we were made, and the certainty that every word God has spoken would be fulfilled.
As scripture says, "We all stumble in many ways." It's a lifelong struggle to understand God's world view, and to bring our thinking into conformity with ultimate reality. If anything could do that for us, it would save the struggle, but we would not be tried and tested, nor be honored as 'overcomers'. Best the way he designed it!
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