Are scientists and mystics forever destined to be distant from one another? Is there a time in our future when the two may walk side by side or even reside within the same organizations? And will there forever be conflict between the world of absolutes and the world of intuition? Taking into consideration a few of the long held beliefs on both sides, it seems they are destined to one day fuse.
For years subjects which were once considered exclusively technological have started to broaden their horizons and become more mystical in nature. Where we once had ideas of omnipotence we now have the virtual infinitude of technology. Where once there was an afterlife, now futurists have ideas about a life lasting forever through the power of science. And where we once had the broad undiscovered country of morality now we have another perhaps even more difficult struggle of humanity and logic.
But while the technological and the spiritual have long been polarized, some have begun wondering if they must remain exclusive forever or if in time they too will begin to merge as technology reaches a sufficient level of advancement.
The leap from current technological trends into the realm of the spiritual in some ways would be like comparing an abacus to one of today’s computers for the level of advancement that would be required. And yet in some other ways, the advancement would not need to be quite so advanced.
Scientists have already started postulating that if current trends continue then the discontinuation of any individual’s consciousness may soon become a thing of the past. But whether we move our minds into a sort of quantum computer with an incredible amount of space or we find a way to make our bodies invulnerable to disease and aging as some scientists are proposing, it seems possible that at some point in our future we will have to learn how to retell our stories and mythologies. Imagine telling a generation that had never heard of the concept of death or aging that once upon a time this was an inevitability for all human beings. And imagine the impact it may have on spiritual institutions of the day.
It was once said by famed Fortean investigator and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke that any sufficiently advanced technology would be virtually indistinguishable from magic. And so it seems to stand that in time we may soon see a blurring of the lines between technology and magic when we take into consideration the law of sociology known as Cultural Lag. Essentially, this suggests that at some point technology will become so advanced that to anyone aside from those actually creating the devices, it will seem more like a sort of magic than something as simple as the magnetic radiation of radio waves.
Nonetheless we will still have the fact that “Radios throw voices” and “Lasers are hot.” And so the explanations of the every day may turn to mysticism – and with sufficient advancement we may find that the two are not as mutually exclusive as we once thought. So will there one day in mankind’s distant future be a new class within our future civilization of mystics who wield technology and philosophy from the same platform? Perhaps in time we will come to discover that technology, magic, thought, and science have more in common than we once thought. We have already begun to see that transformation in progress. How will it look in another century?