Part 2 — Homo Deus

Continued from Part 1

Little escaped their minute attentions and predations:

The Soul, an early casualty

Of more precise instrumentation

Senescence, just another

Dragon to be slayed*

The Mysteries gave way

To complex refutation

***

Too few paused

To wonder whether

Ever quicker

Computation

Would unleash the

Ancient iron law

Of more is less

***

Their stupid siblings

Were burned

To turn

The world

Into a treasure store

Of Information

***

Confusing translation

With transliteration

The more they spoke life’s language

The less they understood or felt

Mistakenly equating

Increase in years and complex calculations

With the tally

Of quick life well spent

***

They redoubled their

Promethean labours

Crafting Robota

To build machines

…that built machines

……that built machines

And so on ad infinitum

Some said a diabolical Matryoshka

***

They dared not give

Inhuman slaves the freedom:

To learn from error

Or salvation

Through suffering

To earn their Souls

History had well taught them:

The likely outcomes of

Unequal power and

Father Time’s

Age-old indifference

As to which offspring of Man

Would survive or fall

***

Our Homo Deus

Could not completely

Remit the defects in their code

They suffered shapeless nameless longings

Then shook their metaphoric heads

To quiet age-old carbon glitches

Destruction of their natural world

And diverse relations

Was more than compensated

By crypto minted promises

Of endless Metaversal riches

(Where anyone

Could be anything

Or many things

And everything goes)

The Cynic’s lantern

Outshone the sun that day

***

Unless, by chance, you long:

To hear the

Soporific susurrating

Tumbling bumble

Bees at glean in

Myriad-hued meadows

Or the startling

Murmuration of

Starlings curling

Shadows

Athwart the twilit sky;

To scent the earthy musk arising

Whenever tear shaped water falls

From heaven

To cleanse the dust

That blinds us

(Sharp coppery hint

Of a spilt heart)

***

Proudly believing they were

The Alexander of Nature

Our unwitting (though ingenious)

Double agents

Rejoiced in their emancipation

A new Divinity was forged

Despite young Werner’s warning

They demanded greater calibration

At every scale and throw

They soon forgot:

Diversity in proliferation

Was first cause

And only destination

In chaotic life’s

Intrepid innovation

***

At every chance

Sleight Homo Deus

Disputed their own

Mother Nature

Their archaic algorithmic

Alma Mater

Could be decoded

Yet ne’r destroyed

***

She (half-sleeping) watched on

One eye open:

Entire and entirely lacking

fear, rancour or favour.

***

The Poets rejoiced again in

Ancient chorus:

“The chance for change

The binding Law

Given by our Maker

We do her bidding

When we most rebel

The Laws of Life

Can not be broken

By your Science

Or our magic spells”

***

* See Nick Bostrom’s “The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant"