Nanotechnology and religion

Even though I'm no longer teaching Core 10, I have found a way to work transhumanism into the coursework at my current institution.

This of course will include covering nanotechnology.

In English, we teach rhetorical analysis. This means taking a text and discerning what a writer is saying and what strategies and evidence are present in the text to support the writer's point. There are of course a diversity of opinions on a subject such as nanotechnology, which in addition to its timeliness, makes the subject fitting for such an exercise. It is yet undetermined whether it will happen in my present class, but several objections and otherwise cautionary claims in Core 10 came from the sector of religion.

I was reminded of this by an article in The Guardian (which I once wrote for, yes I'll keep plugging) called Nanotechnology and Religion: a complex relationship.

I'll say.

The article opens up by referencing a science fiction book that envisions a panel of Muslim scholars considering whether or not it would be right to eat a slice of bacon constructed by nanotechnology. After all, the bacon is not carved from that unclean animal, the pig. It has been built atom by atom by nanobots. Does that obviate the objection in dogma?

"The story may look like a joke, but it shows how the capacity of nanotechnology to manipulate atoms may change the material world in such a way to raise religious questions," says Chris Toumey, a cultural anthropologist at the University of South Carolina. He wrote the paper Seven Religious Reactions to Nanotechnology. I'm going to read it eventually. Honest. Just a little busy right now. But I digress...

Indeed, as much as someone of a more secular bent might be inclined to *eyeroll* at religious objections, the objections bring with them concrete concerns. Note that the bacon example entails a bacon slice assembled atom by atom. That advanced level of nanotechnology is the power of creation itself. If you can make and remake matter in any combination you choose, it's hard not to see that as God-like. What are the implications? Much as I might have longed for it, as I'm guessing so many of us have at one time or another, I am spiritually afraid of holding the power of God.

There are ramifications for ourselves in other regards. Transhumanists such as Kurzweil proclaim one of the benefits of nanotech to be longevity. A human body infused with nanotechnology may contribute to lifespans previously undreamed of. This may come about via nanotech-assisted cell regeneration or nanobots in the bloodstream destroying loathsome life such as cancer cells before they even fully form. That latter thought keeps me warm at night. And yet there are religious questions associated with immortality, or even prolonged lifespan.

That is among the many other questions.

From The Guardian article:

"Catholics relate the issue with classical bioethics problems: will new embryo diagnostics coming from nanotchnology lead to abortion? Will nanomedicine respect human dignity, even when health conditions deteriorate up to a point where euthanasia could be considered?

Non-Catholic Christians express their concerns about human hubris: for example, one author compares nanotechnology to alchemy, warning about the dangers of "total control over nature in the ability to transmute any substance into any other". Muslims take a very different path: rather than debating whether nanotechnology is right or wrong, they discuss who has the authority to make a decision. The question is casted in terms of ijtihad, the Islamic procedures for issuing legal rulings. Jewish writers frame the debate in the narrative of the Golem, This is a human-shaped creature assembled by men with religious or magic powers, whose behaviour can be beneficial or dangerous, in different stories: the baseline is that technology can improve creation, but this comes with a burden of responsibility for humans."

The Golem! Wow. I was thinking of Frankenstein's monster, but I suppose that's more of a secular metaphor.

What might atheists say? Does one need religion in order to see a need for weighty consideration before opening the floodgates on all things nanotech? Just see Robert Oppenheimer's quote about "going after something technically sweet and worrying about the consequences later" (paraphrased). I've been looking to see what Christopher Hitchens might have said on the subject, but have been unsuccessful at finding any writings or interviews that cover it. I didn't choose him because he spoke for all atheists, rather I just know he was a prolific writer and speaker, thus I might have stood a better chance at locating an essay. I wonder if nanotechnology might have allowed him to feel less powerless in the end. 

One might also be curious of the reaction from the more fundamentalist wings of the various major religions. Who can tell? The only certainty is that there will be one. Rhetorically, fundamentalism is a response to modernism. When life changes and technology advances, there will always be a subset of the population that views the changes with distrust and clings to black and white thinking.

This all bleeds with potential for thought, debate, and just general chewing over, far more than what this mere blog post allows, what we might call a "genre constraint" in comp/rhet studies. 

As I've always done, I'll let you know what the class says.



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