Fantasy

Science fiction goes looking for the afterlife--or its twin sister, transcendence--from two imagined sources. The first is in the hands of aliens, typically ancient and wise beyond all imagination. After all, transcendence must exceed any understanding available to us now--alien indeed. These aliens bear the gnostic insight we lack and invite us (or at least point us) toward immortality. The second source is in the mind of machines, or more specifically the marriage of man and machine in a union that takes man to levels of analytical thought unacheivable by our meat brains. The fully virtualized world of computers offers immortality as well when our essence (the mind only, of course) is preserved, replicated, and transformed. Both are leaps of faith, with no revelation pointing the way.

The name of the machine-man fusion is the singularity, the point in physics beyond which the usual laws no longer hold. It is more commonly known as a "black hole" and is here repurposed by materialists for a mental singularity where the power of computers brings in new understanding that would be incomprehensible to us today. That is all men with no meaning can scavenge of hope.

Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

Oh that with an iron pen and lead

they were engraved in the rock forever!

For I know that my Redeemer lives,

and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

yet in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see for myself,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me!

Job 19:23-27

HBO's latest production Game of Thrones is as pleasing a production a fan of fantasy could hope for: well written, well acted, lavish settings, and plenty of mystery. As the name would imply kings and those below them vie for power. They do it ruthlessly, they pass no opportunity for murder, intrigue, or lust. I was captivated, but it wasn't edifying. It was hard to turn away from something so pleasing to the eye.

There are diverse kingdoms, ancient histories, and magic portrayed, yet I was struck by the absense of an afterlife or any sign of characters pondering it. The Pharaohs built the Pyramids, Emperor Qin built the Terracotta Army, and today people can have themselves cryogenically frozen. History teaches us that men, especially kings, become preoccupied with death and the afterlife and will go to as many lengths to secure the latter as they will to avoid the former.

The kings in Thrones do not give it a thought despite the carnage around them. Do the writers?

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.... he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.... I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.... I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.

Ecclesiastes 3