I have an idea of apes, or at least creatures that have transcended their earthly bodies, riding around in flying contraptions the size of satellites. But the flying apparatii are their bodies and the strength of their minds power the flight. All that was an is humanly realisable is contained within their mechanical, box-like bodies, which is powered by the drive to transcend the ordinary.
But when one puts everything into a boxlike body, which is designed to fly, one either succeeds in transcending all through the sheer power of the mind, or one transcends nothing. To be at one with the heights is an all-or-nothing proposition.
I've had dreams where the project comes crashing to earth. It's always a scene of horror. I'm in the garden, doing something normal, and I suddenly realize that the transcendence project isn't going to work. I look up. The apparatus is struggling against gravity, when it ought to be in its element, rising to the heights. I look up and it is still fighting gravity. I can't believe it. "Oh, the humanity!" (but it is worse than this, way worse). I look and all the hopes and struggles of human transcendent life are going to crash in my backyard. Not only the hero, the genius, will be burnt up in this crash, but my own life is in jeopardy as well.
I had another dream like this the other day. Mike and his friend were seating in a cafe, looking out, as the evening became grey. They were immobile in suburbia -- perhaps in the specific ways in which one occupies suburbia -- when suddenly a medium sized plane comes over. It's the size of plane used to transport the fly-in, fly-out workers to the mining fields. I think the plane is going, to land, perhaps in the centre of the city, since perhaps an airport has been constructed there. But its tail is dipping. Something's wrong. It's losing altitude. It's going to land a whole lot closer to us than I had first thought. It's going to crash.
I call out to Mike, "Quick call the police, it's going to crash!". I will it to "pull up, pull up, pull up".
And then it does. It descends into a car yard full of rusty cars and bursts into orange, jet-fuelled flames.
But Mike and his friend are ensconsed in suburbia.
I run down the street to the houses nearby, which are dark, empty, and delapidated. I want to enter one of the houses to use the phone, but something dark and foreboding warns me that there could be danger in that house I'd planned to enter. I give up and run back.
When transcendence crashes, my gut churns.
It's not like I haven't seen this before --- in real life and in all sorts of ways.
But when one puts everything into a boxlike body, which is designed to fly, one either succeeds in transcending all through the sheer power of the mind, or one transcends nothing. To be at one with the heights is an all-or-nothing proposition.
I've had dreams where the project comes crashing to earth. It's always a scene of horror. I'm in the garden, doing something normal, and I suddenly realize that the transcendence project isn't going to work. I look up. The apparatus is struggling against gravity, when it ought to be in its element, rising to the heights. I look up and it is still fighting gravity. I can't believe it. "Oh, the humanity!" (but it is worse than this, way worse). I look and all the hopes and struggles of human transcendent life are going to crash in my backyard. Not only the hero, the genius, will be burnt up in this crash, but my own life is in jeopardy as well.
I had another dream like this the other day. Mike and his friend were seating in a cafe, looking out, as the evening became grey. They were immobile in suburbia -- perhaps in the specific ways in which one occupies suburbia -- when suddenly a medium sized plane comes over. It's the size of plane used to transport the fly-in, fly-out workers to the mining fields. I think the plane is going, to land, perhaps in the centre of the city, since perhaps an airport has been constructed there. But its tail is dipping. Something's wrong. It's losing altitude. It's going to land a whole lot closer to us than I had first thought. It's going to crash.
I call out to Mike, "Quick call the police, it's going to crash!". I will it to "pull up, pull up, pull up".
And then it does. It descends into a car yard full of rusty cars and bursts into orange, jet-fuelled flames.
But Mike and his friend are ensconsed in suburbia.
I run down the street to the houses nearby, which are dark, empty, and delapidated. I want to enter one of the houses to use the phone, but something dark and foreboding warns me that there could be danger in that house I'd planned to enter. I give up and run back.
When transcendence crashes, my gut churns.
It's not like I haven't seen this before --- in real life and in all sorts of ways.
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