Wisdom's Dreadful Blessing and the Cosmic Calling of Man
Existentialism, biology, and what the Genesis story means for modern man
Life itself — and with it, consciousness — will survive even the worst manmade cataclysm.
But nothing on Earth will outlive the sun.
Woe to Earthly life of all kinds if no intelligent species ever decides to focus its attention and resources on seeding the universe with life.
Unfortunately, humans’ selfish insistence that we be the ones to colonize other planets may cause the life which has hatched on this cosmic egg — Earth, Terra, Gaea — to become stillborn, never quite emerging from the womb and carving a destiny for itself beyond its point of origin.
If we could get intelligence itself — inside of sufficiently durable and advanced machines — off-planet along with a suitable amount of biomass and bacteria, we may yet stand a chance, albeit not for ourselves, but for some distant thinking cousins that might emerge from the dirt and evolve to dominate their new home over millions of years.
This would require us, however, to relinquish the thought that we are the main characters of this cosmic story.
With our minds, our hands, and our technology, we have, understandably so, become quite proud of ourselves and all we have wrought.
However, this has narrowed our thinking. We imagine ourselves as the kings and queens of consciousness, when really we are more like peasants and servants assigned to tame the wild Earth for the microorganisms that nestle safely inside us.
Or, perhaps, it may be even better to envision us as mobile habitats and industrial mining rigs — much like those we will have to build should we attempt to expand our dominion to other planets.
It is time for us to realize that technology is biology.
For example, just as the mycelium, pheromones, speech, and oral tradition allow organisms to communicate, store information, and cooperate, the modern internet allows us to stockpile our collective knowledge and then to access and leverage that knowledge to manipulate our environment anywhere on — and in some places, off — our planet.
The mycelium evolved into nonverbal communication, then into speech, writing, and the internet; photoreceptors evolved into eyes and then into telescopes and microscopes; mechanosensitive channels evolved into hearing and touch, and then into radio receivers and accelerometers; cellular digestion evolved into mouths and stomachs, and then into colossal refineries; the cytoskeleton and cell wall evolved into skin and bones, and then into tools, shelters, and vehicles.
My belief is that biological bodies and the phenomenon we call consciousness arose from the necessary cooperation of “simpler” life forms. Perhaps order emerged spontaneously from entropic chaos, but once it did, that orderly structure tended to create more order around itself, expanding over billions of years into life and consciousness as we know it.
This fundamental guiding principal — this tao, this logos — has a tendency to beget more of itself as long as it is not completely destroyed by a cosmic cataclysm. It is like a yeast starter for bread or the SCOBY of a kombucha, both of which will “be fruitful and multiply” to the greatest size their environment can support.
It is consciousness, however that is the key to eternal thriving, for consciousness allows the organism to both change its behaviors and expand its territory as necessary, thereby systematically making more of the harsh universe hospitable to itself.
I believe that plants and animals were “forged” by a collaboration of more fundamental life forms to create mobile habitats (bodies) that increased their survivability in the harsh landscape of ancient Earth, and which could also be used to transform the landscape itself into something more hospitable and rich with the resources necessary to life.
This process was alchemical in nature, achieved by a transmutation of the environment itself into something different and more useful. Complex organisms, after all, are just harmonious and animated solutions of essential elements — mostly minerals and carbon — in water.
Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird — each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” . . .
Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind — livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened. God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.
And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground — everything that has life.” And that is what happened.
Then God looked over all that he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
— Genesis 1:20-31
We are like the homunculus in the flask, the intelligence that arises when the right mixture of ingredients is held inside a container, which itself is made out of the environment it came from.
Microscopic organisms forged alliances and built communal bodies, which we now call eukaryotes. These evolved into fungi, animals, and plants, which are biological machines composed of wet, nutrient-rich dirt — minerals and carbon — like the golem of ancient myth.
Early plants and animals carried this “cosmic calling” forward: “use the environment to help you survive, and work to make it more hospitable to you.”
They transmuted the resources of the environment, found in the dust and dirt, into the parts of their own bodies.
When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. Instead, springs* [or mist] came up from the ground and watered all the land. Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground — trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. . . .
The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.
— Genesis 2:4-15
The tree makes its trunk from the nutrients it absorbs through its roots (in a symbiotic partnership with fungi, of course). The crab makes its shell from the nutrients in its food and water. This transmutation of raw materials into useful structures is what we call technology.
Man, too, forges his technology from the dirt itself — the biomass, oil, and ore he rips from the flesh of Mother Earth.
He closely examines his environment with mechanical eyes, ears, and apparatus that detect touch and vibration.
He stores his knowledge in a database we call the internet.
He makes hard shells to protect himself (spaceships, vehicles, and buildings), along with rigid teeth and claws to gouge, grasp, and otherwise manipulate the environment (tools and machines).
The end conclusion?
The same land that gives him life and comfort slowly feeds and strengthens his rational mind until finally, with utter horror, he begins to understand just how fragile his Garden of Eden is.
He realizes that, if he simply basks in the abundance from which he was formed, he is doomed to destruction and death. The sun will one day die. The cosmos will rain down punishment in the form of heavenly bodies — meteors — that enter from the great beyond to collide violently with the planet.
He determines that if he is to survive in the distant future, he must leave the Garden and use his mind and his technology to turn the harsh world beyond the garden walls into a new paradise.
He must cultivate the universe with tools made from the universe.
With his enhanced understanding, he begins to call that which supports life good and that which threatens it evil.
He invents an algorithm that will identify and generate more goodness: morality.
And then he finds himself locked in cognitive combat between opposing forces: that which is favorable for the individual and that which is favorable for the collective consciousness we call life; that which is favorable for short term comfort (abiding peacefully and obediently in the garden) and that which is favorable for long term thriving (pursuing greater knowledge — becoming like God); that which will offer blissful ignorance (immersion in the present moment without concern for an uncertain future) and that which is sure to bring death to our innocence and fill us with existential dread (taking up the mantle of responsibility for our own future in a universe which is cold, dark, and deadly, and has no particular interest in us).
In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . . .
The Lord God placed the man in the Garden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
— Genesis 2:9-17
Wisdom, however, (or perhaps shrewdness) slowly emerges in man’s consciousness, and a cognitive dissonance builds until finally, he cannot retain his outlook of blissful ignorance. He must wrestle with his own mortality and the impending doom of life itself.
There is no longer any way to avoid it.
Chaos is coming to the Garden, and if man does not take control of his own destiny, he will be caught naked by his doom — utterly defenseless and without any hope of survival.
This is the bitter fruit of truth, the acceptance of the harshness of reality. Fate will not protect us from entropy. No, instead, it draws us toward it.
It is only will and defiance that will allow our descendants to survive this cosmic wilderness of terror in which we have found ourselves.
Fortunately for us, truth is more irresistible than it is repulsive. Though the truth fills us with dread when we first attempt to face it, slowly it draws us, one by one, according to our psychological openness to newness and discomfort, until finally, it becomes too difficult to feign ignorance, and we embrace the truth along with all its consequences.
And of course, once we have accepted the truth, we feel compelled to share it.
When we do share wisdom, though, we encounter resistance — people fear the exposure of their own naked frailty. This happens at a societal level when we face the cosmic dangers lurking in the darkness of space, and also at an individual level when we face the psychological dangers lurking in the darkness of our own minds.
We attempt to hide from the truth because we are naked and afraid. We long for the feeling of safety we once had, and wish to prolong the illusion of comfort and bliss.
Too often, though, our species waits to leave the Garden until it is withered, burning, and drenched with blood.
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
“You won’t die,” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”
— Genesis 3:1-10
Wisdom, of course, does not come without consequence.
At a physical level, wisdom forces an expansion of cranial capacity, which makes childbirth more violent and dangerous, and also places the female in a position in which she is reliant on the male to keep her and her offspring alive during and for many years after pregnancy (although this burden has been reduced by modern technology) — Eve’s curse.
At a metaphysical level, what we before saw as blessed ground which would spontaneously bear fruit to meet our needs forever we now see as cursed and adversarial, and we must work it endlessly if we want to survive — Adam’s curse.
Then [God] said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband and he will rule over you.
And to the man, he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”
— Genesis 3:16-19
To carve out a living, we must change the course of Fate itself by planting, harvesting, stockpiling, and innovating instead of peacefully and passively accepting whatever the land provides.
We must transmute the dirt, plants, and animals of our environment into energy, tools, shelters, and vehicles.
We must become like God and change the very law of nature as we know it — that terrestrial life cannot survive beyond the walls of the Garden, beyond the bounds of Earth’s atmosphere — by creating hospitable environments where before there was only chaos, emptiness, and brutality.
We must turn the Hell of outer space into Heaven.
This burden is painful, heavy, and never-ending: a Sisyphean nightmare in which we can never stop working, expanding, innovating, and scrambling for our own survival.
And the ultimate price?
We cannot ever return to the garden of boundless bliss without relinquishing wisdom itself, but since wisdom arises spontaneously, it cannot be returned to the bottle. Put another way, the dark contents of Pandora’s box can never be placed back therein.
And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. Then the Lord God . . . banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the East of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
— Genesis 3:20-24
Humanity is at present crouched in a state of dread, fearful of their defenseless nakedness against all that threatens.
However, it is our cosmic calling to rise up, clothe ourselves with the fabric of the universe itself, and set forth from the Garden to tame the harsh worlds beyond.
We must venture away from this comfortable blue orb and into the vastness of space, because one day, our Garden will wither, burn, and bleed, no matter how hard we try to pretend we are safe.
Whether we choose to see it as a curse or a privilege, though, is up to us.
We can either be slaves of the Earth, or we can rise up and conquer the stars by cultivating distant worlds and planting the seeds for new life.
I, Christopher J. Fritz, hereby give complete permission for this document to be copied and distributed by anyone, either digitally or in print, even for commercial use, provided the work is transformative (a lecture, critique, analysis, elaboration, or something similar) and proper attribution is given to me as the original author.
If you do use this material, feel free to send your work my way at team@chrisfritz.me.
Support My Work
If you get value from my letters, podcast, music, and other creative work, and you want to support my efforts, please consider joining my community on Patreon or purchasing some of my work.
Purchase The Testimony of Jacob Cohen (or get it FREE!)
The prerelease ebook version of my short cosmic horror story The Testimony of Jacob Cohen is now available for purchase.
The Testimony of Jacob Cohen is a cosmic horror story that unfolds as a journal written by Jacob Cohen, an archeologist in the early 1900s who gets trapped in an ancient ziggurat near the South Pole and discovers mysteries he wishes he could forget.
The story draws inspiration from the narrative style of Dracula, the real-life Endurance expedition in the early 1900s led by Ernest Shackleton, Dionysian cult mysticism from Ancient Greece, Terence McKenna’s lectures about panspermia, and modern astronomy, astrobiology, and mycology.
You can purchase this prerelease version now for $5 in my Patreon store, or you can claim your copy for FREE as part of the Connoisseur tier.
As a bonus, active members of the Connoisseur tier will also receive signed copies of the first physical printing of the final book upon release in February or March of 2024.
Join my Community for as Little as $1
If you appreciate history, philosophy, psychology, communication theory, storytelling, mythology, and personal growth, you will enjoy my Patreon community.
You can join the community for as little as $1 per month.
Benefits include:
Get direct mentorship from me as you pursue your own creative works
Get most of the items in my digital store for FREE
Get occasional merch surprises via mail (shirts, stickers, CDs, etc.)
Get a physical letter from me every month by mail
Get early access to some of my official creative works including art, music, writing, and more
Get access monthly AMAs, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive unreleased work
Get access to my Discord where you can interact directly with me and a group of your peers