Where technology meets humanity

And so ends the single worst year in the life of your humble narrator.

But what is that old proverb? "May you live in interesting times."

With that blessing or curse as a criterion, 2008 has fulfilled wishes beyond reckoning. And not only for me, but also for my battered hometown of Detroit.

And it is in times like these that I remember why I enjoy learning and writing about nanotechnology. It leaves the future wide open for imagining. And I choose to imagine a better world. Before nanotech became my obsession beyond reason, I wrote about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No more explanation needed there.

I have alluded before to a better, nano-enabled future for my down-and-out Motown hometown, where the seeds of the new auto industry have already been planted.

The next age of the automotive industry has begun, and nanotech will fuel the innovation that will make possible the long-lasting, safe, affordable batteries that will power our automobiles.

And it is in automotive technology where nanotech will at last have its first real chance at making a difference in the creation of cars that are safer, more comfortable and more fuel-efficient.

In 2009, I plan on making this a major focus of my work and you'll see it reflected more on NanoBot and elsewhere.

The first major "elsewhere" will be back where my nano obsession began back in 2001, when I helped launch one of the first nanotech magazines and Websites. Small Times has asked me to return as a contributing editor and blogger. The focus there is broader -- nanotech and microscale technologies such as MEMS and microfluidics. So that will be reflected in my new blog, which will launch after the New Year.

For NanoBot readers only, here's a sneak peak at my first post, which centers on new signs of hope for U.S. battery makers.

If you could just tune your ears above the recent clatter and racket that passed for debate over a bridge loan for the Big Three, you might have been able to just make out the tiny baby cries of a newborn U.S. auto industry.

I live in Detroit, so I heard the slap on that baby's ass, followed by the opening shrieks of a brat already born into a disadvantaged, dysfunctional family.

You see, in the literal power struggle over the next age of the automotive industry -- the electric age -- the U.S. battery industry is arriving late.

Well, we'll see if they let that through. I'll link to it when it's posted. If not, it wouldn't be the first time my blogging has annoyed my employers.

So, look for signs of a better year in 2009 for nanotech and for me, personally. I will have new writing and editing projects to announce as new life is breathed into this old hack.

Longtime NanoBot readers know that this blog has my name on it for a reason. It's not only about nanotechnology, but also about some of my personal struggles in covering it. I have managed to retain and grow readership over the past 5 1/2 years of blogging despite force-feeding some of my own developing philosophies about technology's impact on culture, society and religion.

In 2008, I had some time -- a great deal of time -- to think about it. So my readers will be forced to endure more of it. The subject ties in perfectly with some of the major nanotech news developments this past year, including new studies on negative religious and cultural attitudes toward nanotech.

Almost four years ago, I wrote: "Religion. Superstition. Ideology. Dogma. Scientists can ignore them, mock them, place themselves above them at their own peril."

In 2009, this blog will take on an even more personal tone, since much of it is also my scratchpad for ideas. Many articles I have written over the years have been part of a larger narrative, with overlapping themes.

I will, eventually, gently ease into explaining why I disappeared for five months and what I accomplished during that time. I alluded to it cryptically here, but more will be explained as I am able to publish what went on that changed my life dramatically between May and October 2008.

In a way, it mirrored our times, since there was incredible pain mixed with a spark of hope.

It had nothing to do with nanotech, but it did follow the narrative of my life's work and solidified some fundamental ideas about technology and society that I have been thinking about for many years.

Here is where I begin to sound like I am completely out of my mind. But perhaps that is only because I lack the academic background to couch these ideas in the proper format.

You've read on these pages before some nonsensical rantings about how we are forcing the digitization of an analog world. When I say this, I mean it in both the literal and metaphorical sense. It is where I part ways with those who advocate molecular manufacturing. We cannot turn waves into particles, mold clay into golems, and mistake the metaphor for the object.

We are analog in a digital age, where we pretend reality can be segmented. I have seen victims of, become the victim of, people who live by machine thinking, who believe the law can handle essential human affairs, who believe they are doing right, who lean back with self-satisfaction that a scientific mind has captured an act, a thought, an emotion and found the proper hole in which to bury it.

What is lost in science, in all our attempts to segment, measure, adjudicate, is an essential humanity.

I have no use for scientists who mock the superstitious public. Superstition, religion, even metaphor, are part of our nature as humans. To deny that fact, or place yourself above it, is not even very scientific since it ignores important data about the people for whom technology is being developed.

In science, in all attempts to segment human affairs, all it takes is a little humanity, where our reactions to situations, to technological change, can be found on a spectrum and not segmented into bits. It is within that spectrum that we can solve misunderstandings between science and society.

Humanity dwells between the digits, between shadow and light, between beach and shore, between madness and sanity, where explanations can be found in the indescribable.

May the coming year be a time of peace, healing, success and humanity for us all. Happy New Year.

The science of Hannukah 'miracles'

This Hanukkah, I celebrate my own personal "miracle" -- the simple freedom to be with my wife and children.

Yes, I know. No such thing as miracles, right? Well, I am a believer in science, too, but I choose to believe in miracles, as well.

I know there are rational, prosaic explanations for the "miracle" of my children and my ability to be with them, but I choose to turn on the portion of my brain that calls it a miracle.

What's that Arthur C. Clarke quote? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Perhaps the Maccabeans were nanoscientists who discovered how to optimize each molecule of oil to make the menorah burn for eight days, rather than one? Miracle? Science? Does it matter? We make our own metaphors, choose our own symbols.

Happy Hanukkah.

Backgrounder
Freedom is no small thing
The Case Of God v. Nanotech
Zeno, nano and quantum cwaziness

Mad Russians

Photographer Mike Rogoff posted this picture on Flickr, with the caption:

Christian fanatics picketing against nanotechnology, next to Marx monument, Moscow. I was nearly beaten by them as they were angry with me shooting. Crazy :) More here

Mike posted this interesting picture back in August. I lost touch with the nano news world last summer, so I don't know what this protest was all about.

I'm assuming they used the usual religious-fanatic logic about man "playing God?" Perhaps one of my Russian readers could translate the sign in the background.

Backgrounder
The Case Of God v. Nanotech
Playing God with Monsters
A new wrinkle for Eddie Bauer

The Case Of God v. Nanotech

Blogger's note: Here's another freebie. It's an article that I wrote a month or two ago. Then it sat in my files, doing nothing, as I became distracted with other concerns. So, unfortunately, this one never saw the light of day. It's too outdated to sell now, but I think there are still some worthwhile points in here about public and media perception of nanotechnology. Enjoy

By Howard Lovy

It took almost literally an act of God to bring the confusing subject of nanotechnology into the mainstream media the past few months. A nanotech-themed survey found that a "significant percentage of Americans" do not find nanotechnology "morally acceptable" because researchers are viewed as "playing God."

It's a good story, since it brings the subject to at least one level where nanotech meets the public. Unfortunately, most media coverage of God v. Nanotech ended up as confusing as the survey, itself, and as convoluted as most nanotech media reports tend to be.

It's partly the fault of a survey that asked for moral opinions about a technology that is not any single technology at all, and is so undeveloped that much of the "information" circulating about nanotech is based on hopes and fears rather than actual science. Media coverage generally reflects this, with different definitions and perceptions of nanotech sometimes even contradicting themselves within the same story. It's what happens when you mix a sprinkling of real science with popular opinion.

I don't mean to pick on science writer Lee Dye, but his coverage of this story on the ABC News Web site, Big Debate Over Small Science, provides us with a good Rosetta Stone to help us translate nanotech from myth to reality. Dye writes:

If scientists could produce a tiny robot that could travel through your body and heal damaged tissue, eradicate disease-carrying microbes, and even wipe out a cancerous tumor, would you support their efforts?

…

Biotechnology promises to ease our suffering, but many fear the real goal is to create super-humans, and super-warriors.

…

Nanotechnology comes with great hype, much promise, and some risk. Machines built to operate on such a small scale could be engineered to self-replicate, like human cells, thus raising the specter of a world run amok."

What Dye is describing is a vision of nanotech largely shaped by Hollywood and the writings of futurists, but has little to do with nanotechnology as it is being developed today. In this case, nanotech is being defined as biotech-plus -- meaning, take anything hopeful or frightening (curing disease, horrific warfare) and then take it a step further.

This vision of nanotech was likely what the survey participants were thinking when they answered that they had a few moral problems with nanotechnology. Qualms about biotech are transferred to nanotech.

This problem of "definition" has far-reaching impact on how nanotech is perceived and covered. It is such a broad term that it does not mean any one thing even to companies and researchers developing it. It could be semiconductors, advanced materials, cancer drug delivery vehicles, cosmetics, stain-resistant fabrics.

On top of that, reporters and editors covering nanotech are working with their own definitions. Often, these differing definitions of what nanotech "is" and what is "is not" have a number of different players talking past each other: reporters and sources, reporters and editors.

Here's a good illustration of this definition problem -- again, with the same God v Nanotech story. It comes from Katherine T. Phan of The Christian Post under the headline Americans Reject Morality of Nanotechnology on Religious Grounds.

She goes with what you'd think would be the safest route in defining nanotechnology: directly to the dictionary. But old reliable Merriam-Webster completely flubs it, defining it as "the art of manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale especially to build microscopic devices."

Well, the first part represents one vision, one ideal of nanotech, but current technology is not quite up to manipulating atoms in any meaningful way beyond the laboratory in small quantities. In fact, IBM only recently discovered a way of measuring exactly how much force it takes to manipulate an atom. For more on that, read this excellent report by Kenneth Chang of The New York Times.

Yes, companies pushing nanotech will attempt to achieve this as part of their long-term goals. But the sloppy solution they come up with in the meantime, they will still call nanotechnology.

Phan's report also illustrates how nanotech and biotech are confusingly intertwined in public and media perception. Phan works for a Christian publication, so her "localization" of the story for her audience has to be from the Christian perspective. Trouble is, there is a well established body of opinion on biotech issues for conservative Christians, but nanotech appears to be on the radar as simply biotech redefined. Phan writes that nanotech's "application to controversial fields like embryonic stem cell research is where it draws its critics."

Well, no. Nanotech has little to do with embryonic stem cell research. In fact, nanotech is the way around the need for embryonic stem cell research. Repairing cells and killing diseases within damaged organs removes the need to use stem cells to repair or replace them.

Phan almost rises to the task to inform her readers, but it turns out that her mention of stem cell research is cut-and-paste boilerplate for her niche audience.

"Many Christian advocate groups have asked the U.S. government to instead provide further funding for adult stem cell research, which has resulted in numerous therapies whereas research involving embryos has produced none. They have also asked the scientific community to explore non-embryonic alternatives for stem cells including a recent breakthrough technique that re-programs an adult cell to possess embryonic-like qualities."

Many of the recent breakthroughs Phan is referring to involves nanotechnology. One example can be found here.

Some of the best reporting on this story came from blogs, and my favorite came from Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal, who wrote:

"Our first reaction was that 70% of people must not know what nanotechnology is – President Bush, who has openly relied on moral views to shape his scientific agenda, has made nanotechnology one of his scientific priorities, after all."

Wired's Rob Beschizza got it right, too, in his blog entry:

"I think he's hyping an angle: religious belief merges neatly into irreligious fear of the new and other objections to science. He specifically chooses to forget about the science-skeptical nature of postmodernists, feminists, environmentalists and countless other non-religious factions."

So, with nanotech comes these issues of perception, myth and definition, how exactly is a responsible journalist supposed to cover the topic?

All too often, nanotech stories begin with what is not known -- usually the dreams of futurists or the nightmares of alarmists. That's going backward. Begin, like any good reporter, by confirming what is known.

We know that most nanotech research focuses simply how materials behave at the nanoscale -- or "fundamental nanoscale phenomena and processes." Along with that, an industry is being built around developing the tools and measurement devices to manipulate and see at the nanoscale. And more is being learned about environmental health and safety of nanomaterials.

None of these elements are ready to have a moral value placed on them yet -- and certainly not a negative one.

How do I know this? I start with what is known.

All three of the categories named above are central focuses of the recently released proposed 2009 National Nanotechnology Initiative budget.

It's not the most exciting document in the world. No predictions of doom, no cryonically perserved heads in stasis waiting to be reconnected with young bodies in 500 years. Not a document that you'd wave in your hands as you interrupt a news meeting. However, journalists who are interested in telling the real story -- where the science and business of nanotech actually is at this point, might want to start there.

It's not all there is, but it is a good place to start.

As for those who contemplate the societal, ethical, religious and moral aspects of a technology that has not yet developed into anything outside the imagination of its proponents and detractors, you'll get studies like God v Nanotech – further contemplation of a navel that is still obscured by its umblical cord.

Thy nanorod and staff they comfort me

Here's an intro to a press release worthy of a Cecil B. DeMille production, courtesy of Laura P. Wright of Blabbermouth PR:

But lo, aspiring nanotechnologists! Though ye may wander the Valley of Death, the Nanomaterials Application Center art with you!

Entrepreneurs among you know the "Valley of Death" as more than Davidic metaphor. It is a very real place, where businesses caught in its shadow do fear evil -- it is where good ideas die for lack of funding.

Still, Laura informs us that our cup can runneth over at NanoTX '07, going on now at the Dallas Convention Center. The event is featuring a Business 101 course designed to shepherd entrepreneurs through this Valley and into green pastures or still waters.

A PDF of the course can be downloaded here -- all 94 pages of it, which is considerably longer than the 23rd Psalm. But, then, King David probably had a better editor.

Religious voices would enhance nanoethics debate

Congratulations to Patrick Lin and his Nanoethics Group, which was just awarded a three-year, $250,000 National Science Foundation grant to study the ethics of human enhancement and nanotechnology.

Patrick, in a news release, says:

"The ethics of human enhancement technologies is widely held to be the single most important debate in science and society and will define the 21st century. Today, human enhancement may mean steroids or Viagra or cosmetic surgeries. But with the accelerating pace of technology, some of the more fantastic scenarios may arrive sooner than people think – such as advanced cybernetic body parts and computers imbedded in our brains – which magnify the ethical issues involved."

I've been saying for years that this issue is going to become more and more politically divisive -- ever since a warning against enhancement popped up in the nanotech bill in Congress back in December 2003. I hope the Nanoethics Group's study goes a long way toward getting some data involved in the debate rather than pure emotion.

I also hope the group allows more than token religious voices in the study. While some opposition to enhancement comes from the far left (don't mess with Mother Nature), a great deal of the political opposition will come from the religious point of view -- and I do not mean only the religious right.

This is no criticism of Patrick's group, but I have noticed a shortage of the voice of religion within ethical debates over nanotechnology. This is due to many factors, but primarily the traditional antagonism between scientists and the religious.

The result, I believe, is often scientists being "out of their depth" when it comes to discussions about the implications of their own work. At worst, this exclusion means that the concerns of millions of people in the world are laughingly dismissed out of hand. Many scientists have simplistic, or grade-school-level, ideas of religion and the role it plays in the public at large and base their debates on science and ethics on these simplistic assumptions.

To exclude the role of religion in ethical debates over nanotechnology would be the equivalent of a group of religious leaders who have a passing interest in physics getting together to determine the merits of string theory vs. loop quantum gravity, and think it ridiculous to let physicists participate in the debate.

Backgrounder
Rational science for an irrational world
Converging ideologies against human performance
You say you want an evolution ...
Better, faster, stronger?
Congress is thinking about thinking
Evangelicals and Nano-Gnosticism
Nano superhero is, appropriately, a golem

Nano superhero is, appropriately, a golem

Israel's first "nanotechnology-powered" superhero is now available in English at ynetnews.com. Cartoonists Eli Eshed and Uri Fink collaborated on "The Golem," which is a perfect name for the product of science gone awry.

Golems are clay creatures of Jewish legend brought to "life" by rabbis who can master the correct Kabbalistic incantations. Mary Shelley was said to have been inspired by them when she created Frankenstein. The most famous of these Jewish Frankensteins was the 17th century Golem of Prague, created out of clay and brought to life with one word, "emet" ("truth"), placed on its forehead by Rabbi Jehudah Loew.

Rabbi Loew is one of my ancestors, and I've always felt a spiritual closeness to him, which grows the more I read about his life and legend. His golem was meant to stand for truth, to become a protector of the Jewish people during times of persecution. Things didn't turn out as ol' great-grandpa planned.

Since then, the golem has come to symbolize how the "creations" of man can go horribly wrong. I wonder if this comic's creators are aware that if they are to stay true to the golem legends their superhero must ultimately fail. The moral of the Jewish myth is that it is dangerous for mankind to "play God," or to "alter nature" by giving life to clay.

It is a message that resonates today, of course, as the far left is beginning to voice its opposition to nanotechnology on the assumption that to manipulate molecules is to mess with "nature," and the far right is mobilizing against the concept of "transhumanism," "human enhancement" and other schools of thought and technologies that seek to improve upon our essentially weak -- yet, "God-given" -- bodies.

The comic, however, is obviously taking a lighter approach. In this modern version, it's government bureaucracy that goes awry. The first comic begins with Professor Finstein's "Israeli Super Hero Project" about to become the victim of budget cuts. He convinced the government to build it using "these very small appliances," which turned out to be nanobots, of course. What he did not say was that he neded "67 trillion" of them to build a proper super hero. "Oy vey .." exclaims the guy from the Israeli budget office.

NanoBot Backgrounder
The Golems of our Era
Nanotech and Tikkun
NanoKabbalah Consciousness
Evangelicals and Nano-Gnosticism
The Kabbalah Nanotech Connection

Zeno, nano and quantum cwaziness

Howard,

First let me say that I am an avid follower of Kabbalah for about 10 yrs now, I am also involved in research and investment in nanotech, I for one appreciate the direction you took with that article. Religion and science are often referred to as opposite sides of a coin, but as we move along into the quantum realm, we will discover they are more like two sides of triangle, the further we move along, the closer we get to a common point.

That being said, you know as well as I do, that as passionate as we may be about the simplicity of it all, it is near to impossible for the average reader who has no Kabbalah experience to get a grasp of what you were trying to put across. I do however applaud your attempt.

I must confess something to you: Ein Sof has always been a tough concept for me, I have pondered about for hours at end but never really got a grasp, so I just filed it in the back of mind in the ‘check back later’ folder. While reading your article, you mentioned Zeno's paradox in relation to Ein Sof. I sat up in my chair, eyebrows raised, it is so simple! I have not had a spark of insight strike me like that in a long time, its all so clear now! I must thank you for that!

Regards,
(Name withheld at writer's request. He says he doesn't like "mixing religion and business." Translation: He can't be associated publicly with my kind of nano voodoo. After all, unlike me, some people care about their reputations in the eyes of the science and business community. But I digress ...)

Dear (Name withheld -- see rant above)

Wow. I must be better than I thought! I do come from a line of rabbis -- yet, I'm certainly not rabbinic material. I'm glad you got something out of my piece. This has got to be the first time anybody has told me they've found God in anything I've done!

Howard

Well, I didn’t really find God, just got infinitely closer ...

(Name Withheld, blah blah blah)

NanoBot Backgrounder
NanoKabbalah in Salon on my birthday: Coincidence?
NanoKabbalah Jihad
Nanotech arrogance will meet the Luddite hammer

Invisible Nanotech CEOs for Truth?

Has anybody ever heard of Patmos Nanotechnologies LLC or its CEO, Karl W. B. Schwarz? Evidently, this person is passing himself off as a "conservative Christian" corporate CEO who's opposed to President Bush, as stated in this letter. Trouble is, if there really is such a nanotech company, it's done its best to stay below the radar. Perhaps corporate invisibility is a new nanotech product?

NanoKabbalah in Salon on my birthday: Coincidence?

Today is my 39th birthday, and it happens to coincide with salon.com running my article on nanotechnology and Kabbalah. Now, perhaps a Jewish mystic would find significance in the numbers 39 and 10-7-04, but it's all much too complicated for me. Besides, Kabbalists believe you shouldn't study this stuff until after you turn 40.

In any event, I want to thank Andrew Leonard, the Salon editor I worked with on this piece, for his insight and guidance in helping me bring out these ideas in, I hope, a way that is understandable to a general audience. Regular NanoBot readers already know a little about how science and spirituality can find some common ground. But it's not easy making that connection between two complicated subjects while still holding the readers' attention. Andrew proved to be a patient and able guide.

To access the story, you'll need to subscribe or sit through an ad to obtain a free day pass. Here's an excerpt:

The mantra in the nanotech industry is to learn from the mistakes made in biotechnology and the public rejection of genetically modified organisms. Partly to blame was a "top-down" attitude taken by a scientific establishment that was much too self-important to bother with public attitudes and perceptions. So, consideration of "societal and ethical implications" is No. 1 on the nanotech industry's list. However, part of that process involves paying attention to the separate philosophical and religious societies in the world. Not the abstract "society" of a scientist's dream -- one that will listen to scientific explanations and reach "correct" conclusions based on the strength and logic of their arguments -- but the real society that's out there, the one that laughs at, or adores, Madonna and wears red strings, the one that crowds around old barns in rundown villages to gaze at a stain that they swear is the image of the original Madonna, the one that drops to its knees and faces Mecca five times a day, or faces toward Jerusalem every Friday night to welcome the bride of Shabbat. More here

NanoBot Backgrounder
NanoKabbalah Jihad
Nanotech arrogance will meet the Luddite hammer
NanoKabbalah Consciousness

NanoKabbalah Jihad

Howard,

We’re baffled as to how you equate our comments on Madonna’s astrologist with anti-religious rhetoric. Regurgitating that kind of cosmic garbage is worthy of being flagged as twaddle, whether it comes from Archbishop Harper or Ayatollah Lovy.

All is not lost, blogspace is full of places dedicated to the discussion of the finer aspects of spirituality and science.

This isn't one of them.

Cientifica

Well, you were a target of opportunity for me. I think you're intelligent enough to know that I'm not defending "astrology" and that I really don't care what Madonna is in to (Kabbalah is old news, by the way. I heard about her interest in it about six years ago and attempted to interview her about it for her hometown newspaper, The Detroit News, and was rebuffed by her publicist).

The larger point here is that you cannot divorce science from larger issues of society, culture, religion, custom and, yes, superstition. You can say you're all about pure science -- it either is or it ain't -- and to hell with the unwashed masses and their silly unscientific superstitions, and you're going to find yourself completely baffled as to why the public just can't see the logic in your arguments for nanotechnology.

Nanotech, as you know, is not any one technology at all, but promises to become pervasive in just about all aspects of life. Therefore, it needs to be presented to the public differently. It needs to be presented within a broader context. Otherwise, you'll be met with GMO-style opposition. As you know, GMO is a case where misconception and superstition had a real impact on the science and technology that you care very much about.

It's not about Madonna. It's not about Kabbalah. I just saw some inacuracies in your coverage of this and wanted to set it straight. Then, I grew annoyed at the pompous tone you took -- a tone that I think resonates negatively with the general public. So, I used it to try and make this larger point. Nanotechnology is not only about science and business. It's also very much about society and culture. If you want public acceptance, you have to concern yourself with all of the above.

Howard

The Kabbalah Nanotech Connection

Perhaps, TNTlog, it's best not to ridicule what you do not understand. Kabbalah and nanotechnology are more similar than you think. And, no, I'm not interested in Kabbalah because some celebrities have recently discovered it. I've been studying it most of my life -- not as a practitioner, but as an amateur student of religious history.

First, just to correct an error in the TNTlog post, Kabbalah is not a religion. It's a series of teachings within Judaism. And Madonna's rabbi is certainly not the first to see the incredible similarities between Kabbalah and science. The Big Bang was actually reasoned into existence by Kabbalists centuries before science "discovered" the event. When I first became interested in nanotechnology, I was amazed at some of the similarities, in thought and method, with Kabbalah.

Let me try to give you the blogger's digest version of an incredibly complicated philosophy and world view that has its roots in ancient Judaism. This, of course, is impossible, since many spend their entire lives trying to grasp it. So, I'll open with a story:

Abut four years ago, when I lived in New York, I traveled up Broadway to Yeshiva University to listen to a lecture by Temple Grandin. I have an autistic daughter, and so was intrigued by Grandin, who is autistic yet has achieved much as an inventor and agricultural scientist.

She told the audience of primarily rabbinical students that she believes the order that comes from chaos is proof of God. Her path to God is through science. She reasoned Him into existence – using the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Chaos Theory. It's a thoroughly logical way of arriving at a conclusion that defies logic.

Autistic people supposedly are dispassionate, think in pictures, and not existentially. Everything is ordered. The universe is autistic. It takes chaos, randomness, and obsessively places it in order, numbering everything "just so." Only a thoroughly logical mind can reason God into existence. Maybe that's why Einstein believed in God.

Maybe, too, that's why the most brilliant men of Medieval Jewry, shut out of any other profession in which their intellect could be used, spent what I used to think was a complete waste of mind power, reflecting on the minutia of Jewish law – taking the Torah and extrapolating a complex system of laws. Creating, codifying, obsessively ordering and numbering a spiritual system into a logical system.

But the smaller you get, the more you see the logic and order break down. The laws of physics seem to change. The smaller the size, the deeper the mystery and the more the orderly turns chaotic. It all meets on the nanoscale and below, where spirit/spirituality meets the individual components of organisms, where sand meets wave, where analog meets digital, where spirit meets matter.

The Kabbalah teaches that the universe was created perfect, yet then was blown to smithereens, its sparks of perfection scattered to the winds and hidden by husks that comprise today's reality. The duty of humankind is to gather the sparks back together.

This brings us to the line that was ridiculed on TNTlog as "twaddle."

Nanotechnology ... is the technology of the future. Since science discovered the atom, and revealed its composition, scientists have been penetrating deeper and deeper into the functions of the proton, neutron and electron. The closer to the seed that these scientists get, the more they realize that its not about physical matter at all, but about energy. In other words, in the future, we will be able to reprogram ourselves, our bodies, and physical matter at the root level, but under one condition: that we must first care about the other person, before we think of ourselves."

Yes, I know, this particular "Kabbalist to the Stars" is probably selling a bit of spiritual snake oil, but that statement does get to the heart of the Kabbalah. The way you "gather sparks" -- perhaps metaphorically, perhaps physically -- is by leading a righteous life, by performing mitzvot, or good deeds and acts of charity. You do it by placing the needs of your fellow man or woman above your own.

That's how we zoom our scanning tunneling microscope from the "husks" of matter to its component atoms to an energetic "spark." This energy can be discovered, replicated and harnessed by science for any purpose at all. Yet these sparks can be used to repair the world only if they are in the hands of the righteous, the unselfish.

Yes, like a nanobot.

NanoBot Backgrounder
NanoKabbalah Consciousness
Nanotech and Tikkun
The Golems of our Era

NanoKabbalah Consciousness

I've written about nanotech and tikkun olam and modern nano golems, today's midrashic lesson from Howard Lovy's Institute for Underfinanced NanoKabbalistic Studies comes from Rabbi Yehuda Berg, (yes, Madonna's personal guide to Jewish mysticism).

I'm not sure if my 17th century ancestor, Rabbi Jehudah Loew, creator of the Golem of Prague, would have understood the Material Girl's message, but I do know old great-grandpa did much to spread a complex spiritual/scientific system to the masses.

Rabbi Berg writes:

This week you can open the box and step out. Practically, this means the passion grows, the money flows, the moments of enlightenment never stop. According to Kabbalah, this is the state of nanotechnology.

... The genius of nanotechnology is the reduction of space. Smaller is infinitely more powerful. Consider the first transatlantic telephone cable. This bulky line carried approximately 32 phone calls. You might assume that to add more callers, one must simply enlarge the cable. That was the old way of thinking. Today, scientists recognize that less matter and less space, not more, equals more raw power. A micro-thin fiber optic cable can now carry 320,000 phone calls on a simple thread of light.

It seems that scientists on the cutting edge of nanotechnology are reaching the same conclusions about space as did the kabbalists thousands of years ago.

For 4,000 years, kabbalists have been explaining that achieving immortality is the removal of space. Space, as defined by the kabbalists, is the opening for negativity to enter your life. Eliminate the space, and the world of limitations becomes limitless.

Now, whereas technologists have created microscopic tools to affect changes in the physical world, Kabbalah’s singular tool is non-physical. This tool is consciousness.

... My father and teacher Kabbalist Rav Berg explains that an open heart is when you see another person possessing something you don't have and you are totally excited and happy for them…even though you don't seem to have what they have.

Example: A guy you know is getting married. He found the perfect wife, and on top of it, he has the perfect job, body, house - the whole nine yards. And there you are, alone, stuck in a dead-end job, out of shape, out of luck – you get the picture. How can you not be jealous of this guy?

The Rav teaches us that there is no space between you and this guy. It is simply a rule of the universe – we are all connected. However, the moment you identify with the illusion that you are separate from him (and by doing so focus on your lack), is the moment you create space for negativity to enter your life. With this type of thinking, you are no closer to finding your soul mate and all the things your soul desires. This is not nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is knowing that if this guy is able to manifest these blessings, you can too. It is using the tools of Kabbalah, i.e. certainty and restriction, to disconnect from the feeling of lack (space) and to plug into the confidence that your fulfillment will come too - as long as you work for it. This is true nanotechnology.

It is especially important that you don’t allow any space to enter your life this week, for this week you are playing for immortal stakes. And by using the nanotechnology of Kabbalah – your consciousness – you will win this game and claim your prize.

Update: Is it Shavuot again already? RU Sirius and David Pescovitz celebrate with a discussion on technological counterculture as catalyst for human evolution. Man, sometimes, all things considered, I'd rather be in San Francisco. Palo Alto will do.

Another Update: Says Nick Gray: "I didn't have any idea what Kabbalah was until I read this blog post comparing it to nanotech."

And Sleepy-Head wakes up long enough to write: "Interesting entry about nanotechnology and kabbalah. Interesting only because of what it says about the kabbalah, as I’m not sure the person understands nanotechnology at all. I don’t think the benefit of nanotechnology has as much to do with size as it does density. It’s not that the phone line works because it is small, it works because the pieces are better, and more dense."

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Nanotech and Tikkun

In my previous post, I made light of the "human enhancement" portion of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (PDF, 56.1 KB), and I'm not the only one who's a bit puzzled by its safeguards against "potential use of nanotechnology in enhancing human intelligence and in developing artificial intelligence which exceeds human capacity." In all seriousness, I believe it's one of the few passages of the bill that looks far into the future and demands that we begin to think about what exactly it is we're trying to do here. It also presages a debate that is growing in not only environmentalist circles, but in religious ones as well. Take a look at a few paragraphs from this interview with C. Ben Mitchell, an assistant professor of bioethics and contemporary culture at Trinity International University, in the January 2004 issue of Christianity Today magazine. The Bible does not address nanotechnology, but does it offer any principles that should guide Christians as they think about it? The Bible's message is about redeeming that which has been lost and about caring for those who are in need and those who are suffering. It seems to me that the biblical obligation is to care for those who are the least of these, rather than make an effort to advance our species. Does the Bible prohibit enhancements? I don't know of a specific prohibition that says we ought not to try to enhance human beings. I find a number of cautions. The tower of Babel story is a powerful cautionary tale against trying to usurp God's authority. It's a warning that at least ought to give us pause. I'm curious as to where bionanotech scientists believe their limits should be. Ultimately, though, it's not even the scientists who will set those limits. It's those who will fund and commercialize the technologies, the market that demands them and the governments that will decide where to clamp down and say, "no further." The question is, who is doing the informing, and ultimately what will guide the governments' decisions? These questions will become increasingly important over time, and I'll have more to say on them soon. I approach these issues, by the way, as one whose belief system is grounded in both science and religion. There is a concept that is overused these days among believers in my particular faith, yet it brings me to an intellectual and spiritual place where science and religion can be reconciled: In Hebrew it is called "Tikkun Olam," or "repairing the world." It's a Kabbalistic concept that is often co-opted by individuals and organizations that stretch its meaning to fit their own particular missions. At its center, though, is the idea that creation has been shattered from its original pristine state, and that it is only through the actions of humankind that the shards, the sparks – the atoms, if you will – that were scattered from this once-perfect universe can regain their perfect order. Discuss Related Post The Golems of our Era

The Golems of our Era

Here's a new take on the old thespian question: "What's my motivation?" Actor John Oglevee, who plays the Frankenstein monster in a new stage interpretation of Mary Shelley's nightmare, told Backstage.com: "Existential questions surfaced: Are the brain and the soul the same, are they connected? And more: Is nanotechnology a good thing, is it a dangerous thing?"

Something must have been left on the cutting-room floor because the article does not elaborate on what he means. But the nanotechnology connection seems obvious. The Frankenstein story is so timeless, every generation can pump that monster full of fresh cultural blood.

I, too, am a child of Frankenstein. According to literary lore, Shelley dreamed up the beast while operating a pen under the influence of golems -- clay creatures of Jewish legend brought to "life" by rabbis who can master the correct Kabbalistic incantations. The most famous of these legendary beasts was the 17th century Golem of Prague, created out of clay and brought to life with one word, "emet" ("truth"), placed on its forehead by Rabbi Jehudah Loew, of whom I am a descendant.

Each era has had its golems, created by humans yet difficult to control once released into the world. Old Great-Grandpa would not be surprised by my fascination with nanotechnology.

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Swords into nanoshares

It's rare that my current focus on nanotech actually melds with my previous incarnation as the managing editor of a wire service that covers issues relating to Judaism and Israel, but today, through some kind of kabbalistic convergence of the molecular and the mystic, we have this announcement that former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres will give the keynote address at the World Nano-Economic Conference Sept. 8-10.

I think this announcement illustrates, among other things, how amazingly fast the world can change in one person's lifetime. Peres was born in Poland during the 1920s, an era that scarcely could have imagined a world where nanotech was possible. It was a time when innovative new technologies were being developed that could save lives … or snuff them out, efficiently, by the millions.

Maybe the world hasn't changed so much since then.

Peres, a Nobel laureate, as long been an advocate of the peace process with the Palestinians in part because when it comes to world opinion, the conflict overshadows all of Israel's scientific achievements. Also, quite simply, Israel is using much of its financial and human resources to maintain a security state, rather than developing the science and technology needed to compete in the global marketplace.

For the other reasons why he's a big nanotech advocate, I'll leave it to Peres himself to explain: "Shimon Peres: Nanotechnology holds a key to Israel's future."

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