When a scientist produces something from nothing by virtue of his or her will alone, then we can talk godhood; until then to it's just blowing so much smoke.

Although it is interesting to think of the cultlike origins of much of the silicon valley crowd. David Noble (as Phil Agre writes in an article on antimasonry) talks about how a lot of the early engineers in this country had major religious currents running through their work. Wait, here's the excerpt from Phil Agre:
http://www.attrition.org/~modify/texts/must/antimason.html

"For the last few months,in amongst my official duties, I have been reading the literature on apocalytic social movements. I was originally inspired in this by David
Noble's book "The Religion of Technology". Noble observes, for example,that many of the important early engineers, particularly in the United States, were Masons, and he describes the development of a particular kind of millennialism -- or at least a secularized form of religious
utopianism -- among engineers that became secularized and formed the outlines of technical movements such as artificial intelligence and --he might as well have added -- cyberspace."

One of the more interesting posts I have seen at this site for awhile.

Edited by author 11-10-2001 11:27 PM
Slightly off topic, but interesting was Tom Wolf's book on the fathers of the digital age and their attitudes toward religion.
Wolfe pointed out the connection between Calvinist worldview, midwestern ideals, and the rise of digital technology.
He makes an interesting connection between grads of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, the conservative religion practiced by its founders, the bootstrap ethic and problem-solving-farmer mindset of the families of Grinnell grads and the large influence of those grads over the development of technology in post WWII America. To hear him tell it, these guys and others from small religious, midwestern colleges have single-handedly birthed the digital age. They didn't think they were God's, but on some level they surely believed they were doing God's work, even if they'd dropped out of their childhood churches, they took its theology with them.

But more, Wolfe demonstrates how their 'zero defects' , nose-to-the grindstone life view invested the world of high-tech in the fifties, sixties and seventies so that every youngster who came along later, whether he/she realized it or not, took up that ethic. They can thank the Protestant, midwestern, small college of the turn of the last century for their p.o.v.

Of particular importance was the attitude of these guys about heirarchy. They sneered at eastern 'suits'. They worked alongside their employees and rejected top down management. Wolfe claims this attitude, too, grows out of the populist nature of politics and lifestyles in the midwest of the thirties and forties.

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I buy it. He used the same argument to say that all pilots think they're Chuck Yeager, without ever realizing it, because Chuck's worldview permeated early jet flight.

Btw, did Phil Agre say 'apocalytic' or 'apocalyptic'?

shades of neal stephenson's "in the beginning was the command line" and jennifer cobb's "cybergrace". on the latter, david ulansey, a mithraic scholar, relates the reordering of world-view brought on by information technology to that of Christ on the hellenistic world. [1] he conflates the bible with that of virtual reality with similar results in changing the consciousness of the era (sort of like how david porush compares hypertext to the torah).

but i really don't think you have to go that far afield. any novel writer will tell you they're like small gods :) i'm reading a biography of matthew arnold's mind by lionel trilling, kinda like a gen-x poet of the 19th century, and it's interesting because trilling weaves it like becoming a "system-maker" was a response to the modern age in order to preserve truth. parallels everywhere!