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Expert Combines Religion, Science and History in New Book: Cautions Spiritual Seekers World-wide About the Coming “Age of Singularity"

March 18, 2011---Lawrenceville, New Jersey, Charles W. Mark, Ph.D., in his new book, Spiritual Intelligence and The Neuroplastic Brain: A Contextual Interpretation of Modern History, invites spiritual seekers to ponder over some serious questions like what would happen to the fate of human spirit, human spirituality, and human capacity to use spiritual imagination and intelligence in the “age of singularity” when the intelligence of machines invented by human brains and human ingenuity is going to outsmart human intelligence billions of times? What would happen to our humanity and to our sense of feeling sacred and the holy when human intelligence merges with the intelligence of machines? Will there be any difference between man/woman and the machine?

To understand how we have reached this stage in history and where we are heading in future, the author takes the reader back into history to the time of the invention of printing press in 1450 A.D. The author brings home the fact that while the DNA content of all humans living on this planet is 99.6 percent the same, the Creator does not seem to have inserted a special gene among the 60,000 in the human gene pool that predisposes humans to master skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. “WE WERE NEVER BORN TO READ,” says the author, quoting  Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid (2007), "reading is one of the most remarkable inventions in history; and the ability to record is one of its consequences."

Genetics did not predispose humanity to invent skills in reading, writing and arithmetic, but the brain’s plasticity allowed humanity to “create an artificial environment for itself so that it could teach itself skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic.” We have biological limitations and constraints when it comes to acquiring and mastering skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic, according to brain researchers like Stanislas Dehaene and others. That is the reason  human beings all over the world rely on the same brain circuitry when it comes to mastering so-called the calling cards of rationality. 

Brain is a physical organ like the heart is also a physical organ, but neural wiring and rewiring inside of our brains is the work of culture: Community, language, religion, family, home, and life experiences. "It implies two-way traffic," says the author, quoting Michael Merznich, a leading neuroscientist of our times, "that the brain and genetics produce culture, but culture also shapes the brain."

The brain's capacity at organization and reorganization has made us who we are today. While quoting Dahaene, the author says that "we read using a primitive part of our brain that perhaps evolved to serve an entirely different purpose." Otherwise why would an infant take just the first two years to speak the language of his parents while the same child takes more than ten years to acquire skills in reading, writing, and arithemtic in a structured environment of repetetive practice?  

Why would a young woman take another twelve years upon graduating from high school to specialize in her field of specialization?Even with schooling, why would one among ten children, not counting children with dyslexia, will not fully acquire skills in writing and math?

Through archaeological study and research we have come to learn that humans taught their brain to read and write only 5,400 years ago. In fact, we invented alphabets just about 3,800 years ago. In the process, "we rearranged the very organization of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think" (Wolf). This has altered the intellectual evolution of our species, says the author. Ironically, we have reached the current stage in human evolution precisely by mastering skills in reading, writing and arithmetic when modern-day scientists are trying to change our biology by manipulating genes and by inserting chips into our brains. According to Stephen Hawking human genetic engeneering may replace biological evolution in near future when scientists start redesigning the human race.

The author seeks to caution readers that we need to pay more attention to spiritual intelligence which perhaps is what makes us uniquely human. Spiritual intelligence is feeling as well as value-oriented thinking that helps humans connect with each others. nature and the interior world of feelings. 

"Are we becoming thinking machines and problem solving machines at the cost of losing our ability to feel what it means to be human," writes the author. 

The intelligence of the "alphabetic mind" and the "numerical mind" acquired through years of learning and practice may be good at helping us discover the outer space and the world of our inner space--genes and cells. This kind of thinking that gained its momentum with Cartesian and Newtonian thinking in the 17th century may be good at solving problems by way of discovery, innovation, management, organization, and administration, especially when it comes to creating wealth, luxury, comforts, goods and services. That has not solved all of our problems. In fact the "alphabetic mind" and the "numerical mind" has created different set of problems for humanity like the possible nuclear annhilation, ecocide, biocide and genocide.

Why should we lose the sense of feeling of intimacy, love synergy, intuition, praise, prayer, repentance, and communal feeling of worship in an "age of singularity?" That is all the more reason for us to pay attention at developing spiritual intelligence that is good at helping us meet our social, spiritual and emotional needs.