I recently finished listening to Greg Iles’s The Footprints of God. This is a fictional “spy thriller” (sort of) about a covert project by the United States to create the first conscious computer brain.

Amidst all the double dealing, anarchy, and assassination attempts was a fun take on what it might be like when we reach the so-called “Singularity” when computers are to surpass humans in cognitive ability.

I am fascinated by Artificial Intelligence and anyone that has read my epistemology posts knows I favor a computational view of reality. (For my purposes, this means that to explain something is to be able to break it down into an algorithm and be able to simulate it. If you can’t do that, you don’t really fully comprehend it yet.) Iles’s book asks some philosophically fundamental questions that I would love answers to. Of course it also supplies numerous questionable and entirely fictional answers to these questions… but, hey, it’s fiction, right?

But then at the very end of the book the author had a short afterwards that leaves no doubt that he intended the book to be both entertainment and also serious philosophy. So it is in this light I want to take a look at the Impotent God of Greg Iles.

I must warn readers that spoilers abound. So if you are thinking of reading the book, don’t read this post.

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This is a test for fun and plus it might have relevance to a future post:

If you are male, please state who ordained you to the priesthood. No fair peeking at your lineage. Relationships (i.e. Dad, Bishop, Stake President) are fine answers since I don’t really care about the name. If you don’t remember, go ahead and admit you don’t remember.

One day I was visiting “Grammie’s” house with the kids for a family dinner. I decided to bring a video tape of a cartoon to watch with the kids there.

At one critical point in the story, there is this teenaged boy that is getting chased down by an unmanned tractors with harvesting blades on the front. The tractor seems to have a mind of it’s own. The kid stumbles and the blades start to hit him on the back. He screams in pain.

At this point, you’re probably all wondering why I was playing an animated Maximum Overdrive for the little ones. But as it turns out, the blades only cut through the boy’s shirt. There is not an ounce of blood whatsoever; in fact, there isn’t even a scratch on his back.

One of the mothers see this and starts to laugh. “That’s soooo ridiculous! That’s pathetic!”

I turned and grinned at her. “That boy… his name is Clark Kent.”

At that moment, the boy turns around and rips the tractor apart with his bare hands.

“Oh, never mind,” she said, and she wandered away satisfied with my explanation.

I am convinced this story says something profound about both human nature and about life; if only I could figure out what it was. Your interpretations are welcome.

The following is a paragraph from a Salt Lake Tribune article entitled “The fake uproar over Harry Potter’s ‘nude’ scene”

And why would parents be upset now over a 3-second bit of sensuality (which, in context, is integral to the story and to the development of Ron’s character) when they weren’t upset about the PG-13 bloodshed and violence that has already been seen in two of the previous six movies? Particularly when the MPAA is notorious for being much harsher in its ratings regarding sexual content than regarding violence?

After reading this article, I told my wife to not worry about all the hoopla and we took our older kids to go see Harry Potter.

But there was something about this article and it’s tone that bothers me and I wish to express it.

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