1

Golem and Modern Science1

"Regarding the Golem One does not find, at least

at the outset, the kind of negative judgment one

finds in the Faust legend concerning the knowledge

and creative human activity "in God's image". Quite

to the contrary, it is in creativity that man fully

attains humanity in a perspective of Imitatio Dei

that allows him to be associated with God, in a

process of ongoing and perfectible creation."

Atlan, 1999

"Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is

indistinguishable from technology."

Niven's Law (converse of Clarke's third2 law)

Addressing a "Modern Golem" in all its biotechnological and abstract-theoretical

manifestations, invokes the entire range of possible technical, philosophical, ethical

and normative topics. It touches very deep nerves in the human relationship with the

divine, with the world and especially with its own identity. Moshe Idel, in his seminal

book on the subject (Idel, 1990) has made the distinction of the different modes and

driving forces for dealing with artificial creation of life. The magical transmutation of

dumb matter into life is thoroughly different from the mystical and theosophical

aspirations of connecting to a spiritual "body", an astral form etc. The Jewish

accounts of breathing life into gathered earth are not a simple appropriation of earlier

magical traditions of the east, or Grecian technical Mirabella. It is a distinct mode of

acting in the world – a magical creation or a spiritual aspiration. The golem is a

powerful symbolic venue ("prooftext" for a cultural identity, in Idel's terms) that we

call on3 for the purpose of dealing with the modern technological-scientific

4 epoch of

1 Panel discussion in: “The Power to Detect and Create: Ethical Challenges Emerging from DNA

Technology and Genetics: The Impact of Genetics on Jewish Living and Jewish Ethics” At the Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center , Bar-Ilan University, Tuesday, June 8, 2010. 2 Arthur c. Clarke formulated the following laws for prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. 3 According to Idel (verbal, same conference), Jews called on the Golem story as proof of their place in

the world and of their prowess. Even halachic treatments of this issue are expressions of familial and social issues. specifically, Rav Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi (1660-1718), the Chacham Tzvi and his

2

Information-laden5 science that might otherwise be construed as devoid of moral and

conceptual reference.

Creative Destruction, Destructive Creation

Modern scientific and technological developments are heavily marked by the

dangers that development can harbor. A techno-scientific version of this is the risk

society (Beck, 1992), in which it is nearly impossible to distinguish between the

research done in the lab, its application and its dissemination to consumers of the

resultant technology. Much of this intuitive fear comes from the golem and its literary

and philosophical counterparts, such as Merry Shelly's Frankenstein's Monster. But in

the age of risk-society (Beck, 1986), the way science itself treats nature and humanity

– before the actual advances toward artificial life – that poses an ethical challenge of

the artificiality of human existence proper:

The human artifice of the world separates human

existence from all mere animal environment, but life

itself is outside this artificial world, and through

life man remains related to all other living

organisms. For some time now, a great many scientific

endeavors have been directed toward making life also

“artificial,” toward cutting the last tie through

which even man belongs among the children of nature...

Arendt, 1958, p.2

It is on the dual axis of the traditional attitude to the golem and the new techno-

scientific strides towards artificial life, which the current debate surrounding a modern

golem revolves around.

Responsum (#93 regarding a golem's role as a Jew and a human), and his lineage to rabbi Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm and the tale of the Golem of Chelm). 4 It has been argued that the profile of current day science, technology and medicine is that of the

lumbering golem of the folk fable; a created, artificial, well meaning but disaster prone. Human creations tend to do much more than intended, they have a half-life of their own. It is scary precisely because it is not malevolent, but definitely irreversibly affective. See Collins & Pinch, 2000.

5 A science that relies so heavily on Informational terms, its subject-matter and goals only be

fully expressable through them, is Information-laden. It is imbued with an Information-oriented description of the world, which serves in shaping both the research goals and the means of achieving

them - the vocabulary and the content of scientific discourse. The new style augments many different disciplines and modes of inquiry: IT tools (Information capacity, transfer and analysis) frame a

relevant object of research and criteria for acceptable results and law-like regularities. Information measures provide a tool for assessing existing realms of science - starting with thermodynamics - as

Informational.

3

Artificial Nature

One deep seated traditional distinction held in classical treatments of the golem is

the difference between Nature6 and the artificial. The action of changing nature was

conceived as supernatural by definition, achieved by superseding, overriding the order

of things and imbuing nature with forces of another kind.

In the current atmosphere of science and technology this distinction is eroded.

The default state of affairs is the one comprising scientific analysis, technological

intervention. Nature is now a set of operational laws, the object of scientific modeling.

It can retain and even advance its ontological status as a fundamental order, but the

human relation to this order is increasingly geared towards appropriation (sic –

patenting genetic data or synthetic biological entities) and utility. As far as the human

agent in the world is concerned, a nature that is not a resource is a "natural reserve" –

making it just as artificial as the concrete and steel constructs banned from the

reserve's borders. Huxley's vision of nature reserves for the "wild" non-designed7,

uncontrolled natural humans (primitives and utopians), is only a thing of the future in

the sense of isolation and sequestering, since unplanned and blissful ignorance of a

genetic identity and prudent planning is becoming rare. The practice of simply getting

married and having children is becoming a veritable endangered existence.

Nature is no longer so easily described as something with its own essence,

independently existing beyond the sum of resources at the disposal of technological

manipulation and fabrication (Heidegger, 1954). It is not an ontological claim about

reality but about the function of man in it: it is no longer an expedition into the

unknown, but rather the appropriation of that wilderness for need and application.

[Take the difficulty of relating the importance of sports without doping today. It

is not an educational problem, but rather a conceptual one.

6 This is in no way an attempt to rfer to a definite and static definition of the natural. It is actually

quite possible that the diversity of opinions regarding "the natural". My only intention is to allude to a tacit assumption that there is something to interfere with, a background against which human intervention carries any meaning at all. A lucid and masterful explication of this approach is delivered by Dr. Noah Efron, "Nature is Not What it Used to Be, and Why this Matters", University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics 2010 Ruebhausen Lecture (March 23, 2010). 7 Brave new world was written before DNA was discovered (1933).

4

Creating a golem in the past had cosmic significance. More than just magic -

however grandiose (astral, hermetic, alchemical) the setting - It was a world-shaking

undertaking. Crafting new life was a true push against the limits of the natural order.

A modern scientist working in the laboratory does not operate in anything like this

atmosphere. Generating a new synthetic life-form or developing an algorithmic

heuristic that can pass the Turing test, does redefine the boundaries (of life,

intelligence, humanity). But this is done in a world where the map has been rewritten

more than once. Even if this kind of work entails a revolution that surpasses the great

scientific revolutions of the past, a rewriting of humanities perception of itself – it is

precisely the kind of behavior modern techno-science expects of itself. It would be a

big evolutionary step for the complex organism that has people, machines and

algorithms as organs.

Creation (with a capital C) has been replaced with production and process. It is no

longer a break of the natural order – since order is now the business of the

technological standard. Manipulation and artificial reproduction usurp the original, the

natural. A modern golem is a different beast; power and complexity of manipulating

nature have grown to gargantuan scales, but they actually feel less profound than the

magician demonstrating a failed perpetuum mobilae and desperately reporting a

successful homunculus. resound with a smaller. The bells do not ring very loudly for

anyone.

Moreover, in many ways we are not approaching a modern golem but are living

in one (Collins, Pinch 2000). Science and technology are our creations, with all the

risk and illusion of control that comes with them.

5

Golem of The Information Age

"God is supposed to have made man in His own

image, and the propagation of the race may also be

interpreted as a function in which one living being

makes another in its own image. In our desire to

glorify God with respect to man and Man with respect

to matter, it is thus natural to assume that

machines cannot make other machines in their own

image; that this is something associated with a

sharp dichotomy of systems into living and non-

living; and that it is moreover associated with the

other dichotomy between creator and creature. Is

this, however, so?"

(Weiner, 1964 p.12)8

I would like to point out an aspect of the golem tradition that is pertinent to the

information age and to a science that is imbued with information measures on all

levels (operational, disciplinary, theoretical). Information (in the lean rigorous sense,

denoting binary digits) today can be used to fabricate the entire genome of a person,

in full detachment from the traditional methods of procreation. This is reminiscent of

the preparation of a golem through the use of letters in arcane combinations. The two

Hebrew letters in combinatoric pairs running through an alphabet of a cosmogenic

language, are replaced by four nucleotides that are that alphabet for the organic.

Atlan (in his introduction to Idel's Golem) finds the core of the golem problem in

the classic Ben-Sira version of the story in the confusion between the uses of

language, the application of knowledge in the magical letter and the natural flow of

existence from one generation to the next. He alludes to the transition from the

magical approach of language as creating to a descriptive mathematical modeling and

descriptive equation development.

The pure form of the philosophical issue is, in my opinion, the question of human

creation of a living being that has the creation capacities of its creator. That would

mean the golem could manipulate the letters empowering it (Larry Niven), in effect

controlling both its own fate and being able to take the creation a step further

8 Norbert Weiner (one of the founders of Cybernetics) and Gershom Scholem (the father of modern

academic research of Kabala) both gave talks in the early 1960s concerning the possibilities of artificial minds and the role of science and religion. They both assert the similarity between the modern computing machines and the widely known Golem of Prague tale (Scholem even goes further to point out the possible connections in algorithmics and the danger of over-reliance on automated though processes.

6

(mirroring the transition of the person having made it). Such an enterprise would also

break down the original distinction between the Creator and created, and will leave it

as an endless chain replacing the ontogenetic hierarchy normally associated with the

act of creating.

Machine learning, machine reproduction, artificial intelligence (hard and soft) are

all linked with the revised version of the creation problem. The attempts to construct a

semantic web, an emergent order that is more than the sum of its constitutive

elements, is a part of this trend. The very concept of AI is under such debate that

dealing with its ramifications is conceptually careless to say the least (futuristic

dealing with the singularity of computing as case in point).

We can today appreciate a return to a prescriptive moment in the language of

nature, or at least the language used by scientists in relation to it. A script in computer

science is not merely a document; it is an algorithm, a process crystallized in bits. The

metaphor of a code is not a passive one, but an active, creating one. The secrets of

nature are no longer discovered, they are decoded.

Information-oriented science takes the aspiration of the golem creators – both

modern and ancient - to its philosophical ideal: the quest of one "Ruach Memallela"

(Speaking Spirit - human agency) to create another. Such a creation is a singular goal

for it changes the hierarchy of creator-created and replaces it with a chain of creators.

This is a return to the Aggadic description that Atlan alludes to in the opening quote.

7

Higher Order : A Different Take on Artificial Life

It is a well-established common sense perception that the capacity for speech is a

fundamental aspect of intelligence if not the definition propoer (i.e Turing's Chinese

Room test and all its cognates). This firmament of modern golem-making in the

Artificial Intelligence (AI) efforts is congruent with the mystical tradition of the

Golem. The modern mathematical treatment of communication capability is strangely

compatible with ancient biblical exegesis ("רוח ממללא" Aramaic translation for נפש"

From the mystery of the Logos to the algorithmic information theory and the .(חיה"

semantic web – all arrows point to communication as the sign of agency, of presence.

The extended version of the modern search for a golem is not limited to the

manipulation and fabrication of genetic information, bioprinting or expanding powers

of fabrication and manipulation of matter. It is fully immersed in the attempts at

understanding and achieving true artificial intelligence, constructing a semantic web

and mathematizing the process of human communication. In this wider sense, a large

portion of research today is directed toward a Golem in the modern form of a

cybernetic creature of computation and communication.

It is difficult to pinpoint where this modern-day golem sits with a religious point

of view, since as Atlan points out initially the creative moment of humanity is not

admonished in Judaism. There is a debate surrounding the status of an artificial person

starting with the sugia in Sanhedrin (65a) and picked up through the ages with

mention of this master or another creating and uncreating a golem. Even in story

form, as a cultural prooftext for the viability of Jewish existence in the diaspora – the

golem is a transient, a brief episode when it is made with the erasure of the life-giving

name from it, a forethought of its very creation. Even as myth the golem is not a

permanent fixture of a mystical or magical world. In contrast, the modern golem is

sought as a stable and viable feature of the world (at least when considering a

Korzweilian "singularity" or post-humanist ascension). What sort of religious

understanding is there of such a golem?

Although halachic treatments of problems – even remote and arcane – take them

in the utmost legalistic seriousness, it takes a certain type of genius to convey this

reality in a way that has relevance for the modern trend of golem-making in science

and technology (as golems proper, and in the character of a mode of existence they

8

relay for the future). Such a genius is Rabbi Zadok Hacohen of Lublin (RZH). His

personality and intellectual mastery spans the divide of strict legalistic Halacha with

its subtle niceties, and the intricate mystical structure of (mainly Lurianic) Kabbalah

as studied after the fashion and in the Hasidic court of Isbiza. His probing of questions

of Talmudic and esoteric questions is almost a-historical (or at least of a class with

Borges) in its use of diverse modes: legal reasoning, logic and scholastic dialectic

come together in his voluminous corpus of work.

RZH looks for a way out of a mystical and halachic maze: The sages of the

Talmud create artificial life, and insofar as it imitates true human form it is either

frowned upon as unholy practice or sent back as an unsuccessful practical joke - since

it does not reply to the questioning of R Zeira. How is the Talmudic scholar to learn

from this? Is this inherently good or bad? What is the point of the story? – of course,

this goes both ways in the classic Talmudic commentary.

In the later Talmudic-commentary discourse, the chief task is to resolve Halachic

issues such adding the artificial man to a Minyan. Another aspect discussed is its very

right to live on the other. Creating an animal for slaughter is mentioned almost

offhand with no mention of criticism. The Talmudic Turing test of the Golem’s ability

to communicate is usually accepted as a verification of its level of sophistication,

seriousness of fabrication and perhaps even the righteousness of its creators. The

Halachic and Kabbalistic ramification of the Golem do not intersect easily. One such

rare nexus resides in the work of RZH.

He does not accept the basics of artificial life as depicted in both traditional

esoteric teachings and modern variations of AI:

דעתו כן הקליפה מצד שדיבורו כמו ם"והעכו בדיבור תלוי הדעת דלעולם לומר ואין כמו ובגולם מצוה של ודבר לגט דעתו מהני ולא עביד דנפשיה אדעתא פירוש וזה

י"רש פירש בגיטין שם דהרי אינו דזה. דעת לו אין כך הנזכר מטעם דיבור לו שאין כן ודעל סתם דדעתו כתבו שם' ובתוס לגט דעתו פסלינן קמספ דרק הרי' וכו שמא דהרי כלל לבד בדיבור תלוי הדעת דאין ועוד. שם עיין לשמה דצריך אף למילה כשר חשיב נמי דהאי אפשר כן ואם דשומע אפשר בתולדה אלם ואפילו דעת לו יש אלם :דעת בר

ו אות חלומות דברי

9

RZH goes back to the basic tenets guiding the secular and religious

understandings of artificial human life, and renegotiates (even negates) them.

According to him, the power of speech is not necessarily as central as it seems to be

for defining a conscious intelligence or agency. In a legalistic reasoning – the lack of

communication capacity does not diminish a person from human status (as in the case

of Helen Keller), and conversely, that capacity does not allow a gentile to participate

in Jewish religious and legal activities. In mystical terms, the power of speech does

not place those who belong to the "shell" – the external (and shadowed from divine

light) side of mystical reality – as possessing less cognitive ability. The distinction

that matters most to RZH is the hierarchy of life and aptitude for divine influence. In

that scheme, the basic power of speech is not the key factor albeit it does distinguish

humans from animals, and is a key feature in the structure of the Sefirot (Malchut and

its relationship with Binnah). The combination of Halakha and mystical rules defines

the legalistic exclusion of non-Jews from acting as more than a formal distinction.

אפילו כן ואם הוא מצוות חיוב בר לאו מקום מכל דהא אחר מטעם לומר דיש אלא צדיק של ידיו מעשה דהוא שם צבי דהחכם מטעמו ישראל בני ביה דקרינן תאמר

שכתוב מה דכל ולומר זה מטעם מצוות חובת עליו להטיל דאין נראה מקום מכל והשארת חיים נשמת בו דאין כיון בכלל הוא גם יהיה ישראל בני אל דבר בתורה

בר לאו דהוא כיון שבקדושה לדבר נצרפו איך כן ואם ועונש לשכר הבא לעולם נפש :חיובא

The essence of artificiality is the relevant factor: even the handiwork of a Zadik

(Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Ashkenzy - The Chacham Tzvi and his Golem), a true sage, does

not make the case for the created being to have a soul. To be judged and resurrected.

It is not just a matter of belonging to "the right side of things" – using proper letters of

Sefer Yetzira by the righteous, or the tainted manipulation of the basecode of the

universe. The supernatural or extra-natural order of things is called in as a defining

tool for the natural order: it is the unique status of Israel as a chosen people that makes

them participants in a community of God. An AI of any order is not beyond the scope

of RZH's analysis and does not impress him enough to redefine the Judaic-

Neoplatonic order of things9, the hierarchy of mineral, animal, human, and Israelite-

the fifth quintessence which isn’t naturally and cognitively superior to the rest but

nevertheless transcends them. The Jew and Gentile, as well as between super-natural

9 For an exposition of the all-encompassing structure that ruled human construction of meaning and

order for over 2000 years, cf. Lovejoy, 1936.

11

and artificial, are differentiated. There are things that cannot be fabricated, no matter

the technical accomplishment

Recognizing this mode of assessment for artificial humans is useful in

appreciating the way current A.I. and genetic research are affecting a religious point

of view of sorts (post-humanism and some forms of atheistic proselytizing as cases in

point). For a religion with a strong mystical side, the higher order of things is

inextricably entangled with the mundane -- as manifest also in Information-laden

science. The debate regarding artificial life is involved directly with the question of

the nature of the soul, calling on the core of a creation's relationship with a Creator.

11

And Yet a Divide Remains

The days of debates between the Rabbi and the Scholar (Or Rabi and Cesar,

Mahara”l and Ticho, as the literary case may be) with open exchange of insight is

long gone – perhaps always having been in the realm of Aggada. A fundamental

divides them, even if they may use the very same terminology. This does not have to

do with the description of the world in Genesis Vs. modern cosmology and evolution.

It is perhaps a deeper issue, a mode of thought.

This difference in worldview is best expressed in the science-fiction story by Ted

Chiang “Seventy-Two Letters” in which the art and science of Golem-making –

Nomenclature – is both thermodynamics and genetics, Information theory and occult

divine-name application. It is at once science and religious mythos, technology and

devoted praxis.

In the story, attempts are made to perfect a form of human cloning or artificial

reproduction in order to save human kind. A meeting between a practitioner and a

Kabbalist takes place (an English accent for Stratton and a slightly-eastern-European

accent for Roth):

Seated at his desk in the manufactory, Stratton squinted to read the

pamphlet he’d been given on the street. The text was crudely printed, the

letters blurred.

"Shall Men be the Masters of NAMES, or shall Names be the masters of

MEN? For too long the Capitalists have hoarded Names within their coffers,

guarded by Patent and Lock and Key, amassing fortunes by mere possession

of LETTERS, while the Common Man must labour for every shilling. They will

wring the ALPHABET until they have extracted every last penny from it, and

only then discard it for us to use. How long will We allow this to

continue"?

Stratton scanned the entire pamphlet, but found nothing new in it. For

the past two months he’d been reading them, and encountered only the usual

anarchist rants; there was as yet no evidence for Lord Fieldhurst’s theory

that the sculptors would use them to target Stratton’s work. His public

demonstration of the dexterous automata was scheduled for next week, and

by now Willoughby had largely missed his opportunity to generate public

opposition. In fact, it occurred to Stratton that he might distribute

pamphlets himself to generate public support. He could explain his goal of

bringing the advantages of automata to everyone, and his intention to keep

close control over his names’ patents, granting licenses only to

manufacturers who would use them conscientiously. He could even have a

slogan: "Autonomy through Automata," perhaps?

There was a knock at his office door. Stratton tossed the pamphlet into

his wastebasket. "Yes"?

A man entered, somberly dressed, and with a long beard. "Mr. Stratton?"

he asked. "Please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Benjamin Roth.

I am a kabbalist".

12

Stratton was momentarily speechless. Typically such mystics were

offended by the modern view of nomenclature as a science, considering it a

secularization of a sacred ritual. He never expected one to visit the

Manufactory. "A pleasure to meet you. How may I be of assistance"?

"I’ve heard that you have achieved a great advance in the permutation

of letters".

"Why, thank you. I didn’t realize it would be of interest to a person

like yourself".

Roth smiled awkwardly. "My interest is not in its practical

applications. The goal of kabbalists is to better know God. The best means

by which to do that is to study the art by which He creates. We meditate

upon different names to enter an ecstatic state of consciousness; the more

powerful the name, the more closely we approach the Divine".

"I see." Stratton wondered what the kabbalist’s reaction would be if he

learned about the creation being attempted in the biological nomenclature

project. "Please continue".

"Your epithets for dexterity enable a golem to sculpt another, thereby

reproducing itself. A name capable of creating a being that is, in turn,

capable of creation would bring us closer to God than we have ever been

before".

"I’m afraid you’re mistaken about my work, although you aren’t the

first to fall under this misapprehension. The ability to manipulate molds

does not render an automaton able to reproduce itself. There would be many

other skills required".

The kabbalist nodded. "I am well aware of that. I myself, in the course

of my studies, have developed an epithet designating certain other skills

necessary".

Stratton leaned forward with sudden interest. After casting a body, the

next step would be to animate the body with a name. "Your epithet endows

an automaton with the ability to write?" His own automaton could grasp a

pencil easily enough, but it couldn’t inscribe even the simplest mark.

"How is it that your automata possess the dexterity required for

scrivening, but not that for manipulating molds"?

Roth shook his head modestly. "My epithet does not endow writing

ability, or general manual dexterity. It simply enables a golem to write

out the name that animates it, and nothing else".

"Ah, I see." So it didn’t provide an aptitude for learning a category

of skills; it granted a single innate skill. Stratton tried to imagine the

nomenclatoral contortions needed to make an automaton instinctively write

out a particular sequence of letters. "Very interesting, but I imagine it

doesn’t have broad application, does it"?

Roth gave a pained smile; Stratton realized he had committed a faux

pas, and the man was trying to meet it with good humor. "That is one way

to view it," admitted Roth, "but we have a different perspective. To us

the value of this epithet, like any other, lies not in the usefulness it

imparts to a golem, but in the ecstatic state it allows us to achieve".

"Of course, of course. And your interest in my epithets for dexterity

is the same"?

"Yes. I am hoping that you will share your epithets with us".

Stratton had never heard of a kabbalist making such a request before,

and clearly Roth did not relish being the first. He paused to consider.

"Must a kabbalist reach a certain rank in order to meditate upon the most

powerful ones"?

"Yes, very definitely".

"So you restrict the availability of the names".

"Oh no; my apologies for misunderstanding you. The ecstatic state

offered by a name is achievable only after one has mastered the necessary

meditative techniques, and it’s these techniques that are closely guarded.

Without the proper training, attempts to use these techniques could result

13

in madness. But the names themselves, even the most powerful ones, have no

ecstatic value to a novice; they can animate clay, nothing more".

"Nothing more," agreed Stratton, thinking how truly different their

perspectives were. "In that case, I’m afraid I cannot grant you use of my

names".

Roth nodded glumly, as if he’d been expecting that answer. "You desire

payment of royalties".

Now it was Stratton who had to overlook the other man’s faux pas.

"Money is not my objective. However, I have specific intentions for my

dexterous automata which require that I retain control over the patent. I

cannot jeopardize those plans by releasing the names indiscriminately."

Granted, he had shared them with the nomenclators working under Lord

Fieldhurst, but they were all gentlemen sworn to an even greater secrecy.

He was less confident about mystics.

"I can assure you that we would not use your name for anything other

than ecstatic practices".

"I apologize; I believe you are sincere, but the risk is too great. The

most I can do is remind you that the patent has a limited duration; once

it has expired, you’ll be free to use the name however you like".

"But that will take years"!

"Surely you appreciate that there are others whose interests must be

taken into account".

"What I see is that commercial considerations are posing an obstacle to

spiritual awakening. The error was mine in expecting anything different".

"You are hardly being fair," protested Stratton.

"Fair?" Roth made a visible effort to restrain his anger. "You

‘nomenclators’ steal techniques meant to honor God and use them to

aggrandize yourselves. Your entire industry prostitutes the techniques of

yezirah. You are in no position to speak of fairness".

"Now see here --"

"Thank you for speaking with me." With that, Roth took his leave.

Stratton sighed.

14

Conclusion

Classic Golem stories are – among other things – expressions of promethean

bond-breaking done by those who challenge the natural order. This nature is

interchangeably a legal structure, natural-law, a dual book structure (book of god's

works and words) that one ought-not blaspheme against.

That is not the case with modern science, itself a human-made blundering,

dangerous, ingenious golem of sorts. Attempting at an A.I or synthetic biology in the

current scientific-technological atmosphere is not accompanied with shattering

metaphysical glass ceilings. No alarms go off in a hidden Archon's secret chambers.

Of course this is a crass distinction between world systems - one belonging to the

great chain of being and the other wholly material and quantifiable, deterministic and

statistical. Things are never this simple: we have never actually been modern and

some of the "arcane" notions are far more radical than modern science in appreciating

the mutability of concrete reality. Yet a change remains.

While modern golem making is cut of a different cloth than the classic version,

they are yet related in several ways:

The very notion of danger and precaution that pervades the discussions of modern

technology owes its cultural and conceptual background to the popularized tale of "the

Golem" with its independent themes as well as its promethean overtones. Secondly,

there is a direct genealogical connection of human agency in the world from the

ancient accounts of creating artificial life and even artificial humans.

Finally, Information-saturated (Information-laden) science returns in an abstract

manner to basic intuitions of a reality governed by information at its core – "It from

Bit" (Wheeler, 1989). The manipulation of basic information structures returns to an

original mode of Golem-making for good or ill. This is a prescriptive of an active

alphabet, a code that creates a mystery and not only conceals it.

That being said, it must be stressed that there is more to the connection than just

affirming the directions in A.I and computation. Such thinkers as RZH challenge the

foundations (within Judaism and) of scientific presuppositions about artificiality and

agency, while remaining well inside the familiar grounds of the Halachic and

Kabbalistic fields. Another relevant point is the opposite one, not of exciting

15

challenges but basic, nie-incommensurable differences in direction, that are more

manifest when Information-laden science (fiction) edges on the traditions of

Information – Sefer, Sphar & Sipur.

16

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