by John Fast
“Yes, I remember now.”
“So you see the Ancient Mesopotamian logic of purification, as represented in the Epic of Gilgamesh, did, undoubtedly, inspire some parts of the Book of Genesis. These rituals and stories helped the peoples of the Ancient Near East negotiate the contradictions of nature and culture, inside and outside, order and chaos. They also helped them to distinguish the proper forms of exchange from the improper forms of exchange–and to restore the balance.”
“Okay, okay, but wait again. The specific god-king, stigma, wild-man, sacrifice and purification portrayed in the Epic of Gilgamesh and in the Book of Genesis are completely different. How, exactly, are they connected?”
“Through the similarity of their differences,” Paxton replied paradoxically. “The logic and form of the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code remain consistent, while the context and content changes. And even though the mythic, religious and historical implications are different, you can almost watch the Sumerian and Babylonian God Code evolve into the Hebraic God Code. That is, instead of the universal, ahistorical, binary logic of structural anthropology, my pattern recognition programs identified these particular, historical, evolutionary algorithms and their particular, historical, narrative manifestations.”
He tapped a few more keys and the blue screen read:
I scanned the series and said, “That’s great! An algorithm that evolves God!”
“Algorithms evolve us, we evolve algorithms,” Paxton replied.
We sat in silence for a moment and contemplated the set of evolutionary algorithms unfolding in front of our eyes. I was overawed by the immense power of the ritual logic. These magic formulas pointed toward the very origins of civilization. I was bedazzled and amazed.
Just then Paxton’s cell phone rang, and he checked the number.
“Excuse me, John,” he apologized. “I must speak with Professor Mayakovsky about these other algorithms.”
He gestured to the green rain.
I overheard fragments of a conversation about the current run and how many more generations they needed to evolve. However, I wasn’t really paying attention because I was enthralled by the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code. I stood up, walked over to the blue screen and touched the sacred words. So simple, so clear, yet so complex, so fierce. These incantations transformed the unacceptable wildness and violence of the community into an acceptable wildness and violence. They weren’t just another set of evolutionary algorithms, I realized, they were mystical chants that summoned the most powerful gods and the most frightening spirits of the ancient world.
CHAPTER 23.
Magic Formulas, Continued
When Paxton finished his phone conversation a few minutes later, and apologized again for the interruption, I felt as if I were being woken from a dream.
“How do you make sense of all this?” I asked, sweeping my arm around the Lab to encompass all the books, discs, screens.
“I’m always working on my pattern recognition programs, looking for connections,” Paxton replied. “It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve trained the Turing Institute’s meta-computer to do. It’s what we’re doing now.”
I nodded, walked back to my chair and returned to my original question.
“But how can the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code help me understand Alexa’s Enkidu Complex?” I asked. “Her suicide attempts?”
“We’re getting there,” Paxton assured me. “When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh recognizes his own mortality and sets out on a quest for eternal life. He fails, returns home and finds some consolation in the famously monumental wall that he had built around his city. That is, he knows he will die, but he believes his name will live forever because of his great wall. And so we might say that Gilgamesh is, in fact, purified by Enkidu’s death. He finally recognizes his fateful bond with his people, and he finally protects them from the wilderness with his wall. However, the wall also reminds us that Gilgamesh is a tyrant. He had forced the people of Uruk to build the wall in the first place, and that was one of their original complaints against him. Ultimately, then, the contradictory logic of purification, the civilized wildness of it, deconstructs itself and opens up the possibilities of new versions of the algorithm, new stories.”
Paxton paused and studied the blue screen for a moment.
“And even though Adam’s death isn’t depicted in Genesis,” he continued, “we can see that Yahweh also recognizes his fateful bond with his people after he condemns Adam, and many of his descendants, to death. In effect, the sacrifice of these scapegoat doubles, like that of Enkidu, restores the normal exchange relations between heaven and earth. And that’s why Yahweh makes a series of new covenants with Noah and his children’s children. However, the contradictory logic of purification continues to deconstruct itself, and the algorithm continues to evolve right to the end of the biblical epic.”
“Where did your pattern recognition programs go next?” I wondered. “And please explain how all this connects to Alexa.”
“My search programs zigged and zagged through the Gnostic and Zoroastrian texts of Ancient Persia, and also through the remainder of the Old Testament, especially the Book of Daniel. They identified the ongoing struggles between the God of Light and the God of Darkness as further examples of the evolving Ancient Mesopotamian God Code.”
“Light and Dark as the doubles,” I stated.
“Exactly,” Paxton replied. “Then my search programs jumped to Ancient Greece, to the myths and stories about Achilles and Patroklos, Apollo and Dionysus. Then they jumped back to the Near East and the Gospel traditions.”
He hit another set of keys and yet another natural language algorithm appeared on the blue screen:
I read the last entry and wondered again about the connections.
“You can watch the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code evolve in front of your eyes,” Paxton explained, “once my pattern recognition programs have taught you how to look for it. For example, just as Abraham offers to sacrifice his son and double in the Old Testament, so too God offers to sacrifice his son and double in the New Testament. And what is God’s stigma? As I’ve already suggested, perhaps it can be traced all the way back to his primordial wrath, his terrifying elemental ferocity. A scholastic theologian, however, might put it more delicately. He might say that God’s creative nature inevitably divides his essential nature, thus opening the world to the possibilities of freedom and sin. In effect, then, it isn’t God’s stigma per se that must be purified, rather it’s humankind’s sinfulness. And yet the two are inextricably interconnected because the body of God and the body of the community amount to the same thing. In short, Jesus, like Enkidu and Adam, is another scapegoat double. He too is born miraculously, amidst the animals, in the image of the God-King. He too is found wandering in the wilderness. He too is seduced, without success, by the Devil instead of a woman. And he too travels from nature to culture, where he too defies the gods, of the Priests and Romans.
“And while Jesus thinks of himself as a radical prophet and teacher, nevertheless his fate as double and scapegoat has already been encoded in Sumerian legend, Babylonian epic, Hebraic tradition, Persian myth, Greek drama, and Roman law. The Romans condemn Jesus as the scapegoat double, the false, ‘King of the Jews,’ while the Disciples glorify Jesus as the scapegoat double, the true, ‘Lamb of God.’ And, according to the logic of the ritual, the scapegoat double must be sacrificed. In other words, the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code evolves Jesus and Jesus evolves the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code. They reconstruct and deconstruct each other in the context of the history of exchange.”
“That’s … amazing!” I exclaimed.
Paxton nodded.
“And how does the death of Jesus affect God?” I wondered.
“As with Gilgamesh and Yahweh,” Paxton replied, “the God of the New Testament also recognizes his fateful bond with his people, and also renews his covenant with them, when his double dies. As Paul of Tarsus suggests, God overturns the sin of Adam with the
death of Jesus. That is, through the sacrificial gift of Jesus, God restores the normal exchange relations between heaven and earth, king and kingdom.”
I sat still for another moment as I tried to absorb everything Paxton said, and as I tried to process the implications of the evolving algorithm. Then I decided to rush ahead and think about everything later.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“You haven’t had enough?”
“I want to see what’s next so I can make the connection to Alexa.”
“Well,” Paxton said, “the Book of Revelations brings the logic of purification to its ultimate conclusion: the Apocalypse. And the Islamic traditions of the Koran also evolve the logic of purification. And newer versions continue to appear right up to the present day.”
He hit a few more keys and an evolutionary sequence of natural language algorithms filled the blue screen:
I worked my way through the series and felt overwhelmed. Where does all this end, I wondered? What does all this mean?
“The Ancient Mesopotamian God Code is one of the basic evolutionary algorithms of Western Culture,” Paxton said, trying to help me out. “You have to read the vertical columns, as well as the horizontal formulas, if you want to understand the historical pattern. The all-powerful gods, listed in the first column, are usually honored and worshiped. Their stigmas are usually transferred to their doubles, listed in the second column, who are usually shamed and sacrificed. And, of course, we could add many, many more mirror opposites to this evolutionary chart.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor and Jesus; Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde; Alexa’s Alpha-Prime and Alpha-Clone.”
“I see,” I said tentatively. “And all this follows from the logic of that ancient purification ritual?”
“And from the everyday logic of exchange, and from the myths and stories which work and rework that logic and its contradictions.”
I nodded in silent amazement.
“Whenever a new version of this evolutionary algorithm appears in the series,” Paxton continued, pointing once again at the blue screen, ”it’s used to explain all the others. That is, each time a new god arises–whether it’s Capital, Master, Superego, Structure, or whatever–all the old gods have to be re-thought, re-imagined and re-interpreted in its light. So instead of an ahistorical structural paradigm, or an ahistorical deconstructive text, my pattern recognition programs have discovered an historical evolutionary algorithm. And this discovery has led me to propose a new, historical, evolutionary, algorithmic, narrative theory of culture, which of course forces us to re-think all the old theories.”
“So you’ve added a new god to the series, the evolutionary algorithm, which once again requires the re-interpretation of all the old gods!”
“Exactly!” Paxton replied, nodding and smiling. “There’s always new gods and new stigmas; new doubles and new sacrifices; new purifications and new redemptions.”
“But why? I mean, what’s the point?”
“Well,” Paxton began, “on one level, the evolving Ancient Mesopotamian God Code represents the ongoing struggles of various communities and societies to define themselves: to affirm their sacred identities and to purge their profane differences. Just as the first Great Flood is an apocalyptic form of purification in the Book of Genesis, so too the final Great Fire is an apocalyptic form of purification in the Book of Revelations. These global holocausts are mirror reflections of one another. In effect, the Apocalypse of Flood and the Apocalypse of Fire are purification rituals writ large: the magical transference of the ultimate stigma to the ultimate outsiders followed by the ultimate holocaust. And, in the modern era, dictators like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and others usurped the role of the god-king and tried to purify their communities, their empires, with new holocausts. They tried to rewire the connections between Creation and Apocalypse, Empire and Destiny. And, in this way, they justified the horrific violence of their totalitarian war machines.”
“I don’t get that,” I said, frowning.
“Then let me pose a question: Why do so many secular and religious leaders seem to welcome the End of History and/or the Apocalypse?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Precisely because the contradictory logic of purification links Creation and Apocalypse: in the end is our beginning. These leaders argue that the end of history signals the beginning of their empire. They believe that their community, their ideology, their god will triumph in the final great battle. And they eagerly anticipate the apocalyptic moment when their enemies will be cast into Hell and they will reign on Earth which has become their Heaven. In other words, the contradictory logic of purification which links Creation and Apocalypse seems, and I underline that word, seems to offer individuals and communities a way to transcend history and death.”
“That’s incredible!” I said.
“Literally,” Paxton agreed. “The millennial rhetoric of apocalyptic purification is, in effect, a global form of hate speech which reinforces the community’s mythic sense of its own, pure, identity, and legitimates its civilized violence against dissenters and outsiders. It’s a rhetoric employed by the imperial oppressors to legitimate their empires, and by the colonial oppressed to legitimate their revolutions. And so the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code is one of the most volatile and dangerous evolutionary algorithms in the world, especially in the age of advanced weapons. It inspires the extremes of love and hate, peace and war. It operates within the secular and religious realms of the West and East, North and South. And, as I’ve already noted, many people have built their careers on the foundational ideology of apocalyptic purification. They exploit the fear and insecurity of their communities in order to promote themselves. And some of the surest signs of this apocalyptic fervor at work include the rejection of the modern world in favor of an imaginary, pre-modern world; the oppression of women; the repression of sexuality; and the demonization of any group or activity which appear to threaten the patriarchal status quo. In this context the Enlightenment principles of dignity, freedom, equality, democracy–of rational discourse based on fact and evidence–are hardly even recognized. And even where they are recognized, they are everywhere under assault. As you know from your history classes, a new apocalyptic leader emerges every day. A couple of American presidents, for example, thought they were god-kings.”
“From Mesopotamian god-kings to American presidents: a million degrees of separation.”
“Historically separate and distinct, yet deeply connected.”
I was stunned by the far-reaching power of the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code, and felt even more anxious about Alexa. I wondered how she could resist the cumulative force of its history. So once again I pleaded with Paxton to make the connection to her. In response, he tapped a few more keys and yet another natural language algorithm appeared on the blue screen:
“Among other things,” Paxton continued, ”the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code helps to explain the long and complex history of the double in myth, literature and history. And, in Alexa’s case, you already know the story: Hana Pavlova, the Alpha-Prime, was a ferociously brilliant, fiercely competitive, world class physicist. And, for some of her colleagues, Hana’s boundless ambition was her transgression. She worked day and night in her research lab, won the Nobel Prize and suffered a massive heart attack a short time later. She was only thirty-five years old. Hana survived just long enough to donate her DNA to Alpha-Gene, Inc. And Alexa, her Alpha-Clone, is now, what? Seventeen? Eighteen years old? And she still has so much trouble separating herself from Hana that she can’t bear to look into a mirror.”
And I can’t stop looking into mirrors, I thought.
“Alexa is desperately trying to find herself,” Paxton explained. “And every bit of anger and resentment she directs toward Hana comes back to haunt her. She is caught in-between: she is Hana, she isn’t Hana; she is herself, she isn’t herself. As you know, Alexa tried to escape the
pain of these contradictions with her suicide attempts. At the time, I believe, she thought it was the only way to resolve her anger, despair, resentment and guilt.”
“Guilt?” I asked.
“At being alive, while Hana was dead. According to the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code, the double is supposed to die, not the original.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed as I made the final connection. “That’s her Enkidu Complex!”
“Yes,” Paxton replied. “And that’s why I taught her the history of the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code: to help her understand how this ancient logic imprisons her, and how difficult it is to escape from it. Alexa needs to forgive herself for being separate from Hana, for being alive. She needs to love herself as an individual person in her own right.”
I contemplated Paxton’s words for another long moment. Then I looked up at the blue screen again and scanned the series of algorithms. I was amazed to see how the ancient logic of purification continued to influence the history of the world. I was amazed to see how the link between Creation and Apocalypse continued to connect the past and the future. I was amazed to see how the Ancient Mesopotamian God Code continued to affect the lives of billions of people every day, all across the planet, including Alexa’s. And I was amazed to see how the fate of the earth hung in the balance. Here was knowledge, here was power, here was truth, I realized even back then. Here was my destiny calling out to me. I heard that call and could not resist it. If I could find the key to this code, I thought, I could free Alexa, and the world, from its spell.