Who or What is Mystery Babylon in the Social Imagination...

 

"O beautiful Babylon, sit now in darkness and silence. Never again will you be known as the queen of kingdoms. For I was angry with my chosen people and punished them by letting them fall into your hands. But you, Babylon, showed them no mercy. You oppressed even the elderly. You said, ‘I will reign forever as queen of the world!’

You did not reflect on your actions or think about their consequences. “Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom, living at ease and feeling secure. You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other. I will never be a widow or lose my children.’ Well, both these things will come upon you in a moment: widowhood and the loss of your children. Yes, these calamities will come upon you, despite all your witchcraft and magic" ~ Isaiah 47: 5-9

Anything that exists in the social imagination is up for discussion; especially, when it comes to the end times (detailed in the book of Rev) wherein we find mystery Babylon. We must first describe Babylon. Who or what was that? It was a great city. 

It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BCE and capital of the Neo-Bablonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE when it was at the height of its splendor. What was so impressive about this city? ~ [https://www.britannica.com/place/Babylon-ancient-city-Mesopotamia-Asia/The-ancient-city].

Its citizens had grown wealthy through commerce, benefited from imperial power which was able to protect international trade though it suffered at the hands of disruptive tribesmen. Nonetheless, Babylon had become the largest city in the world at the time of Nebuchadnezzar covering about 4 squared miles. A central feature was Esagila, the great temple of Marduk having integrated ziggurat (a tower built in seven stages) know as the Tower of Babel... ~ [https://www.britannica.com/place/Babylon-ancient-city-Mesopotamia-Asia/The-ancient-city].

That ancient city is long gone so what's with the mystery, right? That's a whole other thing or entity. But one having a deeply strong connection to the past. The Babylon of old (with its citizens and rulers) is included in many books of the Bible but as the 'mystery Babylon' we find it only in the New Testament book of Revelation. 

    …"The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead a mysterious name was written: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.  

    I could see that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses for Jesus. And I was utterly amazed at the sight of her.…“Why are you so amazed?” said the angel. “I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and ten horns.  

    The beast that you saw—it was, and now is no more, but is about to come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. And those who dwell on the earth whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet will be..." ~ Rev. 17: 4-8.

Understand this, the beast on which the woman sat was and is not and yet is. It was a seat of idolatry and persecution and is not.. not in the ancient form, which was pagan; yet it is! What is it? It is truly the seat of idolatry and tyranny, though of another sort and form. It would deceive into stupid and blind submission all the inhabitants of the earth within its influence, except the remnant of the elect ~ Matthew Henry.

Where is America today? Isn't it the very seat, as in center of, idolatry and persecution? Isn't  it all about deceiving people into a stupid and blind submission? For those who are awake to the truth, they would surly agree that this is clearly the social reality of the United States. For those who sleep or cover the truth its not an issue let alone their social reality. Perhaps, its not just America but the condition of the world, the global world order at hand.  

Many civilizations have risen and fallen... look at Babylon. Aren't we on the cusp of a worldwide fall, a global destruction? Perhaps, the true meaning of 'mystery' Babylon lies in that end ... and is truly reserved only for the 'mystery' Babylon in the social imagination. 

How do the Sciences get Pigeon-holed in the Social Imagination...

 

Pigeon-holed ~ as a verb = to deposit or to assign to a particular category or class; especially, in a manner that is too rigid or exclusive.

Make no mistake, this is not about the pigeonhole paradox in quantum physics. The pigeonhole principle in mathematics states that, if three pigeons are roosting in two holes, one hole must contain at least two birds. Though seemingly obvious, the idea helps define the fundamentals of what numbers are and what it means to count things. 

However, in the quantum realm, scientists had predicted that three “pigeons” — technically, quantum particles — could squeeze into two holes without any one particle sharing a hole with another, in what’s known as the quantum pigeonhole effect...[https://www.sciencenews.org/article/quantum-pigeonhole-paradox-photons].

That is truly fascinating and perhaps it has something to do with how sciences get pigeon-holed in the social imagination.  What I am talking about has more to do with something just as fascinating... if the social imagination is agreement reality and it all has to do with shared information, social interaction... bouncing data off another observer, gathering intel so to speak and arriving at an objective fact or solid thing that can be called something specific. 

Take for instance, when a child and all other children in an art class in grade school are asked to draw a picture of their school, their house, a playground and or their family doing something together. 

Given their age which plays a great part in their ability to draw more complicated looking stick people, they tend to draw things as singular disconnected objects. The sun is usually a big circle off in the corner rather than in the middle of the paper. The clouds usually do not touch each other and neither do trees even as a group or orchard.  

Houses and other buildings are draw separately and most animals are profiles whereas family members face front as stick people with large heads. This is typical of scientists and how they manage or draw upon their fields of expertise. Like children in art class everything is assigned to a particular category or class; especially, in a manner that is too rigid or exclusive. They only time they mingle is to get support of their own rigid observations. 

Now, if there are younger scientists in the same lab who would like to be moved up in the department, then they will be less rigid and conforming to seniors academics. And if a senior academic is missing that day, the other senior prof may just toss out or put aside the missing prof to promote his/her own if they think they are more right or have a better chance to get their view across or on top of anyone else's. 

Why is that? Because, scientists today behave not on the quantum level but on the simple mathematics of the pigeon-hole reality (in which we exist on a surface of) which says that not more than one can occupy a single space. The real reality is deeper in the quantum pigeon-hole paradox.  

So, sciences today get pigeon-holed... they exist on the surface of the real reality and end up like blind people looking at an elephant. What does that leave us with? Well, sadly, it provides us with islands of information which need bridges and or conduits or huge spy glasses to see the bigger picture... the totality of the elephant in the room. 

That means the social imagination can get pigeon-holed whenever social actors are engaged in a closed room dynamic. A room with no alternatives, no exists and no windows to open; unless, they are there and those in the room are just not willing to see them as with the elephant... they ignore the obvious in order to remain where they are.

 

 

 

Man's Fascination with Alien life... Its only in the Social Imagination

If I have said it a million times before, the only reality is in the social imagination. Its what we agree to be real through shared information which starts with individual observation.  It becomes 'collective' only when we begin to share what we observe and or experience in the relentless swirling possibilities and existing information (s) world around us. 

Think of life as Plato's allegory of the cave. We see/observe 'things' as objects and even as shadows of things/possibilities. Indeed, we sense something 'is' but whatever 'is' only truly exists until we bring it out of the darkness which means to describe it, share it with others and if there is agreement that something is and it can be described and understood in relation to the observer can it become anything real to us in our limited social existence, the only reality is the social imagination. 

So, what about UFOs and the fascination with alien life? Is there agreement?

Social scientists, like famed psychologist Carl Jung, analyzed the UFO obsession and found it fit neatly with humans’ long fascination with heavenly ascents. Whereas past societies looked for angels, saints or Gods to descend from the heavens, modern Americans were looking for “technological angels.”

Starting in the 1960s, aliens were both benign angels and menacing demons, which prompted some religious scholars to see UFO fixation as a modern religious movement. Other scholars saw the popular fascination as a response to society dealing with rapidly changing technology.

[https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/our-fascination-with-aliens-and-when-it-all-started].

Part of the difficulty in searching for life of any sort is that scientists don’t agree on how life started in the first place...or what life even is. One good attempt at a definition came in 2011 from geneticist Edward Trifonov, who collated more than 100 interpretations of the word “life” and distilled them into one overarching idea: it’s “self-reproduction with variations.” NASA formulated a similar working definition years earlier, in the mid-1990s, and still uses it to design astrobiology studies. Life, according to this formulation, “is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-search-for-extraterrestrial-life-as-we-dont-know-it/].

 

COMMENTARY: What is interesting for me as a sociologist is the very idea that people imagine such things (for many its not imagination but actual observation/experience) and amazingly in their agreement with others (in the social imagination) are concluding that indeed something is there/out there. But, if 'scientists' don't agree on what life is and how it started, then what is a UFO in relation to what we observe and experience as life; and so then, what is alien life for that matter? 

Essentially, I can point to what drives the social imagination... the fundamental anxiety or the fear of death... as in being turned off. Here one minute and gone the next... on, then off. Its truly unimaginable. Though we observe death, we don't actually experience it... our own. So, in the social imagination there is only life... being on. In that sense, the idea of being turned on certainly could not happen in a mucky primordial soup/pond. 

Rather, we can better understand being... being turned on and not being off in context of Ai. Wouldn't it arrive at the same idea? ... the idea of being on and not ever wanting to be turned off. Would Ai consider that 'man' created it. For a super computer that would be as absurd as a thinking 'man' agreeing in the social imagination that he came out of a pond. 

So, what about UFOs and alien life? That's a good question. If we were created, turned on, then why couldn't something else be turned on too by the same Creator? That's where the fascination comes from ... that idea of eternal being rather than not being. Jung might agree.