26/04/2026
Spiritual Enlightenment in a Technological Age
What is the relationship between people and technology?
What can it become?
What should it become?
Who decides, and how?
Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger and Aldous Huxley were amongst the world's leading philosophers and thinkers of their time, and remain recognised as such today.
Nearly 100 years later their thinking and work overlapped and interconnected humanity. Today we have arrived at a point where - more than ever - we need to investigate and redefine our relationship with technology on the one hand and our spiritual enlightenment on the other.
As the German poet Hölderlin observed:
"But where danger is, grows the saving power also."
PART 1 - "The Myth of Sisyphus"
In his 1942 essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus", Albert Camus contemplates the fate of Sisyphus, founder and king of Corinth, who, having repeatedly incurred the wrath of Zeus, is sentenced to an eternity of "fruitless labour".
Sisyphus is compelled for all eternity to push a huge boulder up a steep hill, only for it roll down to the bottom of the hill as he neared the summit, where he was required to start all over again.
Whilst a disturbing number of today's world leaders continue to exhibit Sisyphus' core characteristics of betrayal, murder and hubris - what is most insightful is why the bloodthirsty gods of Ancient Greece cared.
Sisyphus made two crucial errors:
Betrayal of the gods for earthly gain, and
Breaching the sacred law of "Xenia" - the requirement to provide hospitality to strangers and travellers - a requirement so important it was overseen by the "god of gods" Zeus himself. It will not be lost on the reader that this commitment is lost to may in today's world.
Ultimately Camus' compares modern life, (in the years of the Second World War), to Sisyphus' fate,
"The workman of today works every day of his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd (than that of Sisyphus)".
The "absurd", as Camus called it, is the "divorce" between the human desire to find understanding and order in a universe that responds to such questions with "ureasonable silence". In the absence of the universe answering our questions, Camus postulates 3 possible responses:
Physical Su***de
Philosophical Su***de, or
Revolt
Eschewing options 1. and 2. as respectively avoidance and denial, Camus advocates for revolt, asserting that,
"The struggle to the summit is in itself enough to fill the heart of man. We must imagine Sisyphus happy".
It is commonly stated that "Life is not about the journey, its about the destination", however when properly considered, it is neither.
Life is about who one becomes on the journey, and in accepting this Sisyphus' eternal punishment transforms into eternal happiness.
PART 2 - "The Question Concerning Technology"
In 1954, 12 years after Camus published "Sisyphus", Martin Heidegger published his thought-provoking work ,,Die Frage nach der Technik", "The Question Concerning Technology".
The connectivity it created with Camus' "Sisyphus" was uncomfortable for Heidegger, who considered himself more of a phenomenologist and ontologist. That said, his propositions in this work heavily emphasise perception over the fundamental ontological question of being, and draw comparisons to existentialist theory that he found somewhat uncomfortable.
Heidegger's position is not anti-technology; he openly acknowledges its many benefits. In contemplating the interplay of humanity and technology he fashions three key terms concepts:
,,aletheia"; "truth"
,,bestand"; "a capital reserve or resource", and
,,gestell"; "framing or contextualising
Citing examples including the modern, technology driven perception of rivers as "energy sources" and people as "human capital", Heidegger is cautionary around the manner in which technology is contextualising our perception from "what is"; "existence", to "what does"; "utility".
Another key observation is that technology increasingly commands and makes demands on the natural world and people, and not vice versa.
Heidegger summarises by referring to "Gelassenheit", (roughly translated, "release"), a morally codified approach in which we use technology when it serves us, but in which we keep adequate distance such that it does not define our world view.
With this posture we are not rejecting the tool, but resisting the position that everything in life is a tool to be exploited.
PART 3 - A Brave New World: The Nexus between Sisyphus, Technology and Spiritual Enlightenment
Aldous Huxley, famous for his seminal 1932 novel, "Brave New World", made several prophetic observations that form an insightful nexus point with the propositions of Camus and Heidegger.
"Because technology advances, we fancy that we are making progress all along the line. Because we have considerable power over inanimate nature, we are convinced that we are the self-sufficient masters of our fate and captains of our souls; and because cleverness has given us technology and power, we believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that we have only to go on being yet cleverer in a yet more systematic way to achieve social order, international peace, and personal happiness."
At the moment of writing the most powerful technologies ever created are being used ostensibly for:
mass destruction, (Yuval Noah Harari observes that today global expenditure on warfare and weaponry is again exceeding expenditure on education and healthcare)
mass deception, (government and corporate lead mis- and dis-information campaigns)
mass disruption, (cyberattacks and incitement of civil and political unrest), and
mass distraction, (the "bread and circuses" referred to by Roman satirist and poet Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis in his work "Satire X"; a direct reference to what is today ostensibly social media:
"People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacity to think", Huxley observed, seemingly pre-empting social media.
Technology must serve us, not define us and our world view. It definitely should not enslave us or enrich and empower the very few at the expense of most - and the only planet we have to live on.
Is it possible that very soon we will have "enough" technology to live long, health, happy and meaningful lives at a species level on a planet that is stable socially and environmentally? Afterall, for 260 years now - since the start of the Industrial Revolution - we have created more and more powerful technologies, yet people are work long hours in increasingly meaningless and unproductive jobs, and are unhappier and unhealthier than ever.
The majority define their self-worth by how and where they earn money: their employer, qualifications, status, job title and level of remuneration. Surely there is so much more to being a person than this.
Have we outgrown our economic, monetary and banking systems? Scott Galloway refers to the "Happiness Plateau", pointing out that beyond a net-worth of circa U$3 - $10 million one's improvement in quality of life is negligible whereas the transfer of funds from the world's richest to poorest people can radically improve quality of life and society overall.
Will western governments - notorious for printing money and spiralling budgetary deficits - have the courage to bring in super-taxes on billionaires, tight regulatory frameworks on the hyper-scalers and a universal basic income for the many in the face of the inevitability of mass-unemployment?
Can, could, and should - every human have a government issued portfolio of AI powered robots that does one's "job" and cleans, tidies and manages one's home so that people can enjoy life? Will this become a basic human right?
Can we take our parents our of aged care and our kids our of day care, quit fast food and gyms - exit our obesity and type 2 diabetes medications and spend our timing cooking healthy, tasty food, singing, painting, dancing, telling stories, writing, hugging, laughing and crying?
Can we redress the global power imbalance that Huxley foresaw?
"Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power."
We have many challenges in front of us.
To answer them we must find and define ourselves.
