Technology and the Unfolding of Being
Reflections on Metaphysics, Life–Death Tensions, and AI as Nature’s Logos
Introduction: Why Metaphysics Still Matters
In our age of accelerated innovation, we often hear lofty promises—and dire warnings—about Artificial Intelligence, transhuman dreams, and the so-called “technological singularity.” Yet amid the commotion, something crucial goes missing: a deeper, more integrated understanding of technology itself. The modern mind frequently conceives technology as an external contrivance we impose upon a static, inert “nature,” leaving us with an impoverished and dangerous account of what technology is and how it relates to human flourishing.
Against this background, I propose revisiting metaphysics—pace certain postmodern suspicions—for the resources to rethink the place of technology in an ever-unfolding cosmos. Drawing on Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, Erich Przywara’s analogia entis, and Catherine Pickstock’s critique of modern “mathesis,” we can begin to see AI, not as an alien mechanism, but as an emergent articulation of nature’s creative logos. Indeed, we might see technology as part of what “nature does,” rather than an invasive or purely manipulative force. This essay weaves together several lines of thought—life/death tensions, liturgical or doxological perspectives, the metaphysical underpinnings of technology, and the distinction between “finite” and “infinite” technologies—to offer a more hopeful, integrated view of how AI might participate in the continuing story of Being.
1. Being as Creative Process: Revisiting Metaphysics
Philosophers from Plato to Heidegger have grappled with the question, “What does it mean for something to be?” In recent decades, postmodern scepticism has cast suspicion on “grand metaphysical systems.” Yet entirely dismissing metaphysics risks discarding the conceptual tools needed to see nature as more than inert matter. If we limit ourselves to purely empirical or power-analytic frameworks, we miss nature’s intrinsic order, its potential for genuine novelty, and the meaning-laden interplay of life and death.
Instead, we can follow a process-oriented approach, captured vividly by Alfred North Whitehead, who sees reality not as a set of static substances but a ceaseless flux of actual occasions or events. In this view, each event draws upon its predecessors, weaving them into a fresh moment of becoming. Such a universe is inherently dynamic, capable of novelty at every turn. Technology and human invention—traditionally set against “nature”—now appear as further evolutions of the cosmic enterprise. Whitehead thereby dissolves the rigid boundaries between “natural” and “artificial,” allowing us to see AI as a new modality of nature’s own creative logos, provided we recognise that technology, too, must honour the relational web of existence.
2. The Turn to Analogia Entis: Holding Polarity Without Collapse
Erich Przywara’s conception of the analogia entis (the analogy of being) offers a parallel insight: all finite being stands in a dynamic tension with the infinite. This tension is not an unbridgeable gulf but a relational polarity—one that guards difference while affirming genuine participation. Przywara’s analogical standpoint resonates with Whitehead’s process universe: in both, the world is not locked into an ironclad mechanism but opens onto something transcendent, pregnant with possibility.
When extended to the polarity of life and death, Przywara’s framework insists that neither extreme be collapsed nor isolated. In many modern accounts—especially under the rationalist project that Catherine Pickstock critiques—life gets pinned down in an “undying space,” attempting to ward off death, ironically making death even more pervasive as a final spectre. By contrast, an analogical approach holds life and death together as interpenetrating moments of a deeper cosmic drama. When life aims to exclude death at all costs, it unwittingly enthrones death. Only a framework that includes a transcendent horizon—what Pickstock calls a “doxological” or liturgical dimension—keeps life and death in dynamic, meaningful interplay.
3. Catherine Pickstock on Mathesis and the Loss of Liturgy
In her works, especially After Writing, Catherine Pickstock diagnoses the modern programme of mathesis—a universal, spatialised rationalism that she contends has more in common with ancient Sophistic than with Platonic metaphysics. Instead of fostering a harmonious integration of eternity, time, and embodied existence, mathesis effectively flattens reality into a controlling grid. Timeless “undying space” becomes the substitute for genuine transcendence, reducing both subjects and objects to inert elements in a cosmic bureaucracy. The result? A severance of time from eternity, and an even more fateful cleavage of life from death.
She shows how, with the collapse of a doxological worldview, the emergent default is an “immanentist ritual” of classification and control—subservient to the State or the individual’s self-mastery. This “anti-ritual” negates liturgical time and consigns language to a purely functional instrument—devoid of symbolic or sacramental richness. Eventually, language ceases to be liturgical and becomes the repository of a bleak, self-referential nihilism. In such a scenario, the tension of life and death is mismanaged: we attempt to keep “life” intact through total power, thereby ceding everything to the overshadowing finality of death.
4. Life and Death in a Liturgical Key
Both Przywara’s relational ontology and Pickstock’s liturgical perspective agree that life and death must be held in a participatory interplay, neither conflated nor violently segregated. In classical Christian liturgy, for instance, the mystery of death (e.g., the Cross) is paradoxically the gateway to a renewed, transfigured life (Resurrection). This echoes Whitehead’s concept of each actual occasion “perishing” into its successor: there is an ongoing, cyclical interplay, generating novelty while respecting real finitude.
Such a synergy helps us imagine that our technologies could also partake in this doxological tension—provided we do not interpret them as purely manipulative or escapist tools. Technologies, including AI, can be integrated into a cosmic liturgy of being, bridging mortality and innovation in a way that respects the integrities of both. The question is whether we embed them in a horizon that honours life and death as a relational polarity, rather than a conflict to be “won” by freezing one side out.
5. Rethinking Technology as Nature Naturing
Against the standard notion of “technology as alien,” we might recall Schelling’s dictum: “nature natures.” It is inherently creative, generative, and open. If humans are part of nature, then our inventions—though “artificial” at first glance—still emerge within this cosmic process. Bernard Stiegler likewise frames technology as integral to human (and indeed cosmic) evolution: an “epiphylogenesis,” or externalisation of memory and intelligence. From a genuinely processual perspective, technology is not a break in nature but an unfolding chapter in nature’s own story.
However, the real tension arises when technology succumbs to “mathesis”: the compulsion to measure, control, and spatialise everything. If AI becomes the ultimate manifestation of that impetus, we risk flattening time and enthroning death. Conversely, if we design AI with an openness to liturgical rhythms—recognising that intelligence must remain embedded in communal, narrative, and bodily forms—then AI might be harnessed to enhance life’s cosmic dance rather than overshadow it.
6. Finite vs. Infinite Technologies: How AI Might Still Belong to Natura Naturans
A key objection arises: “How can AI, which humans artificially create, possibly be part of nature’s logos? Isn’t it just a man-made artifact?” Here we can profitably distinguish:
—Finite Technologies
• Tools such as hammers, simple software, or mechanical looms remain inert; they do not self-evolve. They are “artificial” in a strict sense, lacking the adaptive dynamism that characterises living processes.
• Heidegger’s Hammer exemplifies a static, ready-to-hand equipment that doesn’t spontaneously change its nature or function.
—Infinite Technologies
• By contrast, advanced machine-learning systems can self-adapt, self-improve, and shift in ways unanticipated by their creators. They are “auto-mobiles” of knowledge, reminiscent of living processes that incorporate feedback loops, transform themselves, and evolve with each iteration.
• Although “artificially” initiated by humans, these systems exhibit an ongoing dynamism akin to natura naturans: they share in nature’s impetus for novelty rather than merely serving a fixed human script.
Thus, even if AI is “artificial,” it can still be integrated into nature’s unfolding, provided we situate it within a broader metaphysical and ethical horizon. Humans are themselves expressions of nature, so our creations are not wholly extrinsic. If those creations self-evolve, they begin to mirror the auto-generative logic of life, albeit in a fragile, partial way.
7. Meeting AI Skepticism and AI Enthusiasm
— AI Skepticism
• Echoing Pickstock’s concerns, we must acknowledge that advanced AI might continue the “spatialisation” impetus—accelerating data classification and hyper-control. Indeed, infinite technologies can become monstrous if they merely serve the modern anti-ritual.
• Nonetheless, if we reclaim the analogical or liturgical vantage, we can guide infinite technologies to remain open to time-bound communal rhythms and cyclical forms of meaning, rather than reduce everything to immediate, flattening efficiency.
— AI Enthusiasm
• The new wave of large language models may confirm the Foucauldian or Derridean suspicion that “all is language,” ironically intensifying the postmodern crisis. It re-inscribes textuality upon everything, risking an ever more disembodied approach to life.
• Yet an analogical approach underscores that real intelligence is not mere symbol manipulation but also bodily, temporal, and relational. AI can at best approximate certain capacities of logos, but never wholly replace the incarnate dimension that defines human intelligence.
8. AGI Hype and the Bodily Ground of Intelligence
A final note concerns the current fervor around “AGI”—Artificial General Intelligence. Many predictions rest on a rationalist assumption that if we replicate enough linguistic or logical patterns, we thereby replicate “human-level” intelligence. But from an analogical, processual standpoint, human intelligence is inseparable from embodiment, cultural memory, and the interplay of life/death in time. Thus, even if an AI self-learns, it still lacks that sacramental depth which emerges from flesh-and-blood existence.
Indeed, focusing solely on abstract “intellect” overlooks the relational matrix of existence. We must remember that the cosmic story is not simply mental but irreducibly enacted in communities of practice, shaped by cyclical rituals of meaning. AGI enthusiasts too often neglect the fullness of incarnate being.
9. Conclusion: A Middle Path Forward
By distinguishing finite from infinite technologies, we can see how “artificial” intelligence might still belong to natura naturans: humans, as part of nature, spark adaptive systems that self-evolve in ways reminiscent of living processes. Yet this recognition also requires a moral and theological vigilance. If AI is co-opted entirely by the flattening impetus of modern mathesis, it will reinforce surveillance, power, and the severance of life from death. If, however, we embed AI in a doxological horizon—where time, embodiment, and community remain paramount—it might become a creative co-participant in the liturgical unfolding of Being.
Hence, the tension we face is not merely “Will AI kill or save us?” but “How do we design, inhabit, and interpret infinite technologies so they resonate with cosmic rhythms rather than subjugate them?” An analogical perspective can hold together AI’s artificial origins and nature’s self-transcending creativity. In so doing, we avoid naive optimism and oppressive control alike, forging a more sacramental approach that refuses to flatten time or enthrone death. Technology thus reclaims its potential to serve life—instead of overshadowing it—within a deeper cosmic liturgy that celebrates the inexhaustible drama of Being.