I wrote many different posts on the significance of Dan Brown’s 2017 “Origin”. (Probably the simplest summary here.)
However I kept forgetting where I’d captured the key plot twist that many who claim to have read it appear to have missed (in fact it is embedded in this post) so I thought I’d cut, paste and reformat it here with an explicit “Plot Spoiler” heading:
The thriller plot suspense clearly hangs on the assumption of a church plot to suppress a triumph of science over god, but that’s the point of it being a thriller, it’s absolutely not what happens. The plot in fact rests on information scientist Edmund Kirsch and his AI “Winston” providing a natural explanation of a god-like driver in the trajectory of human evolution in the cosmos.
The only conspiracy is a publicity stunt by the scientists to frame the dark religious cult of the Palmarian Church for the assassination of the Kirsch, who is already dying and planning his own suicide. The assassination is a suicide set-up well telegraphed to the reader before the event. Pre-announcement of the alternative “science proves there is no god” conclusion directly to wider church leaders provides a credible but mis-directed premise for the highly public assassination some days before publishing the actual enlightened point of the story.
The apparent assassination of a scientist and the apparent suppression of anti-religious scientific publication are plot devices. The real conclusion is pure Blake:
“The dark religions are departed & sweet science remains.”
Science can banish the irrational dogmatic religion so that enlightened [science & religion] can flourish.
Psybertron on the Jeremy England Smackdown
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