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From Decline of the West to Dawn of Day

textabstractThis paper subjects Dan Brown’s most recent 
novel Origin to a philosophical reading. Origin is 
regarded as a literary window into contemporary 
technoscience, inviting us to explore its 
transformative momentum and disruptive impact, 
focusing on the cultural significance of artificial 
intelligence and computer science: on the way in 
which established world-views are challenged by 
the incessant wave of scientific discoveries made 
possible by super-computation. While initially 
focusing on the tension between science and 
religion, the novel’s attention gradually shifts to the 
increased dependence of human beings on smart 
technologies and artificial (or even “synthetic”) 
intelligence. Origin’s message, I will argue, 
reverberates with Oswald Spengler’s The Decline 
of the West, which aims to outline a morphology of 
world civilizations. Although the novel starts with a 
series of oppositions, most notably between religion 
and science, the eventual tendency is towards 
convergence, synthesis and sublation, exemplified 
by Sagrada Familia as a monumental symptom of 
this transition. Three instances of convergence will 
be highlighted, namely the convergence between 
science and religion, between humanity and 
technology and between the natural sciences and 
the humanities.