From the Civilization of Fire to the Civilization of Field and Life
This article is a trial essay.
Read it as a thought experiment.
It is only an idea from me.
And that is exactly what “Note” is.
A place where one can write freely.
So I wrote freely.
I explored what kind of civilizational model can exist outside modern civilization.
The problem of modern civilization is that its systems have become too heavy. They have grown so heavy that they are now difficult to operate. Unable to bear their own weight, these systems are beginning to collapse under themselves. This essay examines what other models of civilization can be conceived in order to avoid that collapse.
The first system engineer of modern civilization was Aristotle. The blueprint he drew was redesigned by Newton and Kant, and then completed as the civilization of fire. It is the civilization of fire and reason. That is why the atomic bomb was born.
Then Goethe appeared along the way. He advanced a distinctive natural philosophy that saw minerals and jewels as living beings with long life spans. Schelling’s view of nature stands close to this. Goethe walked a path of deep silence that somehow leads back to Laozi of ancient China. It is the Tao of Daoism.
When I read Goethe’s Faust, I think he was the same kind of person as Newton. Newton was not a scientist. He was the last alchemist. Goethe was not a man of letters. He was a magician. No — he was Laozi, walking more deeply into natural philosophy.
Confucius also had a hidden face. Everyone has a hidden face. Everyone has a face of the night. At midnight, another face appears. By day, people call themselves scientists, writers, or politicians. But at night, they study the stars. Swedenborg was the man who lost his footing in his fifties and flew far beyond the ordinary world.
There were also branching paths within the present civilization.
First, I will begin with my usual current-affairs topic.
This is the confirmation of our present location.
The confirmation of our coordinates.
Introduction: The Tomahawk Is Not Expensive. It Is Heavy.
It was reported that the Trump administration used forty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles as a form of pressure against Iran. That attack had political meaning.
At the final stage of negotiations, the United States showed that it was still willing to fire. It showed Iran that further resistance would come at a cost. It showed the American public, its allies, and its adversaries that America still possessed the will to act.
In that sense, those forty-nine missiles were not wasted. Politically, they paid for themselves. Results are beginning to appear. But that is not the real issue.
The real issue is this: after firing those forty-nine missiles, how does one recover the same forty-nine missiles?
So how much does a Tomahawk cost?
Roughly speaking, one missile costs about 1.8 to 2 million dollars. In Japanese yen, that is around 270 to 300 million yen.
But if we look only at the price, we misunderstand the true problem of this weapon.
The Tomahawk is not expensive.
It is heavy.
Its weight is not a matter of price.
It is the weight of materials.
The weight of procurement.
The weight of reproduction.
The weight of drawing down inventories.
And the weight that constrains political decision-making.
The Tomahawk is not merely a missile.
It is a compressed package of global civilization.
Inside a single missile are packed an engine, fuel, guidance systems, semiconductors, precision components, actuators, communications equipment, software, inspection processes, military factories, skilled workers, quality certification, and supply chains.
And deeper still, behind all of that, lie rare earths.
Neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and samarium.
These rare earth elements are deeply connected to the powerful magnets and electronic components required for precision-guided weapons.
In particular, dysprosium and terbium are important for maintaining magnetic strength even in high-temperature environments. Samarium is used in samarium-cobalt magnets, which are strong under harsh conditions.
And the problem is not solved simply by digging ore out of the ground.
Mining.
Separation.
Refining.
Metallization.
Magnet production.
Conversion into defense-grade components.
The entire process is required.
Modern weapons are not made only of iron and gunpowder. To produce a single missile, mines, refineries, magnet factories, semiconductor plants, military contractors, and inspection facilities around the world must all be set in motion.
Firing takes only an instant.
Restoring what was fired does not.
Reports and analyses have suggested that, in a war with Iran, the U.S. military may already have used more than one thousand Tomahawks out of an inventory of roughly 3,100. Inventory levels and exact usage numbers are close to military secrets, so this cannot be stated with certainty.
But even if the figure of one thousand is only an estimate, the consumption of at least several hundred missiles is entirely plausible.
Here, the question is not “How much does one missile cost?”
The question is: when, with what materials, in which factories, by which skilled workers, and through which supply chains can those hundreds of missiles be restored as military power?
If Congress approves the budget, dollars can be printed.
But dysprosium cannot be printed.
Samarium-cobalt magnets do not appear in warehouses the moment a budget bill passes. Semiconductors, actuators, engine components, and fully inspected finished missiles do not increase immediately either.
Here lies the weight of modern civilization.
For politicians, the Tomahawk is an easy weapon to use. A politician like Trump, unless those around him place a limit below fifty missiles, would use them without restraint. He would fire them one after another. Even with constraints in place, he would still go right up to the ceiling and fire forty-nine.
Cruise missiles are convenient.
They can be launched from afar without putting soldiers in danger.
They are highly accurate.
They produce images.
They serve as warnings to the other side.
They add pressure to negotiations.
Politically, they appear to be a light option.
But from the perspective of civilization, they are extremely heavy.
What disappears at the moment of firing is not only the missile itself.
Inventory margin disappears.
A debt is added to reproduction capacity.
A missile kept for a Taiwan contingency is lost.
The number of options available in the next war is reduced.
And it gives the opponent a question:
Can America really keep firing?
That is the frightening point.
If a Taiwan contingency were to occur, the U.S. military would consume large quantities of long-range precision weapons in a short period of time. Anti-ship missiles, cruise missiles, air-defense missiles, interceptor missiles, torpedoes, glide weapons — all would be depleted at the same time.
At that moment, the United States can run short of Tomahawks. Even if it manages to fight, its inventories can be emptied after the war ends.
This is not merely a logistics problem.
It is a problem of deterrence.
One can win by fighting.
But after fighting, the inventory can be gone.
And if the inventory is gone, the next crisis cannot be handled.
Russia. North Korea. Iran. The South China Sea. The Red Sea.
When the next spark ignites somewhere in the world, the U.S. military will have to make decisions while standing before empty ammunition depots.
At that point, a terrifying option emerges.
If fighting empties the inventory, then not fighting becomes the better option.
The moment that thought appears, deterrence is damaged.
Deterrence is not simply a matter of possessing powerful weapons.
Nor is it merely a matter of having weapons that can be fired.
Deterrence means making the opponent believe that, even after firing, one can still continue to fire.
Even if a country possesses high-performance weapons, if those weapons are scarce, slow to reproduce, dependent on unstable material supplies, and if every shot reduces the options available in the next war, then those weapons make political decision-making heavier.
Here, the limits of the civilization of fire appear.
Modern civilization has succeeded in creating powerful single strikes. It can accurately destroy distant targets. It burns fuel, drives engines, sees with sensors, calculates with semiconductors, and guides weapons toward their targets.
But that single strike is far too heavy.
Burn.
Destroy.
Fly.
Discard.
And then, to make it once again, mobilize materials and processes from all over the world.
This is the extreme form of the civilization of fire.
The Tomahawk is a high-performance disposable device created by the civilization of fire.
Yet within that disposable device, the complexity of modern civilization is compressed.
That is why the Tomahawk is not expensive.
It is heavy.
One missile contains one missile’s worth of global civilization.
That missile is launched toward a target, made to explode, and turned into something that will never return.
This extravagance cannot be measured by price alone.
The question is not how many hundreds of millions of yen it costs.
The question is whether civilization can produce the same missile again after firing it.
How many such missiles can it restore?
At what speed?
With what degree of certainty?
The weakness of modern civilization is not that it cannot produce.
It is that it cannot continue producing.
The weakness is not that it cannot fire.
It is that it cannot continue firing.
And when the fear arises that fighting may empty the inventory, the option of not fighting is born.
At that moment, the problem of weapons becomes a problem of civilization.
The civilization of fire is strong.
But it is heavy.
In exchange for possessing a powerful single strike, it must bear the burden of the materials, processes, fuel, supply networks, management, and reproduction that support that strike.
The Tomahawk is the symbol of this burden.
It is not merely a cruise missile.
It is a device that shows how far the civilization of fire has come.
At the same time, it is also a device that shows how heavy the civilization of fire has become.
To fire a single missile, materials, factories, skilled workers, fuel, electronic components, software, military budgets, and alliance strategies from across the world are mobilized.
And the moment it reaches its target, all of that is discarded.
This is a miniature version of modern civilization.
Strong.
But heavy.
Then why has modern civilization become so heavy?
That question does not end with the Tomahawk.
The B-52.
The F-35.
AI.
Data centers.
Power grids.
Urban infrastructure.
Much of modern civilization is moving in the same direction.
As systems become more advanced, their operation becomes too heavy.
Their management becomes too heavy.
From here, I will reconsider the civilization of fire itself.
Main Discussion: From the Civilization of Fire to the Civilization of Field and Life―The Limits of Technological Systems Seen Through the B-52 Crash
On June 15, 2026, a U.S. Air Force B-52 strategic bomber crashed shortly after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base in California. All eight crew members were killed. When I heard about this accident, I decided to write this article.
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1955. The U.S. Air Force is now replacing its engines and carrying out a plan to keep it in operation beyond the 2050s. The B-52 program is aiming for one hundred years of service.
Is this really all right?
In Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, there were heavy aircraft with an airframe age of three hundred years, but still…
The purpose of the flight was a test flight for modernization and performance upgrades, including radar improvements.
It seems to have taken off, made a sharp right turn, and fallen.
This is the crash site. Not even wreckage remains.
The B-52 is an old airframe. It is not strange for it to fall. But according to ABC World News Tonight, the wife of one of the crew members said that her late husband had told her the flight had been postponed many times because of mechanical trouble, and that the day had finally come.
We must wait for the results of the accident investigation before the details become clear, but there must have been multiple causes. Airplanes do not fall for no reason. When an airplane falls, there is always a reason. That reason is not limited to physical factors. It can even include political pressure.
The B-52 is an old airframe layered with new radar, new electronic equipment, new communications systems, new software, and new test equipment. It is an old airplane. At the same time, it is a huge modernized system.
This accident is a symbol.
Modern technology has become high-performance. As a result of that high performance, it has become too heavy to manage.
This is not only a problem of military aircraft. AI, data centers, power grids, medicine, finance, administration, logistics, urban infrastructure — much of modern civilization is moving in the same direction. Because they are systems. And these systems burn fire and consume fuel.
Increase performance.
Add functions.
Make it electronic.
Turn it into software.
Connect it to networks.
Make it enormous.
As a result, maintenance becomes heavy.
Updates become heavy.
Monitoring becomes heavy.
Approval becomes heavy.
Specialists become insufficient.
Parts become insufficient.
The people on the front line can no longer understand the whole.
In the end, even the question of who judged that there was “no problem,” and on what basis, becomes difficult to see. This is not a problem of insufficient technology. It is the opposite. It is the problem of technology piled up too high.
From this point onward, this essay becomes a thought experiment for putting the modern technological system itself into perspective.
Modern civilization has developed around fire, heat, combustion, propulsion, and enormous management.
Then the question is whether another technological system can exist.
From the civilization of fire
to the civilization of field and life.
Taking the B-52 crash as the entrance,
I will push the thought a little farther.
1.Military Aircraft Have Become Huge IT Assets
Let us begin by reviewing the previous article.
Modern military aircraft are no longer mere machines.
There is an airframe.
There is an engine.
There are hydraulics.
There are electrical systems.
There is radar.
There are communications.
There are weapons.
Up to this point, older aircraft had these elements as well.
But modern military aircraft do not end there.
Sensor integration.
Data links.
Encrypted communications.
Electronic warfare.
Mission computers.
Self-diagnostic systems.
Maintenance logs.
Software updates.
Parts histories.
Supply chains.
Contracts with defense contractors.
Test data.
Certification.
Operational approval.
Only when all of these elements are intertwined can a single military aircraft finally go on a mission.
In other words, a modern military aircraft is both a machine that flies through the sky and a huge IT asset.
The F-35, which I discussed in the previous article, is a typical example.
The F-35 is a high-performance fighter. It has stealth capabilities, integrates sensors, shares information with friendly forces, detects the enemy before being detected, and strikes first. As a concept, this is extremely rational in modern warfare.
But being high-performance also means that there are more things to manage.
It is not enough for the aircraft simply to be able to fly.
Can the sensors be used?
Can it communicate?
Can its weapons be used?
Can it operate in an electronic warfare environment?
Is the software configuration correct?
Can the parts history be traced?
Is the mission system complete?
Being able to fly
and being able to carry out every mission
are not the same thing.
That difference is the essence of the modern military aircraft.
The B-52 is the same.
The B-52 is old.
But in order to compensate for that age, layers of modernization have been added.
And then this accident occurred.
Replace the radar.
Replace the engines.
Replace the electronics.
Replace the communications systems.
Extend the operational life.
These are necessary upgrades.
As long as old airframes continue to be used, modernization cannot be avoided.
However, modernization also makes the aircraft more complex.
Old structures overlap with new electronic systems.
Mechanical problems overlap with software problems.
Maintenance problems overlap with testing problems.
Military judgments overlap with manufacturer judgments.
As a result, the questions are no longer simple.
It is not enough to ask, “Was it broken?”
Nor is it enough to ask, “Was it fixed?”
One must also ask:
“Was it confirmed to have been fixed?”
“Was the method of confirmation appropriate?”
“Who judged that the aircraft was fit to fly?”
“Was that judgment shared across the entire frontline organization?”
These questions must be asked.
This is a problem of aircraft maintenance, but at the same time it is also a problem of IT asset management.
Modern military aircraft have become flying configuration management ledgers.
When that management ledger becomes too large, an accident is no longer merely a mechanical failure.
It becomes a problem of the entire technological system.
2.Modern Civilization Is a Civilization of Fire
Let us widen our perspective a little from military aircraft.
Modern civilization is often described as an information civilization.
An electronic civilization.
An AI civilization.
That is how it is often spoken of.
But at its foundation,
there is still fire.
Burn coal.
Burn oil.
Burn gas.
Burn gasoline.
Burn kerosene.
Burn gunpowder.
Warm cities.
Run factories.
Operate power plants.
Even nuclear power, structurally speaking, remains an extension of the civilization of fire.
Atomic nuclei are split to produce heat.
That heat boils water.
Steam turns turbines.
The principle is advanced,
but in the end,
it is still a heat engine.
It stands on the same extended line as James Watt.
In other words, the foundation of modern civilization is this:
Break matter apart.
Extract heat.
Turn it into pressure.
Turn it into motion.
Turn it into electricity.
And then pour that electricity into cities, machines, and computers.
This is an extremely powerful system.
It is a civilization of electrical energy.
Fire was the first great technology of humankind.
With fire, human beings cooked meat,
endured the cold,
kept beasts away,
fired pottery,
and melted metals.
Fire was the entrance to civilization.
But fire is also rough.
When something is burned, the fuel is lost.
When temperatures rise, the surroundings are damaged.
Heat dissipates.
Exhaust is produced.
Ash is produced.
Waste is produced.
Wear occurs.
Cooling becomes necessary.
In other words, the civilization of fire is powerful, but rough.
Jet aircraft are fast.
But they consume fuel.
Rockets can go into space.
But they discard enormous amounts of propellant.
Data centers possess vast computational power.
But they continue to consume electricity and cooling.
AI supports intellectual work.
But behind it stand GPUs, electricity, cooling, data centers, and semiconductor supply chains.
On the surface, modern civilization appears to be an information civilization.
But at a deeper level,
it is a civilization of fire.
Somewhere, always,
a fire is being kept burning.
Like the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia,
the fire must never be allowed to go out.
And the larger the civilization of fire becomes,
the heavier its management becomes.
Because it produces heat, it must be cooled.
Because it wears down, parts must be replaced.
Because it uses fuel, fuel must be transported.
Because it produces waste, waste must be processed.
Because it is dangerous, it must be monitored.
Because it is complex, specialists must be trained.
This structure is what makes modern civilization as a whole so heavy.
3.As Systems Become More Advanced, Their Management Becomes Too Heavy
Here, let us return to the central axis of this essay.
As systems become more advanced, their management becomes too heavy.
Is this not what is happening in many fields today?
Military aircraft have become highly advanced.
But their maintenance has become heavy.
AI has become highly advanced.
But its operation now requires enormous computational resources, monitoring, safety measures, legal work, evaluation, and data management.
Corporate IT systems have become more convenient.
But SaaS, APIs, authentication, permissions, logs, audits, security, contract renewals, and incident response have all increased.
Medicine has become more advanced.
But medical devices, drugs, tests, data, insurance, regulations, and accountability have all increased.
Administration has been digitized.
But system integration, personal information, authentication, contractor management, and emergency response in the event of system failures have become heavy.
Each individual technology is advancing.
And yet, the technological system as a whole is not becoming lighter.
On the contrary, it is becoming heavier.
This is strange.
Originally, technology was supposed to make human life easier.
And yet, modern technology demands new management burdens from human beings.
Introduce a new system.
Monitor that system.
Manage the monitoring system.
Document the management procedures.
Update the documents.
Set permissions.
Respond to audits.
Prepare for incidents.
And even after all that, accidents still happen.
Then more management items are added.
An accident occurs.
Countermeasures increase.
Procedures increase.
Approvals increase.
Logs increase.
Boundaries of responsibility increase.
The system becomes even more complex.
Modern civilization has clearly entered this cycle.
Is this not a death spiral?
A spiral of collapse?
Increasing performance.
Increasing complexity.
Growing management burden.
Exhaustion on the front line.
Accidents.
Additional countermeasures.
Further complexity.
The crash of the B-52 is one example of this.
The operational availability problem of the F-35 is the same.
The problem of reproducing Tomahawks is the same.
The expansion of AI data centers is the same.
The issue is not the superiority or inferiority of each individual technology.
The real issue is that the technological system itself is beginning to exceed the limits of manageability.
Then let us think in the opposite direction.
If an advanced civilization is to continue for a long time,
what conditions would it need?
4.Conditions Necessary for a Sustainable Civilization
If an advanced civilization is to continue for a long time, then at minimum, several conditions will be necessary.
First, it must be low-destructive.
Every time it obtains energy, it should not destroy the object from which that energy is drawn.
Burning, splitting, exploding, scraping away, discarding.
If such methods remain at the center of civilization, then the larger that civilization becomes, the greater its burden on the environment will be.
Second, it must produce little waste heat.
As civilization grows larger, its waste heat grows larger as well.
Power plants, factories, cities, data centers, military systems.
If all of them continue to emit heat, then cooling itself becomes a burden on civilization.
Third, it must involve little wear.
A technological system with heavy wear depends on parts replacement, maintenance, supply, and supply chains.
Even if it is advanced, a civilization that constantly requires replacement parts is heavy in the long term.
Fourth, it must have a low management burden.
Specialists, monitoring, logs, approvals, updates, contracts, boundaries of responsibility.
If these increase too much, civilization will have its resources consumed by the management of itself.
Fifth, it must be highly circular.
It should not consume resources in a one-way direction, but operate in a form closer to the cycles of nature and life.
It should not be a civilization that takes, burns, and discards.
It should be a civilization that circulates.
Sixth, it must be highly integrated.
Human beings, devices, environments, fields, and energy should not be separated too far from one another.
The more they are separated, the more connection management becomes necessary.
And when connection management increases, accidents and wear are born there.
Seventh, life, environment, and devices must not stand in opposition to one another.
If operating devices destroys the environment, and protecting the environment means that technology cannot be used, then such a civilization cannot continue for long.
A sustainable civilization should not be a civilization that is powerful but rough.
It should be a civilization that is powerful but quiet.
Seen from these conditions, the outline of a technological system different from modern civilization begins to appear.
Not a civilization that burns fire and pushes forward,
but a civilization that connects to fields.
Not a civilization that destroys life in order to use it,
but a civilization that nurtures the circulation of life.
Not a civilization that manages enormous machines,
but a civilization in which form and place themselves function.
In order to think about this alternative model,
I will set out several examples.
From here on begins the thought experiment I mentioned earlier.
5.The Wright Flyer: Low-Technology, Yet Futuristic
Seen from the present day, the Wright brothers’ Flyer was low-technology.
A wooden frame.
Fabric-covered wings.
Wires.
A small engine.
Propellers.
A control system operated directly by the human body.
In terms of technological level alone,
it cannot be compared with modern military aircraft.
From a modern perspective,
it was a machine almost as simple as an electric bicycle.
And yet, there was something in it that modern technology has lost.
Its structure was visible.
One could understand how it would break.
The distance between the human being and the aircraft was close.
Its purpose was simple.
It existed only in order to fly.
The Wright Flyer was low-performance.
But its management was light.
Of course, I am not saying that we should return to the Wright Flyer.
This is not an argument that we should abandon modern aviation technology and go back to wood and fabric.
What matters is this: technological maturity does not necessarily mean increasing complexity.
The simplicity of low technology.
The complexity of high technology.
And beyond that,
there is the simplicity of ultra-advanced technology.
A technology that is advanced,
yet simple from the perspective of those who use it.
Its external management burden is light.
The distance between human beings and tools is close.
One can understand how it breaks.
Its very existence functions.
Future technology is not a huge IT asset like a modern military aircraft.
Rather, it recovers the simplicity of the Wright Flyer at a different and more advanced level.
The Wright Flyer was low-technology,
but it points toward the direction of future technology.
If we think in this way,
the history of flight begins to look a little different.
6.Hot-Air Balloons and Nazca: Gaining an Aerial View with Cloth and Wind
Human beings had already approached the sky before the Wright brothers.
As a flight technology, the hot-air balloon is quite simple.
A large piece of cloth.
Fire.
Air.
Wind.
A basket.
Ropes.
There is no engine.
There is no complex control system.
Fuel, such as firewood, is necessary,
but mechanically speaking,
it is extremely simple.
A hot-air balloon is close to being the aerial version of a sailing ship.
A ship uses water and wind.
A hot-air balloon uses air and heat.
Both are technologies that ride upon a natural medium.
Once human beings had acquired the technology to weave sails for ships, the technical conditions for making the envelope of a hot-air balloon were already largely in place.
Handle fire.
Weave cloth.
Make baskets.
Read the wind.
For a civilization with this level of technology,
rising into the sky itself would not have been impossible.
Here, the Nazca Lines come into view.
The enormous geoglyphs of Nazca are difficult to grasp as complete images from the ground.
Parts of the lines can be seen.
They can also be walked as paths.
Some can be viewed from hills or slopes.
But the overall forms of the giant animals and figures are overwhelmingly easier to understand from above.
If so, it is natural to consider that an aerial viewpoint was used during the process of making them.
Giant geoglyphs and the viewpoint from the sky clearly belong to the same field of problems.
They can be made from the ground.
That is true.
Using stakes and ropes, large figures can be enlarged and laid out on the ground.
But the fact that they can be made from the ground does not mean that they were never checked from above.
Even today, large ground advertisements and survey figures can be made entirely through work on the ground.
Yet normally, they are checked from above.
Drones.
Helicopters.
Aerial photographs.
Satellite images.
For confirming the whole image,
an overhead viewpoint is overwhelmingly convenient.
The same possibility can be considered for Nazca.
Cloth, fire, wind, and the human eye.
With only these,
an aerial viewpoint could be obtained.
Here, too, we find a direction different from modern technology.
It is not a matter of dominating the sky with enormous engines.
It is a matter of connecting to the sky through cloth and wind.
Just like a sailing ship setting out to sea.
Low-performance,
but light in management.
In relation to its purpose,
the technological system is not excessive.
This does not simply go beyond the civilization of fire
It reveals another possibility from before the civilization of fire became enormous.
7.The Light of Dendera: A Technological Thought of Light Without Fire
In the Temple of Hathor at Dendera in ancient Egypt, there is a wall relief that looks like an electric bulb.
When modern people look at it, they see a bulb-like shape, a line that looks like a filament, something like a cable, and something like a support.
For that reason, it is often said that ancient Egypt may have possessed electric bulbs.
But here, there is no need to regard it as an incandescent bulb.
Rather, to see it as an incandescent bulb is to force the technological imagination of modern people onto the ancient world.
What is interesting is that it looks like light that is not fire.
Light that is not heat.
Light that is not incandescence.
Light related to plants and life.
The light of fireflies, for example.
Bulb plants.
Lotus.
Serpentine energy.
Life.
Regeneration.
Generation.
Light.
In ancient Egyptian imagery, the lotus is important.
It is connected with water, the sun, regeneration, and the birth of life.
The serpent, too, is connected with life force and divine power.
If so, that image is not a mere picture of an electric bulb. It is a trace of a technological thought that integrates plants, life, and light.
Even when modern civilization uses plants, it basically uses them by destroying them.
Burning them.
Eating them.
Fermenting them.
Decomposing them.
Turning them into chemical raw materials.
In other words, it first destroys the life of the plant, and then extracts energy from it.
But plants are, in the first place, beings that convert sunlight into life activity.
There lies a hint of an energy system different from fire.
Photosynthesis.
Weak electric potential differences.
Bioelectric currents.
Chemical reactions.
Luminescence.
Resonance.
Growth.
Circulation.
If there is a technology that can draw energy from plants or living systems without destroying them, then it is moving in a completely different direction from modern civilization.
It does not use fire.
It does not burn.
It does not destroy the object.
It produces almost no heat.
It connects to the circulation of life.
This is not the civilization of fire.
It is the civilization of life.
Of course, we cannot assert that the image at Dendera actually shows such a device.
According to the standard interpretation, it is a religious and mythological image.
But one cannot say that, because it is a religious image, it has nothing to do with technology.
In ancient civilizations, religion, observation of nature, technology, views of life, and cosmology were not separated as they are today.
Modern people divide them and ask, “Is this religion, or is this technology?”
But for ancient people, light, life, plants, gods, the cosmos, ritual, and technology may have existed within a single system.
In this sense, the Light of Dendera is important.
If there is light that is not fire,
then there can also be a civilization that is not fire.
8.The Pyramid Is a UFO That Does Not Fly
Here, I will move to an even bolder example.
The pyramid.
Is it not far too simple to see the pyramid merely as a tomb?
Was it not originally something other than a tomb?
Was it not a device built for another purpose?
Can it not be understood as an energy-generating device?
Of course, in Egyptology, the pyramid is understood as a royal tomb and as the center of a funerary complex. That interpretation has sufficient grounds. I do not intend to simply deny it here.
But being a tomb and being a device do not contradict each other.
In antiquity, the death of a king was not merely the death of an individual.
Kingship, the sun, the stars, rebirth, the earth, the underworld, and the gods were all connected there.
If so, the pyramid was more than a box for containing a body. It was a device for connecting the earth and the heavens.
Place.
Orientation.
Shape.
Mass.
Stone.
Interior space.
Relationship with the heavenly bodies.
Relationship with the Nile.
Relationship with the western desert.
Relationship with the direction of the setting sun.
The pyramid is not a pile of stones placed at an arbitrary location.
It is placed in a meaningful location, designed with precision, given orientation, given form, and fixed within a field.
Here, the similarity with UFOs appears.
If a UFO is not a machine that moves by fuel and engines, but a device that moves by connecting to a field, then the pyramid is a field device fixed to the earth.
No engine is visible in a UFO.
No engine exists in a pyramid.
No fuel is visible in a UFO.
No fuel exists in a pyramid.
Seen from the outside, one does not understand why a UFO moves.
There is a story that an American engineer once happened to find an unmanned UFO that had made an emergency landing on the ground. He eagerly went inside and searched for an engine, fuel, and a control system, but found none. He concluded that the UFO could not fly unless it was paired with its occupant.
The pyramid, too, when seen from the outside, does not reveal why it was built with such precision.
If a UFO is a moving field device, then the pyramid is a fixed field device.
In other words, the pyramid is a UFO that does not fly, and a UFO is a moving pyramid.
The two are extremely similar.
They look like the same technological system.
This is an inference.
But as a model of a technological system, it is fascinating.
Modern mechanical civilization packs function into the inside of a device.
Engines, circuits, wiring, software, sensors, cooling systems.
The interior of the device becomes complex.
But a pyramid-like device is different.
It does not function through internal machinery.
It functions through place and form.
It does not function by fuel.
It functions through its relationship with the field.
It does not function through moving parts.
It functions through its very existence.
This is extremely ecological.
Once it is built,
it requires no fuel.
It produces no waste heat.
It has little wear.
Its management burden is light.
It continues to exist for thousands of years.
The enormous devices of modern civilization continue to consume electricity.
They require cooling.
They require parts replacement.
They require software updates.
They require specialists.
But the pyramid forms a field simply by existing.
This direction is closer not to modern mechanical civilization, but to a UFO-like technological system.
9.Technology That Manipulates the Gravitational System
Then what is this “field”?
The most important candidate is gravity.
Modern flight is a technology that resists gravity.
An airplane creates lift with its wings.
A helicopter pushes air downward with its rotors.
A rocket burns and ejects propellant.
A jet aircraft burns fuel and pushes air backward.
In other words, gravity itself is left unchanged, and we force ourselves to oppose it with fuel and machinery.
In this method, fuel is always necessary.
Engines are necessary.
Heat is produced.
Wear occurs.
Maintenance becomes necessary.
Accidents happen.
But if gravity itself can be manipulated, the meaning of flight changes.
One does not fly upward.
One falls upward.
One does not propel oneself sideways.
One falls sideways.
One does not push with fuel.
One changes the gradient of the field.
In this way of thinking, wings, jet engines, and rocket fuel are no longer essential.
What is necessary is a technology that manipulates the gravitational field, or the properties of space itself.
Of course, modern science has not put this into practical use.
Gravity seems familiar, yet it has not been fully understood.
In general relativity, gravity is explained as the curvature of spacetime.
But its integration with quantum theory remains incomplete.
In cosmology, the problems of dark matter and dark energy also remain.
Gravity is extremely close to us, and yet it still contains deep mysteries.
If the gravitational system can be controlled in another direction, the movement technology of civilization changes from its foundation.
There is no longer any need to fly by burning fuel.
There is no longer any need to push with engines.
Gravity can be reversed,
and one becomes able to fall upward.
There is no need to force the aircraft to be light.
There is no need to discard enormous amounts of propellant.
UFO-like flight is not propulsion.
It is the control of the direction of falling.
Here, we see a technological thought completely opposite to the B-52 and the F-35.
Modern military aircraft oppose gravity with fire, machinery, and software.
UFO-like technology reads gravity itself and moves within the field.
The former is strong, but heavy.
The latter, if it is established, is strong, quiet, and light in management.
This is the core of the civilization of field.
10.Technology That Draws Cyclical Energy from Plants
If the key to movement lies in gravity, then the key to life and energy lies in plants and living systems.
Modern civilization uses plants by destroying them.
Burn wood.
Eat crops.
Ferment them.
Extract oil.
Turn them into chemical raw materials.
Turn them into biofuel.
All of these are useful.
But fundamentally, they are technologies that first cut off, decompose, and consume the life activity of plants.
Plants, however, originally receive sunlight, create organic matter from carbon dioxide and water, grow, breathe, and circulate matter with the environment.
The plant itself is already an advanced energy-conversion device.
Modern civilization sees plants as fuel.
But another civilization saw plants as converters of field and life.
The weak electric potential differences possessed by plants.
The process of photosynthesis.
Chemical reactions.
Luminescence.
Fragrance.
Growth rhythms.
The movement of water.
Underground fungal networks.
Connections with the sun, soil, water, and atmosphere.
A technology that uses these without destroying them changes the very view of energy in civilization.
This is not “burning plants.”
It is a technology of connecting to plants.
If the Light of Dendera is read in this direction, then it is not an incandescent bulb.
It is not fire.
It is not electricity.
It is a device that connects plants, life, and light.
It draws life energy from bulbous plants.
It manifests that energy as light without heat.
Without using fire, without destroying the object, it obtains light within the circulation of life.
Of course, this is not a technology established by modern science. No actual device has been found. It cannot be asserted as a physical artifact.
But as a model of civilization, it is important.
Modern civilization thinks of energy as something to be “extracted from outside.”
Dig up fuel.
Transport it.
Burn it.
Generate electricity.
Transmit it.
Consume it.
Discard it.
Another civilization thinks of energy as something to which one connects through circulation.
Do not burn.
Do not destroy.
Do not transport it from far away.
Do not require an enormous power grid.
In a place where life exists, the field itself functions.
This is the civilization of life.
If the manipulation of the gravitational system solves the problem of movement, then the cyclical energy of plants and living systems solves the problem of daily life and the maintenance of place.
Field and life.
These two become the keys to stepping down from the civilization of fire.
11.From the Civilization of Fire to the Civilization of Field and Life
Let us organize what we have seen so far.
Modern civilization is a civilization of fire.
Burn.
Break.
Turn into heat.
Push.
Cool.
Replace.
Manage.
This civilization is strong.
Through this civilization, humanity has flown through the sky, crossed the seas, gone into space, built cities, operated computers, and created AI.
The civilization of fire cannot be denied.
Fire is a great technology for humanity.
But fire is the entrance to civilization, not its completed form.
The civilization of fire is extremely effective when its scale is small.
But when an entire civilization comes to depend on fire, heat, and enormous management, its limits begin to appear.
Fuel becomes necessary.
Waste heat increases.
Wear increases.
Maintenance becomes heavy.
Parts supply becomes complex.
Software management becomes heavy.
The front line can no longer keep up.
As systems become more advanced, their management becomes too heavy.
This is the disease of modern civilization.
Then another model of civilization can exist.
As hints, this essay has examined several examples.
The Wright Flyer.
Low-technology, but close in distance between human being and machine.
The hot-air balloon.
Rising into the sky with only cloth, fire, and wind.
Nazca.
The problem of enormous geoglyphs and the aerial viewpoint.
Dendera.
Light that is not fire, and the integration of plants, life, and light.
The pyramid.
A UFO that does not fly, functioning through place and form.
The UFO.
A moving device connected to a field, with no visible engine and no visible fuel.
These are not being lined up as proof.
They are hints for relativizing modern civilization.
What they share is that they are not a civilization that pushes with fire.
Read the field.
Read gravity.
Read orientation.
Read form.
Read place.
Read plants.
Read the circulation of life.
Here, the outline of another civilizational model appears.
From the civilization of fire
to the civilization of field and life.
This does not mean abandoning fire.
It means removing fire from the central role.
Fire will be used.
But it will not be placed at the center of civilization.
What is placed at the center is the field.
Gravity, terrain, orientation, heavenly bodies,
space, form, resonance.
The other center is life.
Plants, photosynthesis, circulation,
growth, luminescence, connection with the environment.
A civilization that places these two at its center will take a form different from modern civilization.
Low destruction.
Low waste heat.
Low wear.
Low management burden.
High circulation.
High integration.
No opposition between life, environment, and device.
If a long-lived advanced civilization exists, it must satisfy these conditions.
A civilization that keeps burning will eventually suffer from its own waste heat, waste products, and management burden.
A civilization that keeps destroying will eventually lose the very objects it destroys.
A civilization that keeps expanding will eventually become unmanageable.
Therefore, a mature civilization must become quieter.
Seen from the outside,
it will look as if it is doing nothing.
And yet, by existing, it functions.
It does not burn fuel.
It connects to the field.
It rides on the circulation of life.
The pyramid looks this way.
The UFO looks this way.
The Light of Dendera looks this way.
What these actually were as historical facts is not the point here.
But as technological thought, they are important.
If modern civilization continues to expand in this way, the problems of the B-52, the F-35, and AI data centers will only increase.
They are not mere accidents or malfunctions.
They are problems in the design philosophy of civilization itself.
Make it higher-performance.
Make it bigger.
Make it faster.
Make it more multifunctional.
Manage it more.
This way of thinking is approaching its limit.
What is necessary is not an even larger machine of fire.
What is necessary is another technological system built from the opposite set of requirements.
Do not destroy.
Do not burn.
Do not produce too much heat.
Do not wear down easily.
Keep management light.
Circulate.
Do not stand against life.
Connect to the field.
In this direction,
there is room to think about the technological system of the future.
Conclusion: The Question That Began with the B-52
The crash of the B-52 is, on one level, an aviation accident. Its cause should be clarified by investigation. But sometimes a single accident opens up a larger question.
A fundamental question.
Can this really be sustained?
Layer new technology onto an old airframe.
Raise performance.
Make it electronic.
Turn it into software.
Make it more complex.
Management grows heavier.
The front line can no longer keep up.
Judgment becomes harder.
An accident occurs.
This is not only a problem of military aircraft.
Modern civilization as a whole is moving in the same direction.
The same is true of AI.
The same is true of data centers.
The same is true of power grids.
The same is true of cities.
The same is true of administrative systems.
As systems become more advanced, their management becomes too heavy.
This question cannot be answered simply by saying, “Then let us manage more.” If management increases, the system only becomes heavier. That is why the problem must be approached in the opposite direction.
What is a technology that does not easily break even without constant management?
What is a technology that moves without burning?
What is a civilization that does not endlessly produce waste heat?
What is a device that does not stand against life?
What is an architecture in which the field itself functions?
What is a form of flight that does not push back against gravity,
but reads gravity?
From the civilization of fire
to the civilization of field and life.
This is not a technological proposal that can be realized immediately.
It is, rather,
a replacement of the civilizational model.
But unless the model changes,
the direction of technology will not change.
Everything begins with thinking.
Everything begins with thought.
The question that began with the crash of the B-52
ultimately leads here.
How long will humanity continue a civilization that places fire in the leading role?
And can it imagine the technological system that comes after fire?
The future does not necessarily lie beyond even larger machines.
It lies within a technological system that is quieter, lighter, and closer to field and life.
End.
This is the English version of the original Japanese essay.
Original Japanese version:
French Version:
