1 - Contemporary Visions of the Next Apocalypse: Climate Change and Ar9ficial Intelligence

Some relevant elements that may combine in composing the apocalypse are the distinction of periods or eras, the linear notion of time, a vision of future events, the feeling of being close to the end, a depiction of the end of the world, the acceleration of times to avoid suffering of the just, the fight between good and evil containing heroes, mediators and the figure of the Antichrist, the destr. [...] In the Middle Ages, the apocalyp_c accounts remained through various narra_ves such as the Sibylline books of prophecies (par_cularly the Tibur_ne Sibylline book), the figures of the Emperor of the Last Days and the An_christ as well as the Hyda_us’ chronicle 4 of the fragmenta_on of the Roman Empire in the fihh century (Wieser 2019). [...] In the twelhh century, the wri_ngs of Hildegard von Bingen on the clash of the universal powers –the Empire and the Papacy– and the end of the 1000 years of Church Ages marked another step in the seman_cs of the apocalypse. [...] Modern technical developments bring to the fore a significant meaning to the semantics of the apocalypse, the foreshortening of time, a religious experience existing in the apocalyptic texts of the Judeo-Christian tradition that represents a favor of God to humanity before the unavoidable end of the world. [...] The corporeal structure of the human body constrains the mind’s rational processes, hence the need for a radical transformation of the very nature of the dualism mind/body to overcome the foundations of human alienation and march toward the Virtual Kingdom –a functional equivalent to the ancient Kingdom of Saints.