Event horizons and global responsibility

[Bug]

No.

 

That's your head under the strain of thinking.

Just pull it out and you'll be fine.

 

You bought a Brief History of Time and thought you were a quantum physicist, didn't you?

No. I just didn't close my mind after 8th grade science.

 

Being a Bug, I wonder if you'd take an example from the invertebrate world as a possibility for Martin Rees' conjecture regarding human evolution. Metamorphosis is common in the insect world. So the consideration is whether the human essense is consciousness apart from the body. The other question is whether on a larger scale (such as the phylogenic) that the transition is a natural development given the "run time" of the "program".

The question of human essence and separateness is secondary to finding a way to consistently acheive new states of conciousness. Where humanity "resides" could be in the brain as a complex mechinism (pure science). If this is the case, the ability to push brain activity to new sectors is the active metamorphisis.

The absence of "accessible" brain matter beyond what is currently utilized renders most primitive creatures unsuitable for metamorphing outside of environmental requirements of the physical body (present company excepted). Basically, bacteria through insects "communicate through chemical messages or signals.

Very limited possibility for abstraction. So I would expect humans to retain the evolutionary advantage assuming we manage to survive the current mass extinctions. Work beckons....

[tvashtarkatena]

No.

 

That's your head under the strain of thinking.

Just pull it out and you'll be fine.

 

You bought a Brief History of Time and thought you were a quantum physicist, didn't you?

No. I just didn't close my mind after 8th grade science.

 

 

Being a Bug, I wonder if you'd take an example from the invertebrate world as a possibility for Martin Rees' conjecture regarding human evolution. Metamorphosis is common in the insect world. So the consideration is whether the human essense is consciousness apart from the body. The other question is whether on a larger scale (such as the phylogenic) that the transition is a natural development given the "run time" of the "program".

The question of human essence and separateness is secondary to finding a way to consistently acheive new states of conciousness. Where humanity "resides" could be in the brain as a complex mechinism (pure science). If this is the case, the ability to push brain activity to new sectors is the active metamorphisis.

The absence of "accessible" brain matter beyond what is currently utilized renders most primitive creatures unsuitable for metamorphing outside of environmental requirements of the physical body (present company excepted). Basically, bacteria through insects "communicate through chemical messages or signals.

Very limited possibility for abstraction. So I would expect humans to retain the evolutionary advantage assuming we manage to survive the current mass extinctions. Work beckons....

 

Humans have an evolutionary advantage over insects?

 

That's news...

 

...to everyone.

 

Stepping away from the ridiculous, the jury is still very much out as to whether our intellect and technology will, in the end, prove to be an evolutionary advantage or mechanism for self-extinction.

 

One thing is practically certain: whether humans eventually leave or die off, the earth in its final days, just before it's cosmic destruction, will be returned wholesale to those who have always ruled: the bacteria.

 

[Bug]

I know you just like to nit-pick but did you see the part where I said "assuming we manage to survive the current mass extinctions".

Would you argue that we cannot evolve beyond our current short-sightedness and develop lifeways that are sustainable indefinately?

[tvashtarkatena]

I like to think of my posts as a bit more than mere nitpicking, but you have to get the point to realize that.

 

Yes, we will continue to do what we're doing, which is evolving.

 

Can we evolve into something sustainable indefinitely?

 

No. We can't know the future, so 'indefinitely' isn't attainable. We can become more sustainable, either by choice or limitation, but it's not at all clear that that's the direction we're heading or will head. Given the events of my lifetime, it seems just as likely that we'll engineer our own doom as not, either actively or passively by, say, ignoring a threatening asteroid in favor of more 'worldly pursuits'. Actually, since we've been doing practically nothing but engineering our own doom since I was born, that outcome is probably more likely.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think we're a hard species to exterminate, but probably not as hard as one might think. The more we depend on technology to survive, the harder we're hit when that technology fails us. Technology, population concentration, and super organisms (companies, militaries, governments, 'movements', etc) have probably decreased our chances for long term viability through the increased destructiveness of warfare, exposure to epidemics, increased popularity of environmentally devastating behaviors that are now planetwide(consumerism, etc), and an increasingly sophisticated capacity to encourage this destruction in the name of you-fill-in-the-blank. Our survivability, like our financial systems, has been 'globalized'; it is more at risk of catastrophic collapse than ever before.

Edited April 15, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[tvashtarkatena]

Not to be a negativist or anything.

[STP]

[The question of human essence and separateness is secondary to finding a way to consistently acheive new states of conciousness. Where humanity "resides" could be in the brain as a complex mechinism (pure science). If this is the case, the ability to push brain activity to new sectors is the active metamorphisis.

The absence of "accessible" brain matter beyond what is currently utilized renders most primitive creatures unsuitable for metamorphing outside of environmental requirements of the physical body (present company excepted). Basically, bacteria through insects "communicate through chemical messages or signals.

Very limited possibility for abstraction. So I would expect humans to retain the evolutionary advantage assuming we manage to survive the current mass extinctions. Work beckons....

 

I can't really speak to the issue of "new" states of consciousness. I am familiar with the different brainwave patterns--alpha, beta, delta, and theta--and that some different states of brainwave pattern can be induced through meditation (mediated by chemical changes in the brain?). If I understand correctly, the thrust of achieving different states of self consciousness refers to the social manifestation of bringing "realizations" to the general consciousness, similar to the Mahayana teachings of the Bodhisattvas (of compassion for all beings). But history has shown that large scale transformations are fleeting rather than lasting, that it works better at the communal level than a global scale.

 

I speak of metamorphosis where technology is used to transcend the biological. Is it necessarily a saner or a more compassionate world that results? Does it seek to preserve the status quo of the world ecosystem? What should be the prime directive that governs the possibilities of the future other than nature's motto of "propagation over time and space"?

 

Take a look at viruses...in their simplicity they were once considered to be the evolutionary dregs of the organic world. Contemporary findings elevate the significance of these beings. In our hubris, maybe they will prove to be more vital than us in many ways.

 

There are limitations in our understanding of complexity, constrains built into the human brain. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of the formation of a system that unites human cognition with machine intelligence.

 

 

[img:right]http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/talks/revo.slides/power.aug.curve/power.aug.gif[/img]

[Bug]

I like to think of my posts as a bit more than mere nitpicking, but you have to get the point to realize that.

 

Yes, we will continue to do what we're doing, which is evolving.

 

Can we evolve into something sustainable indefinitely?

 

No. We can't know the future, so 'indefinitely' isn't attainable. We can become more sustainable, either by choice or limitation, but it's not at all clear that that's the direction we're heading or will head. Given the events of my lifetime, it seems just as likely that we'll engineer our own doom as not, either actively or passively by, say, ignoring a threatening asteroid in favor of more 'worldly pursuits'. Actually, since we've been doing practically nothing but engineering our own doom since I was born, that outcome is probably more likely.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think we're a hard species to exterminate, but probably not as hard as one might think. The more we depend on technology to survive, the harder we're hit when that technology fails us. Technology, population concentration, and super organisms (companies, militaries, governments, 'movements', etc) have probably decreased our chances for long term viability through the increased destructiveness of warfare, exposure to epidemics, increased popularity of environmentally devastating behaviors that are now planetwide(consumerism, etc), and an increasingly sophisticated capacity to encourage this destruction in the name of you-fill-in-the-blank. Our survivability, like our financial systems, has been 'globalized'; it is more at risk of catastrophic collapse than ever before.

Yes. We are shit and heading for our brethren.

But maybe, just maybe, there will be a realization by the "hundredth monkey" that the imminent splat requires instant action and simultaneously, a means to communicate with other like-minded global citizens will provide the means to conceive of something our/your scientific oriented solution factory could not come up with on its own.

You sit there on your scientific ass and belittle the works of highly disciplined masters of whom you know less than a third grader knows about science. You then have the audacity to proclaim doom because the wanton utilization of scientific breakthroughs has us painted into a dismal corner.

“Wisdom” is what the ancients can teach us through their extant traditions and the evolution (unbeknownst to the west) of these traditions pursuant to the “demons” of our time.

The work is being done in many circles outside the confines of western consumerism. Reading a book or “checking it out in your twenties” is no more likely to endow you with a meaningful understanding of non-linear masters than to understanding Hawkings’ most complex principles.

Your negativism is born of weakness.

With a dash of arrogance.

And a full helping of narrow thinking that has you facing the corner.

I mean that in the nicest way.

[Hugh Conway]

nice big, thick, meaty paragraphs

[STP]

Uh, I think you're thinking about Rob again.

[Bug]

We definately need more girls on this site.

 

 

MIIIIINNNNNNXXXXX!!!!!!!????????

[Bug]

[The question of human essence and separateness is secondary to finding a way to consistently acheive new states of conciousness. Where humanity "resides" could be in the brain as a complex mechinism (pure science). If this is the case, the ability to push brain activity to new sectors is the active metamorphisis.

The absence of "accessible" brain matter beyond what is currently utilized renders most primitive creatures unsuitable for metamorphing outside of environmental requirements of the physical body (present company excepted). Basically, bacteria through insects "communicate through chemical messages or signals.

Very limited possibility for abstraction. So I would expect humans to retain the evolutionary advantage assuming we manage to survive the current mass extinctions. Work beckons....

 

I can't really speak to the issue of "new" states of consciousness. I am familiar with the different brainwave patterns--alpha, beta, delta, and theta--and that some different states of brainwave pattern can be induced through meditation (mediated by chemical changes in the brain?). If I understand correctly, the thrust of achieving different states of self consciousness refers to the social manifestation of bringing "realizations" to the general consciousness, similar to the Mahayana teachings of the Bodhisattvas (of compassion for all beings). But history has shown that large scale transformations are fleeting rather than lasting, that it works better at the communal level than a global scale.

 

I speak of metamorphosis where technology is used to transcend the biological. Is it necessarily a saner or a more compassionate world that results? Does it seek to preserve the status quo of the world ecosystem? What should be the prime directive that governs the possibilities of the future other than nature's motto of "propagation over time and space"?

 

Take a look at viruses...in their simplicity they were once considered to be the evolutionary dregs of the organic world. Contemporary findings elevate the significance of these beings. In our hubris, maybe they will prove to be more vital than us in many ways.

 

There are limitations in our understanding of complexity, constrains built into the human brain. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of the formation of a system that unites human cognition with machine intelligence.

 

 

[img:right]http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/talks/revo.slides/power.aug.curve/power.aug.gif[/img]

I have to move on to more important things. My wife has assigned me dishes detail.

But your chart is in conflict to a degree with what a robotics guru at UW said about cockroaches. Something to the effect of "Their antenne alone have 29,000 sensory hairs and their reaction time is almost instantaneous. Forget about processing time. This is almost prescient. couple that with instinctive behaviors that number in the tens of thousands plus the ability to learn new behaviors and pass them genetically and you have a "mechanism" that I cannot conceive of being able to replicate in my or my great grandchildrens' lifetimes."

On the other hand, nano-robotics are expected to make the breakthroughs you talk about. For instance, nano blood cells will be spherical and carry ten times more oxegen than a human blood cell. climbing Everest will no longer be a big deal unless you "go nanoless".

Yikes...!

 

 

Yes dear......

[tvashtarkatena]

You're kind of dumb.

[Bug]

You're kind of dumb.

Typial weak response.

Predictable as first grade math.

Waste of time.