Ongoing conversation about Human Survival started by Stephen Hawkings at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/humansurvival
My response to a posted message saying that Humanity was not going to survive even another one hundred years:
What does 'pure happenstance' mean? I don't believe in some all powerful invisible friend creator either, btw. I think it is the belief in a god that creates fear of death in people. Uncertainty also causes fear of death in people. I just don't think it's necessary to torture oneself with uncertainty or belief.
I don't fear death whatsoever. Why bother?
I see so many empty grunts being used in society for undefined concepts, like wild cards in every conversation, and apparently in people's minds. 'Infinite', 'emptiness', and even 'death' seem like just meaningless grunts to me. The fundamental foundations of communicated meaning seem fictional to me, creating meanings out of thin air... no, less than that... purely from imagination.
I see no reason why Humanity shouldn't survive until the Universe becomes cold and dark, or hot and heavy, or whatever happens.
Why? Because nobody can find any 'emptiness' in Universe. Nor can they define 'Infinite' beyond 'more than we can count', yet all the experiments and observations shows limits to everything. At the same time, physics has discovered that what we think is matter, is actually just cohesive energy, and it's everywhere, filling all of space. And so far, it cannot be created nor destroyed. E=MC^ does apparently describe Universe.
What does that mean for each of us? It means that intelligence and awareness are fundamental phenomena of Universe, even if it only occurred on this planet. -which is unlikely. It's probably everywhere it can exist, like fire or rain. It also means that we, as physical systems made up completely from the environment, are not as insular as we thought. We are in no way separate from Universe. We come from it and go to it. So much for 'death'.
Where does an ice cube go when it melts? Should the ice cube be afraid of melting?
Another basic characteristic of energy is that it is always changing. It never stays the same from instant to instant. Since change is therefore a basic of existence, should we be afraid of change?
In complex systems, like Humanity on Planet Earth, how things change is not particularly predictable. But there is more to it than the fragile view takes into account. The past Mass Extinction Events (MEE) were all caused by outside forces or internal planetary forces, not by the behavior of the life system itself. Each time this planetary lifeform was nearly wiped out by an MEE, the evolution of the remaining life went in the direction of more complex organisms.
After six known MEE in our planet's history, we resulted, and we are the most complex evolution so far. Nothing we do comes purely from our minds or are created by us. We discover in Nature a phenomena and exploit it for our own use. We call that 'technology', which is primarily different forms of leverage. The fact that all we do comes from Nature indicates to me that it is very likely our use of technology is part of why we evolved. We have no niche in Nature. I think we are between niches.
I think we evolved to save the planetary life from MEEs and transport the ecology to other star systems so no single MEE can destroy all life. I think we are the reproductive system of the planetary ecology.
Everything in Nature, every species, employs that strategy in it's attempt to survive. It's why species that become too specialized do not tend to survive major changes. Adaptive flexibility seems a requirement for survival.
Yet, we fill our conceptual/social minds with systems, purely in our behavior with each other, that tend to be rigid and specialized. The conflict between the need for flexibility and the rigid concepts/social dynamics is what is causing the harm to the planetary ecosystem. So to survive, we need to think differently.
Will we manage to change our minds and therefor our behavior en mass before accumulated error all catches up with us? That is yet to be seen. I personally think it will, because I think we are far more than what we think we are right now. We are ignorant even of ourselves, and having been a trained killer who is now a pacifist, I know individually we can change our minds quite fast, (if I can, anyone can) and if that is a common experience, that change of mind, we will adapt and survive.
If we give in to cynical thoughts and hold our vision of the world rigid, we will not.
Only time will tell.
(I think I will put this up on my blog. Sometimes the words just flow.)
Peace,
-Roan
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Roan, you said you see no reason why Humanity shouldn't survive until the Universe becomes cold and dark. I’ll try to present some such reasons.
ReplyDeleteLet me begin from your thought: “Species that become too specialized do not tend to survive major changes. Adaptive flexibility seems a requirement for survival”. There is big true in it. However this true, being apprehended conformably to the human species, appears to be able to blow up your sureness.
Note: the human civilization had been creating in several millennia; then problem of survival was standing only for individuals, not for whole human race. But in XX century, at first in the human history, it appeared that the civilization survival problem, as Earth, after S.Lec, got "point under question sign", at that "the sign" was increasing, even if because of so called overkill - "possibility" disposed to completely exterminate life with tenth or even hundredth quotas of warheads available. There is even a gloomy joke: "Optimists and pessimists distinguish themselves by the dates of a doomsday only". It means - if we want to defend what had been created thousands of years we should save it from self-extermination in during of some decades, because we have scarcely more time to undertake something, until global catastrophes (predicted!) will come.
(I stand here on the point that destruction, as a result of a thoughtlessness, of low abilities to foresee, may be considered as partial case of self-destruction and self-extermination).
My idea: there is common cause for all our misfortunes, up to the hanging-over threat of collapse. It is finding inside OUR MINDS.
From the times of stone ages, the selection by the reason had been overwhelmed with more significant selection by aggressiveness, physical force and sexual attractiveness. Really, you can see that all your main organs of feelings -- eyes, ears, nose, not excluding tongue -- are finding as near as possible to your mind. Note, that is common peculiarity with all higher animals. This peculiarity was in correlation with the necessity to minimize the time of animals’ behavior reactions what had been called out by high pressure of selection. The minimizing of behavior reactions' times pre-determined our narrow field of consciousness, having been formerly an advantage in survival, and now, under protection of the civilization, being a defect, what may be named the shortage of panoramic thinking (SPT)
It is known, aggressiveness, it is a property that had provided survival of our animal ancestors. In human societies, the aggressiveness has even bigger diversity of appearance than in the wild world. Correlatively linked with aggressiveness, SPT in any sense may be considered as well as an example of a narrow specialization as applied to the human brain. Deep-water fishes lifted up from sea depths always NOT ALIVE, give any dangerous image of the humans, being raised to civilization tops.
You are correctly set the question: “Will we manage to change our minds and thereforee our behaviour en mass before accumulated error all catches up with us?” As you I’d like to say “it will”. But I can’t.
I explain my position. Your email login, worldmind; but is it reflecting something existing?
Whole human civilization, with its culture and techno-sphere, had arisen in result of intellectual, creative activities of many generations of people, of those, who later were called intellectuals, intelligentsia. It is why just they might take now responsibility for the civilization's state and future. But they are till now not going to take. Why? Many causes: among intelligentsia one is pride being closed to the power, other - being far from it; not a few ones experience to themselves feelings of deep self-respect and because of that stay low balls for any others' initiatives. There are there leaders and outsiders, having titles/ranks and not having, not to mention usual divisions by sex, age, social stratum. There is as well the copyright creating additional obstacles while cooperating.
So, such dilemma arises: only collective mind of global scale, a World-Wide Intellectual Resource, might cope with all masse of huge problems, the problem of survival being one of them --- but “cells” of the mind, creative part of human race, is out of the affair of the biggest importance.
And I see the only possibility for WWIR to appear: after global catastrophes predicted. To foresee them, it is sufficient to know that there is a systems non-correspondence, getting all stronger, between civilization’s mighty, its sophistic construction and complexity, first information one, --- and little humans’ possibilities to govern the bulky, though if to influence on its development.
Only then the creative part of human community HAVING LOST ALIVE should fell strong call to unite to survive.
Their chance to cope would be higher if before they elaborated and launched a new education system having its main priority in “changing the minds” of inhabitants, i.e. in the overcoming our evolution-conditioned SPT, in the developing of panoramic thinking.
But very few time is remained to save in decades what had been creating in millennia. Watches are ticking…
Vladimir Tretyakov.
See more:
* Creation of the system of civilization security in the 3rd Millennium (http://tvinteltech.narod.ru/eng/civ_secure.html)
* Institutional and strategic bankruptcy of the intelligentsia in the civilization process (http://tvinteltech.narod.ru/eng/bankr_intelig.html)
* Panoramic thinking as a notion (http://tvinteltech.narod.ru/eng/pan_th.html).