Ceritus
17th November 2005, 02:33 AM
From this thread (http://brentrasmussen.com/log/node/364)
I deal in reality as it is, not as I wish it would be, so that I can perhaps change that reality. And that's important. Because if I could be said to 'believe in' anything, it's that I believe in the human potential for progress, problem solving, and flexibility. That's how we've managed to solve problems in the past.
If we put that proven methodology to work, I think probably, one by one, diseases will fall or be engineered out of existence. I think using that methodology we can get a handle on hunger, poverty, war, greed, natural disasters, and on and on. One day it may happen that we will conquer aging, that we can record and share our minds. Maybe, sooner or later, we will even eliminate death itself; or at least postpone for practical eternity.
This "we" I'm talking about is no doubt a very different we than exists now, this is our remote descendants. They may have linked minds, be cybernetic, meld machine and biology, design themselves at the molecular level. Their consciousness may be carried by silicon, nanodevices, ensconced in exotic dark matter, or housed in something we cannot even conceive of. These descendants might ply the ocean of space time as easily as you drive to the store, make planets, create stars, build black-holes and farm them for gravity waves. They, our children's children, might learn to reconfigure the entire universe.
But a spark of us will still burn in them, all down the ages, just as a vestige of the first hominid, the first tetrapod, the first cell, is part of us. And unless there is some kind of serious disruption in record keeping, they'll probably know that they came from a single planet orbiting a small yellow star, where generations of their ancestors busted their asses so that they could be free, truly free. If so, they'll probably be able to retrieve data on the 21st century, know there was a thing called the Internet, that on it there were blogs, maybe even know about UTI: They might be able to pull up this very post.
For the last few paragraphs I've left the world of the known and engaged in some pretty far out speculation, but I see no reason why it cannot be that way, or close to it, in the distant future ... IF. IF we want it, if we make it happen.
The quicker we accept that no one is likely to just hand us these wonderful abilities and gifts, the quicker we'll get to work developing it for real, on our own. Because ultimately, we are responsible for us. What becomes of us is not in the mythical hands of invisible Gods-- as best we can tell and for better or worse. It's in our hands; and it's high time we all started accepting that wonderful gift of self determination. Hell, we should be dancing on the rooftops that we get the chance to determine our destiny as a species, because we're the only one on earth that can!
We owe it to try, to shoot for the stars, for all the people who came before us and helped pull us out of the pit of animal savagery. We owe it to the wonderful diversity of life on earth of which we are a part and which gave birth to our species; an unbroken lineage stretching back four billion years of which we are the managing agent. Is there anyone who doesn't feel that's special enough?
We owe it to ourselves to keep that flame burning, keep pushing the boundaries, so that each and every generation will more and more inherit the promise of what can be, while leaving the grimmer world of what was behind. I may reject the deities that human intellects have cooked up, but I don't doubt the potential of that intellect. That's what I 'believe in' if I could be said to 'believe in' anything; I believe in our future, because I believe in us. I believe in you.
This quote above brought me to tears with both sadness and joy. It actually inspired me in a way nothing else has. Those few words for a brief time allowed me to imagine the possibilities the future could hold if we wanted it and strived for it.
Just knowing that we went from being able to fly 122ft to stepping on the moon in one lifetime the value and vastness of our imagination is infinite. Just look at the wonderous leaps we have accomplished in such a short period of time. Sure there have been numerous wars waged over religious dogma which is a product of our imaginations but because of those wars we learned so many valuable things. From the interdynamics of the Cumulonimbus cloud when hitler had some paratroopers try to descend in a storm who then got sucked up in an updraft and then frozen, all the way to the ability to split atoms at will.
Although not in my lifetime my child's great great great great great great grand kid's may have a chance of seeing a glimpse of the transition into this utopia. Just that feeling alone is enough to make me want to do everything I possibly can to make this world better with the time I exist also while enjoying my time as well.
I deal in reality as it is, not as I wish it would be, so that I can perhaps change that reality. And that's important. Because if I could be said to 'believe in' anything, it's that I believe in the human potential for progress, problem solving, and flexibility. That's how we've managed to solve problems in the past.
If we put that proven methodology to work, I think probably, one by one, diseases will fall or be engineered out of existence. I think using that methodology we can get a handle on hunger, poverty, war, greed, natural disasters, and on and on. One day it may happen that we will conquer aging, that we can record and share our minds. Maybe, sooner or later, we will even eliminate death itself; or at least postpone for practical eternity.
This "we" I'm talking about is no doubt a very different we than exists now, this is our remote descendants. They may have linked minds, be cybernetic, meld machine and biology, design themselves at the molecular level. Their consciousness may be carried by silicon, nanodevices, ensconced in exotic dark matter, or housed in something we cannot even conceive of. These descendants might ply the ocean of space time as easily as you drive to the store, make planets, create stars, build black-holes and farm them for gravity waves. They, our children's children, might learn to reconfigure the entire universe.
But a spark of us will still burn in them, all down the ages, just as a vestige of the first hominid, the first tetrapod, the first cell, is part of us. And unless there is some kind of serious disruption in record keeping, they'll probably know that they came from a single planet orbiting a small yellow star, where generations of their ancestors busted their asses so that they could be free, truly free. If so, they'll probably be able to retrieve data on the 21st century, know there was a thing called the Internet, that on it there were blogs, maybe even know about UTI: They might be able to pull up this very post.
For the last few paragraphs I've left the world of the known and engaged in some pretty far out speculation, but I see no reason why it cannot be that way, or close to it, in the distant future ... IF. IF we want it, if we make it happen.
The quicker we accept that no one is likely to just hand us these wonderful abilities and gifts, the quicker we'll get to work developing it for real, on our own. Because ultimately, we are responsible for us. What becomes of us is not in the mythical hands of invisible Gods-- as best we can tell and for better or worse. It's in our hands; and it's high time we all started accepting that wonderful gift of self determination. Hell, we should be dancing on the rooftops that we get the chance to determine our destiny as a species, because we're the only one on earth that can!
We owe it to try, to shoot for the stars, for all the people who came before us and helped pull us out of the pit of animal savagery. We owe it to the wonderful diversity of life on earth of which we are a part and which gave birth to our species; an unbroken lineage stretching back four billion years of which we are the managing agent. Is there anyone who doesn't feel that's special enough?
We owe it to ourselves to keep that flame burning, keep pushing the boundaries, so that each and every generation will more and more inherit the promise of what can be, while leaving the grimmer world of what was behind. I may reject the deities that human intellects have cooked up, but I don't doubt the potential of that intellect. That's what I 'believe in' if I could be said to 'believe in' anything; I believe in our future, because I believe in us. I believe in you.
This quote above brought me to tears with both sadness and joy. It actually inspired me in a way nothing else has. Those few words for a brief time allowed me to imagine the possibilities the future could hold if we wanted it and strived for it.
Just knowing that we went from being able to fly 122ft to stepping on the moon in one lifetime the value and vastness of our imagination is infinite. Just look at the wonderous leaps we have accomplished in such a short period of time. Sure there have been numerous wars waged over religious dogma which is a product of our imaginations but because of those wars we learned so many valuable things. From the interdynamics of the Cumulonimbus cloud when hitler had some paratroopers try to descend in a storm who then got sucked up in an updraft and then frozen, all the way to the ability to split atoms at will.
Although not in my lifetime my child's great great great great great great grand kid's may have a chance of seeing a glimpse of the transition into this utopia. Just that feeling alone is enough to make me want to do everything I possibly can to make this world better with the time I exist also while enjoying my time as well.