Glen -
I do believe we *will* and *have been* outdriving our headlights, and it
is part of the "manifest destiny" of being human, maybe
mammal/warm-blooded/vertibrate/fauna/life? It *might be* a necessary
property of evolved life to innovate "grandly"... where "grandly" is a
relative term. The question I suppose, that I feel is in the air, is
whether we are accelerating toward an extinction event of our own making
and whether backing off on the accelerator will help reduce the chances
of it being total or if, as with the source domain of the metaphor,
will backing off too fast actually *cause* a spinout? Or perhaps the
best strategy is to punch on through? Kurzweil is voting for "pedal to
the metal" (achieve transhuman transcendence in time for him to erh...
transcend personally?) and I suppose I'm suggesting "back off on the
pedal gently but with strong intent" with some vague loyalty and
identity with "humans as we are"...
I also agree that Science is a sub-discipline of Engineering in the
sense you mean it... I think it is mostly a moot distinction. I happen
to have been trained in Science but practiced primarily in Engineering,
so am familiar with the common view (at least of Scientists) of the
reverse. I think this point is a nice conundrum... as a mutual friend
of many of us uses for his tagline: "The Universe is Flux, All else is
Opinion". It is the nature of "life" to evolve which (so far?)
requires a finite lifetime for the individual... so who am I to argue
with the end of an individual life, culture or species?
Flux on!
- Steve
On 6/9/16 12:20 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
I like this idea, Glen. Don't necessarily agree, but it's worth examining.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 9, 2016, at 9:53 AM, glen ☣ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 06/08/2016 11:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
`` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in the sense of
believing that we are outdriving our headlights on many fronts.''
Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..
The deeper point, I think, is that we not only _must_ outdrive our headlights,
we've been doing it for billions of years. I've been trying to find some spare
time to explore the idea that science is a sub-discipline of engineering. It's
counter to our normal paradigm where we think engineering is applied science.
But I find it an attractive idea that you can't learn or understand anything
without violently destroying/reorganizing some small part of the universe
first. Hence, all knowledge comes through engineering first. We have to force
the ambience through our intentional filter before we can do anything with it
... like playdough through a stencil ... cast some liquid reality into the mold
that is your mind, as it were.
--
☣ glen
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