Hmm, ok, there's the "gene drive" issue. You could, say, get rid of
mosquitoes, but there may be side effects, eg malaria finds a different
more effective vector. One could also imagine other nasty things one
could do to the microbiome (or other fast-reproducing short lived bits
of our Context) of people with whom one presumed to disagree. So yes,
headlights.
http://phys.org/news/2016-06-fast-moving-science-gene.html
One might do well to remember that we are symbionts (a Good Thing), so,
transcendence for who or what?
On 6/9/16 6:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
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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