What I have learned:
It is better to know than to believe.
It is better to be loved, than to know.
It is better to be alive, than to be loved.
To be alive, is to believe. So....
You have to be skeptical of both the words and the actions. There is only comfort in dreams, and they are cut short by awakenings. And then again, we never seem to wake up.
Our understanding of J-Curves. What appears to be infinity on the vertical really isnt. At least, we have no examples. There is something about Progress and accumulation which forms a head or center of gravity, and then collapses from its weight, its success bringing it "down" or shattering into constituent parts after some impact. Some Destruction.
HAS CIVILIZATION REACHED AN IRREVERSIBLE THRESHHOLD?
1. Not sure if you mean to say that Civilization is inevitable, in some "evolutionary" or entropic sense. Teilhard de Chardin suggests something like this when he says that bacteria planaria worm lizard dog primate man are in a vector. There is a "heading". If civilization is on this vector, then it might be inevitable. But not irreversible. We have not found the one-way valve of it. Or at least the Sumerian Indusian Scythian Greek and Andean efforts were unsuccessful.
2. Libraries. I think after the 4th burning of the Alexandrian collection -- falling to barbarians, Romans, Christians (un-Christ-like mobs), and finally Mohammedans (non-Islamic mobs) -- it would appear that a pattern has emerged. But we never know how conclusive a pattern is.
I think of the Singularity as a recognition of Perfect Storm dynamics; I dont see it as tainted by millenarianism. Few are looking at it for salvation from The Mess we are in. It is just There, whether we really need it or not, or badly or not. There is the plus factor of a Whole greater than parts, the boiling point, the freezing point which forms on the vector of change. What is coming to boil?
You have to be skeptical of both the words and the actions. There is only comfort in dreams, and they are cut short by awakenings. And then again, we never seem to wake up.
ReplyDeleteGet on Topic -- this is about the Singularity!
ReplyDeleteOur understanding of J-Curves. What appears to be infinity on the vertical really isnt. At least, we have no examples. There is something about Progress and accumulation which forms a head or center of gravity, and then collapses from its weight, its success bringing it "down" or shattering into constituent parts after some impact. Some Destruction.
HAS CIVILIZATION REACHED AN IRREVERSIBLE THRESHHOLD?
ReplyDelete1. Not sure if you mean to say that Civilization is inevitable, in some "evolutionary" or entropic sense. Teilhard de Chardin suggests something like this when he says that bacteria planaria worm lizard dog primate man are in a vector. There is a "heading". If civilization is on this vector, then it might be inevitable. But not irreversible. We have not found the one-way valve of it. Or at least the Sumerian Indusian Scythian Greek and Andean efforts were unsuccessful.
2. Libraries. I think after the 4th burning of the Alexandrian collection -- falling to barbarians, Romans, Christians (un-Christ-like mobs), and finally Mohammedans (non-Islamic mobs) -- it would appear that a pattern has emerged. But we never know how conclusive a pattern is.
I think of the Singularity as a recognition of Perfect Storm dynamics; I dont see it as tainted by millenarianism. Few are looking at it for salvation from The Mess we are in. It is just There, whether we really need it or not, or badly or not. There is the plus factor of a Whole greater than parts, the boiling point, the freezing point which forms on the vector of change. What is coming to boil?
ReplyDelete