From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@isis.aurinia.com)
Date: Fri Nov 17 2000 - 10:20:57 MST
In a message dated Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:54:19 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Nicq
MacDonald <namacdonald@stthomas.edu> writes:
<< > The future of science and technology are not mystical, not magick,
not>
mysterious.
>>Arthur C. Clarke would disagree with that statement...<<
Where? If it's the line (to paraphrase)about a sufficiently advanced
technology being indistinguishable from science -- you should tried
reading
it more closely. A more primitive civilization would mistake the advanced
technology for magic, just like a Bronze Age warrior would think a gun is
magic. For the wielders of said technology, it wouldn't be -- they would
know
exactly how and why it works. The future is mysterious to us because we
haven't see it yet.
>>Anyway, since when is our destiny of a mundane nature? This notion has
only been commonly believed for a very short duration of humanity's
existence-
I'd also argue that this notion is purely transitionary, a kind of
collective
"dark night of the soul" (as a mystic would put it) before our initiation
into the Transhuman existence...<<
During that "short duration," more human progress has been achieved than
in
all of previous human history. Apparently, this "dark night" really
produces
results! I fervently pray (to a non-existent God) that this never ends.
Before we started stripping the world from its mystical-religious
trappings,
we lived huddled in the dark, utterly helpless before the forces of
nature.
No thanks.
> A transhuman is not supernatural.
>>We don't know this. I, for one, think that it must be... if this
wasn't
the case, we would certainly be awash in signals from alien civilizations
and
others that still live tied to their mundane existence, eternally
expanding,
conquering, warring... remember, there were numerous second-generation
stars
that matured billions of years before our own Sun, and odds are that in a
self-organizing universe many intelligent races could have developed and
eventually reached their own singularity, in which, through technological
means, they advanced to a state that is beyond our comprehension, and
could
only be seen as divine. The only way we could even hope to perceive
aslight
bit of the nature of such beings is through mystical means. Even the
ever hard-nosed Carl Sagan proposed something to this effect in
"Contact",
when he mentioned the idea of a species that had reached a state beyond
our
imagination designing patterns in the physical universe that could only
be
read through mathematical codes... maybe the Kabbalists are on to
something...<<
Please. The only way for us to get to understand such a species is for us
to
*raise ourselves to that level.* If we have to approach them (assuming
the
exist) as ignorant, trembling supplicants, we deserve whatever we get.
When
Commodore Perry sailed into Japan with a mighty warship, the Japanese
could
have just fallen to their knees and worshipped him. Instead, in a few
generations they had warships of their own. Mystics simply believe their
powers of reasoning are incapable of understanding the universe, and that
only some esoteric means will do it. So far, science keeps kicking them
out
of more and more realms of nature, as our observation tools and methods,
and
our understanding of the universe, continues to grow. The track record of
the
mystics and religionists, to put it kindly, sucks. None of their
predictions
has ever come true.
samantha:
People that know very little about mysticism (and knowing only the
dictionary definition is VERY little) really should not presume to say what
mystics "simply believe". Some types of mystics believe that reason is
supreme and transcends its own seeming limits if applied rigorously and
honestly enough. Check out Jnana Yoga. Science for all of its acheivments
is so far up against the wall on value and "meaning of it all" type
questions and issues. Some go so far as to say that if science cannot
address these things then they do not exist! This is as blind as a
medievalist claiming that what is not in the bible is either false or not
important anyway. Mysticism/religion sucks at describing physical reality.
But then, that was not its stated intent. Foretelling the future is also
not its purpose all though some mystical/religous groups lower themselves to
acting as if it is.
> Capital 'P' Powers are not amazing or incredible, they are merely
currently
> inscrutable.
If they're inscrutable, they very well could be amazing and incredible.
You
don't know this- nor do I.<<
Having, in the past, found that events and phenomena that were previously
inscrutable (how did the sun burn, for example) have been logically and
falsifiably explained, one can logically infer that what is now
inscrutable
will also, eventually, be logically and falsifiably explained. To believe
otherwise is to deny four centuries of human progress. Now, it is
possible
that at some point we might run into a wall that science and reason
cannot
knock down -- but if one must have faith in something, I thing faith in
science and reason is more sensible -- they have delivered a great deal
more
than the alternatives.
samantha:
Actually not all things believed to be true in science are falsfiable today.
>From the fact that science and technology have delivered much it does not
follow that all else is utterly pointless and to be discarded.
- samantha
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