From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Jan 10 2002 - 10:00:15 MST
"J. R. Molloy" wrote:
>
> From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
> > If there was a civilization a billion or
> > even a million years in advanced of our own then the universe should
> > look engineered.
>
> Why? Just because it may seem sensible to us to engineer the universe, that
> doesn't mean that a civilization a million years more advanced than us would
> see it that way. Consider, if you will, that engineering the universe could
> seem quite childish to a more advanced (and more mature) species. As you point
> out, our civilization is relatively young. So, look what older civilizations
> on Earth have produced: Buddha, Lao Tzu, Patanjali, Mahavira, et al. Perhaps
> when our civilization matures a bit more, we'll become more interested in our
> hyper-cognitive, rather than our engineering skills.
It is a popular New Age myth that Indian and Chinese civilizations are
older than western civilizations like that of Egypt and Sumer, but this
is not so. The fact is that, if you go by the development of written
language, the evidence is that Chinese writing developed only around
1250 BC, that of Sumer dates back to 3500 BC, and Egypt around 3000 BC.
While Indus Valley writing is almost as old as that of the west, it died
out long before the development of ancient Sanskrit, and Sanskrit is
derived from those developed in the west, not the east.
Hypercognition will only advance when we are able to apply our
engineering skills to the mind to a significant degree. The Lamarckian
evolution of technology will always overtake the Darwinian evolution of
biology.
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