John Marsh wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:00:19 Spike Jones wrote:
> >OK Ill take this on.
>
> >Granted this was a sad loss. However...
>
> This is because we have technology.
> >There is no evidence that the ancients had anything we would
> >consider advanced technology.
>
> Please explain to me the discovery of an electrical battery with copper wire found in Iraq and dated to the 8th Century B.C.
Or the disvocery of a carved wooden glider which uses an aerofoil, vertical stabilizer, and the idea of dihedral for stability. All in an Egyptian tomb....
Mohammed II used a screw gun type cannon with a 36" bore to take Constantinople...and his descendants were still using the same guns in the 18th century to bombard British ships trying to run through the Dardanelles without paying the tolls...
>
> >the collection at Alexandria was spirited away and hidden, then
> >we found it today, we would find therein no breakthru insights
> >that we have not already independently rediscovered in the
> >intervening years.
>
> Again, this unfounded and it implies that nothing but the hard sciences have absolutely no value to human culture. Who is to say that certain insights that the ancients had would *not* give fresh perspectivea into our current delima's?
The important part of discovering lost info like that is it value to archaologists in developing a more thorough knowledge of who knew what when and how.
>
> >Should we charge ahead with the altering of the human genome?
> >
> >Should we unleash nanotechnology, specifically the nanoreplicator,
> >as soon as it is physically possible to create?
> >
> >Should we work towards a singularity, even if it means the passing
> >of the human race as we know it? Should we work to slow it?
Mike Lorrey