From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 13:56:14 MST
[Sorry for some more noise, but you've virtually begged for it]
Stewart Brand wrote:
> More like a thousand years weary, jaded, tired, bored, suicidal.
You describe a state of the mind. Assuming, it can be engineered?
(Or think suicide, a trivial solution to your nonproblem). In any
case, extrapolating the status quo witout the benefit of having
been there strikes me as premature? disingenuous?
> It's not even interesting being pretty and strong if everybody is
> pretty and strong.
The thing per se is nothing, the perception of the thing is everything.
"Pretty and strong" is not a property per se, it's an evaluation.
> A thousand years wise might mean something. What, remains to be
I'd like to point out that we currently don't have any baseline as
to what a one kiloyear perspective *means*. Especially, if the human
component can be engineered, to be able to better handle such a depth
of temporal outlook. I don't think any of us is currently sustainably
capable of such an outlook, given the limitations of our hardware,
but that's not the issue at hand. We'll deal with it when (if) we're
there. And deliberately abstracting "wisdom" from "intelligence"
appears a rather cheap (albeit well-worn) intellectual trick.
> seen. The fiction writers so far assume a great interest in either
> aesthetics or history in coming methuselas. Might be.
>
> Do read Sterling's HOLY FIRE.
Why should fiction have any specific insights? Hint: don't assume your
audience to be imbeciles, at least not a priori.
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