From: David Musick (David_Musick@msn.com)
Date: Sun Dec 29 1996 - 21:37:10 MST
I just finished watching a Nature show on television, titled, "Designed for
Living". It showed all different kinds of animals building their homes, using
a tremendous variety of technologies. There were different kinds of birds
building nests, some doing detailed weaving of small nests, as well as whole
communities of sparrows building one-ton haystacks in trees. Small sea
creatures were shown selecting grains of sand of fairly uniform size and
shape, and using silk to adhere the grains together, encasing themselves in a
protective shell. Beavers were shown gathering sticks and logs they felled
and building large, sturdy dams in rivers. Various kinds of wasps were shown
using very different building materials and techniques to build very different
kinds of homes. Various rodents were shown burrowing tunnels in the ground
and bringing in insulating materials, such as leaves.
Watching all these different animals building their homes, I was struck by the
profound connection between them and humans. It was like, "Oh, my god!
They're using technology. They're just like us!" I watched the ways these
different animals moved their bodies as they built their structures, the
efficient way they gathered materials and carefully placed them, and it looked
very much as though they were being controlled tele-robotically by humans --
their actions were so intelligent.
It even seems like these various animals are passing on their technology
memetically. It seems like each generation of animal learns from the previous
ones and pass their designs on to the next generations. The designs change
slowly over time, and it's interesting to see different groups of wasps or
termites who are very similar physically but very different culturally and who
use very different styles of architecture and even different types of building
materials. Ancient humans were actually very much like that, where the ways
of living and technology were passed on, changed very little, for thousands of
generations. The only real difference between modern humans and ancient
humans and other animals seems to be that we are currently modifying our
designs very quickly and trying lots of new things.
But even this isn't all that different from the behaviors of ancient humans
and other animals. While engaged in a task, animals attempt to accomplish
particular goals and often encounter obstacles which they must overcome, and
they modify their approach until they find one which helps them achieve their
goals. Human animals have basically stumbled upon discoveries, such as
planting seeds, which made it much easier to secure a steady supply of food,
and thus their natural problem-solving skills, which all animals share, to
some degree, were able to be used for other problems, such as designing more
efficient ways of hauling things around or more aesthetically pleasing and
useful objects. Modern technology is essentially the same sort of activity
ancient humans were engaged in, and it is essentially the same sort of
activity that many other animals are engaged in also. We've just speeded up
the same process which has been happening on this planet for many millions of
years.
We have not departed from nature, as many claim. We are still in the midst of
it, just as strongly as before. Like the native americans praised the wisdom
of following the example of animals, we too follow that example, with our
technology. Animals are technological creatures. If we watch them, we see
how they use materials in their environments to build structures to live in
and devices to build their homes and gather food. Animals vary their designs
over time. Our only difference is that we vary our designs at a faster rate
and we recognize and cast aside unsuccessful methods at a much faster rate
than other animals do. But our "essence" is the same -- the underlying
technological behavior is the same.
A new development among animals, happening among the humans, is the awareness
of and concern for the larger environment. Generally, in nature, organisms
are concerned only with their immediate environment, and they carry out their
technological activities, oblivious to the larger ecological consequences of
their actions. Until fairly recently, humans did this too (and most humans
still do). It seems kind of ironic, but this concern with the larger
environment that the Environmentalists advocate seems in many ways to be very
'unnatural'. It's actually not unnatural at all. Our awareness of the larger
environment is a direct result of our very natural technological progress.
Because of our technology, we can put sattelites in orbit around the planet to
monitor various aspects of the planet, and through computers, we can combine
information from the sattelites and other data-collecting devices on earth, to
obtain an understanding of how the biosphere works and our impact on it.
Thus, we can make more intelligent decisions.
This is a recurring theme of mine, that humans and technology are completely
natural, that there is nothing wrong with technological progress. I think
it's important that people develop an understanding of the nature of
technology and intelligent activity. I believe that we are most in tune with
Nature and with our own nature when we are engaged in the process of
technology, the process of finding creative and intelligent solutions to our
problems. Life is a process of technology, and the more fully engaged we are
in the technological process, the more fully alive we are.
- David Musick
-- Learn to make the most of what you have, to use whatever resources are
available to you, to improve your situation as much as possible. --
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:35:56 MST