Why do we need to know?

<font face="Arial"></font id="Arial">Iaminexistance, Posted - 23 Sep 2005, was writing about our curiosity and sense of mystery, something Einstein said was very important, and then went on to more or less say that we enjoy simply doing the best we can. Also true. Such characteristics have survival value, have evolved. That's why we are like this.

Humans manage quite well with approximate knowledge. We do not need exact knowledge, even if this were possible, which it isn't. In Australia we say: "Near enough is good enough", consistent with the truths underlying what jimiproton quoted, 10 Oct 2005 "What do you make of those who study? Are they better off for it?"

The human qualities that Dangus wrote about, 10 Oct 2005, have also evolved: "we clearly can't manage ourselves . . . we're going to have to colonize eventually . . . humanity is doomed if we sit still . . . and ". . . the thrill of the hunt . . . if even 1% of the science being worked out on this board happens to prove correct, we expand our horizon as a species. Frankly, we need this sort of questing . . ."

These are important evolved characteristics which I can easily relate to my own recent experience: My finding new, key evidence 1997, relating to an original idea I had as a child was very much like hunting. My putting the new perception and the earlier thought together, synthesising them into an thesis and, from 21 Dec 2005, marketing the ebook online at www.nodrift.com feels very much like ages-old village business, Shaman-ry, teaching, trade and so on.

Like Dangus, I believe that Internet Science is very important. The Internet is much better suited to doing good Science than many pre-Internet-established Science Institutional structures NOT vitally associated with technology. Some of these tend/ tended to be too much like the Mediaeval Church, stiflingly over-mediated . . .

PhilJ¡¯s comment, 11 Oct 2005 is big, needs another topic . . .

Peter Nielsen

Email: uusi@hotkey.net.au
Post: 12 View St, Sandy Bay 7005, Australia

Larry, it's not the 75 kilos of material that form us. Modern humans use hundreds of thousands of kilos of materials over their lifespans for various purposes. We use increasingly more every year too. Much of this can be reused with no limit, but some of it is converted in a very detrimental way. We convert some fairly inert and ecologically friendly materials into dangerous poisons, or we concentrate poisons that are normally not concentrated in nature. It is our lifestyle, our tools, our infrastructure that will doom us. We can never use up everything, but we certainly can kill ourselves off by continuing the current trend of mismanagement. Furthermore, serious strides need to be made on the nature of government, international law, and economics. Right now there's an overall benefit to a government to have as many people as it can. It's cheaper labor, it means bigger armies, more disposable people basically. Plus, it means a larger power base for populists. Something has to change. We simply cannot sustain our current existance, even at our current population levels. I would doubt we can reasonably expect to keep this up more than a couple hundred years tops. I doubt even that long.

"Regret can only change the future" -Me

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Peter Nielsen</i>
<br />PhilJ's comment, 11 Oct 2005 is big, needs another topic . . .<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I'll be glad to start a new topic on this, but I don't see any appropriate board for it. For that matter, what does this topic have to do with metascience? Perhaps our beloved moderators could create a "Socio-science" board---caption: "What are the sociological implications of techno-scientific advances?". On the other hand, I'm not sure if the meta-moguls want their website to go there.

The moderators don't have that sort of decision making authority.

===

It does sound interesting. But ...

This board is set up to focus on a particular non mainstream theory. It also tolerates the discussion of many other theories, but there are limits. The further you get from the main focus the more likely you are to A) get little or no response, be asked to take it outside or C) be shown the door. Generally in that order.

The Web is a BIG place. There are plenty of other places on the Web set up specifically to discuss such things. When I'm in the mood (not often, but it happens) I go looking for them.

LB

Since the question of moderation has come up like a few times in the last 18 or so hours. I want to point out that in my opinion each topic should be a discreet conversation concerning the topic. Q&A, the presentation of supporting evidence, and the subsequent peer review of the subject. Members to this msgbrd come from various walks of life from expert to novice in the field of scientific thought. In a world of pure science, ideas are evaluated using the scientific method, a method that while having shortcomings does help to promote a free exchange of ideas minus commentary about the nature of the person making those ideas. Science is the communication of truth. Getting back to my point, please take note of the buttons to the right of a time/date stamp. If you wish to engage in conversation regarding the topic in more detail than is appropriate for all of the world to read, you are free to email that person and ask their opinions or have a more heated debate. What I will strike are things that disrespect others and cause in my opinion an uncomfortable environment for everyone posting. I hope this sheds some light. Thanks, Mark

<font face="Arial"></font id="Arial">Thanks Larry, Mark for good, useful points!
I changed my mind about the need to create a new topic when I realised that PhilJ's cyborg scenarios suggest new answers to this topic's question: "Why do we need to know?" I explain "why [] we need to know" more about human-cyborg interactions:

Many people seem to have thought such thoughts instinctively, probably because humans have been doing what we fear from cyborgs, to other hominid species for 10¡¯s of 1,000s of years, most recently to Neanderthals, Other Races of humans, the ¡°meat locker¡± people of the next valley and so on.

I started wondering why I have not been worrying about such scenarios since touching on them myself years ago. I found that my ¡°stream of conciousness¡± was ended in my memory by a thought of the moral good of our being succeeded by cybernetic offspring superior to us in every way, including morally. We humans had become extremely depraved, having allowed Cyborg slaves to do almost everything . . .

I soon saw that ¡°every way¡±is utopian . . This subconcious utopian thought had helped keep me happy in a way which is typical of how humans generally stay sane: Our lives are lived in dreamworlds as much as the real world. The more dreadful the real world, the richer our dreamworld . . . an idea alluded to in paper 5.3 of my ebook at www.nodrift.com . The real human future will continue to be multiscale tragi-comic . . .

The only solution to Security Against Cyborgs (SAC) problems will be continued human diversity, with and without cyborgs . . . well, with and without Latest Model cyborgs anyway, the ones we really need to worry about, the ones to watch. Having old, beat up cyborgs may be nothing to worry about . . . New Model cyborgs may be contemptuous of "down and out" cyborgs.

Such contempt is typical of opportunities produced by diversity, which may make the difference between future survival and extinction of the human species and so on. ¡°The poor [are thus seen as inheriting] the Earth" in a literal way, via cyborg depravity ironically.

Peter Nielsen

Email: uusi@hotkey.net.au
Post: 12 View St, Sandy Bay 7005, Australia