how will enlightened people of the future

[jungjedi]

how will they regard this time in human history.our way of thinking about the cosmos our way of reasoning?
like the big bang theory.i think they will see that we had atomic bombs and were so mesmorized by the power they manifested that it evoked some thought that the universe itself must have been created out of some similiar event.
i think they will look at the computer age and see it not so much a leap in technology as an exersise in marketing."boy those i-pods sure look like a sex toy"
superstring theory-"now that was one big circle jerk"

[michellemfry]

Careful what you say about the ipods! Big Brother Peter Oppenheimer might squash you like a little bug.

[mkirkpatrick]

If there is a future for us and global warming does not kill us all off,I would imagine that
we will be looked upon as greedy selfish,self seeking,ego centric morons,with a death wish to boot!


regards michael.

[michellemfry]

This is not an excuse, but there was an accepted policy for years to Let Nature take it's course. i.e.for small weather anomalies, disasters smaller than Katrina, perhaps until we had to be educated as to what a tsunami was. The newsmedia graciously knew that the average American was not aware of the science involved and had to be brought up to date. I miss that feeling that impending doom was long into the future and to just go outside and play in the sun and the green grass and let the mosquitoes feed to their hearts delight. I'm waxing nostalgic. Later.

[mkirkpatrick]

This is not an excuse, but there was an accepted policy for years to Let Nature take it's course. i.e.for small weather anomalies, disasters smaller than Katrina, perhaps until we had to be educated as to what a tsunami was. The newsmedia graciously knew that the average American was not aware of the science involved and had to be brought up to date. I miss that feeling that impending doom was long into the future and to just go outside and play in the sun and the green grass and let the mosquitoes feed to their hearts delight. I'm waxing nostalgic. Later.

Go easy on the waxing,or else you will be bald?

regards michael.

[austintorn@aol.com]

LIFE IN THE NEAR FUTURE


In the year 2035, Peter and Angelina left the sealed community near Fishkill for good, knowing that they could never return, but felt ever safe from the new viruses in knowing that they would only be in contact with each other in the old sandstone farmhouse of the naturally purified forest.

Other advances of the new age had brought to direct light the very biochemical nature of our being, with such old ideas of religious souls and other magical properties now long gone the way of alchemy, astrology, and the dodo bird. Clearly now, evolution, and all that it entailed, was appreciated by all but a few of the forever delusioned. Furthermore, drugs had been tamed to remove the worst of the aversive biological substrates from the mind, especially high anxiety, depression, obsession, and insane violence and, optionally, those unwelcome emotions that have always been forced upon us, such as jealousy.

However, new and virulent infections still swept the body, especially back in the year 2015 when over two billion died of EBL in Europia. But, at least, more and and more of the myths of past ignorances—no longer excusable in the Age of Information—had given way to the solutions of science and had gone far past the simple DNA revelations of the previous century. Indeed, the human genome had been mapped even in the late 1990s and now, some thirty years later, had inspired cures for cancer, leukemia, and almost every other genetic disease. Humans now had a life span of who knows how long, for it remained to be seen, and, if recent work on the aging preventative drugs came to fruition, perhaps one could live forever, for there were now drugs that lengthened the junk DNA that protected the ends of the DNA strands.

As discussed previously, horrible and torturous emotions were seen for what they were, i.e., just spurious molecular events, and, so, serotonin re-uptake inhibitors became the new fluoride of the water supply so that the primitive and long useless negative feedback mechanisms in our central nervous systems could no longer send out thousands-of-years-old notices. Therefore, we could no longer be plagued by, for example, the horrid persistence of negative or anxious thoughts, that downward spiraling feedback loop which never led to anything positive.

Blame itself had, of course, fallen, too, as it had to, after it had been proved that aggressive urges were not completely controllable due to the remaining chemical imbalances of the brain, but criminals were still locked up to protect society. Free will itself was still on shaky ground, but falling fast, as it was realized that the brain’s decisions are predetermined by memories, associations, and learned behaviors right up to the instant of ‘choice’; free will had, in fact, been declared nonsensical, as the ‘free’ in free will didn’t actually mean anything, for what good would be a brain that made random or semi random choices based on nothing? Many, of course, still thought that they had choices, but, those choices were only apparent, and not really ‘them’, and so they didn’t ever take those choices. Furthermore, it was discovered that 90% of what the brain did didn’t even reach one’s consciousness and what did reach consciousness came a startling half a second after the brain was done doing its thing, giving us, at the very most, perhaps, somewhat of a veto power (not often taken), but showing that we were just executives and/or tourists along for the ride and certainly out of the brain’s deep and formative loop. Of course it is not so bad as it sounds since our “will” can be told to go off an do something and get back to us.

Even the self had been shown to be not intrinsic, but just a sort of narrative center of gravity that had no real and independent existence from the brain. You are your mind, in other words. However, the person as a whole was, at least, still real, and now, faced with all these revelations, was strangely free, not only from the superstitions and folk science of two thousand years ago, but also in the way that the existentialists had hinted at: free to create a meaning out of one’s life. Consciousness, at the end of the day, was seen to be a fundamental force, like space-time and energy, that reflected brain processes as information, albeit 300-500 milliseconds later. Animals had been long recognized as having consciousness, too, and feeling, like humans, although to a lower degree, and some, as such, like chimps, became as special and protected as humans and were granted personhood status. Luckily, science had developed tasty artificial meat, and so cattle and other animals no longer needed to be slaughtered by us who they would have surely regarded (if they could) as Hitlers.

People had come to see what was absolute, eternal, and the basis of all existence, realizing that all of the stuff in our world, including our minds and consciousness, is biological and is made of molecules—and they are made of atoms, which, in turn, are made of electrons and quarks, or both, from vibrating strings, perhaps—whatever it is that we call that which is bottommost—let us simply call it Energy, for the form does not matter—it may be a field, actual stuff, or some swirling energy that gives us an illusion of solidity, or even a vibrating string. What’s important is that it is the most fundamental and absolute substance, which implies that each and every composite system made from it is totally dependent on it for its existence—everything—even Gods. Energy, being made of itself, cannot be created or destroyed and was therefore eternal and omnipresent. This was called ‘G-O-D’, the Ground of Determination, not God.

Clearly, what is really in charge of the universe lies beneath it all, not above it all. Anything above is composite and therefore not fundamental. What underlies our reality is much more eternal, omnipresent, absolute and creative than any supposed superbeing above it.

Furthermore, people realized that life is but a dream. What we think is hard reality in a dream is but a grand illusion. Sights are seen and sounds are heard, things are felt and touched, but do not exist as such, although, at the time, we would swear that they do. Random brain waves and memories woven from their frequency domains are real, although they come from static and noise that the brain uses to try to make sense of as best it can in its half-awake half-working state. We seem to feel and touch things in our dreams as well as taste and smell them, but they do not exist, as we realize when we wake up. Such it is when we are awake, as well. And, so, waking reality is an illusion, too. Basically, our vision interprets interference patterns. Sound and color waves exist, perhaps, somewhere out there, but it is our brain and consciousness that turn them into sound and color. Perhaps the externally viewed world is not even three-dimensional but that we are made to see it as so, a useful, but projected, illusion.

All that’s really out there are, perhaps, something like differing frequencies and waves of light and sound and existence that originate somewhere else, as when a TV station broadcasts to a TV set tuner. Reality may be like a hologram, just as it is when we have night dreams. Matter, as we know it, may not even exist, just Energy, thus the new saying “Never matter, ever mind”. Why do twin photons emitted from subatomic collisions seem to still act as they are the same particle, for example, when polarizing one, the other polarizes to the same state even when it is farther than the speed of light can signal? Well, because they are still the same particle in some more real reality than ours, although not in our illusion of reality. Why does a photon shot at some holes go through every one of them unless we try to find out which one by measuring it? Because, in the quantum holographic world, all possibilities exist simultaneously, imposed upon one another, until our consciousness sorts out one path at random in our local illusion of reality. In our holographic universe, everything is connected to everything; there is truly a universe in a grain of sand. This connectedness is a form of rudimentary perception, so to speak, in and of itself.

Religion eventually collapsed, partly because of the wars and prejudice that it caused and because the science of two thousand years ago finally became obsolete and because life found on other planets had no such legends of God, but mostly because God was no longer seen to be a good role model and the divinity of Jesus came into question along with everything else—making it all just a wishful myth.

Anyway, it was a snowy winter day in in the old sandstone farmhouse in the year 2035, and Peter and Angelina would pretend that it was the year 1945, a fantasy game they often played, 1945 being picked because it was a happy time just after World War II and because most of the United States had indoor plumbing by that time.

Of course in 1945 there was no detailed and local Weather Net and so they weren’t allowed to know (by the rules of pretending) that the snowstorm was coming or how many inches they would get—nor did they care to know anyway, for it put some of the mystery back into nature’s hands. They found an oldies station on the Radio Net and began dancing as the swing music filled the air. The snow was falling heavier now and so there was no way to go out until the plows came, for only the main roads had electronic snow melting beams, although in 1945 they still rolled the snow in some rural areas and then brought out the sleighs to ride on top of it. They stopped dancing for a moment and just held each other close, kissing and laughing because they always hibernated in winter anyway, snow or no snow.

Another laugh was had in noting that Peter and Angelina had no TV to turn off, they not even owning one, for there was no TV in 1945. Nor could they use the telephone since they either pretended that they were too rural to have one or that it was a party line and was ever busy, but, then yet another laugh, since in current times they would always turn off their wrist phones anyway, ever complete in their isolation form the world’s trivial intrusions. Out in the yard was an old ‘56 chevy, close enough to the 40s, which was already half covered with snow and memories, and so this became their car, forgetting, of course, that they ever had personal magnetic transports.

They used the old gas range to make soup, for there would have been no microwave, and certainly no new thermal jet cookers in the postwar years. They sipped the steaming spoonfuls and gave the soup bone to their dog. Angelina allowed her ever lengthening long legs to slip out of her robe for Peter to note, since she was an incorrigibly romantic and sensuous woman in Peter’s presence, and Peter was always a consistent worker of miracles in her—they were an ever escalating feedback loop of love in operation.

There was no going back, however, to the emotionally primitive times of the last century, for now the country’s entire water supply contained selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and dopamine additives, and thus prevented all prolonged and useless emotional suffering, while preserving and enhancing all feelings that were good. The naturalist, for instance, was able to absorb with awestruck reverence scenes of overpowering sublimity far beyond the simple prettiness on offer before. A musician could hear and play music more exhilarating and heartfelt than anyone ever dreamed of; the celestial music of the spheres heard by the mystics was as a child’s toy flute in comparison. The sensualist discovered that what had decades ago passed for deep and passionate sex had been merely a pleasant prelude. Erotic pleasure of an intensity that flesh had never known was now enjoyable without guilt. A painter or patron of the visual arts was able to behold representative vision in a holographic reality of indescribable glory. And yet, throughout the ages there had always been those rare and mystical moments as described above for those in love, as were Peter and Angelina in their past life, and so now they rose above even this highest ecstasy of the day in their glory.

“Funny,” said Peter, “that in modern times, 95% of what we think we need was not even invented in 1945!”

“But love transcends all of these things,” said Angelina, as she led Peter up the stairs and into their bedroom done in sort of an Indian Palace style with veils hanging from the ceiling. Peter placed a pillow on the floor at the side of the bed and knelt on it, spreading her long red heeled legs apart so that he could worship at the place of the alpha and the omega, where the river met the sea, And all the while the phone could not ring and the doorbell would be ignored, as the big snow fell, nearly two feet, although they hadn’t known the amount beforehand, for here it seemed that it was always 1945.


“What is life?”
“To find the answer, one must live it fully.”

[Graybeard]

M.Kirkpatrick ......If there is a future for us and global warming does not kill us all off,I would imagine that
we will be looked upon as greedy selfish,self seeking,ego centric morons,with a death wish to boot!


regards michael.

Michael ... this would all depend on where you believe we have started from.

"We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides.

And so what shall we wonder at?
Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth;
Our sympathies however seldom they may be played;
Our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted to battlefields;
Our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished.

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses."
Robert Ardrey
From Wikiquote

There is much to be proud of. We did this ourselves. The future will see us in our context, in that we overcame all obstacles and challenges in order for the future to survive.

greg

[mkirkpatrick]

Michael ... this would all depend on where you believe we have started from.

There is much to be proud of. We did this ourselves. The future will see us in our context, in that we overcame all obstacles and challenges in order for the future to survive.

greg

That sounds like the optimist who said while sinking ever deeper into the quicksand
towards his doom,said,well at least its a nice day,and I;ve paid all my taxes.!

Yes there are things to be proud of,but alas I feel there is much more to be ashamed of.



regards michael.

[Graybeard]

Michael .... You miss my point ... You cannot be guilty of what was outside your ability to understand at the time.

To be 'ashamed' you would have to follow a path of descent. My point is that we have followed a path of ascent. To look back with distaste is to fail to recognise the achievement of life. Before you disparage history you should judge it in its own timeframe.

How could any industrial society prevent global warming before anyone knew what global warming was ?

cool bananas ... greg

[austintorn@aol.com]

All’s Right With the World

I accept almost everything, except maybe mosquitos, because the world is perfect just the way it is for the stage it is at. Any one thing probably has a mixture of good and bad uses, but if we were to take it away, the whole balance of the earth might collapse (do mosquitos have a use?)

Yes, we have crazy emotions, many of which are rather useless now, or almost so, that are still forced upon us, very much uninvited, like jealousy, even some guilt and anxiety, and, yes, children’s emotions are not mature and teenagers have wild hormones and both apparently bring great suffering to all, not to mention what the deviants and low-lifes of the world do—but all this is just a stage that the very primitive and mostly slimy human race is floundering through (except for those with extra wisdom).

I accept even death, for without death I wouldn’t even be here, for my human ancestors evolved because of it and if they would have lived forever then not much would have changed. I accept the natural world and even the humans mentioned above that are just as much a part of natural world as anything, crazy as they are, for, without the beast in us, for example, there would have perhaps been no zest for life. We have probably survived not in spite of being brutal, but because of it and at least it may have led to cooperation for the hunt or for war.

I accept bacteria and all the diseases they bring, for they also ferment the soil and aid our digestion. I accept bugs and worms, although I am still working on accepting mosquitos. Worms, for example, aerate 400 tons of soil per day. No worms, no life, so, please give a worm a hug today.

The same with flood and drought, for the universe has our well being at stake only in the most general sense, but not in the specific sense. A farmer’s crops may dry up or get washed out, but, again, if there is no water, then there is no life.

Well, anyway, it’s been a warm winter, although I know someone somewhere is getting a hell of a lot of snow, and during winter there are no mosquitos, so, I’m really extra happy.

As for global warming—if it survives nuclear winter, then we can all live in the tropics amid exotic birds and colorful flora.