Today's muse, war, heat, energy, change. Looking at today's APOD showing Fermi Lab's recently discovered Gamma-ray Pulsars, I am reminded of how much motion/change is an integral part of our lives and the life of the entire universe. When motion stops, we atrophy, just look at our bodies for example, if we lead sedentary, motionless lives. Contrast this with mediators who sit in mindful quiet, paying attention to their breath and to their thoughts; and contrast this with today's childhood obesity epidemic, children it would appear, consumed by their electronic gadgets.
What does it all mean, for example, is there a collective motion with some kind of meaning or intent? Certainly one can image a war, like the mobilization of WW II, where from a motion standpoint, the world was highly agitated, almost frenetic, and change erupted. Interestingly, as technology has advanced, it has allowed humans to move faster and faster, so fast, that we "spin" off the earth metaphorically, but also, as in our children, to move slower and slower.
Is there a coming social crisis of technology, where we as the human species will be confronted with a dialectic, either embracing wholeheartedly the motion that is the integration of technology into human evolution or repelling from it, into what, stillness? Or to state this another way, will we allow biotechnology to morph into "techno-humanology", where the line between traditional evolutionary change and the merger with bio-tech enhancements becomes so blurred as to be indistinguishable, or, are we on the edge of a revolt and return to an "unenhanced" state, sort of a modern Luddite position.
If we follow the high energy here, it seems almost inevitable that we are about to give new meaning to the term human evolution, in fact we may have already started, we just don't have a name for it yet. What will we call this new species? Will we become it, or battle it?
What does it all mean, for example, is there a collective motion with some kind of meaning or intent? Certainly one can image a war, like the mobilization of WW II, where from a motion standpoint, the world was highly agitated, almost frenetic, and change erupted. Interestingly, as technology has advanced, it has allowed humans to move faster and faster, so fast, that we "spin" off the earth metaphorically, but also, as in our children, to move slower and slower.
Is there a coming social crisis of technology, where we as the human species will be confronted with a dialectic, either embracing wholeheartedly the motion that is the integration of technology into human evolution or repelling from it, into what, stillness? Or to state this another way, will we allow biotechnology to morph into "techno-humanology", where the line between traditional evolutionary change and the merger with bio-tech enhancements becomes so blurred as to be indistinguishable, or, are we on the edge of a revolt and return to an "unenhanced" state, sort of a modern Luddite position.
If we follow the high energy here, it seems almost inevitable that we are about to give new meaning to the term human evolution, in fact we may have already started, we just don't have a name for it yet. What will we call this new species? Will we become it, or battle it?
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