One hundred years from now, the role of science and technology will be about becoming part of nature rather than trying to control it. So much of science and technology has been about pursuing efficiency, scale and “exponential growth” at the expense of our environment and our resources. We have rewarded those who invent technologies that control our triumph over nature in some way. This is clearly not sustainable. We must understand that we live in a complex system where everything is interrelated and interdependent and that everything we design impacts a larger system. My dream is that 100 years from now, we will be learning from nature, integrating with nature and using science and technology to bring nature into our lives to make human beings and our artifacts not only zero impact but a positive impact to the natural system that we live in.

Joi Ito’s Near-Perfect Explanation of the Next 100 Years - Technology Review (via wildcat2030)

Sin Ribbon: “Triumph over nature,” in some way, but I believe the true motivator for technology is triumph over limitation which may or may not include the submission of nature.

Though it may not occur within the next 100 years, I share Ito’s belief that technology will eventually lead us back to nature, or more specifically towards and within ourselves. Advancement starts on the outside, such as inventing the wheel, agriculture and architecture. As technology evolves, inventions spread to needs outside human survival, e.g. religion, art, etc. With the embark into space, technology begins to shift to the human mind and body. If you want to get technical, you could argue glasses and early prosthetics are early human modifications, but radical augmentation—such as cloning, synthetic limbs and organs, and genetic modification—are slowly gaining momentum in modern society. When we have moved into space and perfected our bodies, only the mind is left. It is as magnificent, enigmatic, and sublime as the universe itself and like the universe, still widely unknown to us.

Self-help books have been talking about it for decades: the power of the mind is something incredible. We can manipulate our circumstances by changing our mental patterns that many of us are unaware exist. Our thoughts have a profound effect on not only ourselves but our environments. Sure, modern books like “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne like to play off the law of attraction, but the book “As A Man Thinketh” by James Allen have been talking about the power of human thought for more than a century.

Ito’s vision is that we will find harmony and synthesis between nature and technology within 100 years, but I believe it is more than a dream. When all other avenues are exhausted, human concern as a whole will look to mental progression—not for the sake of convenience or triumph but for evolution, personal enrichment, and the pursuit of happiness. Our species may long for something greater beyond technological advancement. As of now, the majority of these pursuits center on saving/extending life, allowing us to have more free time, and curiosity. Though progress is still bound to making us happier and healthier on the whole, I believe in the future our point of view will shift from changing the world to make us happy to changing ourselves. Happiness begins within, and that is where the power of the mind, as the self-help writers have been saying, is best applied. As for Ito’s dream, nature poses a quiet nostalgia that will never be matched by technology, and so it seems logical that people will return to nature to ponder and improve themselves—psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually—in the pursuit of betterment and synthesis. Perhaps then we will be more individually advanced in ability and achievement but paradoxically more unified as a species.

Cosmism

olena:

sinribbon:

olena:

roberto:

olena:

itsturtles:

olena:

see also: { Is God an Alien Mathematician? }

HUGO DE GARIS: I defined these two terms rather succinctly in the { kurzweilai.net essay } so I’ll just quote those definitions here.  Deism is “the belief that there is a ‘deity’ i.e. a creator of the universe, a grand designer, a cosmic architect, that conceived and built our universe.”  Cosmism is the “ideology in favor of humanity building artilects this century (despite the risk that advanced artilects may decide to wipe out humanity as a pest).” 

I think de Garis ignores a crucial point: there had to be an origin universe, a beginning somewhere. If we assume that artilects created the universe/s, then we must also assume there had to be an original ‘artilect.’ Who made the artilect? This goes unexplained. 

…Also why the assumption that future AI will destroy us like ants? If they are indeed more complex than us (and possibly sentient), then I think they would have a more complicated reason to kill us all than irritation.

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OS:

The assumption about being destroyed by our creations is not necessarily de Garis’s so much as his [somewhat satirical?] response to a wide-spread fear that we see reflected/purveyed in { pop culture }.

For a Cosmist, it’s not really an issue — partially because we don’t buy into the whole Armageddon-by-cyborg-menace thing and partially because, upon comprehending the big picture of the Universe (even at the scale we know it now: from the quantum to the intergalactic cosmos or perhaps the multi-verse), it’s hard to care so much about Humans as they are in this moment. We’re open to changing the human, to becoming trans- and eventually post-human, even if it means this race as we know it ceases to exist. [Maybe that sounds scary & needs explaining, but it’s not something I want to go further into right now.]

To the point about the “artilect” — in some sense, yes, it’s unexplained. However, that term means to refer to a conscious something that would eventually come about, either from us or from another “IGUS” (information gathering and utilizing systems — Murray Gell-Mann). An artilect and the “first creator” (“God”) could be totally different, especially if the first creator was not so much an entity as a set of conditions (/laws).

Besides that, I disagree that “there had to be a beginning”. In so far as we’re able to understand, yes it seems that way, but a series of infinite loops is also possible — even if that thought gives us a very large headache. We don’t know about that (yet?).

That considered, it’s likely that de Garis is ignoring all that purposely, for the sake of entertaining/introducing a new thought without engaging in a (at this point) useless conversation about a genesis.

I was just going to add this, but see it was already done so above. In my own words: 

Most people assume there has to be a beginning because of our immediate experiences with cause and effect. Although evidence points to an event like the ‘big bang’ which led to the structures we now know as the universe, we aren’t certain of it yet, and even if we are, there could have been something unimaginable before space-time, or there could simply be more space-time before the big bang (a la Hawking’s big-crunch concept). Well I don’t remember if it’s his concept, but that’s where I last read about it. 

I kind of enjoy the mindfuck of no beginning. Just sayin.

••••••

Yes, good addition!

Also the { Big Bounce }: (you have to lol at those names)

a theoretical scientific model of the formation of the known universe. It is implied by the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation of the Big Bang where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe.

Sin Ribbon: Hawking does not consider the Big Crunch to be very plausible. He and other scholars of the community more so invest in the theory that galaxies will drift so far away from each other their light can no longer be seen. Consequently, all hydrogen will eventually be used up within stars, and the universe will grow dark and no such cycle will take place. Galaxies are continuing to move further away from each other with increasing speed, so this is the logical conclusion many of the scientific community have reached.

I choose to believe there is a continuing cycle however, even if the scope is far greater than we can comprehend. Because of the movement of galaxies, a universal beginning is appropriate. Due to the cyclical nature of all things on Earth and in space, it would also be appropriate there may be a grander cycle at hand even if all light dwindles and returns to darkness; matter and energy can change from one into the other after all, so there may be hope in that fact. We may truly be a universe within universe, created by artilects or within an unseen cycle that begins anew in darkness. It is my theory that perhaps galaxies do not drift apart because of dark energy but because they are drawn to something else beyond our knowledge. In any case, I think what is most important is that we keep observing and hypothesizing, and perhaps artilects will create and embody universes after all. Thanks for the read, OS.

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OS:

Thanks for adding this! Great to have some dialogue.

& That reminds me; apparently the dark matter theory may be on the way out, according to some recent research from Chile: { Serious Blow to Dark Matter Theories? }

Also, I Googled around a bit, but could you provide a source for Stephen Hawking recalling the Big Crunch idea? Curious to learn more about that.

Sin Ribbon: Thanks for the article! Dark matter and dark energy are perplexing subjects indeed, and quiet frankly, I never understood why dark energy is hypothesized to pull galaxies away from each other while not pulling galaxies themselves apart. I suppose dark matter prevents that. While dark matter is difficult to define, detect and map, dark energy is even more enigmatic. The concept of dark energy as a sort of selective anti-gravity eludes me.

As for Hawking’s statement, it was on his narrated “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking” television program that aired on the Discovery channel. It is also available on Netflix. In the final episode, he covers a brief history of everything and naturally finishes with how the universe will likely end. He discusses the Big Crunch as well as, he believes, the more likely possibility of galaxies drifting into darkness. The “dark end” hypothesis was also discussed by Michio Kaku and others on the “How the Universe Works” television program as a plausible scenario.