Will we make a deal with technology, whatever it is, wherever it comes from, whatever it demands, in
Edit: that headline should finish “ ... in exchange for a secure future.”
In an interview Norman Mailer suggested that technology is the opposite of science, and that either the Devil invited technology here, or God, in his battle against the Devil, entered into a dread compact with technology.
Whenever I hear or read about the problems we face as a country or planet, so often I hear that the solution lies in technology. The ways that technology has entered our lives is so thorough and pervasive that we no longer realise just how much we have acceded to it and what is human and what isn’t.
There seems to be a real hope and belief in the redeeming power of technology. The very idea of technology has begun to define who we are, or who we ought to be. The time, if not already at hand, where we may trust the logic of a computer over the porous mind of a human may not be far off. After all don’t we all tend to lean towards the merits of pure logic. Don’t we seek the answers we trust there, isn’t that the legacy of the Enlightenment?
When we reach the point of making unpalatable decisions, will we throw them at a computer to analyse and then direct us to the most logical, and consequently the right decision?
It’s becoming more and more common for more and more decisions from the past, made by leaders and scientists, to be condemned as wrong or immoral, as if no one was capable of making the correct decision, as if people cannot put their own self interests aside, and therefore we should not put any faith in the same sort of people who make the decisions today. So who do we get to make these decisions?
Will we make a pact with technology and in the process compromise who and what we are?
Comments (68)
Yeah, hyperbolic, I know ;) technology is natural.
Hyperbolic and confusing. It sounds like you’re hiding in the jungle from technology.
Sorry, part of my headline dropped off.
IMO the application of science - Technology - is driven by inherently human drives - mostly power and money - but occasionally and to a lesser degree - altruism. Technology, as the application of science, can not escape the human condition with all the good and bad that that entails.
I don’t think I mentioned anywhere in my op the idea of total rejection of technology.
What I did mention, as a concern, was the idea of placing more faith in technology than ourselves, and technology influencing who and what we are. The simplest aspect of this would be social media and how its use influences society. A more serious aspect of this would be China’s idea of ‘social credit’, something only possible through advances in technology. I don’t think I need to mention all the examples I could mention out there about the advances of technology into our lives. Artificial Intelligence is developing swiftly and some people are ascribing more and more autonomous traits to it: that it can create, that it can think.
The more we get used to it the more we rely on it and the more we let it determine aspects of our life. At some point we will cross a line and begin to lose control of how we use it. Maybe we’ve already crossed that line.
I know that spears and bows and arrows are technology (god, how tiresome it is to have to say that), and I know that making an arrow head enabled us to kill and consume more protein, etc., etc. (Again, so tiresome). But the arrow head didn’t have the ability to change who we are so swiftly and at such a young and impressive age. Nor did we ascribe superior thinking to it.
So, I go back to my question, will we make a pact with technology in exchange for security?
We are what we choose to be. If technology made by us furthers our goals then it might as well be a part of us. We are making no compromises in who we are because making technology is one of the things we have done since the dawn of human history.
Then, would you also agree that coal powered energy is furthering our goals, whatever they are ( are we going to define those goals now or make them up as we go) and is ‘no compromise’. What about nuclear weapons or energy?
You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. Nuclear energy is fine for the most part, it's coal and nukes I'll focus on.
The end goal I see for most people is satisfying their desires. The desire to live in a warm home or eat good food or have good relationships. We may make compromises in the condition of our planet to reach these goals, but we are not compromising who we are as you say. A great thing about technology is that it can solve problems that short-sighted use of prior technology creates. Missile defense systems solve the problem of nuclear war. More eco-friendly energy sources can replace coal.
I might have to separate ‘desire’ from ‘need’ here. We might infer that we desire a warm home or food, but in fact it’s a necessity for survival. We are obviously already confusing ‘desire’ with ‘need’.
And that’s an important distinction for me, because technology now both creates our desire and feeds it. I know it’s the human hand behind the technology, but the things we are beginning to desire are far removed from who and what we have been, and a long way from what we need.
This also raises the question, can the problem create the solution?
A human being doesn't actually need a warm home or good food contrary to popular belief. Our ancestors slept in the cold open and ate very rarely. They still survived.
Quoting Brett
Biologically speaking, there is very little difference between you and your ancestors from 50,000 years ago. They were still comforted by the same sensations you and I are. They still desired to be warm instead of cold, full instead of hungry, and then did something about that. That thing they did is technology. We have always desired to be hedonists, we just never had the infrastructure to build a world for that until recently.
Quoting Brett
Technology only becomes a problem when we make it one. The same science is used to make both nuclear weapons and build nuclear power plants. We are the ones that choose to make these things.
So, what do we "need"? Are you referring to some sort of spiritual meaning? If it's that, I can assure you the chemicals that make us feel that can be replicated, probably soon.
Okay, let’s just say ‘food and shelter’ is a need, not a desire, forget ‘warm’ or ‘good’. Without it you die. Go and try living like our ancestors, see how long you last?
Quoting TogetherTurtle
Sensations are not part of this discussion. It’s need and desires. My needs aren’t to much different from my ancestors, but my desires are. Our desires change all the time from generation to generation. Often they make no sense, often they cause complications. We confuse need with desire. Technology now serves our desires, maybe even feeds them, maybe, one day even creates them.
Shelter isn't necessary. Food is. If I had to hunt for food like our ancestors I would die only because I was not raised to have those skills. What you do in your developing years entirely decides how strong or smart you will be later on. That's your already established biology adapting to the environment, not an actual evolutionary change.
Quoting Brett
But we desire certain sensations. If you gave a caveman sugar they would love it just as much as we do.
Quoting Brett
Can I have an example?
Quoting Brett
We desire to feel good. Technology does this for us. If we can learn enough about our minds and what they want, maybe we can one day make new sensations we desire.
Yes. My father never desired a mobile phone.
I think I understand now. You say that technology has created a want for new materialistic items. Your father couldn't have wanted a mobile phone because he never could have had one.
My position is that he wanted what the phone gives us. He would have loved to communicate with his family instantly anywhere in the world. He would have enjoyed having any information he needed at the tap of his finger. He may not have wanted the phone specifically, but he would have liked the amenities the phone provided. So would a caveman. We have wanted to know things instantly or save memories or be closer to others since the dawn of time. Technology does that for us.
Desires do not change over time, how we obtain these desires does.
Not necessarily materialist items. But you’re right that technology does make the desire material.
So I have to think about whether technology can create a desire that wasn’t there in the first place and how this relates to my post.
You need better technology, apparently.
Or were they already there? Perhaps sadness is just us lacking our desires. Theoretically someone with every desire they could possibly have fufilled would always be happy.
Not all of our desires are healthy, nor should all of them be realised. Technology can realise the most powerful, influential and possibly destructive forces we can imagine. The atomic bomb served what desire in who?
Yes, a more proficient mind.
Oh, oh. Alarms!
Quoting Brett
The desire for destruction. We love to destroy as much as we love to create.
However, we can fufill such a desire in safer less harmful ways. Putting yourself in a simulation where you can destroy things is a good way to reach that.
I think that it is the way we realize these desires that can be unhealthy. Having them in the first place can’t be unhealthy because that’s just how we come out. It’s like saying having two arms is unhealthy. It’s just the way we are.
Because I’m not sure if everyone’s desires are good for everyone else. It may also be unrealistic to expect all your desires to be fulfilled and lead to problems down the road for others.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
I don’t know if I can agree with the idea about all ideas being healthy. Yes in a healthy individual, but otherwise trouble.
Nobody desired any technology BEFORE it existed. Take the first electronic communication technology -- the telegraph. Once some lines were in place, demand took off. Why? Because people had a previously unknown need for a telegraph? No. Demand took off because people had a wish and a need for easy, rapid communication with people who were important to them (father, a broker, a sweetheart, a general, etc. The postal service -- established 60 years earlier, found the same thing. It wasn't very long after the telegraph got going the people started to think, "You know, I should really be sending this message in code -- what if a telegraph clerk steals the information?" More technology, more complexity.
No president had used a telegraph until Lincoln discovered he needed a way to both shorten and tighten the leash he held on his generals. The telegraph filled the bill. Lincoln learned how to manage his various -- sometimes head-strong and uncooperative -- generals, with advice, threats, and promises--which he carried out.
Railroads, telephone, cameras, gas lights, kerosene lamps (instead of whale oil lamps), steam ships in place of sailing ships, wireless radio messages -- they all took off because the technology met already existing needs. Atom bombs? Just a bigger rock to throw at the enemy.
And don't underestimate stone tools, as tiresome as you may find references to them. They made a huge difference in our survival and (probably) our self-image. An arrow, or a spear thrown with an atlatl (spear throwing device) greatly increased a man's individual power. No small thing. Along with the arrow heads, came the technology of adhesives to help fix the arrow head on the shaft of the arrow. The adhesives they used (going back to the neanderthal, probably, was derived from birch bark -- not an obvious source of adhesive. Getting the right stone material to make tools required extensive trade networks. Flint, chert, and obsidian do not occur everywhere, so... you trade for it.
So stone tools were a big deal and the same big deal that every major invention is.
Ah, the Neanderthal. The original white trash.
Not all technology springs fully formed out of the air. Each invention is developed from some pre -existing technology, like a virus, a meme, evolution. For example an arrow head is the progression of a sharp stick.
Logic alone cannot enable a computer to make a societal decision. It needs values programmed into it as well. So, what are the right values?
The ‘right’ values are the ones we chose. Feed them into the computer with all the statistics and you’ll get the ‘right’ outcome.
I think your topic has some implied premises that you could expand on. Your argument suggests that there is a human identity/nature ("who we are") that transcends just the description of what individual humans are doing/thinking/feeling. What do you base this nature on?
Further, this nature can apparently be lost by "crossing a line". Why is it lost, and how do we know where the line is?
I think that technology is revealing something about who we are, different from what we imagine we are, or want to be.
Even without the existence of God and the rejection of a creator, we still view ourselves as this ‘golden’ creature. Even in the mode of being conscious of our destructiveness, of all our faults, we view ourselves as being still ‘golden’ because we are aware of it.
So we are still the creatures from Eden; both creatures of nature and higher understanding, constantly watching ourselves narcissistically. From that we conceive of our nature, which has created and then thrived in a co-operative society. This narcissism is evident in the issue of climate change when people talk about ‘saving the planet’. We might die but the planet will not. We conflate ourselves with the planet.
But we have reason to think well of ourselves, because that caring and co-operative nature has created a world in which we’ve thrived.
Will that nature be lost by crossing a line?
That line, wherever it is, somewhere up ahead of us, will be when we throw that inviolate idea of ourselves aside and embrace our new selves. It will most certainly be lost when we chose the alternative. Why will we chose the alternative? Because the problems we find ourselves confronted with can no longer be addressed by a ‘human’ nature. Technology is confronting us with questions about how we live and who we are that go beyond the morality we have lived with so far. Technology is also the tool we have for solving these problems. Would we turn away from that?
Although I have no opinion on God and the Devil I've always found it fascinating how prophetic the first story in Bible has been, Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden etc. Although the story has a children's fairy tale quality to it which makes it unpalatable to many moderns, it pretty accurately sums up the human condition. They ate the apple of knowledge, and were ejected from the Garden of Eden.
My interpretation is that the apple of knowledge represents the growing emergence and prominence of thought in the human animal, and the Garden of Eden represents the intimate primal relationship animals and primitive humans had with nature.
In our time this focus on the symbolic realm is being greatly accelerated as we are bombarded from all directions by compelling media which invites us further and further in to abstraction, and farther and farther away from the real world "Garden of Eden". As we become more and more divided from the natural world psychologically we become increasingly cut off from the psychic nourishment provided by the real world, which widens a hole in our souls, which we typically try to fill with.... more technology.
Religions have been making this same mistake for thousands of years. Because they typically don't understand that it is thought itself which is creating the problem they are trying to solve, they often try to use thought (dogmas and doctrines etc) as the solution, which only digs the division hole deeper.
My guess is that we are fated to ride the technology train where ever it is going, like it or not, until the machine finally crashes in to some wall. We'll learn a little bit from that, and then try again, probably making many of the same mistakes again. We may repeat this process a hundred times over thousands of years until we finally get our relationship with knowledge and technology sorted out.
That all sounds rather vague to me. It is perhaps natural for people to conceive of themselves as central to the universe. People are, of course, also able to question that conception. In terms of "human nature", my views are pragmatic: it's useful to try to figure out what causes people to make decisions and affect change. I am not convinced it's useful to speculate about "human nature" in a vacuum. So I wonder why this specific aspect is relevant.
Quoting Brett
But this seems to be a simple truism. We will change our nature when we change our nature. Technology certainly affects us, our customs and our social interactions. It also creates both novel problems and novel solutions. But what is it about recent or near future tech, specifically, that makes that technology qualitatively different?
Unrealistic now because we haven’t figured it all out. As far as we know, there’s nothing special in every human brain making us the way we are. It’s chemicals and electrical signals, just like every other organ. All we really need to do to feel satisfied is to get those to work in our favor. That’s really all drugs are. Of course, they add dangerously high levels of dopamine and have side effects. They certainly don’t have to, they only do now to facilitate addiction and because the kind of people that make illegal drugs aren’t the kind of people concerned about health risks.
Quoting Brett
But can technology also solve this problem? Maybe once we agree on what healthy is. We have politicians on both sides calling their opposition mentally deranged. I don’t trust them with the power to “cure”.
Yes, that's it. Ideally we would be able to use science to re-engineer the insanity out of human beings. But, um, it would be we the insane who would be doing the engineering.
The victors decide history I suppose. There's something crazy about us all but if it helps us survive it becomes a feature.
I meant moral values in the form of “if, then” statements. Intelligent people can disagree on the “right” values. A computer would need values in order to make complex decisions.
Quoting Echarmion
I’ve indicated something about what I base my perception of ‘human nature’ on. I added the idea of a ‘golden creature’, an idea you seem to refuse to consider, which is fine. I imagine your comment on being pragmatic about human nature related to this. Of course if one believed in God there would be no problem with this idea of a ‘golden creature’ being part of ‘human nature’. So when you say pragmatic do you mean determining ‘human nature’ on actions only, what we can see?
When you mention speculating about ‘human nature’ in a vacuum, do you mean without parameters?
I would also add to my thoughts on ‘human nature’ the idea of tool-making.
Are you doubting here, or saying it might?
Well, I think we’re in agreement. I don’t think a computer can do this. However, if the answers are structured in a way that’s different from what we expect now, then a computer response may be acceptable. Isn’t the answer dependent on the question?
Rather, the self-aggrandizing nature of technology will finally encompass its creators (most likely), instead of being treated as a means towards an/some end.
Alarm bells again. Who defines insane? We agree, generally, on what insanity is, today. But what about later? Would insanity be any aspect of behaviour that’s threatening to society?
I think that’s what I’m suggesting in my op.
Oh, cool. Glad we can agree on something here.
Have you or do you subscribe to the SIngularity movement? Or have heard of it?
Well, here on tpf that’s a magic moment.
No, I don’t think I know the Singularity movement.
It's pretty big. Have a read about what Ray Kurzweil thinks about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
Where the previous one is a thought about the later.
That’s very interesting.
In a reply to a post I made to Echarmion I mentioned that one aspect of human nature is the making of tools; the first one being utilising fire. This making of tools seems to be, to me, almost an obsession and is evident in out technological history. Which indicates it’s sonething we cannot stop doing.
I believe it will but know it might not. I think ultimately it is up to human ingenuity to create the tech that solves our problems.
It's agreed that technology will solve many human problems.
As example, after analyzing the way most human idiots drive on the road I travel regularly, I'm coming around to driverless cars as a preferable risk. Driveless cars wouldn't ignore the speed limit. Driveless cars wouldn't tailgate me and attempt NASCAR drafting. Driveless cars wouldn't recklessly pass me on a curve because I'm rudely only going the maximum speed permitted by law, and so on.
There are many such examples of the benefits of technology. And so we will seek to develop ever more powerful technologies so as to harvest ever more and ever bigger benefits.
As the scale of such technologies grows we begin to enter a new era that is radically different from the past that we are so familiar with. In the past we could make mistakes, fix the problem, clean up the mess, and try again. As the scale of technology grows this room for error is steadily erased. As example, it only takes one bad day one time with nuclear weapons and it's game over, at least for modern civilization as we know it for the foreseeable future. The opportunity to fix the mistake, clean up the mess, and try again is lost for a very long time.
So as we harvest the many benefits of ever more powerful technology we should keep in mind that as we do so we are traveling ever deeper in to a new era which won't be as forgiving as the past. With powers of great scale one mistake one time with one such power can bring the whole process to a close.
I agree that our new toys are more dangerous but I don’t agree on how much more dangerous. There are many systems in place to defend ourselves against things such as nuclear war. There are plenty of passwords and failsafes to prevent foul play, but there is also the general factor of deterrence that prevents the desire to play foul in the first place. Everyone on the planet knows that nuclear war will kill all of us, and the people who hold the ability to launch nukes benefit from their high positions in society that would simply not exist in a post nuclear world. Generally, there is no benefit to nuclear war, even if you are being invaded. The rich and powerful who hold the power to launch nukes can simply leave their sinking ship and live leasiurely elsewhere.
I think that nuclear war will be more lethal after we colonize other planets. The people of mars will likely live in constant fear of nuclear war and make sure they are in good standing with Earth accordingly.
So really, the people who can actually declare nuclear war never will because they will suffer greatly as a consequence. Its like the leaders of our world are hanging off a cliff and we’re hanging from their leg. They won’t let go because if they do they will die anyway, even if they do want us gone.
Thanks for engaging this topic. For my part, I'll make a good faith attempt to be less impatient.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
What I'm asking readers to focus on is that the knowledge explosion feeds back upon itself, and thus is accelerating. So what we'll see going forward are ever greater powers coming online at an ever faster pace. If we were to plot that line on a graph against the plodding incremental (at best) development of human wisdom and maturity we see the two lines diverging at an accelerating rate.
This might be compared to steadily lowering the age at which people can purchase firearms, of ever greater power. No one can predict with certainty what will happen, but the odds that a catastrophe will occur rise over time.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
That's true, but you might want to read up on how many times these systems have come within an inch of failure. As just one example, during the Carter Administration somebody mistakenly inserted a training tape in to the NORAD early warning system which caused the generals to call the National Security Advisor to tell him that a Russian first strike was underway. One could write a book full of other examples.
However, the system obviously does work most of the time. What you're not getting is that this is not good enough, and powers of such vast scale require a record of perfection. A single failure of a single such power a single time is sufficient to crash the system, making all the many beneficial accomplishments of the knowledge explosion largely irrelevant. That is, the very long era when we could make mistakes, learn from them, and try again.... is over. It's not the 19th century anymore.
The technology races ahead at breakneck speed while our philosophy creeps along at it's usual glacial pace, falling ever farther behind. The fact that most people including national leaders running for President are bored by nuclear weapons should prove beyond any doubt that we simply aren't ready for the scale of powers the knowledge explosion will generate.
I think it is true that our weapons will only get stronger, but at the point we're at now, does that even matter? We've had a nuclear arsenal large enough to wipe ourselves out for at least 50 years. That means that every WMD we make after that is redundant. Whether you kill someone with a rocket launcher or a pistol is irrelevant if you kill them anyway. So I think that really the danger that such weapons pose has been capped for a long time now. Which means that our thoughts on the subject have had a little time to catch up.
Quoting Jake
You are correct in saying that both sides of the cold war had their close calls, but at the end of the day, what always stopped them from going that extra step? Knowledge of what they would have done. The most brilliant thing about mutually assured destruction is that at the end of the day, a person or persons has to turn the key. I recall an incident where a Russian submarine captain during the Cuban missile crisis refused to launch his arsenal despite thinking that Americans were dropping bombs into the water and his vessel was under fire. There was another incident in Russia in the 80's in which a colonel was alerted to an incoming missile strike. Instead of taking it seriously, he reported it as a malfunction. If he had reported it as real, we wouldn't be talking.
Ultimately, no one wants to be the one who pulls the trigger of a gun aimed at the world. The president could call these people himself, there could even be a vote to launch these weapons that passes, but it is almost impossible to find someone who will launch them. Everyone has a big head until that is put to the test.
Quoting Jake
You are right, perfection is necessary, but we also have a very good track record and it has been a decent amount of time. The major nuclear powers seem to be relatively cozy with each other compared to the cold war as well, so the chances that people will take a false alarm seriously are getting lower. I know that if a strange siren went off where I lived, people would just go about their business until something came on the radio. I remember recently there was a glitch in the warning system in Hawaii saying that ballistic missiles were inbound. It took 40 minutes to correct this. Despite causing a little chaos, no retaliatory strike was made. I'm sure the White House was in panic mode for a good 20 minutes.
Quoting Jake
I don't know if bored is the right word. Apathetic may be. I think that they have just become part of the consciousness of the masses. That and the knowledge that if it happens we will be dead soon anyway breeds a sort of apathetic attitude. Everyone knows that we can all die tomorrow but we have also lived with that for so long that we're just used to it. Of course, we can't be bored with it because everyone I know has some kind of opinion. They just don't share them often because no one seems to care.
Though you bring up a good point about philosophy moving slower than technology. Perhaps instead of slowing down our technological progress, we could speed up our philosophical progress. I think the main factor that limits the growth of philosophy is that it is seen as useless by most. Capitalist societies especially run on skills being able to make a profit, and at most you may be able to write a book as a philosopher. That knowledge is powerful but it admittedly pales in comparison to a bridge or skyscraper. I think it would be useful to look into anything resembling a "practical" in economic terms, philosophy related job. I think it would also be useful to try and convince the public of the uses of philosophy. Technology has cars and roads and appliances to show off, I think it's about time philosophers show off what they can (and do) offer.
It's not just weapons, but any power of sufficient scale to crash civilization. And yes, it matters. The more powers of such scale which are in play, the greater the chance that one of them will slip from our control.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
The President can order a massive strike without consulting with anybody. A single person who has lost their mind a single time, game over.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
Luck. Forgive the pun, but it's a game of Russian roulette. The argument of the group consensus (which you are articulating well) is that the bullet chamber has always been empty before, so it will always be empty in the future too. But that's not how Russian roulette works, and not how reality works either.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
Sorry, but you appear to know nothing about the training that launch officers get. I heard a story on NPR just a few days ago about a launch officer who merely asked "who double checks the president?" and he was drummed out of the service and is now driving a truck for living. The whole MAD system demands on each side having high confidence the other side will launch. Anybody who shows a hit of doubt is shown the door.
Quoting TogetherTurtle
And yet the airways are filled to overflowing with endless worry about a billion smaller things.
Yes, we will be dead soon. But a hundred unborn generations are waiting in the wings. What about them?
You've yet to explain what those other powers might be. Really the only conceivable thing I can think of that could end the world is a nuclear war. Any other tech that could destroy a planet or make it unfit for life is still a bit off and would involve space travel which solves the problem of extinction.
Quoting Jake
The president can, but is he the one turning the key? Even if he is, is he crazy enough to do it? I think a lot of politicians are hack frauds but I don't think even a single candidate from my lifetime at least has been insane enough in the "watch the world burn" way to do it in the end.
Quoting Jake
What I propose is that every chamber is empty. No one will ever make the conscious decision to end the human race, especially when the decision is to be made by high ranking government officials with access to high tech fallout shelters. When you can't win, you run. That is ingrained pretty far into our slimy reptilian brains and I would genuinely be surprised if even a single nuke is ever launched again because of that. You can't win a nuclear war and therefore one will never be fought.
Quoting Jake
And what of the Russians I discussed earlier? They no doubt had similar if not harsher training considering the time period and the general attitude of the Soviet Union. Why didn't they end the world? I think it's because they need mentally healthy individuals to do it, and a mentally healthy individual would never do it.
Quoting Jake
I could argue that these threats are more dangerous on an individual level and that is why, but I don't know what you are talking about specifically.
Echarmion made a post where he seems to suggest, though I’m not sure, that the idea of being a ‘golden creature’ is not part of our nature. He has a pragmatic view of human nature, but it’s not clear what he means by that. I take it to mean he rejects the idea of humans thinking of themselves as a ‘golden creature’ because it’s not pragmatic: he prefers practical views over theoretical views. So I assume he rejects the idea of a ‘golden creature’.
He also wonders, meaning he doubts, I assume, if our nature can take part in a vacuum, meaning it’s not likely. Of course he’s right. By this I think he means that something must contribute to or form our nature, and being pragmatic this can only be our environment and our response to it.
I don’t know if I have interpreted him correctly. But it seems to me that if humans are conscious beings then what we think also determines our nature. If what we thought didn’t achieve success in survival I’m guessing that such an idea would wither away with the dead who thought it.
Thinking we are a ‘golden creature’ as a way to position ourselves seems quite reasonable to me. Right or wrong it’s our perception of ourselves that sustain us. Why wouldn’t it be part of what we are, coming from the very earth we stand on? So it seem, to me, that it is part of our nature.
It also seems to be a nature very much attached to what I would risk calling a natural world, and in a way I refer back to the symbolic idea of Eden. This is completely different to a technological nature, or a tool orientated nature. We are completely separate from tools. Assuming the first tool was the use of fire, then it’s a lot different from learning to plant seeds, read the weather, or breed animals. It’s a hostile force.
As I’ve said, human nature seems addicted to tool making, maybe because it’s enabled us to achieve so much, like surviving a hostile environment, catching high protein food, etc., and it’s embedded in our genes.
By the same token we don’t seem to be at ease with technology except as solving problems, as if it’s grown out of control. It’s true a spear is a tool, but a spear cannot kill as many people as quickly as a bomb. Nor does the after affects of a spear last as long as radio activity. So something has happened. And from habit we turn to technology to solve a problem caused by our use of technology. It’s as if it’s a tool we don’t fully comprehend.
I’m not suggesting that we can do without technology, nor do I have any answers. But I’d does seem like technology is a sort of drug for us and it’s an addiction we can’t fight.
Echarmion asked what it is about recent or near future tech, specifically, that makes that technology qualitatively different? But I don’t think it needs answering. It’s like someone using a spear to hunt for food asking what could be so bad about technology in the future.
Can human nature change? Or am I wrong about what I think human nature is?
I think maybe you have a set idea of what “human nature” is that you’ve not made explicit enough. We are quite unique creatures in the sense we’re both highly adaptive and creative compared to any other species on Earth. More than anything we’re VERY opportunistic as well as being very attuned to projecting ourselves into the future - thsi combination has led to agriculture, industry and general commerce. These are probably better looked at as manifestation of humanity rather than “discoveries” or “creations”. If you taek on this different perspective then “technology” can be investigated as being a manifestation of humanity rather than as a “product” (looking at items as “products” is something that is perhaps a lot to do with current cultural attitudes).
All human cultural changes, and the problems they may bring along with them, certainly make us ask evermore probing questions about what it is to be “human”. The advances of communicative technologies has given us the uncomfortable view of humans - regardless of nation, language or thought - as being very similar. In a sense it seems our biggest challenge today is not about finding our sense of idnentity, but about dealing with the cultural manifestation of being “this” or “that” identity.
Ironically we can only ever understand what we are bby setting ourselves apart from others. By doing so we’ve found, or at least I have, that in doing so we the perceived gulf between us as separate beings as being more of an illustration conceived through cultural differentiation. This si not to say “everyone is the same” but that we’ve all got a lot more in common that we’d like to admit. The question is then about how we’ll manifest this realisation in future generations - I would imagine it will lead to a future where individual creativity is played off against the more dominant commercial aspects of how we interact in society and between given delineations of society; perhaps culminating in a global attitude that savours human creativity over any particular economic restraint.*
*meaning who knows what! It just appears to me that resource physical resource management (meaning raw materials such as food) is not a huge issue and that in a world of plenty where opportunity abounds, for more people across the globe than ever before (historically speaking!), a new focus will draw our attention.
Do you believe that children should have legal access to military grade weapons such as machine guns, rocket launchers, surface to air missiles etc? How about adult civilians?
If you answered no to either of these questions you already agree with my basic premise, human ability to manage power is limited. From there it's only one more little step to realizing that a knowledge explosion which delivers ever more power at an ever accelerating rate is sooner or later going to be a big problem.
Quoting Brett
Yes, and this is why I've been wrong in assuming that reason alone would be sufficient to make any substantial edit to this pattern. Illogical wishful thinking on my part.
I now see that pain will be a necessary ingredient. The question really is, will the level of pain be enough to wake us up but not so much as to kill us off? Will it fall within that range? Or will the pain exceed that range thus preventing any opportunity for further learning?
Quoting Jake
I don’t think they should but in parts of the world they certainly do. And people come out alive.
Quoting Jake
Yes, but how limited? And limited for how long? In the cases you discuss that children are used as soldiers some of them must have some control because some live. Same for adults in the same situation.
It would certainly be ideal for humanity to collectively decide to get rid of it’s nuclear arsenal but it isn’t 100% necessary for the survival of humanity.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3728/the-knowledge-explosion/p1
Yes, in your imagination, you've refuted those points. I do appreciate you at least engaging the topic, and doing so in a more articulate manner than most.
I’ve indicated in a few posts my perception of human nature. Its a big, controversial subject with no agreement. I can only indicate which side of the differences I stand in which is probably the nomological position. I lean towards caring, co-operation, tool making (meaning being capable of abstract thinking), being conscious of wrong, through evolution, as opposed to Dawkin’s “ruthless selfishness".
Quoting I like sushi
Cultures may change but can human nature? Has it ever, except through interpretation. If I look at it in an nomological light it can only change through evolution.
Quoting I like sushi
Yes we are “quite unique, opportunistic as well as being very attuned to projecting ourselves into the future”, because of our nature.
Projecting ourselves into the future I would call abstract thought.
What you refer to as manifestations is our nature. They may manifest themselves in particular ways, like making tools.
Technology is the practical aspect of science, which is abstract thinking. It’s a manifestation of human nature by way of abstract thinking/science. It’s exterior to human nature.
Quoting I like sushi
This is the same tired old argument that commerce is the problem to be overcome. Why is commerce a problem and technology not?
In relation to technology; we are either not in control and consequently fumbling along trying to manage it, or we are in control and this is how we manage it. Either it’s part of our nature or it’s not.
If it’s not part of our nature then we have a troubled relationship with it and we’re constantly trying to make a deal. Otherwise it’s either part of our nature and it’s not very satisfactory, leading to a continuous round of problems, or we are about to, or have already, made an uneasy pact with something outside of our nature.
Edit: sorry, the part about manifestations is messy, you were referring to industry, etc as a manifestation of our nature, I think.
Sorry, perhaps I wasn’t clear. I never meant to say “commerce” was a problem anymore than I would technology. I was trying to outline that technology has given rise to an adaptive economy (in the broader sense of “economics”). Agriculture gave us more lesuire time sendentary living, and basically civilization as we know it today. My point was that the creative pursuits that lead to more means of commerce isn’t, in and of itself, immediately valued. Creativity’s value takes time to manifest.
Greater technological breakthroughs can, and do, lead to the universal value of creativity (in art and science) as a non-immediate product to invest in - due to mass global communications today the boon is that artists who’d scramble around to make a living are now more easily able to forge a proper living and thus produce more.
Technology cannot be “controlled” any more that ideas can be. We can try to, and do, inroduce laws to amend problems that arise and it may be the case that the rate of acceleration is too much at the moment and we’d be better off taking a breather ... I don’t think so though and I don’t really see how we could take such a breather without civil war and/or despotism.
Evolution means things change. The biggest change we’ve had is with agriculture. Our genetics are not set in stone, they so something akin to “moulding” themselves around the situation. Physiological varieties surface due to the environmental exposure - over generations or within a few years due to dietary alterations.
I don’t think these are different items in the sense you’re trying to frame them. Humans without culture are not humans. Culture is the manifestation of humanity not an independent entity. When humans are all gone so will be all human culture. Culture is the expression of human nature - it is how we regard each other, how we understand each other, and how we communicate with each other. Technology facilitates all of these both directly and indirectly. The Chinese developed cooking methods based on necessity and the stir fry method came to be due to a lack of resources to cook with - wood and oil.
In terms of biology we may well soon ourselves altering teh human genome and becoming a distinctly different species to what we are now - I think there are many dangers involved in tinkering with such things. I believe the question of tailormade babies is something we’re already discussing before the technology arises. I understand concern in matter s like this as we are not the most forward thinking creatures and we will hopefully adapt our cultural attitudes and express our full potential more efficiently in the near future so as to learn to cope with the amount we need to consider and plan as a unity of beings rather than as dispersed and varied cultural traditions (at the same time diversity is required in order to maintain the ability to adapt; basically we’re always playing a balancing game!)