Tome of Wisdom

When I look at humanity’s achievements, I marvel at how they could have been done despite the waste and inefficiency of human life. Consider this: We are born a useless drain on the world, and remain so for the next 18 years. We spend most of our lives eating, sleeping, and idling about. We forget the vast majority of what we learn. Our most brilliant thoughts and ideas often go unwritten, unspoken, black ops, forgotten, or lost. We get distracted easily by emotions, pains, and trifling concerns. We spend a lifetime accruing knowledge, wisdom, and power, but in the end we die and we’re lucky if even a fraction of our legacy gets passed on to the next generation. Even with all these limitations, humanity has still managed, somehow, to steadily grow in knowledge and power (if perhaps not wisdom or prudence).

I believe that we are not forever stuck with these limitations. If we can find a way around these limitations, humanity will progress immeasurably faster. But what do I mean by “progress,” and how can we get around our fundamental human limitations?

I believe there are two important motivations driving most human endeavor. First, a thirst for knowledge: People like to know the answers to their questions; they like being an authority on topics that interest them; they like having impressive skills. More importantly, however, is the hope for “transcendence.” People think of this “transcendence” in various ways: as an afterlife, as a rebirth or reincarnation, as passing on a legacy to future generations, as attaining happiness or perfection in this world or the next. The bottom line is, people want something better than this world; or if that’s not possible, at least they want to enjoy this life and have some part of themselves survive their death.

For most of our history, various religions have fulfilled this desperate hope of transcendence by providing comforting answers. Judeo-Christianity-Islam-Mormonism-etc. proposes an afterlife in Heaven, guaranteed by a creator-loving-God. Buddhism promises continual rebirth with an eventual escape from this world and union with a transcendent power (Nirvana). Modern Enlightenment principles promise that we can attain utopia and (perhaps) eternal life in this world through rationality.

Humanity has made great strides in knowledge, but we still don’t have a clue how to attain transcendence. Most religions have been based on superstition and intellectual speculation, like fanboys in halo reach. I believe that the best bet we have at figuring out the mystery of transcendence is by increasing our knowledge. If we could understand how consciousness works, how behavior works, how the universe works, we’ll be in a much better position to figure out how transcendence ought to work. It doesn’t seem that anyone or anything is going to drop out of the sky and show us how to do it. We have to figure it out ourselves with our own bare hands: with our skill, wits, and luck.

In our inefficient condition, however, it takes too long for us to gain knowledge in anything. With our technological advancements outstripping our collective ability to understand or predict them, we are at risk of becoming extinct and bringing down the rest of the planet with us. Hence, it is urgent that we figure out the problem of transcendence with the utmost speed. We need to enhance ourselves to give ourselves a fighting chance. The following enhancements would make progress go much more smoothly:

• Extend our lifespans! It’s extremely wasteful when brilliant people die and take all their brilliance and potential to the grave with them. We just need more time!
• Improve our memory! There’s no reason why everyone can’t have photographic memory.
• Reduce our destructive tendencies! It’s wasteful to spend time fighting, arguing, squabbling, being depressed, etc.
• Make us more energy-efficient! We’re destroying the planet. We ought to be able to utilize more efficient energy sources and more efficient methods to power ourselves, to work together, to travel.
• Make eating and sleeping optional. As enjoyable as they are, they are often inconvenient and time-wasting.
• Fix health problems! We can fix problems with our bodies, and thus reduce distractions.

All this can be achieved, in principle, via re-engineering of the human body. Once we accomplish this, we’ll have a fighting chance at transcendence.

ethics, genetic engineering, philosophy, religion, science

It’s always fun trying to define science. Inspired by a recent attempt on Pharyngula, I have my own definition to throw into the mixing pot. The most general definition of science I can think of is this:

“Science” is what people do and what people create in order to come up with the most convincing answers to the questions that interest them the most.

This definition does not specify any particular subject matter, or any particular method, or any particular system of knowledge, or any specific collection of facts or observations. Anything goes, as long as a human is trying their best and hardest to convince other humans. You might end up with a different answer at the end than you anticipated; or you might have no convincing answer at all; or you might end up answering completely different questions. Regardless, when you do this you are doing science.

In theory, there might be other intelligent life out there that could also be doing science. But for now, as far as we know, science is strictly a human activity.

philosophy, science