See The Bible And The Protean Enemy In GENESIS.
I did not highlight two points in that previous post. First, the Asimov story, "That Thou Art Mindful Of Him," is the sequel to I, Robot in which the Brains have phased themselves out. See here.
Secondly, in Poul Anderson's Brain Wave, intelligence increases in every species on Earth and, as a next stage, human beings overcome their own inner conflict between instinct and intelligence. Thus, they cure the insanity diagnosed by Terra Central and also defeat the "protean enemy."
This chapter of Genesis suggests that global society is now organised for the benefit of all instead of for the power or profit of a few, e.g.:
"'One orthomarriage lasted more than forty years. We were allowed two children. We chose girls.'" (p. 40)
It seems that history has ceased to be chaotic, therefore that Laurinda is wrong to fear that the next thousand years might be as conflictive as previous recorded history.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
EXCEPT we see Anderson away from such ideas, of human beings somehow permanently overcoming their inner conflicts. Instead, we see Anderson showing us, over and over, how all such Utopian attempts fail.
Ad astra! Sean
Yup. Reason is not instinct's master; it is the servant.
Only instinct makes us want to live at all -- simply because those who didn't have it, didn't leave descendants.
Or to be blunter, a human being is just a DNA molecule's way of making more
DNA molecules.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
While that is true I still believe many persons, as INDIVIDUALS, prefer being alive, whether or not they have descendants.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: indubitably, but they prefer being alive because individuals who didn't, didn't live long enough to breed.
So we all inherited that desire to live.
Evolution is a kludge. If something works, it doesn't matter if it works in a "Rube Goldberg" sort of way.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha! I agree!
But I've never yet managed to solve Rubik's Cube. Dang!
Ad astra! Sean
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