The Planetary Engineers who have gone to Ganymede find that their rooms are bugged:
"Davenport looked around the room. He had known the inanimate savagery of planets, but this was the first time he had ever encountered hostility from men. The walls seemed to move together and close in on him." (XIV, p. 164.)
These are the two "enemies" in the Psychotechnic History. Davenant sees himself as:
"...a soldier in man's finest war, the fight of all men against a blind and indifferent nature which had brought their kind forth without caring." (I, p. 142)
But the other enemy is man himself.
In the concluding instalment of the series, men at last control cosmic energies and understand themselves.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Human beings are their own worse enemies--which is why I am so skeptical of Utopian hopes.
Last sentence: if "The Chapter Ends" is a Psychotechnic story.
Ad astra! Sean
Linguistic yes: rational, no. There's no such thing as a rational being because reason is a tool to get what you want -- and what you want is set by your genes.
In English law, a human being is "a reasonable being," meaning I think a being that can reason, not that is motivated by reason.
Note that the use of reason is mostly for rationalization. The higher the IQ and the broader the education, the better the rationalizations...
I started out to rationalize the beliefs in which I had been indoctrinated but I also had a motivation to find out the truth.
We are reasoning about this now but not rationalizing anything!
Kaor, Paul!
And my point remains that human beings have only changed the merely material and technological environments in which we live. I do not believe they will change themselves, by their unaided efforts, into what looks like a secularized prelapsarian condition. Iow, we are going to remain flawed, imperfect, innately prone to being quarrelsome and violent. Something which can only be managed, not eliminated. Our ability to reason can only precariously offer some control of our flaws. Everything I have seen in real history, real life, as well as the teachings of the Catholic Church, convinces me of that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the material and the technological are not "mere." They affect everything else. With our present knowledge and understanding of the universe and ourselves, we are way ahead of our ancestors. We are not innately prone to quarrelsomeness and violence. Most people most of the time to not have to "manage" inner urges to strike out at others. Everything that you have seen in history and in real life does not tell you what will happen in the future which will be different just as the present is very different from various past periods of human development. And, yet again, we have said all this before.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I believe the facts of real life and real history supports my views, not yours. All you are doing is hoping matters will be different in an ever receding future. That is not good enough.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is not what I am doing. We campaign to make things better or at least to lessen the evils here and now.
The facts of real life and real history do not tell us what will happen in the future, which will be different. Is it agreed that things change and have changed? Then how can it be maintained that things will suddenly stop changing forevermore here and now? Whatever else happens, that will not happen.
I am not hoping that matters will be different in a near future (not an ever receding one). I know that they will be different. The only question is how will they be different and we here and now can decide how to influence that. This persistent denial of the fundamental fact of change is astonishing.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
First paragraph: That's all any reasonable decent politician can do, try to ameliorate matters. I would add that we should not expect such ameliorations to last forever.
The facts of real life and history tells me, at the very least, humans are unlikely to change in the ways you want them to.
I do not deny changes, I simply don't believe in the kind of changes you hope for. It astonishes me how you can persist in denying we are all innately flawed, imperfect, prone to being violent and quarrelsome.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The facts of real life and history tell me that human beings have made great changes and can make many more.
You do in fact say that human beings will always remain as they are now, are incapable of fundamental change. I have explained the possibility, not the certainty, of the changes that I hope for. I think that much of what I say in detail is simply forgotten.
It astonishes me how you can persist in stating that we are all innately flawed, imperfect, prone to being violent and quarrelsome. I have shown many conditions in which people are not violent or quarrelsome. That word, "innate," is invalid. Our ancestors actively, fundamentally changed themselves into human beings. Change is our essence. Possibilities, not certainties, stretch ahead of us.
Paul.
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