Trevelyan asks Nicki whether she wants to go out to the stars again not for a purpose but just because it is her life and she chooses what to do with it. In the Buddhist monastery in Northumberland, the monks once a week watch a film chosen by one of them. A member of our meditation group asked a monk whether he missed the freedom to do what he wants and to watch what he chooses. Although he saw what she was getting at, monks have subordinated that kind of freedom to concentrated meditation practice. Meditation group members value regular practice but not in that concentrated a form. If we valued the latter more, then we would be monks. And a monk remains in the monastery only by his own continual choice. The Alori are not offering the Nomads a choice.
Trevelyan adds that we must live in the world as it is, not as we think it should be. Fine words. Human beings are differentiated by the fact they have changed their environment with hands and brain and have thus changed themselves into the species that we are now. Assuming survival, even greater changes are assured. There is a prayer about changing what can be changed, accepting what cannot be changed and knowing the difference but what is the difference? A British daily newspaper lectured black South Africans that it was not in their power to end Apartheid.
Trevelyan is right to resist the Alori, to defend the Stellar Union and to join the Nomads who are the bridge to a greater future civilization.
18 comments:
Actually, it wasn't in their power; it required outside assistance... from powers acting in their own interests.
Human choice is always constrained.
I agree but it did happen whereas it was being said that it wouldn't.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree. We may have changed the world around us but we have not changed ourselves.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But our ancestors changed themselves into human beings. After that, surely anything else is possible? Some cultural aspects very quickly, other deeper aspects longer term.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
On this matter, I fear we simply can't agree. I see NO reason for not believing mankind will continue to be flawed, imperfect, quarrelsome, and strife torn. This can only be managed, not "solved."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But you have not replied to the point that our simian ancestors transformed themselves into human beings by manipulating, cooperating and becoming linguistic. Thus, the differentiating aspects of our species have resulted from their, then our, activity. Thus, further, there is nothing fundamentally unchanging in us. We have not simply been handed a flawed nature that we can do nothing about.
Paul.
Paul: our ancestors did not 'transform themselves' into human beings.
That implies deliberate choice on their part.
But evolution is a -random- process, and does not involve choices on the part of the animals undergoing evolution.
In other words, they 'were transformed' into human beings -- a very different thing. Natural selection did it, not humans or pre-humans.
And since it's a random process, it might very well not have happened at all.
In which case, intelligent descendants of raccoons or rats might be having this discussion... 8-).
Furthermore, that process of turning the common ancestor of chimps and humans into humans and chimps took about 7 million years.
It nearly didn't happen -- there were repeated instances of interbreeding between the ancestors of chimps and early hominids, for a very long time.
H. Sap. Sap. specifically is 'only' about 300,000 years old. The last significant -physical- species-wide change took place about 80,000 years ago.
So all that wasn't something people (or pre-people) decided to do, or did themselves.
Random mutational chance, interacting with specific environmental circumstances, did it -to- our ancestors.
And on a time-scale which shows actual changes in the genetic nature/potential of human beings take a very, very, very long time.
Cultural change can be rapid; evolutionary genetic change, which sets the (fairly narrow) limits within which cultural change can occurr.
We are not significantly different from the first behaviorally modern human beings 80,000 years ago, not in our inherent -genetic- natures; the same instincts, the same neurological processes.
Or to quote a saying I'm fond of:
"We are not the makers of our world, or the authors of ourselves. To imagine so is hubris, and after hubris, nemesis -- but madness lets nemesis in."
I agree with most of this but add that our ancestors' action on their environment was one of the factors that changed it and them. Of course no one intended to become human.
Of course other species might have become intelligent but I think that a far more probable alternative evolution is just proliferation of multiple species with none of them going through the precise series of processes that generated intelligence.
I also agree that cultural change at least can be rapid. That is what we need to concentrate on for now.
Paul: that bit about rats and raccoons was joke... should have been clearer.
Yes, since we can't do anything about our -physical- natures, cultural change is what we can do.
However, multiple disasters have shown that modesty and humility about what cultural changes are -possible- given our physical/genetic constraints and limits is imperative.
Because you can court catastrophe that way.
It's important to avoid 'blank-slate-ism'. Which unfortunately was very prevalent in the 19th century and a good chunk of the 20th.
We make our own history but not in circumstances of our own choosing.
7 million years - that IS a long time.
Kaor, Paul!
Stirling explained far more clearly than I could have why I disagreed your remarks replying to my comments. My basic thought was it did not matter what extinct non-humans did, only what was actually done by HUMANS.
NOR do I believe mere "cultural changes" will change the human species all that much. Like it or not humans are going to remain imperfect and all too prone to violence and strife.
Ad astra! Sean
We are not blank slates but complex, sensitive organisms and for that reason can be both active and adaptable.
Kaor, Paul!
And merely being "adaptable" is not going to remove our innate propensity for violence and conflict. I see no sign of that ever happening.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Adaptability is not "mere"! Look at the vast range of cultures, moralities, social norms and expectations. I have no reason to fight with my neighbours but might if the supermarkets started to run out of food. But we could now produce more than enough food for everyone on Earth. Behaviour is a response to changing conditions. Calling one potential set of responses "innate" just kills any discussion of how to change the conditions for the better. Parts of the Earth are civilized. All of them can be.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree, because I am trying to insist on the need to be realistic and having no illusions about human beings. The problems we are talking about spring from causes which ARE innate and can only be, sometimes, managed or partially controlled. And not always successfully. A collapse of the kind you mentioned is one example pf that!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Economic collapse is possible but we ought to be able to use technology to put ourselves beyond that just as diseases can be eradicated.
Paul.
From what I have been reading, climate change is right now destroying our food sources.
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