The Danellian on the beach appears in human form and makes a speech from which I select three phrases.
First, Everard and Tamberly have preserved the history:
"'...out of which grew the first real knowledge of the universe and the first strong ideal of liberty. For what you did, be neither arrogant nor guilt-laden; be glad.'
"The wind cried, the sea growled nearer." (p. 434)
(The elements sound hostile. They indicate that the threat of temporal chaos might return.)
Secondly, the Danellian confirms that the Unattached agents understand the matter correctly to the best of their comprehension. This also confirms that something else here transcends human comprehension. The Danellian compares quirks in the temporal flux to:
"'...diffraction, waves reinforcing here and canceling there to make rainbow rings. It is incessant, but normally on the human level it is imperceptible.'" (ibid.)
In any visual adaptation, we should see a rainbow. Can Danellians perceive the incessant diffraction? This does transcend human comprehension.
Thirdly, this course of history:
"'...does at last take us beyond what our animal selves could have imagined.'" (p. 435)
Going beyond is transcendence. What I value here are knowledge, liberty, beauty (the rainbow) and transcendence.
Knowledge and liberty are still extremely vulnerable.
23 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What that Danellian claimed about his race transcending "animality" is what I am most skeptical about.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Some animal species are closely adapted to a particular environment. Such species become extinct when the environment changes. Another kind of animal became more versatile and motile, able to change its behaviour when its environment changed. The latter kind became intelligent. They transcended merely instinctive behaviour. Earlier, animals had transcended plant life by becoming conscious. Earlier than that, a single self-replicating molecule transcended inorganic matter. Transcendence is possible and need not stop with us.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that was not what Anderson meant when he had that Danellian talking like that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Wasn't it? How do we know? There are different kinds of transcendence but they are all kinds of transcendence.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I thought it was obvious, what Anderson meant by "animality." Which he said himself in one of his letters to me, agreeing that mankind was either Fallen or imperfectly evolved chimps. And he made that view plain in many of his published works.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I still don't get it. If our pre-human ancestors transcended merely instinctual behaviour by becoming human, then some of our descendants can transcend the rest of our animal inheritance by becoming something else, Danellians. Why should transcendence stop with us?
What is imperfect evolution? Evolution has no moral goal. Organisms are naturally selected. We are partly instinctual and partly rational/moral. We can become more of the latter. If fundamental change were impossible, then no organisms would have become either conscious or intelligent.
That change from unconscious to conscious has to be the greatest change of all: a qualitative transformation although not the only one.
Paul.
Humans are mammals. If you've kept cats, you know we have a lot of the same motivations.
Kaor, Paul!
I'll try again, starting with using Stirling's comment. Humans have a good deal in common with other mammalians. We have the same needs for food, shelter, reproduction, etc. Like other mammalian predators, humans have instincts for either fighting or fleeing. And a part of that fight instinct will be expressed in competing for mates, status, or power. The greater intelligence we have will not eliminate such drives and passions.
Moreover, since I believe we are a Fallen race one of the consequences of that Fall has been a far greater difficulty in controlling such drives, passions, instincts. And that explains why we are so often prone to violence, conflict, folly, etc. And that means the continued need for the State, as a means of controlling/penalizing those who refuse to keep the peace.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I'll try again. Our ability to meditate can cope with and work towards eliminating such drives and passions.
We are not Fallen. We have risen and therefore can rise further. We are not inherently prone to violence, conflict, folly etc. There are many social contexts where we are not violent and where we have no reason not to keep the peace.
The main role of the State is not to prevent individuals from randomly assaulting each other even when they have no reason to do so. It is to protect vast inequalities in private property. This role of the state will become redundant when technologically produced wealth is abundant and is distributed equally. People will no longer pick pockets, shop lift, food riot, loot supermarkets, squat in empty buildings, mug strangers, suspect foreigners, embezzle funds, bribe politicians. There will be no need for the world population to continue to be divided into nation states maintaining massive stockpiles of instruments of destruction. We can and indeed urgently must build a better future instead of maintaining the current divisions at any cost, especially to those who are still on the receiving end of expensive, sophisticated rockets and bombs while corporations continue to destroy the environment to compete for profit.
Look forward, not backward.
Paul.
Sean,
Checking back, I see that you mentioned status and power yet again. I have replied on those specific points innumerable times.
Paul.
Paul: people don't stop -wanting- certain things. Those needs are inherent.
Of course the needs for food, shelter etc are inherent but, if these needs are met, then they are no longer causes of conflict.
As I have said before, we do not fight for the air that we breathe but many of us would fight for the last oxygen cylinder in a space station. We fight in some conditions but not in any and every conditions. We have the capacity for violence if we are deprived, provoked etc but not a tendency to be violent in just any circumstances. This is a realistic, not a Utopian, account of what human beings are like.
Meditation helps us not to stop needing/wanting to eat (!) but to cope with all the psychological attachments and aversions that accumulate during life. I denigrate myself to myself because that is how adults treated me in early childhood. Other people that I know are confident that they are in the right in any and every circumstance! Many, if not all, of us could have benefited from a different kind of upbringing and hopefully that will become available to more people in future. I certainly learned not to subject my daughter to prejudices and guilt-trips.
Kaor, Paul!
I continue to disagree, because I don't believe in the plausibility/truth of what you hope for. Nor are they desirable if not plausible, because efforts to achieve the impossible will distract too many from what can be achieved.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The supposedly impossible has happened, e.g., landing on the Moon.
If we develop technology to its fullest, then that will have social consequences that we will not the have to try to achieve. Economic competition will slow down and stop when it is no longer necessary.
Paul.
will not then have to
Paul: actually, I meant power and status. Having enough to eat doesn't do damn-all about those.
Well, addressing literally everyone's physical needs will eliminate one kind of cause of conflict. And I think that we can build sociopolitical relationships that no longer allow one individual or group to coerce others: election and full accountability of all public officials, no standing army etc. Status, prestige, public image etc some people might still contend for as long as it is not in a way that harms anyone else.
Kaor, Paul!
I cannot agree, because your hopes are based on a false anthropology, erroneous conceptions of what human beings are like. Nor do most people care beans about meditation. No, "Quixote and the Windmill" and Chapter Six of GENESIS are what we are likely to get with the kind of advanced tech you are pinning your hopes on.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I cannot agree.
Meditation is there for those who want it. I do not push it as the way to solve the world's problems. But meditation is one part of spiritual practice which includes prayer and I imagine that you believe in the efficacy of the latter - and not just in crude petitionary prayer.
My ideas are based on realistic anthropology and accurate conceptions of what human beings are like as I have spelt out with numerous examples. I am pinning my hopes not just on advanced tech but on the agreed social use of such tech - as I have said. Social use of tech will involve overcoming a lot of opposition from vested interests and backward-looking ideas as our exchanges show.
No, "Quixote and the Windmill" and GENESIS are not the most likely outcomes. Destruction of the whole Earth by advanced weapons deployed by those who refuse to relinquish power is far more likely but we must not acquiesce in that.
Is there any point in prolonging this endless disagreement?
Paul.
Sean,
I get the impression that you cannot let go of this. Surely we have said everything relevant by now? (Although we seem to forget some of it.)
Paul.
Sean,
BTW, I recently replied on "Quixote and the Windmill" and GENESIS in the combox for the post, "Encroaching Brush And Whittering Wind." Would you be able to respond to particular replies rather than just repeating general disagreements?
Paul.
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