12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
He doesn't hesitate or hedge. He's fully in on the inexorable forces that he claims will determine our future. Determine them, not MAY determine them. Why is this important to me? If you believe in the actuarial tables I will most likely not see much of that glorious future. What a bummer! I want to live longer, not just to enjoy family and friends, which I do, but to be in the world that is coming faster and faster, sooner and sooner, more and more. I believe in the onward and upward expansion of evolution. Sure, there are naysayers with good reasons for pause, but I don't think they will prevail.
Disasters can happen, but in the broad stretch of history they are usually just a blip. The vectors of the past point to a future that is an advance over the past, not a reversion to it. If there are any universal laws I think they can be summarized by the tendency of things that survive to become part of increasing complexification, wherein things connect and combine until a seemingly magic moment, when they flip irreversibly up into a whole new reality.
This coincides with a new project I'm working on with my friend DRJ where we are working to articulate a new vision of life that includes this inexorable development process. I'm finding that in order to appreciate the value of this change, I needs to break out of an egocentric view of the world and accept the fact that no individual is more important than the general sweep toward the complexification of the universe.
It all started with hot inanimate plasma, from which developed clumps of quarks, called protons, which cooled the overall plasma gas so that more protons could develop. From protons, through the same process, atoms developed then molecules and from molecules organisms and from organisms, homo sapiens, and from homo sapiens came artificial intelligence which morphed into the internet which continues to morph into a planetary mind and so on to unimaginable developments. I don't need religion to believe in this kind of future, I only need a sense of history, an appreciation for the developments of real science and a hope that I can see some of it.
In the meantime, I will try to appreciate my part in the overall development of life.
Disasters can happen, but in the broad stretch of history they are usually just a blip. The vectors of the past point to a future that is an advance over the past, not a reversion to it. If there are any universal laws I think they can be summarized by the tendency of things that survive to become part of increasing complexification, wherein things connect and combine until a seemingly magic moment, when they flip irreversibly up into a whole new reality.
This coincides with a new project I'm working on with my friend DRJ where we are working to articulate a new vision of life that includes this inexorable development process. I'm finding that in order to appreciate the value of this change, I needs to break out of an egocentric view of the world and accept the fact that no individual is more important than the general sweep toward the complexification of the universe.
It all started with hot inanimate plasma, from which developed clumps of quarks, called protons, which cooled the overall plasma gas so that more protons could develop. From protons, through the same process, atoms developed then molecules and from molecules organisms and from organisms, homo sapiens, and from homo sapiens came artificial intelligence which morphed into the internet which continues to morph into a planetary mind and so on to unimaginable developments. I don't need religion to believe in this kind of future, I only need a sense of history, an appreciation for the developments of real science and a hope that I can see some of it.
In the meantime, I will try to appreciate my part in the overall development of life.
