"What we have done will not be lost to all Eternity."

[otherlander]

"What we have done will not be lost to all Eternity. Everything ripens at its time and becomes fruit at its hour."



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[ZombieHorde]

1. Actually, everything we have done will likely be lost to all eternity eventually.

Planets only last so long.

[PufPuf23]

2. Our record of and the misinformation / contradictions

of human history over 2000 or even two hundred much less a million years is breathtakingly sparse and not because history is only 6000 years as our species is overwhelmingly ancient in respect to history and myth.

The intra-species brutality of Homo sapians has resulted in local then global environmental changes as our ascendence as a cancerous species in fact hitting Malthus boundaries.

[The Doctor.]

3. Depends...

On whether the humans achieve Divinity or not.

They shed avarice, fear, and insecurity, and they might just survive long enough, and evolve far enough, to master time, space, and consciousness... and become Divine.

At that point, all things everywhere, past and future, will be preserved in The Divine.

If they fuck it up... Oh well... it's Oblivion.

"No Divinity for you!"

[ZombieHorde]

4. How did you come to that conclusion? nt

[The Doctor.]

5. Well... I figure there is only one of two possible outcomes for the human race....

1) Humanity founders, stagnates, keeps the wars going, and eventually finds a way to make themselves extinct.

2) Humanity matures philosophically and socially before that happens... in which case they'll do what they've always done;


Learn... and eventually attain Divinity.


As they learn, they have this funny way of wanting to preserve simply everything in one form or another. It's been a pretty consistent habit with humans for a very long time.

The basis of learning is collecting data... in every form possible. But we do it more than simply to learn, we do it to remember.

Why does your family have a photo album?

Well, it used to be photo albums now it's jpeg.

It used to be 8mm, now it's mpeg.

Now, the entire wall of photo albums from generations fits on a data stick.


And it's a long way from 'done'.


Humanity has always had such a hardwired need to preserve not just memories, but the essence of events and experiences itself. While I believe this impulse comes from a sense of mortality, it is nonetheless a fundamental impulse. Luckily, this impulse is also what compels humans to build one knowledge base upon another. To constantly add to knowledge and understanding... and increase the ability to control their environment, and even themselves. Eventually, humans will figure out how to take hold of their own evolution. They're frighteningly close to it now. (And if they accidentally screw something up very badly, refer to outcome '1')

Barring extinction, the human race, despite even million-year set backs, will eventually master time, space, and consciousness itself. They will 'become God'. The impulse to literally preserve Everything, having been a great part of what brought them to Divinity, will continue to persist. And indeed, once masters of creation, why not preserve all consciousness, all memory, all experience EVER?
Heck... you can't be Divine without being Everything, now can you?

In fact, once Divine, we may just decide a Universe should be created and evolution set underway so that humanity can exist and become Divine.

Think on that for a bit.

O8) :evilgrin: O8)

[lazarus]

6. I wouldn't use the word Divine

but what you're saying is very close to Vernor Vinge's Singularity hypothesis. That sometime soon, we will begin to manipulate our evolution to the point that we leave behind humanity and move on.

[The Doctor.]

7. I use 'Divine' because it's compact and does not immediately invoke Christian theism.

Yes, many have come to understand that the nature of humanity is to achieve such ends... even despite itself.

Teilhard de Chardin believed in a principle of complexity/consciousness whereby the universe would eventually become 'self aware' and humanity would have something to do with it.

I'd argue that 'self awareness' is already a universal condition, but that is neither here nor there for the moment.

I also fancy the idea of 'The Human Omega', as I call it, is something the indigenous Australians refer to as 'The Great Dream'. That consciousness itself is merely the dream of the universe.

Neat stuff.

It also makes the crap we're going through now a little more tolerable... a little.



{oe} - No specific brand of theism. No one particular 'Gawd'.

[otherlander]

8. I would argue

that there is nothing wrong with human nature, only something wrong with human culture- By nature, humans are as harmless (which is not to say "noble" in any romantic sense) as skunks, bears, or wolves. True, human culture has been created only by humans- but firstly, all humans have not contributed to it equally (it's disproportionatley the work of a small ruling class- what Gramsci talked about re: hegemony) and secondly- it's a snowball effect. Take some primates that ordinarilly act in a way that works for them, and put them in a setting that's totally incompatible with their native biological inclinations- one in which the social groups they organize themselves into are fragmented, torn apart, and dissolved on a regular basis, in which they follow not whatever rules work for them, enforced if at all by a "cheif" alpha who stays in power through a basic group consensus, but rules that are imposed by a remote economic elite, and in which the young are not allowed to explore and learn about their surroundings naturally but are forced to spend the bulk of their time in buildings sitting down learning rote facts- and soon you will have a bunch of very dysfunctional chimpanzees.

Fear and insecurity are natural, are human, are actually quite healthy responses to many situations- I would argue that it is not by shedding these, but by shedding economic class (which will of course be a long battle against entrenched interests- I don't expect I'll live to see it) that we'll be able to live in a socially healthy and ecologically sustainable way. And then, well, maybe as a species we'll still die with the sun, or maybe not. Who knows?

And I tend to agree with Walt Whitman- we already are divine. We come from the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

[otherlander]

9. bump

because this forum needs it.