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Re: Apple II: Second Best Tech Product of All Time!
Paul Schlyter wrote:
In article <VdSdnRuqzrtp_7nbnZ2dnUVZ_uuqnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
Paul Schlyter wrote:
In article <b7SdnexhIqAsxLzbnZ2dnUVZ_gSdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
................
But it is a *fact* that we are now responsible for our evolution,
and choosing to ignore it is no defense, its just choosing not to
choose. This abdication will not last a decade.
Responslble against whom? Perhaps you respond: "against all of
mankind". OK, but which parts of mankind are then responsible? If
you say "all of us", that's no different really from "none of us".
The mechanisms involved here are too complex to be modelled in
a common "responsibility model".
I wasn't speaking in terms of a "responsibility model". I simply
meant that we can now do something about it, and if we don't, then
we have chosen the consequences by our inaction.
The problem is that whatever actions we choose (including the
alternative "no action"), we cannot fully predict the consequences of
our choice of actions. So whatever we choose, we don't really know
what wedve chosen until afterwards. It's a bit like a lottery.
I understand.
But responsibility doesn't just mean making one choice and "taking
our hands off the wheel". It means continually observing and
correcting, so that undesired divergence is avoided. Of course,
this is not guaranteed to be successful, so we have to keep getting
better at it to improve our odds.
A good part of that is gaining a good enough understanding of
what's going on that we can construct useful models to predict the
outcome of our actions.
Maybe the right way to look at is that we are "responsible to our
children". (Aiming to "look good" to the future is an interesting
way to shift to a longer-term perspective.)
Otoh our children will be faced with a similar situation when their
time come: they have to play the same lottery in order to try to "look
good" to *their* children....
Exactly. *We* are the ones who impose a "progress" model on
the world.
Btw, if you're serious about what you said earlier: "But it is a
*fact* that we are now responsible for our evolution", what do you
think we should do to significantly improve our gene pool? Kill off
those who have genetic defects? We do that to our pets, our
cattle and our crop....
I wasn't primarily talking about our natural biological evolution.
In fact, our present courses of action tend in the opposite direction
to "survival of the fittest"--I'm thinking of various medical
interventions that allow genes for diseases to propagate.
I think we are far better served by learning to fix such problems in
the genome by artificial means than by "pruning" individuals. (Though
there are some cases now, in view of a fuller understanding of the
genome, where individuals are guiding their own reproductive choices
to reduce the liklihood of future problems.)
Didn't we already agree that evolutionary forces no longer act on our
species? ;-)
I think it's important in a discussion such as this to constrain the
use of the word evolution to its biological sense. It's otherwise
difficult to determine whether someone is simply referring to change,
or inferring that change in a particular system is governed by the
same rules as biological evolution.
Fair enough, and a good distinction.
What I meant, though, is that some biological evolutionary forces
continue to operate, but their effect is swamped by human actions.
Why do you consider human actions non-biological? Aren't we part
of the Earth's biology?
The beaver builds its hoods - that's natural. But when humans build
a house it's no longer natural, it's artificial. How come?
Another very interesting point!
I think the distinction is that we choose our actions on the basis
of deliberation and planning, and are not *simply* triggered to
perform a hard-wired behavior. (And yes, I'll even grant some
creativity to beavers, but all beaver dams are really quite similar,
and have been for centuries. I'll change where I draw the line when
a beaver installs 802.11g networking. ;-)
Why do you require that the beavers should copy our designs? Wouldn't
it be more creative of them to invent a wireless network of their own?
It needn't work on radio waves, any wireless communication would do ;-)
Apparently I need a lesson in how to make a joke... ;-)
Btw we humans, as well as many animals, have had wireless communication
for ages -- it's called speech/hearing and vision..... ;-)
Indeed--and it was such a huge leap forward that ears and eyes
have been "independently discovered" many times by evolution,
and pattern recognizing the time series and spatial data has given
rise to large brains, some structures of which were repurposed!
Even in the area of "natural" genetics, the vastly increased
communication between the disparate families of humanity in the
modern world is causing an unprecedented stirring of the genetic pool.
I'm sorry, but human evolution doesn't act quite that rapidly. A
number of generations have to pass first, snd since one human
generation is some 20-30 years, we're here talking in the time scale
of centuries or perhaps a millennium or two, not decades. However,
from an evolutionary point of view, that's very rapid too, even though
many people in modern society would consider several centuries to be
"forever".
I was referring to the unsuitability of modern "stirred" populations
for doing genetic migration analysis. There are few "purebred" locals
anymore, so scientists have to go out of the cities to try to find them.
Our DNA is much more "mixed" than our grandparents'--that's easy travel
and urbanization for you.
The differences between the human races seem quite small though if we
compare with e.g. the races of our dogs....
Yes, so far we haven't seen fit to breed minature shorthaired people.
;-)
As an eternally optimistic pragmatist, I see signs that we are beginning
to open our eyes... Somewhere along the line we will have to deal with
the problem that so many are trying to close them.
The optimist believes we live in the best of worlds. The pessimist fears
that the optimist is right.... :-)
I think that the optimism/pessimisim distinction is best revealed by
the perceived sign of the first derivative, not the value itself.
If we lived in the best of worlds, the derivative of the near future
must be negative (or at least zero) and the pessimist would probably
be right. Because if the derivative of the near future was to be
positive, then the future would become better. Which means today's
world cannot be the best of worlds. Right?
True. Which is why no optimist believes that things can't get better.
I *don't* believe that "The optimist believes we live in the best of worlds.
-michael
NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."