Friday, May 18, 2007

humans.

there are those who strive for a sort of ascended type of enlightenment made up of an unattachment to the material.

these people are harmless for the most part and are honestly trying to find thier way.

they are hippies.

they eat organic.

they tend to be politically left.

they are missing the point.

we are material beings.

we are made of a pile of chemicals.

we kill and consume living tissue to survive.

we are the virus.

we are the thing they try not to be.

when we return to embracing our humanity we can deal with a visit to the mall and a drive in the country in an suv and a meal in an expensive restaurant occasionally, because we are best suited to urban, technological living.

it is as if we were designed to live in glass and concrete surrounded by software controlled devices.

so embrace it.

it is who we are.

11 comments:

Dr.Alistair said...

there is a pattern emerging that suggests otherwise......

maybe we are just pawns thpugh.

Anonymous said...

"It's as if we're designed to live in glass and concrete surrounded by software controlled devices."

What a novel idea, considering how we've been programmed with guilt that 'natural is best'. Whatever 'natural' means.

I've never thought of it like this before; that our glass and concrete structures are like the ultimate protective shells that are part of the evolutionary process. Extensions of us.

The software devices hearken back to the youtube clip you showed where the man said our communications system are like a 'prosthetic, extended nervous system.' So we can see deep into the universe and deep within ourselves.

-Anon 1

Dr.Alistair said...

well yes, the exoskeleton af a snail protects it from most attacks....

we are unable naturally to protect ourselves from most physical insults with extreme training.

we are a hybrid animal without the defense mechanisms of animals in the wild.

we have niether teeth, claws, footspeed, poisonous spikes or fangs, comparative strength or the ability to withstand the effects of our environment without coverings for any reasonable time.

it is my contention that we are designed to find technology and dwell within it.

what we are seeing emerge now is just the begining.

it has been said that 95% of the technology that we will see in 20 years hasn`t even been invented yet.

if we go back to 1987 we see that it was true then too.

Dr.Alistair said...

and further to extending ourselves.....

the natural final extension is that of consciousness.

the download.

or upload if you prefer.

it is the hot potato of modern philosophical thinking because it scares the shit out of the materialists.

if we can extend our consciousness, which is inate by the way, sufficiently to externalise it in a controllable way we will have successfully created a seperate entity.

we natuarally extend our consciousness by dreaming, meditating or trancing, dancing or mountain climbing or doing drugs or alcohol.

when the technological means arrives we will do that too.

Vincent said...

"it is as if we were designed to live in glass and concrete surrounded by software controlled devices.

"it is who we are"

No, leave me out of this. I feel something different, a primitive person in me.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your thoughts...it's fun to play with ideas.

Anon 1

Dr.Alistair said...

as you wish yves..........

anon 1, yes it is fun to play with ideas.

i am pleased you enjoy mine.

Dr.Alistair said...

marshall mcluhan suggested that we are naturally designed (or inately wired....) to make extensions of ourselves.

things like axes, hammers, power tools, spaceships and buildings.

and of course computers and the internet.

pretty good for monkeys monkeying around.

in a universe full of entropy (chaos, for bill.) there seems to be a statistically unusual amount of order the closer one gets to humans on the surface of the planet.

it would suggest to me that things are done deliberately due to our evolving desire to have these things.

now, either we are just getting better at this by accident or.......something is emerging via our actions.

Dr.Alistair said...

and one other thing that mcluhan said was actually kind of ominous.

he said that whatever aspect of ourselves that is extended becomes anesthetised.

we are working on extending our minds via the internet......

our consciousness is next.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but.

I think it's up to each of us to help decide what form the technology takes: elegant or oppressive? One thing I take from McLuhan is that the form of the technology, not what anyone does with it, is the important thing.

Dr.Alistair said...

form in it`s purest sense follows function.

the most beautiful objects tend to be the ones that work best.

any tecnology can oppress.

a drill press or a computer.

and they can also transcend.

that`s why i like modern art so much.

it is representitive of the transcendant nature or modern technology/media.

andy warhol was right about that.