Just the way we are: reinventing our own body’s existence, this time

Much we take for granted as “just-the-way-it-is” in modern civilization are artifacts which have been invented by predecessors who imagined them. Are some of us beginning to invent beyond mere imagining how to make our own bodies artifacts which can surpass the natural end of lifetimes? How much science fiction is what’s already being accomplished by scientists and bioengineers in labs around the world? Whole new sets of ethical questions arise as we re-invent who we are existentially as life forms.

What’s luck got to do with it?

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education — sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.
~ E. B. White
[found at http://grammar.about.com/od/yourwriting/a/advice.htm]

Luck is, in my estimation, the most important idea one can understand, not only about using language interestingly, but also about how the cosmos and everything in it happens. There’s a lot of emphasis by scientists of various stripes on “rules” that determine how things happen; but they really know better: that a sense of predictable mechanics misses the deepest uncertainty out of which anything exists–including you and me!

“metaphysics” and smart apes

Just before I turned out the light last night, I read page one of Dorothy L Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth’s Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind. I want to pass on the text to give you an example of what delights me and stirs me on to continue learning actively.

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(epigraph)
Origin of man now proved.–Metaphysic must flourish.–He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.
Charles Darwin, 1838: Notebook M

What goes through a baboon’s mind when she contemplates the 80 or so other individuals that make up her group? Does she understand their social relations? Does she search for rules that would allow her to classify them more easily? Does she impute motives and beliefs to them in order to better predict their behavior? Does she impute motives and beliefs to herself when planning a course of action? In what ways are her thoughts and behavior like ours, and in what ways–other than the obvious lack of language and tools–are they different? These are questions that also vexed Charles Darwin.

We have taken our title from one of Darwin’s most memorable remarks. He wrote it on August 16, 1838, almost two years after returning from his voyage on the Beagle and 21 years before the publication of The Origin of Species. It was a time of vigorous intellectual activity, when Darwin read voraciously on many subjects, both within and beyond the sciences, and met and talked with many different people, from family friends to prominent literary and political figures (Hodge 2003). Despite this active intellectual life, however, it seems unlikely that he or anyone else had ever combined the words “baboon” and “metaphysics” in the same sentence. What was Darwin thinking?

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That last question “What was Darwin thinking?” is one I ask of humans I learn about throughout history, even of those from pre-history who haven’t written a word of their thoughts, but who have left only artifacts and art. I’m enthused (and awed) by what can be learned about the behaviors and minds of “accidental” humans and their cultures which while timeless in many respects, enlighten our understanding of specific and diverse times and places and people(s). Historicizing what happened (and might happen as a result) is the oldest and most universal of human activities. Amazingly, our narratives are largely in our minds–kinds of fictions–and largely subliminal! Most of the time, if we were asked to elaborate on them, we’d have a difficult time with the “metaphysics” we live by!

What will change everything?

The Edge Annual Question – 2009 is this: “What will change everything?” Or more explicitly: “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?”

If you’re not yet familiar with Edge.org, then you should be. Here’s a little history of Edge provided at their website:

Edge Foundation, Inc., was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds in the world.

The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society. Edge Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit private operating foundation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contributors to Edge own the copyright to their original writing posted on this site and their posting is in effect a license permitting Edge Foundation, Inc. the electronic use of this work. In the event Edge Foundation, Inc. wishes to use the work in a print medium it will not do so before asking and securing the written permission of the author. Edge Foundation, Inc. owns the cumulative copyright to the site.

nature videography

Are you familiar with the films of Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou? If you haven’t shown them to students, you might consider the possibility of doing so. Microcosmos was released in 1996 and Genesis in 2004. The nature videography is unparalleled and is accompanied by orchestral music matched to the activities of various life forms. The mood is meditative, with little human voice overs.