A spaceship called Imminency II

Granted. One day, if humanity needs to take a spaceship to another planet to survive, the knowledge of how that spaceship needs to be maintained would be a technology that humanity depends on for its survival. But what about today? Although there are a large variety of existing technologies, none of it involves the survival of humanity as a whole, right? That depends on how you define technology.

Technology

What is technology? It is the knowledge of how to use the resources at our disposal to make devices that serve specific purposes. Well, it does not have to involved physical devices. Technology can also be represented by methodology – techniques of how to do things. Often the use of specific tools requires some sophisticated knowledge.

If we see it broadly enough, almost all the knowledge that we have can to some extent be seen as some form of technology. Perhaps it would be a stretch to think of the waltz as a form of technology, but that may be the exception.

So what technology, seen in this broader sense, is vital for the survival of humanity today? Well, in this broad sense, the technology of acquiring and maintaining knowledge is in itself also a technology. In fact, the mechanism for the way humanity learns and uses knowledge can be seen as a technology. When viewed in this way, it is clear that such a technology would be something that humanity needs for its survival.

This technology has a name. It is called culture. One may think of culture as things like theater, cuisine, fashion, etc., but culture is much more than that. These things are high culture, which is just a tiny part of culture. One may think that culture is a fixed rigid thing, but that is not the case. It evolves and changes as time goes by. One may think of culture as just a collection of traditions and activities, but in fact, it is a mechanism.

Culture is the most important mechanism by which humanity maintains its survival in an ever changing world. If we lose it, we are in a serious situation. I’m not taking about “losing our cultures,” instead I’m referring to losing the mechanism of culture.

Culture is a feedback system that filters new ideas and maintains the best among them. For this to work, it is important that new ideas are tested before they are propagated through the population. This mechanism is under threat today. The rate at which ideas are propagated far outpaces the rate at which these ideas are tried and tested. The result is that false information is spread far and wide. People are responding to it with detrimental consequences. This process erodes the very mechanism of culture and thus threatens the survival of humanity.

A spaceship called Imminency

What would happen if there is a technology that humanity depends on for its survival and then they forget how to maintain that technology? Yes, it is a rhetorical question. But why would there be such a technology? Humanity evolved as a species that survives without the need for any special technology. Don’t they?

To illustrate a scenario where such a thing can happen, I’ll tell a story. It is a story about a situation that can happen at some point in our future.

Far into the future, the people of earth realized that life on earth is doomed. To save humanity, they built a vast spaceship and called it Imminency. Then they loaded it with all the knowledge of mankind. A large number of people entered the spaceship, taking with them all the resources they would need for a long journey through space to a different planet where they hope to establish a new home for humanity. If this mission would fail, humanity would cease to exist.

The journey would take several generations to complete. Therefore, each new generation needs to be taught how to maintain the life support systems of the spaceship.

So, here we have that scenario that I talked about at the beginning.

For a while it worked, but humans are humans. Their ideas drift. The human mind is capable of much diversity. It is inventive and resourceful. So at some point some very clever people came up with reasons why children should not be taught all this knowledge of the technology. And so it happened that, after a few more generations, the knowledge of how to maintain the technology that keeps humanity alive got lost.

Slowly, the life support systems started to fail, but nobody knew how to solve the problem. They did not understand the technology and did not know how to fix the failing systems.

I don’t like stories with bad endings so I won’t leave this one in such a condition. Fortunately, in the vast libraries that was loaded onto the spaceship at the beginning the knowledge of how these systems work and how they are to be maintained still existed. Some young people then got hold of this knowledge and they started to fix the systems.

Obviously I have some other reason for telling your this story, but I’ll leave that for another day. In the meantime, you may think about this story and what it means.

No to science pledge

As a physicist, I understand what science is about. I have a good understanding of the scientific method and what science has achieved. But, unlike many other physicists it seems, I also know about the limits of science.

So, recently, I saw this “pledge for science” where people are asked to add their support to say that they put their trust in science. Unfortunately, I could not find a fully worded statement of this pledge to understand exactly what is meant by it. What does it mean to put your trust in science?

To be honest, I think I know where this is coming from. With all the anti-vaxxers, followings on the heals of global warming denial, and all those kinds of trends and misinformation that is being spread via social media, it is not surprising that some reaction would follow from the scientific community. However, one needs to guard against an over-reaction.

Science does not have a clean track record. It is unfortunately responsible for several serious problems in our world today. Take for instance global warming. It does not take much to realize that in as far as it is caused by human activity, it is with the aid of scientific development that this human activity is able to cause global warming.

Another example is weapons of mass destruction. Through scientific investigation humanity achieved the point where it can cause unprecedented death and destruction. Not exactly a highpoint in human cultural achievement. Once this door was opened, nothing could close it again. Forever, humanity will have this sword having over its head.

One can proceed to list other negative effects of scientific development such as pollution and the hole in the ozone layer, but I think the message is clear by now. An unconditional trust in science is a very dangerous thing. Instead, one should rather support an effort to get people educated and informed, not only about science and the scientific method, but also about other aspects of culture. For instance, if people have better knowledge of history, they would have a better understanding of how ignorance can lead to terrible things.

Let me emphasize then, I do not support an unconditional pledge to put my trust in science. In fact, it is a dangerous thing to put one’s unconditional trust in any specific thing on this earth.

Humanity vs the human

The world is in the grip of a pandemic. In many ways, it tests the systems that have come into existence through the cultural development of humanity. To some extent, it may even be testing its survivability.

If humanity were still in the process of biological evolution, the outcome of the test would simply be determined by the survival-of-the-fittest criterium. But humanity has moved beyond mere biological evolution. It has developed culture.

Culture provides a mechanism that can circumvent the threats posed by the environment, even when humans are not the “fittest.” A culture can adapt much faster than the genome. The pandemic is testing the fitness of culture as a mechanism for survival.

The world consists of many different cultures. Each culture provides various systems, including those responsible for government, finance, education, health and so forth. All these systems must work together to provide the protection for the people of these cultures during times such as these.

We live in a time where the cultures of the world have started to merge. The information obtained through research and the technologies that are developed are shared among all the cultures. The benefit of cooperation is obvious. For any single culture to survive, it is necessary that all of humanity survives.

While the picture of the world in terms of cultures may give a positive view of humanity’s prospects, it does not reveal the negative side. For this picture to prevail, these cultures need to be healthy. Here lies the problem.

A culture transcends the mechanism of biological evolution in that it cares for the individual members of the culture. The golden rule “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” forms the foundation for civilization. It allows people to live and work together to enable the development of culture and to achieve the great works that are associated with it.

At some point, it was decided that the golden rule is not enough. Individuals need more protection. So people introduced the notion of “human rights” and even call them “fundamental.” The idea makes sense, but begs the question of a culture that is at least moderately civilized. Within the context of the golden rule the concept of human rights can work.

But the world contains many communities where the cultural development is either lacking or has decayed to the point where the golden rule is not part of culture. In such situations, human rights provides a platform from which a community can be terrorized. The individual is elevated above the community. The result is a general breakdown of culture and a return to the survival of the fittest scenario.

Examples of this breakdown becomes prevalent. People oppose the attempts of governments to contain the spread of the virus. In some cases, these situations become violent. It threatens the culture’s ability to protect.

Human rights have a place in culture, but it must be placed in balance with the protection of the community. The individual human is not more important than all of humanity. How this balance should work and be implemented is not clear to me at the moment. But I’m sure the thinkers of our time can come up with some ingenious ideas.

Consequences of lockdown

It is now just over a week since we entered lockdown. The statistics of the number of known COVID-19 cases seemed to have flattened off, but the authorities warn that there may be many more people that are infected that we don’t know about yet.

… don’t panic, don’t panic …

So, here we are going about our business in as far as one can go about one’s business sitting at home. Of course we need to stay positive. This is especially important for those of us living alone. As a result, I find myself thinking about the situation, observing how things develop and trying to think what it will lead to. I came to the conclusion that the world will probably never be the same again. Even assuming we get through this (and I guess one must hold onto the conviction that we will get through it), there are certain things that (I think) will change forever.

What does the future hold?

Perhaps you’ve already heard that one of the effects of lockdown is that more people will start to work from home. Video conferencing will become more prevalent. So will online file-sharing facilities and all that kind of stuff. (Let’s just hope the internet keeps on working.) However, I think there is another consequence that has been largely ignored. It is something I call the collective impetus.

So, what is this collective impetus? A long long time ago there was this TV series called Star Trek. It actually spawned several different series. One of the iconic antagonists that appeared in many of these series, but especially in Star Trek Voyager is the Borg, a cybernetic hive mind that called itself the Collective. It would inform its victims: “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

Some time ago I started to see a resemblance between the Collective (the Borg) and those people that are constantly on their cellphones. It occurred to me that the obsession of these people to be in contact with others (so much so that they even do that while driving a car) effectively means that they are gradually becoming part of a collective hive mind.

Enter lockdown. Now, what little face-to-face interaction people had is drastically reduced. As a result, more people are forced to keep contact with one another via cellphones. Hence the collective impetus. The society that will emerge after the lockdown may look significantly more like a collective than before the lockdown.

Is this what cellphones will look like in the future?

One can even imagine that cellphones will eventually start to look like the devices on the heads of people in the Borg. Perhaps this is the next phase in the evolution of the universe. Perhaps people will lose their individuality and the whole collective hive mind will start to act like a single organism. What about those of us that refuse to become part of this collective?