| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"quibbler" |
| Date: |
03 Sep 2006 07:49:05 PM |
| Object: |
Purpose of Secular Life is To Generate Order In the World |
I don't like to engage in teleology much because I think
that religious people, in particular, pursue it with faulty assumptions.
But, to the extent that it's valid to talk about the "meaning of life"
at all, I'd like to offer this. In an imperfect, godless universe man
must struggle to bring a degree of order to it, so that he can have
greater control over his own destiny. Science and technology are just
examples of ways that human beings find solutions that permit their lives
to be more orderly and controllable. A purpose then, for human
existence, presuming we can reasonably speak of such a thing, is to cause
this imperfect universe to be a more orderly, understandable place where
mankind can exist in peace and happiness. Ultimately, as technology and
science advance, at least in theory, we can develop more and more
powerful instrumental means of creating the conditions conducive to the
happiness of ourselves and others.
Now I don't want to get side-tracked on the "evils" of technology,
as perceived by so many alarmist technophobes today. Now some caution
about technology is understandable, but suffice it to say that, in my
experience, it seems that the average person, as conditioned by
television and popular fiction, is probably at least an order of
magnitude too paranoid about the potential negative consequences of new
technology. Religious fundamentalists, likewise, are several orders of
magnitude more paranoid than justifiable about the dangers of many
technologies. Perhaps the reason is because, if they weren't overly
mentally terrorized about the imaginary demons of technology run amoke,
they might turn to science and human ingenuity, rather than god, and it
would heal them. Thus, there has frequently been an adversarial
relationship between religion and the bible.
In any event, as I've already mentioned, making sense of the world
through technology is only an instrumental act because it is ultimately
used to achieve something else. That is, as Aristotle noted in the
Nichomachean Ethics, the ultimate goal of humans is to be happy, because
we do that for its own sake. But we can be happy without there being any
kind of god in the universe and thus can have meaning.
In fact, in a perfect universe where god already knew everything
there would really be nothing left for humans to do. Since things would
already be perfect, there would be no way to improve upon them.
Furthermore, there would really be nothing left to think about, because
the best we could do is redundantly come up with the same answers that
god had already thought about in a much more comprehensive way than our
own minds could grasp. So, if we insist that life should be meaningful,
we should also insist that there be no perfect god, who would render any
human achievements ultimately pointless.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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| User: "quibbler" |
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| Title: Re: Purpose of Secular Life is To Generate Order In the World |
04 Sep 2006 09:58:57 PM |
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In article <1157396235.163333.302720@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>,
simple_language@yahoo.com says...
quibbler wrote:
Now I don't want to get side-tracked on the "evils" of technology,
as perceived by so many alarmist technophobes today.
We cannot control technology for the same reason that we cannot
control the universe.
What reason is that? Maybe you need to stop thinking of technology in a
control freak manner. Technology creates new possibilities. We don't
need to "control" it in order to partake of the benefits. To the extent
that technology still doesn't make our lives optimal in a given setting,
we can develop new solutions.
And what's the alternative. To be controlled by nature? Would you
rather not have medicine or computers or airplanes just because they can
potentially be used in ways that you don't like?
Technology controls us
Not true generally. Some people allow themselves to be marginalized by
technology. However, generally speaking, technology empowers us. Take
the invention of agriculture. It freed us from less reliable means of
food collection. At the same time, it did involve a lot of back-breaking
work and eventually lead to the development of things like cities, which
altered the arrangement of humanity. But the alternative would be living
like a wild animal and probably dying of hunger and malnutrition in our
old age.
and it will replace
us with artificial intelligence creatures by the end of this century.
Perhaps, but we will be part of that AI. In addition to standard AI
there is IA or intelligence amplification. We will increase our own
cognitive abilities probably many times beyond our present levels. Yes,
eventually computers will reach a point where they are "smarter" than the
average person. But we're smarter than chimps and cockroaches and
bacteria too. That doesn't mean that we do away with them. Humans will
be "replaced" in the sense that the historical anachronism known as "homo
sapiens" will be upgraded into a new hybrid form. All the information
that makes us who we are will be uploaded onto an electronic substrate,
rather than one made of meat. But we will still be there in a very real
sense.
The most important scientific fact is the absence of extraterrestrial
civilizations. This fact, often called Fermi Paradox, tells us
everything we need to know about our future.
Nah, that really doesn't tell us much of anything. As you suggest, AIs
will be far smarter than humans. Alien intelligences may simply have
nothing to say to humans that humans would be able to comprehend. It
might be like trying to have a conversation with a fruit fly. Of course,
that's just one of a myriad different scenarios.
By the way, there is nothing orderly about our civilization.
No, there are orderly features to it which are described in elaborate
written records. It's nowhere near as orderly as it could be because we
have not gone through our singular transition stage. But the childhood
of our species is about to end and things will get better fast. All of
our problems right now, concerning fighting over scarce resources will
end when technologies of superabundance, like nano-engineering come into
their own. We perceive AIs as threats because we think of them like
other humans whom we're used to fighting with over resources. But AIs
and humans will desire different resources and won't necessarily want to
interact with each other much. Where we do interact, the relationship
will probably be symbiotic. I suspect that AIs will even respect us as
their forebearers and will find it trivial to provide for our every need.
Order
is associated with wild nature.
Perhaps in the homeostatic sense, but that's really just a function of
the facts of the laws of physics on a macro-level view. On a micro level
view, nature seems a lot less perfect when you have to survive by eating
or being eaten yourself.
Our civilization is really a cancer
destroying the earth.
And technology is our only real hope to fix that.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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