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The Ragged Trousered Philosopher
or 'RTP' as we are affectionately known to
our friends, is an exercise in Web
authorship which has been going on since  1996
(the core 'book' was started in 1986), the
title of which was inspired by Robert Tressell's
classic 'The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists'. But that's about as far
as the resemblance goes.
There is little doubt that life on Earth
is headed in the general direction being
painted here. Entropy, chaos and quantum
mechanics have somehow turned primitive
information first into energy, then
matter, then self-motivating matter,
intelligent matter and, with us, matter
that can begin to create even more intelligent
matter.
Now, what is somewhat less certain
is whether any remnants of the intelligent
consciousness of our own species will
survive 'coherently' into the future. Or
will our dust simply be recycled like the
atoms within our bodies - immortal, yet
lifeless other than as a bit player on an
infinite stage.
Whether we are destined to be dust
or deity
will be determined by how well we
learn to cope with the challenges of being
intelligent. Intelligence is, ultimately,
the most destructive force in the
universe. It has the capacity, also, to be
the most creative. That knife edge we now
live on.
For the next several hundred years
(at least), we will uncover ever more
dangerous secrets of the universe. It is
necessary to master each in turn in order
to continue our evolution. Yet each one
will increasingly be capable of
terminating our existence.
Our choices are:
to die slowly - we could, with planet-wide
agreement, probably eke out a few million
years on this planet. And some think
that's good enough.
to die quickly - by proceeding with blind
faith and failing to appreciate or
deal with the problems that lie ahead. For
instance, will we bite the bullet on
greenhouse gases? Or will we watch half
the world drown over the next hundred
years?
Will we unravel the cure for aging and
biological death, not just by decoding the
human genome, but by reverse engineering
it? Or will an insane terrorist modify a
combination of ebola fever and the aids
virus to produce a pandemic of incurable
diseases that spreads more easily than the
common cold and has a 99% mortality?
Or can we think ahead?
spam killer |
