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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 |
