Inevitable Opportunities
[part 4 of 4]
© David Moorhead — January 2007
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In his entertaining talk presented at TED dot com, legendary physicist David
Deutsch weaves a compelling and complex stance for the study of quantum theory
as zenith for survival of the human species. My delight and much fascination
inspired this essay [part 4 of 4], highlighting a few of his revelations in
a 20-minute talk videoed in Oxford, UK, July 2005. Refer TEDTalks at ted dot
com.
Our special relationship to the laws of physics—our inevitable opportunities
and abilities for creating relevant knowledge quicker, interpreting knowledge
into new explanations, to be an hospitable hub of existence in the universe—sets
apart our species from every other species, and sets apart present civilization
from all gone before.
Our species can survive, and can fail to survive. Civilization’s survival
doesn’t depend on chance, nor on material resources which are abundant,
but on accumulation of knowledge which is scarce.
Our planet (even a polluted Earth) and galaxy are inundated with evidence
for discoveries of fundamental truths of all sciences; truths—evidence,
energy, and matter, without special dispensation or miracle—have saturated
this place in our universe for billions of years.
Challenges are inevitable, and they are soluble; humans need problem fixes,
not more problem avoidances. Until we depend on our knowledge to reveal fixes,
then there are inevitable possibilities the human species is in line for extinction.
That shouldn’t be new news to us. Human extinction almost occurred more
than once during the most recent four million years, not to speak of myriad
species that won’t survive beyond today.
For a layperson of global warming, the rational consideration is to take
seriously the prevailing scientific theory. According to that theory, it’s
already too late to avoid a disaster. If it’s true our best option is
to prevent CO2 emissions, with its treaty protocol of economic
constraints and enormous costs, then that is already a disaster by any reasonable
measure. And, the advised actions are not purported to solve problems but
to postpone them.
It was already too late before the 1970s when the best scientific theory
exclaimed the perishing of billions of humans and other species by industrial
pollutants precipitating an ice age ruination.
What do some fixes look like? Here are three examples detained as fringe research:
Setting swarms of mirrors in space to deflect the sun’s increased heat;
planning for sustaining life in higher temperatures; and, encouraging classic
species that already eat carbon dioxide to eat more of it.
Facing inevitable problems that we do not yet foresee is our only hope of problem
solving and surviving. The inevitable opportunities to put right, not the sheer
misfortune of indefinitely avoiding, is our only answer.
No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account
not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
~ Isaac Asimov (b 1920), author, biochemist who explained complicated
things in ordinary language
Go to Everyone
Already Knows [part 1], or return
to Articles.
Our constant curiosity
is key
to watching what’s being created.
~ David Moorhead |