However, we are on a collision course with two destinies: the planet is about to throw us off like a horse switching its tail at a persisten dobson fly, while at the same time we are on the point of making a series of phenomenal scientific breakthroughs that may finally take the mind in the direction it has been trying to go ever since we looked up and saw the stars, which is outside of the body, into the surrounding world and universe, into total knowledge, total freedom and a future so fantastic that what we will be in fifty years will be so radically different from what we are now that we will be all but unrecognizable to ourselves.
And once again, a bit reluctantly, I find myself agreeing with him.
7 comments:
"For the past three million years, though, the opposite has been true. The continuous cycle of cooling and heating that the planet is now undergoing has wrought havoc in nature. The number of species has been in decline for that entire period, and has just now reached the peak of the bell curve."
That's gobbledygook to me. Or can someone translate it into making sense? Decline is going down, peak is going up.
I think his "death wish" idea is not well grounded. Those who are interested in having us fight all those wars have a life wish of a strength that is truly awesome. It's just that our living in peace gets in the way of their living the way they want to live.
Whitley can flit from the bizarre to the obvious to the profound. I dont always know what to think about what he writes but I know Ill keep reading.
Also keep in mind that the mathematics behind Terence McKenna's "Timewave Zero" have been found to be flawed (and this itself is in contention).
http://www.levity.com/eschaton/sheliak/foreword.html
Whitley can flit from the bizarre to the obvious to the profound.
You forgot borderline-incoherent.
More and more, people in the 2012/singularity crowd are sounding eerily similar to the christian rapture crowd. I just remember what my grandpa once told me. Every generation believes both that it invented sex, and that the end is nigh.
More and more, people in the 2012/singularity crowd are sounding eerily similar to the christian rapture crowd.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed.
Borderline incoherent? I think not. I'm a geology student, and he knows exactly what he's talking about.
"For the past three million years, though, the opposite has been true. The continuous cycle of cooling and heating that the planet is now undergoing has wrought havoc in nature. The number of species has been in decline for that entire period, and has just now reached the peak of the bell curve."
This statement could have been written by a scientist. It's extremely accurate. BUT you need to understand some geology, a fair amount of paleontology and not a little paleoclimatology to fully appreciate it.
I'll tell you what this guy is: a genius who is being wasted at a time when we really need these minds to be where they belong, in the sciences.
Too bad that he's such an outsider. What a shame.
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