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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Does history have a destiny?
    #1635987 -

Lots of people like to think it does. It's even hip - 2012 etc.

What do you think? Does history have a preset "endpoint" that it is inevitably winding towards? Or is it just a chaotic more or less random process created by social power struggles?


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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: somebodyelse]
    #1636056 -

yes - the present

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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: somebodyelse]
    #1636074 -

Well, some day the Sun will explode and consume the Earth in a massive ball of fire.

Sometimes, though, I do think that Nature is evolving towards some endpoint, or specific destiny. But this is probably just a fanciful imagination of my human mind, just like how some people believe in God.

If it does have a destiny, what do you think it will be? I have yet to come up with a concrete idea of my own on this subject. I plan to think on it, though.


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Namaste.

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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: RebelSteve33]
    #1636086 -

the sun exploding won't be the end of history, just the end of the earth.

if you're referring to the ultimate fate of the universe, there are only two possibilities: the heat dissipation death of the universe, or gravitational contraction leading to a new big bang.

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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: infidelGOD]
    #1636134 -

it sure does make you feel good to hope that this world is just a warm up for the real deal... breaking out of the egg and whatnot.


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The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side.
- Paul Tillich

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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: somebodyelse]
    #1636456 -

I think our ability to obtain, process, and "spread" data using technology and our minds is barely being realized and should lead to increasingly-frequent and increasingly-large discoveries and creations.. as for a specific "destiny.." I'm not sure... we'll be bringing all of this data with us the whole way, I hope - what's left of history anyway :wink:


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Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE

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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: Strumpling]
    #1638329 -

What kind of question is that? How can you expect an answer anywhere near the truth from people who have as little of an understanding of where things are going to be in ten years as you do? I'm sorry but that's like asking a 5 year old how to solve an inverse quadratic equation.


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No one knows the worth of innocence till he knows it is gone forever, and that money can't buy it back. Not the saint, but the sinner that repenteth, is he to whom the full length and breadth, and height and depth, of life's meaning is revealed. Good and evil loose all objective meaning and are seen as equally necessary and contrasting elements in the masterpiece that is the universe.

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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: nubious]
    #1638545 -

It is very common to believe in prophets or sages, or in people who generally can see where history is going. If history is chaotic, this is a false view. If somehow history has "already happened" (the feeling some get while tripping of being "outside of time", or of time being irrelevant - state specific, so don't argue it, of course it isn't "rational") then there is at least some validity to this viewpoint.

Probably nobody can phiilosophically prove it one way or the other. But doesn't hurt to ask, does it?



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Re: Does history have a destiny? [Re: somebodyelse]
    #1638547 -

I'm not saying this is right, but it is one of the more interesting theories around:


http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html

The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):

* There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
* Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
* Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
* Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.

The first three possibilities depend in large part on improvements in computer hardware. Progress in computer hardware has followed an amazingly steady curve in the last few decades [17]. Based largely on this trend, I believe that the creation of greater than human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years. (Charles Platt [20] has pointed out that AI enthusiasts have been making claims like this for the last thirty years. Just so I'm not guilty of a relative-time ambiguity, let me more specific: I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030.)

What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent entities -- on a still-shorter time scale. The best analogy that I see is with the evolutionary past: Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work -- the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. We humans have the ability to internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals.

From the human point of view this change will be a throwing away of all the previous rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye, an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control. Developments that before were thought might only happen in "a million years" (if ever) will likely happen in the next century. (In [5], Greg Bear paints a picture of the major changes happening in a matter of hours.)

I think it's fair to call this event a singularity ("the Singularity" for the purposes of this paper). It is a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer to this point, it will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a commonplace. Yet when it finally happens it may still be a great surprise and a greater unknown.


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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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