I have officially gotten to a point in this book where I found myself reading words on a page and not understanding any of it. When going through the chapter entitled, "Protecting the Past", I noticed I was barreling ahead despite not really having a clear understanding of what I was reading. I try very hard never to do this -- it sometimes defeats the purpose of reading. I like to re-read sentences until I fully understand the concept before moving on. This one chapter though, it just left me in the dust. I even tried to get a crash course on time travel from a friend at a bar to better understand, but I think he had had a few too many drinks to coherently explain theoretical physics in a clear way (shocker). He did suggest I check out a few podcasts from Ohio State University that would lead me out of the dark (which I definitely plan to do). I will have to re-read that chapter after I listen to the podcasts.
The next chapter, "Our Future? Star Trek or Not?" was the complete opposite of the chapter I described above -- it was very easy to understand. It was almost too mainstream. I could see an article like it in a newspaper. In this chapter, Hawking shows the exponential explosion of growth and progress that has taken place in human society and how it is intuitive that some of the growth will not be sustainable. Population growth, electricity consumption, and the number of scientific articles published have all increased exponentially in recent times. If these trends continue at their current rates, by 2600 the world's population will be standing shoulder to shoulder and electricity use will make the Earth glow red-hot (page 158). Luckily none of us will be around that far in the future to witness whether that will be come a reality or not.
After reading half a dozen books and watching half a dozen documentaries on the food economy and the future of food, I have personally come to the conclusion that genetically modifying our food (fruits, vegetables, and animals) will end up biting us in the ass at some point. So if someone asked me how I would feel if they wanted to do the same thing with HUMANS -- on a cellular level actually go in and add favorable traits while minimizing or removing the less favorable ones -- I would tell them that is crazy talk and what are we going to become but some kind of Brave New World lab experiment. This is also just my humble opinion -- I claim to not be an expert in anthropology or biology, or futurism. That is why it shocks me to see someone like Hawking, a dedicated EXPERT in his field, anticipate the ability of the human race to increase its own biological complexity, especially if biological systems are to keep ahead of electronic ones. Our limiting factor? Brain size, restricted by the size of the birth canal. He predicts that in the next hundred years we will be able to grow babies outside the human body to circumvent this limitation. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Hawking was actually in the news this week as going on the record suggesting for humans to "abandon earth" (Click here for article). But this is just his prediction for the very long-term as he feels that earth will likely be uninhabitable for mankind in the future. Of course this is just a rational conclusion drawn by a scientist based on observations of extrapolated data and previous behavior of human society (i.e. man narrowly escaping extinction during the Cuban missile crisis in 1963), but the way the news reported this was of course sensational, as illustrated by the headline, "Stephen Hawking's Warning: Abandon Earth -- or Face Extinction." Really, Big Think? Is that what you got from his interview? Much of what Hawking predicts is based on past human behavior being indicative of future behavior, and based on that I would have to agree -- it appears our future is bleak. However, I disagree that man will continue along its current trajectory. I believe that something will disturb the status quo to a point where man will be unable to continue with business-as-usual. Any number of things on a global level could interrupt the path of human existence -- nuclear war, water crises, food crises, oil/energy crises, a political revolution, etc. This is only my opinion and as I mentioned before, I am no expert. But maybe there is a little bit of hope rooted at the bottom of my beliefs -- maybe I hope there is some kind of global crisis that ends up changing the future for our great-great-great-great-grandchildren so they will not be destined to live in space stations with artificial gravity where being "with child" means you have a pod at home growing a fetus genetically modified to include all of the characteristics (physical and psychological) you deem to be important in offspring.
One more chapter in "The Universe in a Nutshell", then it's 24/7 studying for the series 24 principal exam for work =(
No comments:
Post a Comment