Animals are born with natural ability and instinct; most unable to expand their "knowledge." Man is born blank, he must be taught everything he knows.
Technology is the fruit born of the noosphere of the human species. This is the key factor that follows the awareness of being more than a carnal creature. Once man evolved, if one believes in evolution, from being simple Homo Sapiens into Homo Sapiens Sapiens, meaning "Man Doubly wise", knowledge and wisdom where no longer confined in the body but evolved into a trait passable by heretical progression. Man's evolution was no longer focused in his physical aspects as shown in the skull evidence and stature of Homo Habilis and the recently discovered hobbits Homo Floresiensis of the island of Flores.
This symbolic thought communication, knowledge passed between individuals through symbols, gives rise to the relationship between the metaphysical world that knowledge inhabits and the physical world of the brain. Communication of our thoughts allows a person to no longer represent him or herself alone, but everyone that has ever influenced that person’s thought processes; as to a point of altering the paths and decisions of this person. Nature has the same understanding of communication; this becomes evident in animals demonstrating hunting in packs. Even in the simplistic examples given to us by animals such as: wolves, alligators, orca whales, and even insects; we find some level of higher communication is necessary to accomplish a given community task. Without cooperation these "primal" creatures would have long gone extinct like so many others.
By being able to tap the resources from our past, man has the ability to draw upon the experience of others and using these examples, come to a better understanding of the environment and experiments he has attempted. As mentioned in the Philosophies on God section, a driving force behind development is questioning the world around us. The more people that gather under a single belief or category of questioning the more minds we apply to any application. This gives rise to a very peculiar realization. As more minds come to the common ground of desiring more than the given circumstances they find themselves, the more effective their development can be. We have all heard the saying, "two heads are better than one," but how powerful is the heads of an entire planet when applied to any given task.
We go back to the planet Terranus. Desiring to salvage the environment they have degenerated with years of pollutants and waste, the Terranians decide to focus on the most inefficient component of their world, themselves. Putting aside the thought that embryos are alive, to avoid the obvious moral conflict, the Terranians begin to explore their biological pathways. Realizing that - though nature did it's job in constructing - they are heavily under productive. For what they take in they do not put out as much as they could. They realize that the reason their world is in such bad shape is not only because of the by-products of their existence but also because of the uselessness of the outcome of their biological systems.
In an attempt to correct these problems, the Terranians develop new organelle that process the energy input in more efficient processes creating less waste and more productivity. Doing this by combining their own biology with the hardware available to them. However, due to the complexity involved in controlling DNA, RNA, and chromosome behavior they come to discover a subspecies, cyborgs; the first waste by-produce of their active role in evolving.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Kings of the Hill
Because we no longer fully fall under the guidance of the environment around us it is necessary for us to adapt ourselves to the effects presented to us by our planet. Like the houseflies and mosquitoes adapting to DDT, nature will grant different species with the advantages it deems necessary. Where as we, as dominators and masters of our environment, must decide for ourselves what is necessary.
In the modern world we affect the way the environment and our surroundings appear or respond to us by manipulating and altering the nature of things. This has lead us to this turbulent time in human history. With nature trying to recapture the balance it once knew in the beginning. Human evolution has been stagnant for the last few millennia, and in our stagnancy the systems of the world have been hindered. It then becomes necessary to find the balance that is the “nature” of nature. Humans will either adapt physically to retard the negative effects we have caused or suffer the consequences of our ignorance of nature.
Utter annihilation does not have to come by the use of nuclear weapons in the next world war. It can easily come from our miss-estimation of the way the world will respond to the adverse effects that we have caused it. Some ecologist predict an unexpected ice age, others say we are already experiencing the natural balancing acts in the hurricanes and tornadoes spawned by the rise in the temperature of the planet.
Whatever the method, the universe in which we live will seek balance; it is therefore left to man to decide who controls the way the balance comes about; either by natural occurrence or human intervention. It is only fitting we correct (to the best of our abilities) the problems we have created. That is to say before we even think of expanding to other star systems or local planets (Mars).
Biomechanical evolution therefore refers also to the incorporation of technology into the evolution of a species to allow necessary advancements. These advancements would not and could not come about by any other means. Some current advancements have come about because of our need to contend with changes in the environmental and physical changes in the environments in which we live. This is the reason for diversity among humans, though small differences, these differences are the factors of life and death. Eskimos in Alaska are able to endure the frigid temperatures due to ‘thicker’ skin and higher fat indexes. Yet are very athletic and well adapted for this environment.
In the modern world we affect the way the environment and our surroundings appear or respond to us by manipulating and altering the nature of things. This has lead us to this turbulent time in human history. With nature trying to recapture the balance it once knew in the beginning. Human evolution has been stagnant for the last few millennia, and in our stagnancy the systems of the world have been hindered. It then becomes necessary to find the balance that is the “nature” of nature. Humans will either adapt physically to retard the negative effects we have caused or suffer the consequences of our ignorance of nature.
Utter annihilation does not have to come by the use of nuclear weapons in the next world war. It can easily come from our miss-estimation of the way the world will respond to the adverse effects that we have caused it. Some ecologist predict an unexpected ice age, others say we are already experiencing the natural balancing acts in the hurricanes and tornadoes spawned by the rise in the temperature of the planet.
Whatever the method, the universe in which we live will seek balance; it is therefore left to man to decide who controls the way the balance comes about; either by natural occurrence or human intervention. It is only fitting we correct (to the best of our abilities) the problems we have created. That is to say before we even think of expanding to other star systems or local planets (Mars).
Biomechanical evolution therefore refers also to the incorporation of technology into the evolution of a species to allow necessary advancements. These advancements would not and could not come about by any other means. Some current advancements have come about because of our need to contend with changes in the environmental and physical changes in the environments in which we live. This is the reason for diversity among humans, though small differences, these differences are the factors of life and death. Eskimos in Alaska are able to endure the frigid temperatures due to ‘thicker’ skin and higher fat indexes. Yet are very athletic and well adapted for this environment.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Not all Spheres are created Equal
In the book The Next Hundred Years by Jonathan Weiner, the adverse effects of humanity interact - negatively - with the balance of Earth's natural order. Earth is a system of a few basic-working parts. According to the book's environmentalist and naturalist author, there are seven spheres of an inhabited planet, and they can be thought of (not only figuratively but also, to a surprising extent, literally) as seven spheres.
Earth: This is the round mass of minerals and metals, spinning, more or less solid mass that forms the majority of this "third rock from the sun," and it's surface. This is considered the lithosphere: lithos for stone, and sphere because these layers are a great shell enclosing the core.
Water: With a prospective of an astronaut, the planet's supply of water also forms a great round shell, or sphere, enclosing much of the lithosphere - sometimes called the hydrosphere. All the free flowing water of the world fills this sphere, and as has been proven with the discovery of the great underwater current, has its own cycle and flow; truly representing the blood of the Earth.
Air: The third is a hollow sphere. This is known as the atmosphere. Atmosphere spewed from the volcanoes as hot gases after the crust formed and the compounds which assist in the growth of life. Ever since that time, the planet has been wrapped in a thin loose shell of gases - though the mix of gases has changed greatly over time by the natural development of oxygen producing bacteria and carbon-dioxide providers.
Fire: All planets are bathed in the light of the star(s) they orbit. Our sun formed in space more than 4.5 billion years ago, and our planet is one of nine that coalesced on the sun's periphery. The sun is a great sphere of fire and it heats Earth's atmosphere and the hydrosphere, stirring up powerful currents in both. These currents bent and twisted by the spinning of the lithosphere into all the whorls of weather. This exterior energy is providing the abundant power to fuel the development and processes that created the cycles that fuel all life. All energy utilized in the systems of being can be traced to the energy provided by the local sun of a system, just as our Sun is a constant contributor to our ecological system.
Life: With ourselves being within "the box" (in this case point, "the sphere"), it takes an open mind to perceive that in shape, the whole of life is much like the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere: one of the concentric shells that are wrapped around the bull's-eye of the planet's core. Its existence surrounds the primary heart of the planet. The Swiss geologist Eduard Suess first called the sphere of life the “biosphere.” It could not survive without the others and is therefore, necessarily, younger than the other spheres. The biosphere is more than 3.5 billion years old according to 'scientific methods' of dating.
Ice: The planet at present has two big caps of ice, one at each pole. Some of the taller mountains are ice-capped, too. This ice forms yet another thin concentric shell, the cryosphere (cryo from the Greek for cold or frost). Of course, most of the globe is too warm for ice; but all of the scattered patches of ice on Earth do lie in the shape of a sphere. Though it might be considered a part of the hydrosphere, the cryosphere's behavior is so distinctive and influential it warrants its own position.
For all intended purposes, these spheres alone could contain the evidence of life, one celled amoebae, bacteria, and small organisms. However, what we consider to be true life and life by definition is in the presence of knowledge.
Mind: By far the youngest entrant on the list. Its point of origin is a small tribe of foragers in the African Savannah, a species called Homo habilis, which arose roughly 2 million years ago. This was a transitional species, as the evolutionary biologists E.O. Wilson and Charles J. Lumsden note:
It is this last sphere that has come to dominate the others. This relates to the story of Adam and Eve very easily in the fact that they are expelled from the garden for disobeying what was meant for their good. We where once in a type of homeostasis with the planet, but do to our desire we are no longer a part of the natural evolution of nature. As the planet grows and adapts to its travel and ecological progression through time, we progress as well adapting to our perceived level of comfort. Where a simple clay roof and hay floor would have done in the past, no longer is suitable for the whole of humanity. Where natural selection and evolution takes years even centuries, human technologies evolve in increments of months, even days.
Earth: This is the round mass of minerals and metals, spinning, more or less solid mass that forms the majority of this "third rock from the sun," and it's surface. This is considered the lithosphere: lithos for stone, and sphere because these layers are a great shell enclosing the core.
Water: With a prospective of an astronaut, the planet's supply of water also forms a great round shell, or sphere, enclosing much of the lithosphere - sometimes called the hydrosphere. All the free flowing water of the world fills this sphere, and as has been proven with the discovery of the great underwater current, has its own cycle and flow; truly representing the blood of the Earth.
Air: The third is a hollow sphere. This is known as the atmosphere. Atmosphere spewed from the volcanoes as hot gases after the crust formed and the compounds which assist in the growth of life. Ever since that time, the planet has been wrapped in a thin loose shell of gases - though the mix of gases has changed greatly over time by the natural development of oxygen producing bacteria and carbon-dioxide providers.
Fire: All planets are bathed in the light of the star(s) they orbit. Our sun formed in space more than 4.5 billion years ago, and our planet is one of nine that coalesced on the sun's periphery. The sun is a great sphere of fire and it heats Earth's atmosphere and the hydrosphere, stirring up powerful currents in both. These currents bent and twisted by the spinning of the lithosphere into all the whorls of weather. This exterior energy is providing the abundant power to fuel the development and processes that created the cycles that fuel all life. All energy utilized in the systems of being can be traced to the energy provided by the local sun of a system, just as our Sun is a constant contributor to our ecological system.
Life: With ourselves being within "the box" (in this case point, "the sphere"), it takes an open mind to perceive that in shape, the whole of life is much like the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere: one of the concentric shells that are wrapped around the bull's-eye of the planet's core. Its existence surrounds the primary heart of the planet. The Swiss geologist Eduard Suess first called the sphere of life the “biosphere.” It could not survive without the others and is therefore, necessarily, younger than the other spheres. The biosphere is more than 3.5 billion years old according to 'scientific methods' of dating.
Ice: The planet at present has two big caps of ice, one at each pole. Some of the taller mountains are ice-capped, too. This ice forms yet another thin concentric shell, the cryosphere (cryo from the Greek for cold or frost). Of course, most of the globe is too warm for ice; but all of the scattered patches of ice on Earth do lie in the shape of a sphere. Though it might be considered a part of the hydrosphere, the cryosphere's behavior is so distinctive and influential it warrants its own position.
For all intended purposes, these spheres alone could contain the evidence of life, one celled amoebae, bacteria, and small organisms. However, what we consider to be true life and life by definition is in the presence of knowledge.
Mind: By far the youngest entrant on the list. Its point of origin is a small tribe of foragers in the African Savannah, a species called Homo habilis, which arose roughly 2 million years ago. This was a transitional species, as the evolutionary biologists E.O. Wilson and Charles J. Lumsden note:
"We can describe Homo habilis, without serious distortion, as the head of an intelligent ape riding on the body of a man."The brain of Homo habilis (Latin for "Handyman") was significantly larger than that of other primates, and as the species evolved the brain grew at a steady rate, until our kind - Homo sapien sapiens, Man the Doubly Wise - appeared about 50,000 years ago. We are unremarkable because we can communicate mind to mind, to share knowledge from individual to individual and across generations. This sphere of power, which can affect all others, is known as the "noosphere," the sphere of the mind; but is only figurative.
It is this last sphere that has come to dominate the others. This relates to the story of Adam and Eve very easily in the fact that they are expelled from the garden for disobeying what was meant for their good. We where once in a type of homeostasis with the planet, but do to our desire we are no longer a part of the natural evolution of nature. As the planet grows and adapts to its travel and ecological progression through time, we progress as well adapting to our perceived level of comfort. Where a simple clay roof and hay floor would have done in the past, no longer is suitable for the whole of humanity. Where natural selection and evolution takes years even centuries, human technologies evolve in increments of months, even days.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Ever wonder the why, where and how of the existance of science? I do all the time! http://ping.fm/6KYLC
Blinded by Science - The Nature of Technology
In my earlier post - Decision Time, we began using the fictitious plant Terranus as our guinea pig for discussing social conditions for the conscience aspects of mechanical evolution. Here is the summary:
Terranus begins to realize the benefits of global unity, better schools, increased productivity, and more technological advancements in shorter periods of time. This is a segment of mental evolution. Mental evolution is in close relationship with Theistic evolution, in that both exist outside the physical world, but nevertheless affect it. Whether you believe in The Creator, it took something with order to take chaos and give it structure. Based upon that same principle, man has structured the world to suit his thoughts. Taking nature, with its minerals and creatures, man has given it a structure of machines with moving parts controlled through circuitry. Technology, as define in the 2002 World Book published by World Book Inc., refers to the inventions - including tools, techniques, and processes - that design to make it easier for people to satisfy their needs and desires. To get to a level of technological aptitude for biomechanical evolution to be possible, this step in technology is necessary for a civilization to accomplish.
So begins the evolution of tools and technology. Technology by nature is something man made, and as we evolved mentally, technology evolved with us. Examples of this are ever present around us, from stone scratching and engravings on walls and pillars in Rome, to the modern computers we all have come proficient in (unless you live in the stone ages, as they say.) We have lost sight of the fact that we are evolving every moment. Knowledge and wisdom are considered the seventh sphere in the spheres of nature other wise known as the noosphere. Just as with the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the others the noosphere changes and evolves as the systems within it change.
Technological evolution is therefore tied to the evolution of the species connected to it. In animals these are the traits that give there owners distinctive colors, poisons, or weapons that assist in guaranteeing there existence in the generation to come; the basis of natural selection. Our rapidly deteriorating ecosystem and exponential consumption of resources now force our evolution. With the pollutants we have developed, it is by technology that they have come about. Only higher technology can eradicate these hazards.
These hazards being things like chloroflouro carbons, halo carbons, hazardous waste, and ecological encroachment which all help in destroying the ozone and atmosphere; one of the most vital spheres in our ecology. A small abnormal adjustment in this area can cause the entire pyramid that man sits upon, to fall. In man, our technology is our guarantee of survival, seeing as we have stepped outside the realm of natural selection, becoming dominators of the environment, adversely affecting all seven spheres of nature.
"Terranus has come to the point where I believe we find ourselves [humanity] currently. They can either continue on their current course; i.e. disintegration of their ecosystem, wars, pestilence, and divisions; or find a way to live peaceably. Let say - by some truly miraculous understanding - the Terranians come to realize the error in being divided and decide to unite. "
Terranus begins to realize the benefits of global unity, better schools, increased productivity, and more technological advancements in shorter periods of time. This is a segment of mental evolution. Mental evolution is in close relationship with Theistic evolution, in that both exist outside the physical world, but nevertheless affect it. Whether you believe in The Creator, it took something with order to take chaos and give it structure. Based upon that same principle, man has structured the world to suit his thoughts. Taking nature, with its minerals and creatures, man has given it a structure of machines with moving parts controlled through circuitry. Technology, as define in the 2002 World Book published by World Book Inc., refers to the inventions - including tools, techniques, and processes - that design to make it easier for people to satisfy their needs and desires. To get to a level of technological aptitude for biomechanical evolution to be possible, this step in technology is necessary for a civilization to accomplish.
So begins the evolution of tools and technology. Technology by nature is something man made, and as we evolved mentally, technology evolved with us. Examples of this are ever present around us, from stone scratching and engravings on walls and pillars in Rome, to the modern computers we all have come proficient in (unless you live in the stone ages, as they say.) We have lost sight of the fact that we are evolving every moment. Knowledge and wisdom are considered the seventh sphere in the spheres of nature other wise known as the noosphere. Just as with the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the others the noosphere changes and evolves as the systems within it change.
Technological evolution is therefore tied to the evolution of the species connected to it. In animals these are the traits that give there owners distinctive colors, poisons, or weapons that assist in guaranteeing there existence in the generation to come; the basis of natural selection. Our rapidly deteriorating ecosystem and exponential consumption of resources now force our evolution. With the pollutants we have developed, it is by technology that they have come about. Only higher technology can eradicate these hazards.
These hazards being things like chloroflouro carbons, halo carbons, hazardous waste, and ecological encroachment which all help in destroying the ozone and atmosphere; one of the most vital spheres in our ecology. A small abnormal adjustment in this area can cause the entire pyramid that man sits upon, to fall. In man, our technology is our guarantee of survival, seeing as we have stepped outside the realm of natural selection, becoming dominators of the environment, adversely affecting all seven spheres of nature.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Decision Time
In the book, Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan he gives his view of the times. In the years between the seventies and the new millennium most who agreed with Carl Sagan then agree today.
Here we will begin our observation of a civilization, with the understanding that all matter is composed of some unseen-indefinable matter that begins life with an invisible force. This invisible force makes up quarks, quarks make up neutrons, protons, and electrons, and from there we have all elements of the universe. At a peculiar point in time, this world -- we'll call their planet Terranus-- comes to the point where I believe we find ourselves currently.
They can either continue on their current course; i.e. disintegration of their ecosystem, wars, pestilence, and divisions; or find a way to live peaceably. Let say - by some truly miraculous understanding - the Terranians come to realize the error in being divided and decide to unite. Putting aside their sociological differences in an attempt to focus, as a whole, on one goal: to no longer devour their environment, but to be completely independent from it. This is the beginning a society's biomechanical evolution.
Pg. 47 "We are at a crossroads in human history (we've been there since the atomic bomb). Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands. For the first time we possess the means for intentional or inadvertent self-destruction. We also have, I believe, the means for passing through this stage of technological adolescence into a long-lived, rich and fulfilling maturity for all the members of our species. But there is not much time to determine to which fork of the road we are committing our children and our future."At one point I said we have been led down the wrong paths before - hindering us from being further advances then the ones we currently have. Sooner or later we will knock and open a door, committing to a future and a destiny we would have rather left to children's fantasies. Without taking our lives into our hands with intelligence, patience, and knowledgeable understanding we will set ourselves on a course for chaos and ultimate destruction. The reason for this conclusion is the evidences of the several societies, civilizations, and species that have all gone by the wayside into our history books. Some even becoming folklore because of the lack of evidence.
Here we will begin our observation of a civilization, with the understanding that all matter is composed of some unseen-indefinable matter that begins life with an invisible force. This invisible force makes up quarks, quarks make up neutrons, protons, and electrons, and from there we have all elements of the universe. At a peculiar point in time, this world -- we'll call their planet Terranus-- comes to the point where I believe we find ourselves currently.
They can either continue on their current course; i.e. disintegration of their ecosystem, wars, pestilence, and divisions; or find a way to live peaceably. Let say - by some truly miraculous understanding - the Terranians come to realize the error in being divided and decide to unite. Putting aside their sociological differences in an attempt to focus, as a whole, on one goal: to no longer devour their environment, but to be completely independent from it. This is the beginning a society's biomechanical evolution.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Thermal Efficiency Explained
Of any system such as a machine is defined to be the ratio of the work done to the heat input:
Thermal efficiency = W/QH = Qh - Qc/Qh
All this talk of evolution and God is great for uncovering the motive behind why we do a lot of the small 'human' things we do. But all things have a law to govern them and to govern the outcome of their existence. In the human world there is no difference. This is where we expand upon the laws of thermodynamics in regards to the human system and what all this has to do with our biomechanical evolution.
Thermodynamic law applies to the properties of heat or energy in a system and in the system of life, energy is always being transferred, utilized, and transformed. Because the whole of energy is based on the power of light energy -- with its heat, matter, and wave particle properties -- we find that we are the inefficient end users in the long process of energy procession. The reason that thermodynamic law is vital to biomechanical integration is based on the key notion that any society on the brink of self-destruction must realize that efficiency is vital to prolonging the existence of their species.
Without a clean, renewable source of 'life' energy, all creatures in an ecosystem will exhaust or degenerate a vital link in the cycle, in the end. That is if the source that powers the entire system does not exhaust itself, in our case that would be the sun, and we have plenty of time to enjoy its rays.
In the laws of thermodynamics we find two vital understandings we must incorporate to create processes efficient enough for prolonged use. As well as the reason why the current situation - state of the world as some say - is so critical.
The first law states that in any system energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It is for this reason we can know that throughout the universe all matter and atomic structure is similar to the structure we find in the Milky Way galaxy. This is also supported by the second part of the first law in the fact that all energy in the system -- in this case, the universe as a whole -- is constant never increasing or decreasing. From the death of one star, comes the birth of others. From the death of one life comes another. These laws are not only mathematical but physical, mental, and metaphysical.
The second law states how energy is processed. In a system, energy will follow the path of natural occurrence (ex. hot air flowing into cold), least resistance (ex. electric conductors), and conversion of energy (gasoline engine). What this law defines is the apparent decrease in usable fuel in a system and the efficiency of a given system.
This is where some would argue evolution is flawed in that it does not follow this second law. "Look at a wooden table, it does not evolve into a tree!" I recall a misguided colleague of mine saying when I brought up the topic of evolution. What must be understood is the difference in the laws that govern energy and the laws that govern reality. In reality the table will never evolve into a tree.
But in the second law we can see how the eventual deterioration or conversion of the table could make it into something to be perceived as better. But to stay scientific, we want to look at things in matters of efficiency. As a tree, the wood use to make the table was efficient in converting CO2 into O2, now it is efficient in supporting a surface weight of 425 pounds against the pull of gravity, so which is more efficient? It is up to your definition of efficiency given a set realistic condition.
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