If Humanity can be said to have a gestalt mind,

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Fuzzy
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02 Oct 2008, 7:35 pm

what is its goal or unrealized product?

I mean a semi-unified, possibly unrealized commonality of effort, not some pseudo-scientific hive mind, nor some linked consciousness.

As groups of people of various sizes, we effect projects, perhaps bridges, space programs, social changing philosophies, or other fundamental technologies... These are tiers upon which our lives are changed(hopefully for the better). They enable us to do greater things yet.

But right now, all our fighting, squirming, building, inventing and thinking is an attempt to hammer out... what? What is the fruit of our global labours?


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chever
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02 Oct 2008, 8:02 pm

Who knows?

It's like a chorus where everyone is screaming discordantly and whoever screams loudest sets the tone for the future.


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techstepgenr8tion
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02 Oct 2008, 9:51 pm

Self-discovery, and I think its going to be one where, as time goes on, we'll get to know that yes - everything concrete that we see in our reality is there, all the dark and unlit corners are what they appear to be. However, I do believe that we are ultimately going to find out that there is a God and that we are here for, well, rather biblical reasons - its going to be one hell of a head-trip for a lot of us.



Letum
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02 Oct 2008, 9:52 pm

In the words of Sir Marcus Browning MP:

...crucial questions:
Where are we? How did we get here? Why did we come? Where do we want to go? How do we want to get to where we want to go? How far do we have to go before we get to where we want to be? How would we know where we were when we got there? HAVE WE GOT A MAP? Why did we leave places to get to where we are? Why did we have to leave the places we where before we got to the places we knew we wanted to be? where would we end up if we had the choice? Where would we end up if we didn't have the choice? What would we chose, given the choice? do we have that choice to choose? Or, indeed, can we be choosy about that choice? What are the chooses?..err...choices. DO WE WANT TO STOP NOW? (rhetorical) Or do we want to go right back to the beginning and start again? Perhaps not, but surely, surely, you can see my point; because what I am talking about is life.



For a very long time there was no concept of humanity's progression or advancement. In part this was because technology used to move a lot slower before the industrial revolution and in part because the church was focused on personal progress to the afterlife and awaiting the day of judgment. This left little room for secular advancement of man and improvement in this life, for this life.
Your question might seam quite strange to someone living several hundred years ago. It is certainly a question of it's time.

Personally, I think that if we don't know our goals, we don't have them. humanity can't have goals it doesn't know about.



Fuzzy
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03 Oct 2008, 2:00 pm

Letum wrote:
Personally, I think that if we don't know our goals, we don't have them. humanity can't have goals it doesn't know about.


Thats what I am thinking. Humanity needs a clear stated goal. If we reach that, we pick another.

No, scratch that. We need a focus. A plan cuts through a lot of nonsense.


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07 Oct 2008, 6:18 pm

According to quantum theory (if I understand it), the universe is unpredictable and random, there are infinite possibilities so who knows. Nothing is as it appears, surface reality is illusion. Quantum theory scared Einstein, who could not handle its implications.



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07 Oct 2008, 10:21 pm

There is actually only one functioning brain among all of humanity. This is the Space Brain. It does all the thinking for human beings. However, the Space Brain does not have unlimited bandwidth per hectare. There is a limit to the intelligence the Space Brain imparts that varies inversely to the density of people in a given area. Thus, the more people there are in any group, the stupider each one of them becomes.

The Space Brain theory explains the behavior of sports fans, the conduct of warfare, and all political parties.



Fuzzy
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07 Oct 2008, 11:06 pm

Dogbrain wrote:
There is actually only one functioning brain among all of humanity. This is the Space Brain. It does all the thinking for human beings. However, the Space Brain does not have unlimited bandwidth per hectare. There is a limit to the intelligence the Space Brain imparts that varies inversely to the density of people in a given area. Thus, the more people there are in any group, the stupider each one of them becomes.

The Space Brain theory explains the behavior of sports fans, the conduct of warfare, and all political parties.


The name is a little silly, but the concept is agreeable. On the other hand, It seems to be that there is a required human biota mass in order to sustain and invent new things. The simplest example would be that you cannot sustain a university in a medieval village.

In our modern world we have organized to a degree that we can sustain thousands of very large universities. Even most third world countries can do it.

This is what I was thinking on with my original post. Some paradigm shift reduced cost, corruption and waste enough that suddenly education became much more available.

Whats next is hard to say, but perhaps easy access to space is on the ticket. Perhaps a revolution in energy supplies.

The vastly cheapened ability to colonize space might(undoubtably of course) alleviate a bottleneck in population growth, and the resultant burst in population should enable a magnitude of exploration and discovery.

So might(to a lesser extent) a revolution in energy sources.

So I guess, contrary to many, and despite the fact that I dont really like em, I feel our world needs more people. And falling short of advocating dictatorship, we need to organize better.


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Psimulus
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09 Oct 2008, 7:52 am

Fuzzy wrote:
what is its goal or unrealized product?

I mean a semi-unified, possibly unrealized commonality of effort, not some pseudo-scientific hive mind, nor some linked consciousness.

As groups of people of various sizes, we effect projects, perhaps bridges, space programs, social changing philosophies, or other fundamental technologies... These are tiers upon which our lives are changed(hopefully for the better). They enable us to do greater things yet.

But right now, all our fighting, squirming, building, inventing and thinking is an attempt to hammer out... what? What is the fruit of our global labours?


I think it is to become creators as we have been created. Growth, survival, exploration, questing, self sustainability, also come into mind. Attempted mastery of our emotions also seem to be a worthy pursuit along our journey.


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Fuzzy
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09 Oct 2008, 12:53 pm

Psimulus wrote:
I think it is to become creators as we have been created. Growth, survival, exploration, questing, self sustainability, also come into mind. Attempted mastery of our emotions also seem to be a worthy pursuit along our journey.


That sounds laudable to me Psimulus. Those things are good.


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ShawnWilliam
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09 Oct 2008, 12:57 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
Letum wrote:
Personally, I think that if we don't know our goals, we don't have them. humanity can't have goals it doesn't know about.


Thats what I am thinking. Humanity needs a clear stated goal. If we reach that, we pick another.

No, scratch that. We need a focus. A plan cuts through a lot of nonsense.


a goal?... who's going to vote on this goal.. a few billion people?.. what about the other 3 billion people who just want to live in harmony, and don't find any reason to slave at 8 hour a day dead end jobs the rest of their life..? we don't need a goal, unless it is to reverse this ambitious greedy society.