[lotuseclat79]

Originally Posted by Stoner

How did you determine technology is self replicating?
With out the intellect of man, the next closest concept to technology is the adaptation of physical elements ( rocks, sticks, etc ) by other animals.
I'm not aware of any other species being able to synthesize beyond what is physically or genetically available.
Man synthesizes what does not occur naturally.


Doesn't mean there is or isn't.......but in the practical sense, it (danger) can be an element. Depends on the application.


I'd rather stick to what is recognizable, Tom......
Lets use the reality we live in.



Please, speak for your self

Hi Jack,

Software genetic algorithms are an example of self-replicating technologies. On the biology or nanotechnology front, I believe there have been experiments with new life forms or technology that produce via self replication an instance of itself that moves and do some minimal kind of work like push something - if I am not mistaken. I'll look for a reference, though it may take a while to whittle it down.

Well, the apes have been taught to communcate with us - so, they have some rudimentary level of language skills - it is known that they can express concepts and put together sentences when they get to a certain level of mastery.

I have used reality as a background Jack. Whether you like it or not, Jack, you are considered a member of:

Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: H. Sapiens

-- Tom

P.S. So, yes, you are an animal ( a member of the animal kingdom) as am I and are all humans. And, I have spoken for myself, thank you very much!

[TooBad]

I have to disagree with Chicon on this. Every technological invention has affected natural selection for just about the entire ecosystem and we are part of that system and natural selection has therefore also been affected. Take pestisides for example, or anti-bacterial drugs and cleaners. They have caused species to become resistent to the pesticide or chemical in order to survive or else they go extinct. In which case that food chain is interrupted and the next level up the food chain must alter its habits to survive, etc. etc. etc.

Intellect is not reserved to humans, many animal species display a great deal of intellect. What makes us different, IMHO, is that we are the only species that tries to alter our environment rather than simply adapt to what we find. Please don't say that beavers making a dam are altering their envronment, only rearranging what they find to create a safe haven to raise their little ones. Same with any burrowing animal. Humans create new materials to fabricate a new envronment.

Obviously this is a simpistic answer and this is a very good thread that can easily accomodate many tangents of thought. Personally, I like the idea of the "Darwin awards" thinning the herd. There are many people that have no clue as to the underlying structure of technological advancements, so that does not automatically differentiate from other animals.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

Yes Iltos, the idea that these are supposed to be separate adds to the rift.

well now....that's interesting.....
alan watts....not a scientist, but a student of zen, made a pretty convincing case for western culture being all about the separation of "self" from the world....in western terms, i s'pose thats ego

which begs the question, imo, of whether technology is the root cause or one of its effects......

and when i get to this question, i am always reminded of a group back in the northeast somewhere, who (years ago, now) build "biological islands" that floated around lakes in the area, cleaning them of pollutants....

extraordinarily high tech, in terms or our intellect's understanding of the natural world....and equally low tech in terms of a "manifestation (the physical presence) of thought"

in short.....a bridge across the chasm, imo.

Maybe we acquired this attitude as a remnant of our wanting to dominate nature

but i'm not sure we do, as a species.....a good number of us seem to long for it (do we have some "instinct"?)...religion has made an icon of it.....we are in a constant scientific struggle to fight the results of our impact on it...(both of which are a product of intellect)

there seem to be two directions in technology....
one IS the desire to simply physically overwhelm nature with huge engineering projects....
the other is to capture the processes of the world at their source.....miniaturization (nano this, micro that...stuffing more and more into less and less)

paolo soleri, who i consider to be so far ahead of his time as to be nuts, is nonetheless a visionary kind of nuts....rather than contolling all of nature, he advocates controlling ourselves first, by "miniaturizing" our presence.....stuffing all of our technology into things he calls "archologies", which are basically pre-planned "city-structures", environmentally engineered to have as little impact on the world as possible

to "underwhelm" nature with our engineering prowess, i guess

the result of the vision is a species that uses its intellect in harmony with the rest of natural selection

ironically, one of the things that invariably turns any discussion 'bout him sour is the realization that it would demand a certain sacrifice of "free will"

it is, at its heart, one possible outcome of "social organization" based on intellect and its manifestation- technology

it also, however, cuts against the grain of almost everything that we believe in the west....politically, it is some hybrid between the "white" of individual freedom and democracy...and the "black" of the collective.....communism....and so pretty distasteful

maybe, then....the issue is not some remnant of our wish to dominate nature that is at fault
maybe it's just a genetic byproduct of the adaptation called "intellect".....
along with its capacity to grasp the infinite of potential that we possess.....we've also acquired the recognition of power

it's use is our struggle to survive, imo.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Hi Jack,

Software genetic algorithms are an example of self-replicating technologies. On the biology or nanotechnology front, I believe there have been experiments with new life forms or technology that produce via self replication an instance of itself that moves and do some minimal kind of work like push something - if I am not mistaken. I'll look for a reference, though it may take a while to whittle it down.

Well, the apes have been taught to communcate with us - so, they have some rudimentary level of language skills - it is known that they can express concepts and put together sentences when they get to a certain level of mastery.

I have used reality as a background Jack. Whether you like it or not, Jack, you are considered a member of:

Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: H. Sapiens

-- Tom

P.S. So, yes, you are an animal ( a member of the animal kingdom) as am I and are all humans. And, I have spoken for myself, thank you very much!

Ah ....in the scientific taxonomic sense you are correct.
But I really was looking for the separation....the distinction that defines the difference between man and 'everything else'.
More along the lines of one of Websters meanings:
animal.....
"any such organism other than a human being, esp. a mammal or, often, any four-footed creature "

So, yes, you are an animal

And yet different.

That 'difference' is unique to man who not only is a dominant biologic force, but is so because of that difference.........his intellect.

Biologically..... we know where we came from.
Ask any other member of our taxonomic family.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by BanditFlyer

...................

Also, the deforestation, to my knowledge, has been largely on the west coast. In the midwest, the presence of European Americans caused an increase in the amount of forests due to the suppression of fire that American Indians did NOT do when they were the only humans present in the midwest. Previous to European Americans settling in the midwest, there were very few forests due to annual fires burning out all saplings.

............................

I went searching for conditions prior to the 1800s in the mid west.
Quite interesting read here, Bandit:
http://home.flash.net/~falline/ocrPrimeval.htm

The influence of man (Indian) seemed very profound even in his primitive technological state.

[iltos]

Originally Posted by Stoner

I went searching for conditions prior to the 1800s in the mid west.
Quite interesting read here, Bandit:
http://home.flash.net/~falline/ocrPrimeval.htm

The influence of man (Indian) seemed very profound even in his primitive technological state.

excellent read, all rightee

but i wonder if technologically primitve isn't a misnomer.....certainly they lacked machinery and materials that we take for granted.....but the article points to degree of "technical understanding" in native american cultures, based on generations of observation and experimentation, with the goal of carving out a place within the natural world, that we are only just getting 'round to.

still the article seemed, to me, anyway, to then ignore the fundamental difference in their attitude towards nature....that "I-Thou" thing (as opposed to "I-You")....it's point being that europeans 'grafted' their version of the landscape onto the preexisting, native american version...

a bit of self-justification, that, imo....tho in fairness, the "philosophic" aspects of the questions posed where not completely ignored.

what it revealed was two different approaches to the use of intellect...one pragmatic and still reverant...the other, supremely inventive and a bit arrogant.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by iltos

....





it is, at its heart, one possible outcome of "social organization" based on intellect and its manifestation- technology



maybe, then....the issue is not some remnant of our wish to dominate nature that is at fault
maybe it's just a genetic byproduct of the adaptation called "intellect".....
along with its capacity to grasp the infinite of potential that we possess.....we've also acquired the recognition of power

it's use is our struggle to survive, imo.

Some of the things that come to mind here.....
I have always had fascination with Biospheres. The complex problems of creating "closed" systems.
Not just with the mechanics of it that science and engineering thru creative intellect have to deal with, but also the human constructs that emerge from living in the systems themselves, as a result to the disconnect that occurs with the world on the outside, and the relationships that occur within.
These to me are fascinating processes both of micro-environments in a natural sense, and in a human sense.
I don't really know the words for all this, but from what I have read puts interdependance of different living systems, and the environment in these in the light of the necessity for mutual co-operation.
Sorry for the broken thought sequencing, but I am surrounded by 3 kids and a dog at the moment and will sound fragmented for a few days now due to this new culture shock

Anyway, here is a description from a review of one of the first books written from the actualization of this project.
It is called Life Under Glass.............

Planet in a bottle. Eden revisited. Laboratory under glass. The largest self-sustaining closed ecological system ever made. Biosphere 2 is many things to many people. From its half-acre farm to its
coral reef to its emerald forest- this unique research facility has proven itself a marvel of human engineering and a testament to the human imagination. For two years, four men and four women lived and worked inside the structure, recycling their air, water, food and wastes and setting a world record for living in an isolated environment. But what has this giant glass-and-steel greenhouse been to those most intimately involved with it? What has it meant to the first crew who studied and cared for it? What was it really like sealed inside a giant laboratory for twenty-four months? In Life Under Glass crew members Abigail Alling and Mark Nelson with co-captain Sally Silverstone present the full account of those two remarkable years. From the struggles of growing their own food, to learning how to help sustain their life-giving atmosphere, the general reader is offered a rare glimpse into how a group of dedicated researchers managed to surprise the world and fulfill their dream. Other crews may come and go, but no one else will face the risks, the uncertainties, and the challenges that this new breed of explorers did on Biosphere 2's maiden voyage. Here is the fascinating story of how it all appeared- living under glass.

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by Stoner

That 'difference' is unique to man who not only is a dominant biologic force, but is so because of that difference.........his intellect.

I suppose opposing thumbs would not fully qualify either, as primates also have them

[LANMaster]

While man is part of nature, he is not an animal in the sense of the term. However, man is a mammal kind.

[pyritechips]

I don't see any link between technology, which synthetizes the activities of a part of the world population, and natural selection, which relies on biology and environment of whatever living beings.

Ahh! Notice that I bolded environment ? Technology is profoundly responsible in moulding our environment. A city does not exist in nature without the intervention of Humans. The spaced out geek walking across an intersection and not noticing that the light has changed - and with his mp3 driven ear buds drowning out the warning honks of horns - will meet his demise. Instead of just "Natural Selection" may we add "Artifactual Selection"?

[Chicon]

Originally Posted by pyritechips

... Technology is profoundly responsible in moulding our environment....

You're right, pyritechips ! It may be like termites ruining a wooden house.
But natural selection we know started 4 billion years ago and technology only a few thousand years ago if we assume the use and the make of tools are part of technology.

[BanditFlyer]

Originally Posted by Chicon

You're right, pyritechips ! It may be like termites ruining a wooden house.
But natural selection we know started 4 billion years ago and technology only a few thousand years ago if we assume the use and the make of tools are part of technology.

Taking that one step further then, chimpanzees use sticks as tools to get food.

Couldn't we then say that technology has been an evolutionary force since before humans even existed(assuming chimps are older than humans - I don't know if they are or not)?

[Stoner]

But the stick is something that existed outside the influence of the chimp to begin with.
Man synthesizes what he needs from that which does not naturally exist.

[Chicon]

Originally Posted by BanditFlyer

Taking that one step further then, chimpanzees use sticks as tools to get food.

Couldn't we then say that technology has been an evolutionary force since before humans even existed(assuming chimps are older than humans - I don't know if they are or not)?

Hi BF,

I still bear in mind that lady gorilla using a giant leave as a napkin.

Technology, an evolutionary force : I'm not sure but I prefer Technology, the resulting force of an evolved species.

[BanditFlyer]

Originally Posted by Stoner

But the stick is something that existed outside the influence of the chimp to begin with.
Man synthesizes what he needs from that which does not naturally exist.

But it's basically the same thing, isn't it? When man first started using tools, I imagine they were stone tools, picked up off the ground, like a chimp does with a stick. Then man discovered they'd be more usefull if he shaped them or chipped them. (For that matter, perhaps even chimps alter the sticks they use in some way.)

Probably didn't take long to start looking for the best place to find the most usefull rocks, which would have eventually led to mining technology, the bronze age, etc. Take that process to it's natural end and we end up synthesising elements that don't(or can't) exist in nature, like the heaviest ones on the Periodic table.

So it looks like nothing more than a matter of degree.

Originally Posted by Chicon

Hi BF,

I still bear in mind that lady gorilla using a giant leave as a napkin.

Technology, an evolutionary force : I'm not sure but I prefer Technology, the resulting force of an evolved species.

This reminds me of that old discussion we had about Stanley Kubrik's 2001, A Space Oddysey.