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	Subtopic	Started By	Posts
	Archive through Mar 12, 2004 Last Post: Apr 12, 2004, 03:13 pm		20

Posted By: Axzazz De`Nyde Apr 09, 2004 - 07:17 pm

Survival of the fittest is relative depending on your fitness criteria. A gila monster is well fit to survive in the desert, but not in the ocean, and vice-versa for fish.

As humans we have modified and created our own environments, which we're quite fit for. We're not as fit to survive in nature anymore. We could eventually devolve into blithering idiots incapable of surviving in nature and also incapable of maintaining or altering our artificial environments. More likely we would reach an equilibrium point from which we no longer evolve, but the best and brightest can continue to maintain our artificial environments.

But we're on the threshold of being able to modify and customize ourselves as well as our environments...to control our own evolution. Future superhumans utilizing gengineering, nanotech, and cybertech could link their minds to electronics. Given the electronics we have now (wireless telecommunications, remote piloted vehicles, networked data systems, and multispectrum sensors) this could allow instant communication/sharing of any data; text, visual, or audio, between any number of people and/or data storage systems. An artificial equivalent to telepathy, telekinesis, and relative omniscience. That's not even considering what new techs may develop in the future.

People may be able to share memories and skills directly, mind-to-mind. Thus a basketweaver who's never even seen a car before but for some reason suddenly needs to rebuild one could simply connect to the network, do an anonymous search for a mechanic's mind, and download all the necessary info...technical theory, practical knowledge, and motor skills. Then put that to use as if he had learned it himself and been doing it for years. All humans could be generalists capable of anything yet be as capable as a specialist who had devoted their entire life to a single aspect of a single pursuit. Would IQ even matter in a world like that?

Posted By: androidfig Apr 12, 2004 - 02:11 pm

You need to read more Raymond Kurzweil and less Howard Rheingold. You are giving humans way too much credit. Sure we advance, but it is not long before our creations surpass our ability to control them. We will soon be humbled by mother nature even if she appears in the guise of the computer chip.

Posted By: Aldan Apr 12, 2004 - 02:36 pm

It frightens me to think of humans DESIGNING the way they THINK humans should be. I can only foresee disaster in that...

Posted By: androidfig Apr 12, 2004 - 03:03 pm

Humans have perfected disaster, but what we are better at is shrugging our shoulders and saying, "Wha?? Huh??" when disaster strikes.

Posted By: Aldan Apr 12, 2004 - 03:13 pm

I can just see the scientists saying, "let's get rid of the appendix, since it doesn't seem to do anything," and then we find out that it DOES do something... something we can't detect at this time, but which is essential for human evolution or perhaps something we will need in the future, but not now, like some extrasensory thing, and without it, we won't be able to communicate w/ some alien species or along those lines...

Posted By: Bmat Apr 12, 2004 - 03:16 pm

Going along with what Aldan said, I worry when a species of plant or animal dies out. Who knows but that particular species might have had something we need in the future.

Posted By: androidfig Apr 13, 2004 - 06:19 am

Kind of like every square foot of rainforest we cut down brings to extinction another plant or animal that could cure cancer. But...you gotta have space to graze them cattle because god knows we can't afford American beef and everybody loves hardwood furniture. The hardwood is kind of like a bonus.

We humans may have evolved to the point of conditioning our environments to suit our needs and creating technology which allows us to sit comfortably in inhospitable surroundings (space, the ocean floor, etc), but we are still incapable of seeing beyond our own noses (something BTW that animals are able to do with simple innate behavior).

Who is more advanced I ask you? Stupid animals will be here long after we destroy ourselves. Like the late great Jimi Hendrix says, when aliens arrive they will deduct that chickens in fact are the most intelligent life on earth.