Maximum Entropy Production Principle
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Daniel Liechty
Jul 16, 2016, 7:42:26 AM7/16/16
to GENERATIVE-DE...@listserv.ilstu.edu
The following appeared a couple of years ago on the website Church and
State (a site very focused on the problems related to growth of
population.) He posited an evolutionary force, “Maximum Entropy
Production Principle.” Is this justified, and how does it relate to
the ideas of Becker. MEPP=Flipside of death denial, perhaps? What do
you think? Dan
We have made a real mess on this planet
By Paul Chefurka | 25 July 2013
paulchefurka.ca
Where did we go wrong?
Many of us who have been paying attention to the state of the world
over the last half century have now begun to realize with growing
horror that the progressive deterioration we have been tracking shows
no signs of resolution. In fact, to some of us it looks as though
there is no way to resolve this deepening crisis. The end of the track
is in sight. The planetary factory is in flames, and all the exit
doors are barred.
Proposed technical solutions are utterly inadequate to the scale of
the problem. Many ideas like geoengineering will simply make matters
worse. There is no political constituency for degrowth – none at all.
There is precious little political support for even putting a light
foot on the brake. This road to Hell has been paved with the very best
of intentions – giving our children a better life stands near the top
of the list – but here we are nonetheless. The climate is signalling
that our future may be a little warmer than we were expecting, once
our seven-billion-passenger train passes those gates.
Now that the denouement is in sight, I’m setting aside the anger and
outrage, the blame and shame, to focus my attention instead on why
this outcome seems to have been utterly inevitable and unstoppable.
Why has this happened? I don’t buy the traditional “broken morality”
or “flawed genetics” arguments. After all, our genetics seemed to be
perfectly appropriate for a million years, and the elements of
morality that some of us see as sub-optimal (the greed and
shortsightedness) have been with us to varying degrees since before
the days of Australopithecus. I don’t think it’s just a mistake on our
part or a bug in the program – it appears to be a part of the program
of life itself. It looks to me as though much deeper forces have been
at work throughout human history, and have shaped this outcome.
The main difficulty I have with all the technical, political, economic
and social reform proposals I’ve seen is that they run counter to some
very deep-seated aspects of human behavior and decision-making.
Mainly, they assume that human intelligence and analytical ability
control our behavior, and from what I’ve seen, that’s simply not true.
In fact it’s untrue to such an extent that I don’t even think it’s a
“human” issue per se.
I have come to think that most of our collective choices and actions
are shaped by physical forces so deep that they can’t even be called
“genetic”. I haven’t written anything definitive about this yet, but
the conclusion I have come to in the last six months is that a
physical principle called the “Maximum Entropy Production Principle”,
which is closely related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, actually
underlies the structure of life itself. Its operation has shaped the
energy-seeking, replicative behavior of everything from bacteria to
humans. All our intelligence does is makes its operation more effective.
This principle is behind the appearance of life in the first place,
has guided the development of genetic replication and natural
selection, and has embedded itself in our behavior at the very deepest
level. Like all life, our mandate is simple: survive and reproduce so
as to form a metastable dissipative structure. All of human behavior
and history has been oriented towards executing this mandate as
effectively as possible. This “survive and reproduce” program springs
from a universal law of physics, much like gravity. As a result it
even precedes genetics as a driver of human behavior. And lest there
be any lingering doubt about the connection to our current
predicament, the survival imperative is what causes all living
organisms to exhibit energy-seeking behavior. Humans just do this
better than any other organism in the history of the planet because of
our intelligence.
In this context, the evolutionary fitness role of human intelligence
is to act as a limit-removal mechanism, to circumvent any obstacles in
the way of making our growth in terms of energy use and reproduction
more effective. It’s why we are blind to the need for limits both as
individuals (in general) and collectively as cultures. We acknowledge
limits only when they are so close as to present an immediate
existential threat, as they were and are in hunter-gatherer societies.
As a result we tend to make hard changes only in response to a crisis,
not in advance of it. Basically, the goal of life is to live rather
than die, and to do this it must grow rather than shrink. This
imperative governs everything we think and do.
As a result, I don’t think humanity in general will put any kind of
sustainability practices in place until long after they are actually
needed (i.e. after population and consumption rates have begun to
crash). I don’t think it is possible for a group as large as 7 billion
people to agree that such proactive measures are necessary. We are as
blind to the need for limits as a fish is to water and for similar
reasons. After the crisis has incontrovertibly begun we’ll do all
kinds of things, but by then we will be hampered by the climate crisis
and by severe shortages of both resources and the technology needed to
use them.
I have given up speculating on possible outcomes, because they are so
inherently unpredictable, at least in detail. But what I’m discovering
about the way life works at a deep level makes me continually less
optimistic. I now think near-term human extinction (say within the
next hundred years) has a significantly non-zero probability.
Our cybernetic civilization is approaching a “Kardashev Type 0/1
boundary” and I don’t think it’s possible for us to make the jump to
Type 1. Like most other people, Kardashev misunderstood the underlying
drivers of human behavior, assuming them to be a combination of
ingenuity and free will. We indeed have ingenuity, but only in the
direction of growth (and damn the entropic consequences). We can’t
manage preemptive de-growth or even the application of the
Precautionary Principle, because as a collective organism humanity
doesn’t actually have free will (despite what it feels like to us
individual humans). Instead we exhibit an emergent behavior that is
entirely oriented towards growth.
I see no purpose in wasting further physical, financial or emotional
energy on trying to avoid the inevitable. Given our situation and what
I think is its root cause, I generally tell people who see the
unfolding crisis and want to make changes in their lives simply to
follow their hearts and their personal values. I’m not exactly
advising them to “Eat, drink and be merry”, though. You might think of
it more as, “Eat, drink and be mindful.”
Paul Chefurka is a Canadian sustainability activist.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Illinois State University RedbirdMail
State (a site very focused on the problems related to growth of
population.) He posited an evolutionary force, “Maximum Entropy
Production Principle.” Is this justified, and how does it relate to
the ideas of Becker. MEPP=Flipside of death denial, perhaps? What do
you think? Dan
We have made a real mess on this planet
By Paul Chefurka | 25 July 2013
paulchefurka.ca
Where did we go wrong?
Many of us who have been paying attention to the state of the world
over the last half century have now begun to realize with growing
horror that the progressive deterioration we have been tracking shows
no signs of resolution. In fact, to some of us it looks as though
there is no way to resolve this deepening crisis. The end of the track
is in sight. The planetary factory is in flames, and all the exit
doors are barred.
Proposed technical solutions are utterly inadequate to the scale of
the problem. Many ideas like geoengineering will simply make matters
worse. There is no political constituency for degrowth – none at all.
There is precious little political support for even putting a light
foot on the brake. This road to Hell has been paved with the very best
of intentions – giving our children a better life stands near the top
of the list – but here we are nonetheless. The climate is signalling
that our future may be a little warmer than we were expecting, once
our seven-billion-passenger train passes those gates.
Now that the denouement is in sight, I’m setting aside the anger and
outrage, the blame and shame, to focus my attention instead on why
this outcome seems to have been utterly inevitable and unstoppable.
Why has this happened? I don’t buy the traditional “broken morality”
or “flawed genetics” arguments. After all, our genetics seemed to be
perfectly appropriate for a million years, and the elements of
morality that some of us see as sub-optimal (the greed and
shortsightedness) have been with us to varying degrees since before
the days of Australopithecus. I don’t think it’s just a mistake on our
part or a bug in the program – it appears to be a part of the program
of life itself. It looks to me as though much deeper forces have been
at work throughout human history, and have shaped this outcome.
The main difficulty I have with all the technical, political, economic
and social reform proposals I’ve seen is that they run counter to some
very deep-seated aspects of human behavior and decision-making.
Mainly, they assume that human intelligence and analytical ability
control our behavior, and from what I’ve seen, that’s simply not true.
In fact it’s untrue to such an extent that I don’t even think it’s a
“human” issue per se.
I have come to think that most of our collective choices and actions
are shaped by physical forces so deep that they can’t even be called
“genetic”. I haven’t written anything definitive about this yet, but
the conclusion I have come to in the last six months is that a
physical principle called the “Maximum Entropy Production Principle”,
which is closely related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, actually
underlies the structure of life itself. Its operation has shaped the
energy-seeking, replicative behavior of everything from bacteria to
humans. All our intelligence does is makes its operation more effective.
This principle is behind the appearance of life in the first place,
has guided the development of genetic replication and natural
selection, and has embedded itself in our behavior at the very deepest
level. Like all life, our mandate is simple: survive and reproduce so
as to form a metastable dissipative structure. All of human behavior
and history has been oriented towards executing this mandate as
effectively as possible. This “survive and reproduce” program springs
from a universal law of physics, much like gravity. As a result it
even precedes genetics as a driver of human behavior. And lest there
be any lingering doubt about the connection to our current
predicament, the survival imperative is what causes all living
organisms to exhibit energy-seeking behavior. Humans just do this
better than any other organism in the history of the planet because of
our intelligence.
In this context, the evolutionary fitness role of human intelligence
is to act as a limit-removal mechanism, to circumvent any obstacles in
the way of making our growth in terms of energy use and reproduction
more effective. It’s why we are blind to the need for limits both as
individuals (in general) and collectively as cultures. We acknowledge
limits only when they are so close as to present an immediate
existential threat, as they were and are in hunter-gatherer societies.
As a result we tend to make hard changes only in response to a crisis,
not in advance of it. Basically, the goal of life is to live rather
than die, and to do this it must grow rather than shrink. This
imperative governs everything we think and do.
As a result, I don’t think humanity in general will put any kind of
sustainability practices in place until long after they are actually
needed (i.e. after population and consumption rates have begun to
crash). I don’t think it is possible for a group as large as 7 billion
people to agree that such proactive measures are necessary. We are as
blind to the need for limits as a fish is to water and for similar
reasons. After the crisis has incontrovertibly begun we’ll do all
kinds of things, but by then we will be hampered by the climate crisis
and by severe shortages of both resources and the technology needed to
use them.
I have given up speculating on possible outcomes, because they are so
inherently unpredictable, at least in detail. But what I’m discovering
about the way life works at a deep level makes me continually less
optimistic. I now think near-term human extinction (say within the
next hundred years) has a significantly non-zero probability.
Our cybernetic civilization is approaching a “Kardashev Type 0/1
boundary” and I don’t think it’s possible for us to make the jump to
Type 1. Like most other people, Kardashev misunderstood the underlying
drivers of human behavior, assuming them to be a combination of
ingenuity and free will. We indeed have ingenuity, but only in the
direction of growth (and damn the entropic consequences). We can’t
manage preemptive de-growth or even the application of the
Precautionary Principle, because as a collective organism humanity
doesn’t actually have free will (despite what it feels like to us
individual humans). Instead we exhibit an emergent behavior that is
entirely oriented towards growth.
I see no purpose in wasting further physical, financial or emotional
energy on trying to avoid the inevitable. Given our situation and what
I think is its root cause, I generally tell people who see the
unfolding crisis and want to make changes in their lives simply to
follow their hearts and their personal values. I’m not exactly
advising them to “Eat, drink and be merry”, though. You might think of
it more as, “Eat, drink and be mindful.”
Paul Chefurka is a Canadian sustainability activist.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Illinois State University RedbirdMail
Gordon Shephard
Jul 16, 2016, 11:14:34 AM7/16/16
to GENERATIVE-DE...@listserv.ilstu.edu
Calling it the "Maximum Entropy Production Principle" betrays a bias (a not unsurprising bias) toward a negative view of...well, of everything. I think one could just as easily have framed it as a "Maximum Energy Utilization Principal."
Consider that there is an incredible amount of energy impinging on this planet, over 80 Terrawatts. What becomes of this energy? It could simply heat up the planet until the black-body radiation of the earth equals the incident energy. Instead, in the case of this (so far as we know) unique planet, the energy goes, at least partially, to the facilitation of chemical reactions. True, those reactions result in an increase in entropy, but they also result in an increase in organization. This increase in organization has been going on for something over 3 billion years, creating layers and layers of energy utilization, as production and waste at one level is used by subsequent levels (with, granted, additional production of entropy) for further organization. Organization equals energy utilization - the more organization, the greater the energy utilization.
There is (so far as I know) no guiding principle of physics that assures that intelligent life (such as ours may be) should be intelligent enough to avoid the fate of all successful species - that is, overshoot and consequent population reduction. That we have been so successful that our overshoot is liable to create an environment that is inimical to our species continued survival seems to me more a matter of degree than a special circumstance. Some of us may have a significant grasp of the (psychic) mechanism by which we humans manage to avoid coming to grips with our overshoot (e.g. Becker). But, one swallow (or even several) does not a summer make...
--
Daniel Liechty
Jul 17, 2016, 3:39:26 PM7/17/16
to GENERATIVE-DE...@listserv.ilstu.edu
Good points Gordon! It does leave open the question of whether humans
are in the end a truly viable species. One thing I think we can't
avoid is the recognition that in just about every measurable element,
the "haves" are pulling away from the "have nots" to the extent that
(esp. as this gap increasingly come to contain health and education
benefits) we can almost begin to think in terms of the species
splitting long term in two. I shudder at the antidemocratic and even
antihumanist implications of this split. Yet we can clearly see that
the only "nudge" that is needed to keep the momentum of it going is
for parent to be willing to pour all the resources available to
him/her/them into the welfare of their children. I am as guilty of
that as anyone else. I want "equal education for all!" for example,
yet am more than willing to pull whatever strings I possibly can to
make sure that MY child gets the best I can possibly provide, even
while knowing that other children (or at least one) will thereby be
excluded. Multiply that by all parents, working to pull their strings
within a context of growing inequality, and the gap just continues to
widen.
>> population.) He posited an evolutionary force, ?Maximum Entropy Production
>> Principle.? Is this justified, and how does it relate to the ideas of
>> giving our children a better life stands near the top of the list ? but
>> ?flawed genetics? arguments. After all, our genetics seemed to be perfectly
>> it?s just a mistake on our part or a bug in the program ? it appears to be
>> such an extent that I don?t even think it?s a ?human? issue per se.
>> I haven?t written anything definitive about this yet, but the conclusion I
>> and I don?t think it?s possible for us to make the jump to Type 1. Like
>> drink and be merry?, though. You might think of it more as, ?Eat, drink and
>> be mindful.?
are in the end a truly viable species. One thing I think we can't
avoid is the recognition that in just about every measurable element,
the "haves" are pulling away from the "have nots" to the extent that
(esp. as this gap increasingly come to contain health and education
benefits) we can almost begin to think in terms of the species
splitting long term in two. I shudder at the antidemocratic and even
antihumanist implications of this split. Yet we can clearly see that
the only "nudge" that is needed to keep the momentum of it going is
for parent to be willing to pour all the resources available to
him/her/them into the welfare of their children. I am as guilty of
that as anyone else. I want "equal education for all!" for example,
yet am more than willing to pull whatever strings I possibly can to
make sure that MY child gets the best I can possibly provide, even
while knowing that other children (or at least one) will thereby be
excluded. Multiply that by all parents, working to pull their strings
within a context of growing inequality, and the gap just continues to
widen.
>> Principle.? Is this justified, and how does it relate to the ideas of
>> Becker. MEPP=Flipside of death denial, perhaps? What do you think? Dan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> We have made a real mess on this planet
>> By Paul Chefurka | 25 July 2013
>> paulchefurka.ca
>>
>> Where did we go wrong?
>>
>> Many of us who have been paying attention to the state of the world over
>> the last half century have now begun to realize with growing horror that
>> the progressive deterioration we have been tracking shows no signs of
>> resolution. In fact, to some of us it looks as though there is no way to
>> resolve this deepening crisis. The end of the track is in sight. The
>> planetary factory is in flames, and all the exit doors are barred.
>>
>> Proposed technical solutions are utterly inadequate to the scale of the
>> problem. Many ideas like geoengineering will simply make matters worse.
>> There is no political constituency for degrowth ? none at all. There is
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> We have made a real mess on this planet
>> By Paul Chefurka | 25 July 2013
>> paulchefurka.ca
>>
>> Where did we go wrong?
>>
>> Many of us who have been paying attention to the state of the world over
>> the last half century have now begun to realize with growing horror that
>> the progressive deterioration we have been tracking shows no signs of
>> resolution. In fact, to some of us it looks as though there is no way to
>> resolve this deepening crisis. The end of the track is in sight. The
>> planetary factory is in flames, and all the exit doors are barred.
>>
>> Proposed technical solutions are utterly inadequate to the scale of the
>> problem. Many ideas like geoengineering will simply make matters worse.
>> precious little political support for even putting a light foot on the
>> brake. This road to Hell has been paved with the very best of intentions ?
>> giving our children a better life stands near the top of the list ? but
>> here we are nonetheless. The climate is signalling that our future may be a
>> little warmer than we were expecting, once our seven-billion-passenger
>> train passes those gates.
>>
>> Now that the denouement is in sight, I?m setting aside the anger and
>> little warmer than we were expecting, once our seven-billion-passenger
>> train passes those gates.
>>
>> outrage, the blame and shame, to focus my attention instead on why this
>> outcome seems to have been utterly inevitable and unstoppable.
>>
>> Why has this happened? I don?t buy the traditional ?broken morality? or
>> outcome seems to have been utterly inevitable and unstoppable.
>>
>> ?flawed genetics? arguments. After all, our genetics seemed to be perfectly
>> appropriate for a million years, and the elements of morality that some of
>> us see as sub-optimal (the greed and shortsightedness) have been with us to
>> varying degrees since before the days of Australopithecus. I don?t think
>> us see as sub-optimal (the greed and shortsightedness) have been with us to
>> it?s just a mistake on our part or a bug in the program ? it appears to be
>> a part of the program of life itself. It looks to me as though much deeper
>> forces have been at work throughout human history, and have shaped this
>> outcome.
>>
>> The main difficulty I have with all the technical, political, economic and
>> social reform proposals I?ve seen is that they run counter to some very
>> forces have been at work throughout human history, and have shaped this
>> outcome.
>>
>> The main difficulty I have with all the technical, political, economic and
>> deep-seated aspects of human behavior and decision-making. Mainly, they
>> assume that human intelligence and analytical ability control our behavior,
>> and from what I?ve seen, that?s simply not true. In fact it?s untrue to
>> assume that human intelligence and analytical ability control our behavior,
>> such an extent that I don?t even think it?s a ?human? issue per se.
>>
>> I have come to think that most of our collective choices and actions are
>> shaped by physical forces so deep that they can?t even be called ?genetic?.
>> I have come to think that most of our collective choices and actions are
>> I haven?t written anything definitive about this yet, but the conclusion I
>> have come to in the last six months is that a physical principle called the
>> ?Maximum Entropy Production Principle?, which is closely related to the
>> Second Law of Thermodynamics, actually underlies the structure of life
>> itself. Its operation has shaped the energy-seeking, replicative behavior
>> of everything from bacteria to humans. All our intelligence does is makes
>> its operation more effective.
>>
>> This principle is behind the appearance of life in the first place, has
>> guided the development of genetic replication and natural selection, and
>> has embedded itself in our behavior at the very deepest level. Like all
>> life, our mandate is simple: survive and reproduce so as to form a
>> metastable dissipative structure. All of human behavior and history has
>> been oriented towards executing this mandate as effectively as possible.
>> This ?survive and reproduce? program springs from a universal law of
>> itself. Its operation has shaped the energy-seeking, replicative behavior
>> of everything from bacteria to humans. All our intelligence does is makes
>> its operation more effective.
>>
>> This principle is behind the appearance of life in the first place, has
>> guided the development of genetic replication and natural selection, and
>> has embedded itself in our behavior at the very deepest level. Like all
>> life, our mandate is simple: survive and reproduce so as to form a
>> metastable dissipative structure. All of human behavior and history has
>> been oriented towards executing this mandate as effectively as possible.
>> physics, much like gravity. As a result it even precedes genetics as a
>> driver of human behavior. And lest there be any lingering doubt about the
>> connection to our current predicament, the survival imperative is what
>> causes all living organisms to exhibit energy-seeking behavior. Humans just
>> do this better than any other organism in the history of the planet because
>> of our intelligence.
>>
>> In this context, the evolutionary fitness role of human intelligence is to
>> act as a limit-removal mechanism, to circumvent any obstacles in the way of
>> making our growth in terms of energy use and reproduction more effective.
>> It?s why we are blind to the need for limits both as individuals (in
>> driver of human behavior. And lest there be any lingering doubt about the
>> connection to our current predicament, the survival imperative is what
>> causes all living organisms to exhibit energy-seeking behavior. Humans just
>> do this better than any other organism in the history of the planet because
>> of our intelligence.
>>
>> In this context, the evolutionary fitness role of human intelligence is to
>> act as a limit-removal mechanism, to circumvent any obstacles in the way of
>> making our growth in terms of energy use and reproduction more effective.
>> general) and collectively as cultures. We acknowledge limits only when they
>> are so close as to present an immediate existential threat, as they were
>> and are in hunter-gatherer societies. As a result we tend to make hard
>> changes only in response to a crisis, not in advance of it. Basically, the
>> goal of life is to live rather than die, and to do this it must grow rather
>> than shrink. This imperative governs everything we think and do.
>>
>> As a result, I don?t think humanity in general will put any kind of
>> are so close as to present an immediate existential threat, as they were
>> and are in hunter-gatherer societies. As a result we tend to make hard
>> changes only in response to a crisis, not in advance of it. Basically, the
>> goal of life is to live rather than die, and to do this it must grow rather
>> than shrink. This imperative governs everything we think and do.
>>
>> sustainability practices in place until long after they are actually needed
>> (i.e. after population and consumption rates have begun to crash). I don?t
>> think it is possible for a group as large as 7 billion people to agree that
>> such proactive measures are necessary. We are as blind to the need for
>> limits as a fish is to water and for similar reasons. After the crisis has
>> incontrovertibly begun we?ll do all kinds of things, but by then we will be
>> such proactive measures are necessary. We are as blind to the need for
>> limits as a fish is to water and for similar reasons. After the crisis has
>> hampered by the climate crisis and by severe shortages of both resources
>> and the technology needed to use them.
>>
>> I have given up speculating on possible outcomes, because they are so
>> inherently unpredictable, at least in detail. But what I?m discovering
>> and the technology needed to use them.
>>
>> I have given up speculating on possible outcomes, because they are so
>> about the way life works at a deep level makes me continually less
>> optimistic. I now think near-term human extinction (say within the next
>> hundred years) has a significantly non-zero probability.
>>
>> Our cybernetic civilization is approaching a ?Kardashev Type 0/1 boundary?
>> optimistic. I now think near-term human extinction (say within the next
>> hundred years) has a significantly non-zero probability.
>>
>> and I don?t think it?s possible for us to make the jump to Type 1. Like
>> most other people, Kardashev misunderstood the underlying drivers of human
>> behavior, assuming them to be a combination of ingenuity and free will. We
>> indeed have ingenuity, but only in the direction of growth (and damn the
>> entropic consequences). We can?t manage preemptive de-growth or even the
>> behavior, assuming them to be a combination of ingenuity and free will. We
>> indeed have ingenuity, but only in the direction of growth (and damn the
>> application of the Precautionary Principle, because as a collective
>> organism humanity doesn?t actually have free will (despite what it feels
>> like to us individual humans). Instead we exhibit an emergent behavior that
>> is entirely oriented towards growth.
>>
>> I see no purpose in wasting further physical, financial or emotional
>> energy on trying to avoid the inevitable. Given our situation and what I
>> think is its root cause, I generally tell people who see the unfolding
>> crisis and want to make changes in their lives simply to follow their
>> hearts and their personal values. I?m not exactly advising them to ?Eat,
>> is entirely oriented towards growth.
>>
>> I see no purpose in wasting further physical, financial or emotional
>> energy on trying to avoid the inevitable. Given our situation and what I
>> think is its root cause, I generally tell people who see the unfolding
>> crisis and want to make changes in their lives simply to follow their
>> drink and be merry?, though. You might think of it more as, ?Eat, drink and
>> be mindful.?
Rob
Jul 17, 2016, 4:01:29 PM7/17/16
to GENERATIVE-DE...@listserv.ilstu.edu
If you are not aware of the work of Al Bartlett Professor at University of Colorado at Boulder, I strongly suggest you watch his videos. They are not long but he describes the exponential function and the impact of human population growth on nonrenewable resources, particularly oil and coal.
Personally, I do believe humans have the intellect and will to avert a disaster, I just don't think we are given all the facts. Dr. Bartlett does the math, and it's quite sobering. He also suggests alternatives to our current global trajectory.
His videos are here:
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.html
Rob
Rob
Jul 17, 2016, 9:22:29 PM7/17/16
to GENERATIVE-DE...@listserv.ilstu.edu
I subscribe to socratic epistemology, meaning I believe, as did Socrates, that "knowledge is virtue." If one knows what is right one will do it.
On Sunday, July 17, 2016, Gordon Shephard <gordon.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
--
On Sunday, July 17, 2016, Gordon Shephard <gordon.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
Rob, I believe that some humans have the intellect...and the will...but in order for the human species to avert disaster, it will take more than just a few. There are over seven billion people in the world, and if they are not seeking the facts, no amount of giving them will make much difference.And, Dan, "viability" is a relative thing. We have been a viable species for a few hundred thousand years or so. But, just as your favorite immortality project does not guarantee immortality, viability today is no guarantee of viability tomorrow.
--
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