FootprintsintheWind.com

Beautiful truth
True goodness
Sublime beauty

:- Doug.

Humanicity is about, we are about, the deepest art, most sublime music, most beautiful mathematics.

:- Doug.

We do not recognize technology as separate any more: we think nothing of glasses and contact lenses, but those are not organic, nor a part of us. We have brought titanium hips and knees inside our bodies and consider them part of us, and we are yet human. We bring hearts and livers and kidneys and eyes into our bodies and consider them part of ourselves, and ourselves no less human as a result. Cochlear implants to help people hear who cannot otherwise. Are these physical or part of the person’s brain? Exoskeletons are becoming commonplace. If you have had brain surgery, are you still you?

:- Doug.

Digital information does not last even short. Living beings last longer, and we are always changing, morphing our memories with new events and imaginations. Life has stored our most basic (and profound?) knowledge in genes, DNA, and such. Just what of what we know will survive, ought survive? What is worth saving? Consider the value of poop: what could we learn from studying this from the desert fathers and mothers? If we could have downloaded Einstein’s brain, or Leonardo’s, how long would before we’d stop looking there? How long do we care to live and remain relevant?

:- Doug.

Communication problem solved! If/When we become a-mortal, and keep growing our minds all along, the people to tell our stories to the 11th generation elders will be we, ourselves.

:- Doug.

Start with things we want—the conservative, normal path—help the paralyzed walk, improve the Internet, improve daily lives.

:- Doug.

Humans want to exceed our limits—this too is a human essence.

:- Doug.

The diseases we cannot fix with technology will be the tasks of humanity: people doing bad things to one another, leaving our elders lonely, bored, and useless, without someone to touch them, to need them.

:- Doug.

Convivium with touch of skin, conversing and intimacy, may be essentials of humanicity.

:- Doug.

Our minds are wormholes. The wormholes the science fiction writers have guessed. But better than that. Imagine a wormhole—that’s the wormhole!

:- Doug.

Inquiry tools:

What is our assumption base for this future we propose?

What can we know of it?

How can we find out more?

Why do we explore this?

How does this fit in with or break from history?

For what do we hope?

What are our philosophical bases for this inquiry? Are they appropriate?

What are the possible meanings of this future?

What are their natures, causes, consequences?

What are their deeper origins, formations, content, types?

What will we do about it?

:- Doug.

We speak of future advances as if everyone will have them.

:- Doug.

I set before us thoughts. We together give back original thinking.

:- Doug.

What is our why?

:- Doug.

The elders’ questions need to be not on the order of whether we should do what is proposed (someone will do it whatever we say); rather, what should be the human responses to these futures? How do we turn them to truly advance?

:- Doug.

We could develop hacker defenders to protect us against hacker crooks.

:- Doug.