Inject a Bit of Dinosaur in My Flu Shot, Please!

It was just announced that a new life form has been synthesized. Now humans are in the business of inventing life. Although not a true creation of life from scratch, this development is a major step in that direction. What the entrepreneur Craig Venter and his team of researchers have done is make a cell that functions as the result of a synthetic genome which was pasted together. His team has figured out how to put together a bacterial genome and transfer it between bacterium. Venter said, ""This is the first synthetic cell that's been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer."

This development has many ramifications. There is great potential for the creation of new organisms to serve specific functions, as for example, eating up oil slicks or generating fuel through organic processes. Venter says that this development is an important scientific and philosophical step. In this he is correct. He also says that "extensive bioethical review took place before the experiments were done."

This is a problem, for what ethical review has ever stopped the development of a technology once it is workable? Nuclear fission, the hydrogen bomb, cloning, and an endless string of other technological innovations are things that were developed irrespective of ethical considerations. Science is not preoccupied with ethics; it is driven to develop whatever technology is possible. There are other problems with medical and bio - ethics. Upon what philosophical ground are these fields of ethics based? On logic alone or in combination with a value system. The problem is, that in a scientific paradigm of a relativity of values, and in a secular humanistic value system, one cannot say why any particular set of values are any better than any others. Consequently, don't count on either medical or bio-ethics to come up with any substantive arguments against the development of whatever technologies scientists and entrepreneurs can think up.

These innovators may try to proceed into uncharted waters, and make sure that "science proceeds in an ethical fashion" (Venter) - and this says it all, they aren't considering whether they SHOULD be proceeding and why, they are only concerned with how. For example, a scientist may be careful not to use animal by-products in the development of a new organism, but not worry about whether it is a good idea to develop hundreds of new engineered organisms for generating fuel and what impact these organisms will have if there is a mutation creating a freakish organism when it evolves in the wild if (and when) it escapes. Letting scientists genetically engineer whatever organisms they can think up and produce without a complete understanding of life on Earth and the impacts of individual organisms and species on the whole of the web of life is like giving toddlers (without a knowledge of how to drive or even the rules of the road) the keys to Semi-trailer trucks and unleashing them in downtown New York.

As Michio Kaku says, "You cannot recall a life form"

There are many philosophical, ethical, and environmental ramifications to this development, raising questions, like:

Should we develop every technology possible?

Should there be any limits on genetic engineering?

Should there be any limits on life engineering?

Should corporations be able to own the genomes of living organisms?

Should we be able to patent whole life forms?

Should we clone extinct species, including ones like Neanderthal?

Should we make computers out of living organisms, cloned brain cells, for example?

Should corporations be able to own the human genome?

Should we be able to develop human / machine / animal hybrids?

Should we clone human body organs?

Should we be able to engineer or clone humans?

Should we be able to genetically modify children in the womb?

What do we do if there is an "accident?"

Can we control the natural mutations of engineered organisms?

And then there are the answers to the question "Why" as applied to the above....

So there are many unanswered questions regarding this new breakthrough and the whole areas of bio-engineering, bio-ethics, genetic engineering, and medical ethics. This brings up a quote by Isaac Asimov, "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

According to Ray Kurzweil, human knowledge doubles every year now. Vernor Vinge, another futurist goes on to suggest a "post-human era" - coming soon - in which computers and artificial intelligence will combine to produce super-human intelligence. With the advances in genetic engineering, cellular biology, neurology, and brain science, we may well be able, like the Borg in Star Trek, to connect to what has been called the "World Wide Mind."

So all this futuristic technology is coming at us more frequently, faster, and harder. Cloning other creatures, inventing life forms, artificial intelligence, human knowledge doubling faster and faster, super-human intelligence - all of this is a tall order to ponder. Now, why is this important to me - how does it affect the everyday individual? Well, it will. As 21st Century post-industrial, Knowledge Based societies get increasingly dependent upon science, new knowledge, and technology successful individuals will also be inextricably connected to developments in these areas. In medicine, new treatments, organ regeneration, and life extension will all be things in which everyone will be interested. Better computers, access to the best information and professional practices and tools will be critical. This all raises a few more questions as we move towards playing God with life sciences and Superman with technological prowess.

I think there is a very serious issue here concerning the "horizontal" extension of human capacities without a corresponding "vertical" expansion of being, love, wisdom, consciousness, and conscience...

Will everyone have equal access to such technology and knowledge?

If not, then who or what decides who gets access, and what do you do with the people who don't?

Also, since wisdom may be defined as good judgment, will humanity develop the wisdom necessary to use our scientific and technological potential in a just and equitable manner within in the same timeframe?

And ultimately, how do we ensure the democratization of science, technology, knowledge, and wisdom?

I think there is a very serious issue here concerning the "horizontal" extension of human capacities without a corresponding "vertical" expansion of being, love, wisdom, consciousness, and conscience. Evolution only means that things change; it does not mean that creatures or conditions "improve." Increasingly we are circumventing the forces of natural evolution through our manipulations of the environment, intelligence, the conditions of life in our societies, and life itself. For us, there is no more mechanical evolution - our future is squarely in our own hands. How we deal with that, whether we create better, more just, progressive, and equitable futures or not will depend upon the decisions we make every day in our lives from here on out. If nothing else, this all suggests an increasingly great need for philosophical dialogue concerning the future of humanity. It’s coming one way or another. We can consciously build good futures for all, haphazardly develop decent futures only for a few, or even wreck the future for everyone through conflict, biological monsters, environmental destruction, or sheer ignorance. It’s up to us.

Copyright 2010, B.E. Foley

What Kind of a Future is in Store for Us?

What determines our future? Our future depends upon many things. Essentially what kind of futures we have depend upon the ways we think, what we think about, and how we think about ourselves as human beings. We also have to think about how we are going to run our civilizations in a fair and just manner. Our future depends upon what we think about nature, how we look at the Earth, and whether we find innovative ways to preserve the environment. It also involves what and how we think about the nature of the universe, theology, and spirituality.

These issues are all philosophical. What kind of a future is in store for us? It will be a philosophical one! The challenge to us is whether our philosophical differences will take precedence over our ability to combine our wisdom. If, instead of pooling our knowledge and understanding of life, we descend into a spiral of religious and ideological conflict, we will not be able to successfully address the mounting social, economic, environmental, political, medical, and educational issues shaping our future. On the other hand we can have a philosophy driven future that involves encouraging creativity, developing new means for invention, inventing new ways of thinking “outside the box,” and generating new interdisciplinary fields to help synthesize all of the mounting information generated by the Age of Knowledge in which we live.

Philosophy has a wide scope and is more popular than ever. All we have to do is look at all the books for sale in the bookstores with topics on everything from world religions, to alternative science and medicine, to Yoga, to the paranormal, to science fiction and cosmology (the study of the universe). The future of philosophy is not only a study of language, logic, and the science of the mind, it covers a much wider area. Political ideology, self improvement, the study of being, general systems, computer logic and artificial intelligence, strategic planning, ecology, and design science are all philosophical in nature.

When we think of philosophers the ones that come to mind are all dead – people like Socarates, Plato, and Aristotle. They were considered wise and brilliant thinkers to whom people listened and sought out for inspiration. Today we have to find our own Platos and Artistotles to help solve our problems. We still call them philosophers, for their knowledge must encompass a wide variety of areas, including those of the universe, current events, spirituality, politics, religion, culture, and the environment. In an age of increasing specialization, philosophers can help lead the way toward combining knowledge, making sense of the information chaos of daily life, and fostering interdisciplinary synthesis. Philosophers can help provide a meta-scientific perspective not available from each of the differing scientific fields.

Unfortunately the very resource that we as individuals need to empower ourselves to make sense of the world has fallen into disuse – in favor of mass consumption, escapism, the replacement of thinking and reading with entertainment, mindless conformity, and the blind acceptance of authority and whatever media sources are available. At the same time, the scope of the field of philosophy has been severely restricted in regards to its role as a professional discipline. It is pretty hard to find philosophers’ shingles hanging in front of their offices downtown or even listed in the telephone directory.Much has been lost in the domain of philosophy as it has become mainly the academic study of the intellectual history of dead thinkers, focusing on logic, the study of language, and the study of the mind. All of these areas are important, but fall short of the grand task of shaping our future.

Unfortunately the very aspects of philosophy that could prove critical for assisting individuals make better futures for themselves and each other have fallen by the wayside. This situation is sad, but things are changing. Philosophers have had quite a fall from the expansive universe of ideas of our truly great thinkers throughout world history. At this point in history we need these broad minded, freethinking students of life more than ever. Beyond merely serving as a tool for argumentation, deconstruction, or the intellectual vivisection of existence, nature, life, and consciousness, philosophy may also be an art of life. Philosophy involves a love of wisdom (good judgment), but it also includes the wisdom of love. Philosophy is also a source of imagination and inspiration, a spiritual technology for innovation and enlightenment. These are some of the directions the field of philosophy must take as avenues for development if it is to be a meaningful field at all or relevant to anyone in the 21st century. Luckily there are philosophers out there who understand this emerging from fields as diverse as design, music, art, ecology, future studies, social theory, psychology, and physics.

Perhaps we are still at the dawn of philosophy - after all, we hardly grasp what a human being may be, what the universe is, or what potentials there may be with life and consciousness. Perhaps philosophy is a field that has languished too long and needs its own Renaissance of Creativity - and maybe this is exactly what humanity needs to successfully address the mounting challenges facing the future survival of our species. It just may be that we need a Philosophical Revolution in thought to take us beyond the agricultural, industrial, and digital revolutions and thereby shape a better future for our children and their descendants - for many of our old ways of doing and thinking are now obsolete and don't work so well in successfully dealing with an increasingly complex world.

There is an emerging realization by people all over the world that human beings are unique geniuses with invaluable artistic possibilities of limitless potential. We must share our genius with each other if we are to develop sustainable methods for the continuity of human civilization on Earth. For the first time in history all of the peoples on the planet are connected through some type of communication. We are now in a position to develop interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and interfaith dialogues to re-evaluate all of the old myths, world views, and primary assumptions upon which we still base our individual and collective realities. We are in a position to share scientific knowledge and spiritual wisdom that was never possible before. For this sort of activity, philosophy is an ideal resource.

Now there are more specialists, scientists, and thinkers at this time in history than ever before - and yet people seem less and less satisfied about their solutions for living life. Humanity has a great need for advances in the ways that the fields of philosophy and spirituality can evolve our consciousnesses, expand our creative horizons, deepen our wisdom and understanding, and increase our enlightenment. We need a new generation of generalists – philosophers – to facilitate a coming together of the understandings from all of the diverse scientific fields in a way that makes sense to everyday people.Finally we have enough new historical evidence and discovered scientific knowledge available to us to say entirely new things about humanity and the world in which we live. What is missing is a coming together of all of our new information and knowledge about ourselves and the universe. Novel ways of thinking must be developed for us as individuals to translate all of our new knowledge generated by modern society into personal action in our daily lives. Globally, each of us is individually undergoing paradigm shifts in our world views and understandings of what we are as human beings. This is a necessary process for humanity in order to embrace a shared future and to prepare ourselves for incorporating all our new understandings in science, art, and spirituality.

Together, the people of the world can come together through global communications and social networking to invent new approaches to philosophy and replace outdated world views and inspire each other to develop new insights. With help from the professional philosophers to pilot through the information chaos of the modern world, everyone can begin to explore their own unique philosophical and creative genius. We are now all able to be philosophers and combine our diverse artistic, scientific, spiritual, understandings of life, and cultural wisdoms and traditions. Otherwise, if we do not engage in this dialogue of wisdom between people of differing faiths and cultures, we risk falling into a chaos of ideological conflict as old ways of thinking and acting slam headlong into the problems facing our continued existence. The challenges facing the sustainability of global civilization will not be successfully addressed using obsolete ways of thinking and acting. The world is far too interconnected and complex for old fashioned simplistic solutions to work in solving today’s problems. The future of humanity hangs in the balance of whether the world moves towards philosophical collaboration and creative dialogue, cultivating a Renaissance of Creativity - or devolves into conflicts between people unable to rise to the occasion of the challenges facing us, basing their decisions and actions upon outmoded world views. The future of philosophy is that of the development of our shared imagination, creativity, and vision working together towards the co-creation of positive futures for all the citizens of our planet. Our continued existence depends upon it!

Copyright 2010, B.E. Foley