Bleeding Edge

Scientific knowledge is our Goal because Science & Technology is our Future and we can maximize the benefits for Life vs our perceived risks of change…

The true splendor of science is not so much that it observes, measures, names, and classifies; nor is that it records, analyzes, and predicts — but that it observes Nature and theorizes, seeking proof, because it desires to know the facts.

Seeking, those facts whatever they may turn out to be — is the true cause of Science.

Thus Science is  dispassionate Observer much like a Buddhist Monk — because however much it may confuse facts and faith, with conventions and fiction, and however strong the reality is hooked with arbitrary divisions — in the Spirit of Openness and Sincerity of mind and in the collegial discussion and peer review — it bears strong resemblance to Religion. Religion, as is understood by the deep Thinkers, in its otherworldy and deeper sense.

And the awe experienced in the presence of the Spirit is very similar to the void of our ignorance that is far more felt by the Scientists amongst us.

You see — the greater the scientist, the more he is impressed with his ignorance of reality, and the more he realizes that his laws and labels, descriptions and definitions, are the products of his own thought — the more disillusioned she becomes.. Still the Scientific Process helps the thinking seeker, to use the world for purposes of his own devising, rather than to simply understand and explain it.

And that is the essence of deep Science and very advanced Technology too. Magic…

The more the Scientist analyzes the universe into infinitesimals, the more things he finds to classify, and the more he perceives the relativity of all classification. What he does not know seems to increase in geometric progression to what he knows. Steadily he approaches the point where what is unknown is not a mere blank space in a web of words but a window in the mind, a window whose name is not ignorance but wonder.

The timid mind shuts this window with a bang, and is silent and thoughtless about what it does not know, in order to go on talking in idle chatter the more about what it thinks it knows. The simple mind fills up the uncharted spaces with mere repetitions of what has already been explored, or what is said to be true. It follows doctrine unquestioningly, without investigation…

But the open mind knows that the most minutely explored territories have not really been known at all, but only marked and measured a thousand times over. Few are the ones who really see…

And the fascinating mystery of what it is that we mark and measure must in the end ‘tease us out of thought’ until the mind forgets to circle and to pursue its own process, and becomes aware that to be at this moment is pure miracle.

In such wonder there is not hunger but fulfillment.

And it all happens always within the moment. The moment of Discovery. That’s where Science and Technology are born…

Almost everyone has known it, but only in rare instances when the startling beauty or strangeness of a scene drew the mind away from its self-pursuit, and for a moment made it unable to find words for the feeling — it is felt deep within our spine chilling beauty of momentous and universal Truth experience. In that one moment the scientist becomes part of the Divine Spirit.

We are, then, most fortunate to be living in a time when human knowledge has gone so far that it begins to be at a loss for words, not at the strange and marvelous alone, but at the most ordinary things. And we feel further fortunate to be able to pursue these avenues of thought without religious interference — save for those dolts who live in the dark and want everyone else to live like mushrooms too.

Because Science is the pursuit of Light.

Light is everything.

Science seeks light as energy. Light in it’s purest form. Light as a long travelled ancient beam. Light as the beginning of it all. Light as particle and wave. Light as spectrum. Light as information beams. Light as Orikaki. Light as Phos. Light as the absence of darkness…

Light as everything.

And if you haven’t been wandering and dreaming as a child about the light beam emanating from a distant sun, traveling into the room as a cone of light, and “painting” the dust molecules dancing in the air, during the early morning hours of awakening — when your parents are still asleep —  am certain You don’t know what I am talking about.

But those of You who remember that moment of bliss, when the sunbeams caused the dust to dance in an everlasting entertainment and you observed and thought of space travel — then You know. You know that the lowly dust on the shelves is as much of a mystery as the remotest stars, where it originates from anyway.

You know that we know enough of both light and dark, to know that we know nothing.

Eddington, the physicist, is nearest to the mystics, not in his airier flights of fancy, but when he says quite simply, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”

In such a confession thought has moved full circle, and we are again as children awed with the process of discovery and creativity that erupts always from the scientific pursuit. And this is what Quantum Physics is all about…

When we marry Science with Economics and ponder John Maynard Keynes axiom for the future of work and life — the scientific pursuit of pure knowledge discovery and creation — is a purpose driven meaningful human calculus of our societal contribution. At least for the brainiest amongst us…

“I haven’t the faintest idea how affluent societies might shift humans’ need for purposeful activity from paid work to something else. I don’t know how one might increase non-market consumption in peoples’ lives, somehow making it, not free, but unpriced. I do believe, though, that continuing to rely on paid work as society’s primary organizing principle will likely lead to more unsatisfying growth for the majority, because the nature of affluence itself limits market satisfactions.” –John Maynard Keynes

More and more news headlines and opinion pieces predict the end of jobs and the end of society and economy as we know it. The logic is simple: Scientific and Technological advancement destroy far more jobs than what are created. Automation is rapidly becoming cheaper and better than the labor of both blue and white collar workers, which therefore will be replaced by industrial robots and computer programs.

Artificial Intelligence will blow all of the steady same jobs and the drudgery of drone repetitive labour out of the water…

Today the number of new jobs that are created in order to develop new technologies is nowhere near the number of workers that the new technologies will make unemployable. For some time, skilled workers in sectors that require creativity and a personal touch will be relatively safe, because they can’t be replaced by automation – yet. But advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are likely to permit replacing nearly everyone with cheaper machines.

This is not a “weak signal” – a small trend hidden in the noise that some intellectual claim to have spotted – but a damn strong signal that everyone can see. The first “unmanned” factory is now operating in China, and companies are replacing stock analysts with computer programs. The end point of the trend is clear – someday in the next few decades nearly everyone will be out of a job in the traditional sense.

Within 10 years, we will see Uber laying off most of its drivers as it switches to self-driving cars; manufacturers will start replacing workers with robots; fast-food restaurants will install fully automated food-preparation systems; artificial intelligence–based systems will start doing the jobs of most office workers in accounting, finance and administration.

The same will go for professionals such as paralegals, pharmacists, and customer-support representatives.

We are at a crossroads and we have to choose which way to travel as a Society before the realities on the ground become insurmountable.

Of course we can do nothing about it and wait for the vagaries of time to alter our course and make all of us technological refugees….

Whether luddite and technophobe or technophile and eager beaver of AI — we are all on the same boat.

Sure — Time will tell.

But is this looming future a dystopia or a utopia?

And when it arrives will you know it or like the rising tides will catch you unawares…

Yours,

Dr Kroko

PS:

Yet Evolution much like Social Change is upon us and the sleeping politicians and governing bodies have already missed the train.

Because things are nowhere near sedate in their rhythm of change. All stability derived from stable political and economic systems is out the window now. What changes the equation now is automation technology, which massively eliminates jobs and therefore destroys the ground on which traditional capitalism, socialism, or market economics, stands.

Most all the “isms” out there are dated and seriously useless when it comes to addressing severe scientific and technological change. Am easily saying this without a consciousness pang, because the question is not what to do with the masses of unemployable people and the vast migration patterns sure to be borne out of Climate Change and Tech Change. The question is what to do with the raw logic of capitalism that would suggest to build walls and stop them at the borders and to let them starve. That is the true dilemma for today’s leaders.

I would like to think that this nasty red of tooth and claw ending, hopefully wouldn’t happen in a modern society. But then I hear the Republican hopefuls and their song bird Donald Trump and the hapless David Cameron and I sober up.

I’ve come to realize that the only way for Social Justice is to follow the only viable alternative that is to give everyone a guaranteed basic income with no strings attached, no ifs and no buts, and to make it sufficient for a modest but decent life.

Then everyone can involve themselves in Citizen Science, in Art, in Medicine, in Humanitarian pursuits, in Technology, in Culture building, and in all these things that makes us great as a species of Civilization builders.

We can all pursue the pure Thoughts that lead to Discovery and as a Society we can crowdsource our Technology through Scientific Observation at the maximum scale.

Those are Good Jobs and the Outcomes are rather positive…

Now that’s a nice Future to look forward to….