Futudirection for Humanity? (was Don Davis article)

sraj wrote:
> We have a major problem, which if left uncorrected
>could even lead to an unsavory end to our
>civilization: this concerns our relationship with
>Nature. Our institutions, strangely enough, devalue
>nature - Industrial Economy, Science, Religions. This
>devaluing of nature started in very early times, the
>idea that humans are great, like Gods, and that using
>human intelligence we can find out everything.

I take exception to some of that: We are nature's sentients. The part
of the universe that's able to think, feel, and plan (maybe there are
others out there -they don't concern us in this discussion. Other
Earthly sentiences count, but they aren't able to do anything about
it).
It falls to us -alone as far as we know- to preserve our
civilization and our planet's habitability. In his book "the
Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy" Marshall Savage was daring
enough (hubristic?!?) to use the term "Manifest Destiny" for our
position. If it's hubris, then so be it, but what about this position
can be argued? We must plan and hope and prepare for our
preservation -us, our libraries, and all Gaian life.

We, and so far as we can tell, we alone have the power to alter the
shape of the universe -maybe literally, according to Freeman Dyson.
If that and preservation of memory isn't "god-like", what is? If the
ability to take raw elements of the wild, chaotic, & entropic natural
universe and make of it places where life can persist practically
anywhere in the universe isn't god like, then what is?

We're no different from any other life form: we alter the environment
to suit our life, and spread it to everywhere possible. Viruses do
that, yes, and we're frequently compared to them. Trees do that -
blocking sunlight to lower growth and dropping a thick carpet of
leaves that only their own seedlings can push up through -Squeezing
every other form of life out. The difference is that we can think
about it, and plan the best ways to allow ourselves the growth, while
letting other life survive too.
Our only problem is that we haven't beeen doing it sentiently. We've
only been like any other wild life form, squeezing and kiling
everything else out.

That's what things like Space industries and colonies and
transhumanism is about: advancing our wild viral growth patterns to
match our sentience and what we now know we should be doing -
functioning as life's shepherds.

"He who would aspire to the stars must first mind the campfire
sparks."

There is much evidence of life adapting to harsh environments, but
little evidence of environments changing to meet the needs of
organisms.
(-- William C. Mitchell, aerospace engineer, commenting on
the "cosmic anthropic principle" - the notion that the Universe was
made the way it was in order that life, and particularly human life,
could arise.)
I might add that there's plenty of evidence for life altering the
environment to meet the needs of life.

John S. Lewis From 'Mining the Sky'
As long as the human population remains as pitifully small as it is
today, we shall be severely limited in what we can accomplish. Human
intelligence is the key to the future: human beings are not, as some
would have it, a form of pollution.
Having only one Einstein, one Hokusai, one Mozart, one daVinci, one
Shankara,... is not enough. We need -and can have- a million times as
many.
We need intelligence, wisdom, compassion, and excellence. These god-
like traits are manifested in the physical universe only by life, and
in the biological universe, only by intelligent life.
Life is not a cancer of matter; it is matter's trancendance of itself.
The fulfillment of time & space is matter; the fulfillment of matter
is life; the highest fulfillment of life is unbounded intelligence &
compassion.
We would be quite wrong to conclude that the asteroid belt, or solar
power... is the ultimate resource. Intelligent life, once liberated
by the resources of space, is the greatest resource of the solar
system.
The material and energy resources of the solar system allow mankind
an infinite future: we can not only break free of the surly bonds of
the Earth, but break free of the Sun and escape its fate.

"There is no way back into the past.
The choice is the universe -or nothing.
-- H.G. Wells

Time Without End: Physics and Biology in an Open Universe
Freeman Dyson
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 Easy Steps By
Marshall T. Savage
Introduction
http://www.garagelabs.com/TMF//fmf1/public_html/intro/marshall.htm