ONE YEAR REWRITE - IS THE UNIVERSE HOSTILE TO COMPUTERS OR DNA OR BOTH?
A Discussion About Computer Code and Biological Creator Conferred Code
Forward: Thus text will tax the reader’s brain as it taxed mine to write it. Wish I could change that part but I didn’t make it all up - I just write about it. But when tyranny becomes so full of hubris that it begins messing with our creator driven genetic codes then suddenly we have a problem .
It means the system itself has become so dangerous and out of control that we must ourselves take on the responsibility of understanding the complexity of this hostile hubristic irrationality. That is right. I wish I hadn’t had to think of that sentence let alone write it down. But such are these times we live in.
Here I share a post from a fellow stacker
on the very subject I tried to take on a year ago. He is wise enough not to take on the subject of our genetic code AND the subject of computers and if hindsight was perfect - maybe I would not have either.But then I don’t make up this reality I just write about it.
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BIOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY
As an era of biology and computers has come into being and is being increasingly promoted, this simple video stimulates many thoughts. My concern is that many of you will not want to delve into such thoughts. I try to provide information for those without a foundation in the biological sciences but it is time consuming to digest these. For those who want to play along it may lead to helpful answers. It does for me but that is all I am able to offer. Safe to say though that a basic understanding of these things is necessary for our health and well being.
Although I am no physicist I have a passing knowledge of electromagnetic energy. The universe is based on electromagnetism. All matter is based on electromagnetic energy among other factors. We animals are fundamentally electromagnetic beings.
A discussion on how we exist as electromagnetic beings:
Computers function on electrical circuits and are based on “ons” and “offs” (or zeros and one’s). While we aren’t, like computers, dependent on an electrical grid for our source of energy, we do have many processes based on the electromagnetic and the electrochemical.
Notably our central and peripheral nervous systems work by a process of electrical conductivity involving the physiological chemicals salt and potassium. Since all our other physiological functioning depends on these nervous systems, including our muscles and hearts, the importance of these processes are difficult to overstate. A quick skim of the following will allow the reader to understand this process:
https://humanbiology.pressbooks.tru.ca/chapter/10-4-nerve-impulses/
An additional and critically important point is our energy source. Ultimately, as with the entire planet, our energy source does come from the sun. To help convert our food energy into fuel we have mitochondria in every cell. Without well functioning mitochondria we cannot live. Mitochondria are almost magical little cellular particles which change nutrients from our blood streams into energy.
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Legend and science have it that mitochondria were once free-living one cell organisms that at a certain point in evolutionary history which became integrated into animal cells. The very thought of this seems stunning to those without a thorough education in biology, physiology and evolution. But it is yet another illustration of the phenomenon of interdependence or symbiosis if accurate.
Short primer on interdependence and symbiosis of living things:
Where do mitochondria get their energy? From the sun, ultimately. The food we eat ultimately sources energy from the sun. Plants do this directly through their chloroplasts while animals, all possessing mitochondria, source energy from plants and/or other animals. All link back to the sun.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320875#DNA
The chloroplasts of Plants, interestingly, are mini physiological solar collectors and processors.
So in order to process or reprocess energy from the sun or from other animals plants have chloroplasts and animals have mitochondria. So what does this have to do with computers? For our purposes here, a great deal.
To the uninitiated our own physiological processes seem computer-like. This belief exists to such an extent that the really poorly educated might imagine we could be enhanced as beings if we were enhanced directly through computer technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Although computer technology can be a wonderful tool if used properly (think abacuses, the printing press, hammers, shovels, bows & arrows, clubs and guns) - they may be also used for good or ill.
CONSIDERING THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Although theoretically interesting any unnatural process added to our bodies can cause the law of unintended consequences to come into play. All we need do is look around sufficiently to observe this law. Although we understand a little bit about our own physiological makeup it is clearly insufficient to overcome this law. The addition of non physiological substances or processes often causes more harm than good. To think otherwise is pure hubris.
Although our physiological processes may be illustrated as mechanistic, almost computerlike processes, they are far more than that. To reduce these processes to just that shows fundamental ignorance. We are the reflection of huge unimaginable spans of time and a process called evolution. To discount the process of evolution is so ignorant as to be dismissed from this argument altogether.
EVOLUTION IS CREATOR CONFERRED BUT NOT TELEOLOGICAL
No of course “we” were not present to witness evolution - “we”, in the form of previous individuals, were a part of evolution. Over many millions of years the animals we are today came to be through enormously complex processes we barely comprehend.
Evolution is so poorly understood as to be frequently and mistakenly adorned with something called teleological processes. As any respectable student of evolution discovers, evolution is not teleological. There is no discernible intent. As a process of very small events building into larger effects within a complex environment - processes which then either work over time or fail - evolution is not teleological.
Creator conferred yes - teleological no.
The gradual process of evolution builds bacteria, algae, mitochondria, chloroplasts, earthworms, whales, fish, dinosaurs, and birds as well as humans. We are no pinnacle of evolution but just a fact of it. The concept that we are some teleological end result of evolution is just an illusion fostered by ego. It is simply incorrect.
EVOLUTION DOES NOT DISCOUNT THE SPIRITUAL
And, no, this does not discount the religious or spiritual experiences we have but it may help define the most valuable experiences among these. What may the “most valuable” among these be? Very possibly those which underwrite the same basic process evidenced by evolution - the process of survival. If organisms survive and thrive over time then by the fact of their existence they are “successful” in evolutionary terms.
Survival is in itself a manifestation of the success of evolution.
An understanding of ourselves and our complex biology and evolution should underwrite spiritual awareness and not detract from it. A misunderstanding of human evolution also leads to a misunderstanding of spirituality.
THE OPPOSITE OF SURVIVAL OF A SPECIES IN EVOLUTION IS EXTINCTION
If, in fact, our very complexity leads us to extinction than we will not be the paragon of complex animal life we perhaps mistakenly thought we were. The result of human extinction (if any life survives) will presumably simply be to serve as a platform for yet another process of evolution, complete with any unintentional outcomes of the process.
We are part of a process. We have a choice to understand this or to deny it at our peril. The universe is not hostile to anything. It is a process of which we are a part. If we build computer tools which the universe then destroys is this the “universe” destroying them or is it the ignorance of the beings which built them?
We are processes, our physical and cultural evolution are processes, the universe is a process. It would be ironic in the extreme were we to allow the fundamental fears we may feel in the face of these elaborate processes drive us to extinction.
Attempts to take control are often just functions of this fear. By taking control we may labor under the illusion it is the royal we in charge only to be defeated. Control only gives us a false and dangerous illusion - ultimately to be defeated. Fear, the illusion of control, and grasping of material objects are all evidence of a vast ignorance. Is vast ignorance where in fact we desired to evolve to? Is vast and profound ignorance teleological?
Our bodies are vastly complex biological metabolic entities. Our minds are equally complex. Our cultures and language are also vastly complex. Computers, as complex as they have come to be, cannot be considered to be as complex as living things.
COMPUTERS ARE TOOLS
I was very happy to give up my trusty old slide rule for a computerized calculator back in the day. I am quite happy to have one of Steve Jobs fancy writing machines and an internet with which to share what I write. Not sure I would have survived advanced math without such a calculating and graphing device to assist. I love computers in their role as tools.
They are great tools when used as adjunct to all the rest of our complex selves. But to expect computers to act as something which can be an integral partner to our complex bodies and minds is hubris. The idea that we should combine these miraculous physical and mental entities with computers has led to a line of thinking which is not fundamentally healthy for our bodies, minds, or cultures.
WE ALLOWED THESE INANIMATE OBJECTS TO BECOME TOOLS OF TYRANNY
Whereas we may have otherwise chosen to use computers as tools we choose to envision computers as something altogether different. What we allowed computers to become are now tools of tyranny. We allowed them to be used to keep track of our data, to devise methods so individuals could become vastly wealthy based on this. The control of our data has been used to manipulate each and every aspect of our lives to enrich these corporations and the individuals who run them.
The interdependence between these corporations and such entities as our governments and institutions allowed a new world tyranny to take over the planet. A tremendous amount of death, ill health and environmental damage has resulted. A new birth of Fascist-like totalitarianism has arisen. This - more than anything - is causing untold upheaval and takes an observable toll on human well being.
It is time to return computers to their role as tools. At this late hour it remains to be seen if we can overcome this new totalitarianism without destroying the complexity of all which has evolved on this planet. The rise of using computers as tools of the totalitarians has put everything we are at risk.
If this totalitarianism ceased tomorrow it would take years of concerted work to return to a human-centered and rational state. Our cultures have careened off the deep end and many individuals with them.
THE EVOLUTION OF OUR LONG STRANGE TRIP
Let us write a definition of human sanity and return to it. Our lives and the lives of all the complex beings we are interdependent with absolutely depend on this.
As far as answering the original question, is the universe hostile to computers? Although it is not inherently hostile to computers - certain aspects such as our sun and Earth’s weakening electromagnetic shield - can certainly threaten the energy source for any device (or species) dependent on our electrical grids. As we saw with the Carrington Event of 1859 - which fried all the telegraph machines and copper wiring of the times - our sun is quite capable of this.
The wisdom therefore of creating human societies dependent on electrical grids and computerized circuits is not the most sensible or intelligent thing. The one good potential in what we are now experiencing is that by becoming aware of the vital necessity of reinventing ourselves and our world we have a chance to make it better, to survive.
After all is said and done - to be willing to settle for what we have now is insane. The thinking made “mainstream” currently is more reminiscent of The Salem Witch Trials than it is of a sophisticated and intelligent society of any species. There is simply no logic to it, and no future in it.
Trust in creator conferred evolution. After all it has been evolutionary. And an epic and welcome long strange trip it continues to be.
TO THE FURTHERING OF THIS LONG STRANGE TRIP!
Organize freedom and not tyranny. Make it air tight. Believe we got a good case for it.
Wouldn't be complete without my friend's comment on the cited article. See @ Thomas A Braun RPh comment attached:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomasabraunrph/p/blueprint-of-life?r=boqs0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
The universe is hostile to everything but entropy.