After I left the Lambda Lounge meeting tonight, I was thinking about Matt Taylor‘s presentation on “humanity 2.0″ and the singularity. I was reminded of Robert Anton Wilson‘s discussion of neophilia vs. neophobia in several of his books, including Prometheus Rising.
My interpretation of it is that we all have some degree of neophilia (attraction to novelty and new ideas) and some neophobia (resistance or aversion to the same). It’s natural. It’s also an attribute which is often confused for intelligence nowadays – people who are neophiles tend to view other neophiles as being smarter, and neophobes as being dumber. As the rate of scientific discovery and technological advancement increases, neophilia becomes more important for social success, but it’s at best only an aspect of intelligence. Neophobia seems increasingly backwards and disadvantageous, but it’s still a critical balancing element that we all possess even if some of us don’t like to emphasize or even recognize it in ourselves.
This ties in with Wilson’s discussion of the idea that we can only advance socially by first understanding our fundamental primate nature. We have to truly identify and understand our limitations before we can develop ways to either eliminate or overcome them. Scientists who study sociology or anthropology understand that we are not all that different socially or psychologically from primates. This makes sense, because as Matt pointed out we’re not really very different genetically from chimps. Most people don’t really like to think of ourselves as slightly smarter, slightly less hairy chimps, but that’s basically what we are. While we have all this great technology, we’re mostly using it to do what chimps would do with it, at a basic level: socialize, “hunt and gather”, and satisfy our hedonistic urges.
So in response to Matt’s urging to guide the use of technology to the “right” purposes, I would suggest that we first have to decide what the truly “right” and “wrong” purposes are. I would further suggest that being able to make those decisions accurately will require more than just technological development – it will require social development. And so ultimately, we have to hope that the uses we make of technology will help and not hinder social development in the meantime, and that we have the foresight to know what direction we’re headed in and how to steer.
So what do you think? How can we use technology to help us make the right decisions about how to… use technology?
December 5, 2009 at 12:29 am |
Hopefully thinking on a global level (facilitated by the internet)
allows us to distance ourselves enough from backwards racist/classist/nationalistic/patriarchal concepts so that we can trust each other enough to work together to preserve the planet and control our profit-centered destructive tendencies. All this so hopefully, we don’t annihilate ourselves. If we’re smart enough to technologically evolve into a species that can be more “meta” conscious we will have to become concerned with securing the survival of not just “me” but the disconnected-from-me future of humanity. Which is not I think an “unnatural” concept, because we always been all connected. Society/learning/culture has left us with many technological advances, and also many atrocities (racism, genocide, war, oppression) and the concepts that perpetuate these atrocities are also taught and passed down to us. I do not think that capitalism is our natural state. And I don’t identify with the monkeys. This has nothing to do with socializing for me, and its not how I get off. I think things would be simpler for me if it were that simple.