Can Science as We Know it Save Us

Can Science as We Know it Save Us

L. Edgar Otto  April 05, 2012

My encounter with the virtual world, as with most things of our feelings and contemplations as been as much fun as a struggle; as much a question of life as replete with abundance as with the loss and struggle.  Science in my day at the dawn of the space and atomic age presented to its children visions of promises and set expectations- a search perhaps for security and for our future having come into life as all who immagrate into there as strangers the challenge to define ourselves, understand our world and selves, and take root in unexplored or exhausted soil; be part of the world in its transformation.

The seeds for new vision also projected issues of what our limitations are in our stances to the environment as we become a greater part of it, a wider influence on its directions.  I am skeptical if we can resolve things by the political appeal to those indifferent or undecided on some fundamental issue to tilt the balance.  How do we decide where we understand that at times we have to lose the battles to win the wars in the end?  How can any plan survive if we tolerate the obvious detractors from our purposes of just living if it threatens the whole or paradoxically how can we not fall into blindness and emptiness if there are no challenges from the chaos?

But these are problems on a level outside the abilities and power we have so far with what we know of science and other wisdom, the whole and parts, what it means to be an individual or society.  (but I did not want to write more than a few words on more fundamental issues- a call perhaps in the dark for papers from those who dwell in the reality of science in the blog community- apparently with greater local influence in the informal debates, discussions, and educational resources. I take an old illustration before the world changed so much the last time after the second world war- the change from the gold standard for example.  The point is that around the year 2030 or so the news says and so does the Navy studies that things may change, perhaps a world economic collaspe, and as the Navy suggests something, we dont know what will replace computers in the new technology.)

Today then, the philosophy of science for example the idea that the living as a healthy being is more important than the length of a lifetime- but the length is a relative and fundamental issue in the structure of our system design.  If then anything is intrinsically limited, coherent of a life span and this is an unchangeable condition in some totality, a given and not just a world view of false promises and scarcities, the model of the philosophy is the "one horse shay" the carriage that works perfectly and never breaks down for a hundred years then falls apart all at once.  Now what concerns us practically, and what of science we may address to make the world a little better place is the maintenance and repair of what upon reduction can be our world and bodies in relation to a concept of a machine including perhaps near future purposes and consequences should we commit to some path to place our efforts.

Can the cloud of our science dreams come down to earth and some idea of dispassionate balances make viable the ideal of liberty as the guarantee logically among others for our enquiring systems?  It seems that some prefer the content management of the virtual cloud for the design of their systems as personal computers tend to break down- yet it seems, and even off line, not as much as some of the people I know in having to understand and work with them.  What was thought a privacy is now for most a badge of honor or belonging to some group or trend- of what drugs they are on, or what as victims some history they belong- we who time and time again defend some minority but upon taking power, never again the preemptive philosophy by the right of perhaps a tribal god, the minority oppresses others.

Well, contrary to the spirit of the blogging to put the relevant matter at the top and the current events of discussion I state this matter of my concern today a the end- I would appreciate thoughts on this matter by our in fact scientists as well as would be scientists who only dream of distant futures or fears:

Some luxuries have recently been shown to be of great benefit to our health-   Honey, Coffee, Chocolate, Vanilla for a few and yet it seems for various reasons, mostly as unknown as the science as to why they are beneficial - these philosophies of  the span of our experience as vague and apparently undecidable as say the politics of global warming- that these are growing scarce and may go extinct.  Perhaps more serious is the new evidence that our anti-biotics can no longer be seen as a miracle drug and nothing new in sight is the end of the great promise at the end of the world war.  Then again it is a matter of cost benefit- teeth with laser coatings and no decay or electricity too cheap to meter- but water was something that would cost something and people buy it in the stores what was essentially pure and free in those days.

First we have to decide what are the reasons beyond the shear amount of souls enjoying and needing the luxuries or necessities- at what point in the inevitable move to death can we insure against the breakdowns and fears of breakdowns that the net gain for lifetime and its quality, its social return to some safe place without the excesses of government regulations or the landlords- between cities, suburbs, sunbelt and rust belts, north and south of nations, the return and rebounding of gated and armed castles or ghettos of which people persist there with no new frontiers or guarantee moving not a paradise but just the indifferent justice of the universe in a pair of dice, slaves of some philosophy and the god given right of foreclosure for the benefit of the few rather than the appeal to the benefit of the many as the public rationalization goes.

Let me also point out- I mean spectrum is pretty much a scientific world and we can treat the whole of the concept as part of some stance of science or philosophy where we do not know enough of the fundamentals to shield and protect some reasonable depth of security of living and limits to the cost of living and doing business, at least each generation to break even with a little bit of donation into cost overruns for really fundamental disasters and for wider research, and at least the serious attempt to give the next generation the tools they need to participate in the community and work, education.

From one hint of causes I doubt the recent news that the age of the parents is the grounding of autism as a wider spectrum- this of course is the problem within what is the limits of a system or individual as a one horse shay or not.  Just what stance of time justifies this possible rumor?  Can the quality of an individual mind be better if we have the average age of childbearing 14 as in some third world countries?  With these global models in mind the news on this seems hardly scientific or logical to me even if we take the stance that of course we replicate accumulated errors.  But do we not sue and judge by law birth defects by some of the psychotropic drugs or deny they have ill effects or are beneficial depending on the powers that be and the marketplace?

How is it in general that excessive tests in our hospitals can actually be worse than not knowing about rare conditions of a disease?  That is, one side maintains that the other is contributing to the death of individuals by lack of funding when in fact the opposite may be true in general.  This is the health care debate and as always it is a matter of to what extent the state can decide what is free or regulated commerce within the bounds of its statues, constitutions, and treaties.

Should our efforts not be for the cure of some disease rather than the shielding of those familiar to a culture of disabilities- some actually say it is worse to uproot the deaf by cures.

Why not some other cause that could change the spectrum of cognition and its styles as individuals- or in the primates the superior sperm of humans makes the cells more coherent and gives the brain higher intelligence- a systems effect evidently.  But if this is true and we notice that the BHP in our toxic environs slows the learning in living creatures then would not this existential cause be a more likely suspect for example?  Who knows when our world expands if it does more than coming close to a wider and new physics and a more practical and down to earth science what we think of as magical now, much of which will replace computers, is responsible for the general climate of these issues of man that seem to me beyond our imagined gains in understanding the genes or the environment.

Of what prize or rewards for recognition of those whom I quiet imagine would be part of new research and wisdom when the entropy kicks in and the institutions fall apart- I would give the turkey award (a noble animal even if not the glory of the eagle of Zeus with claws that command the lightening rumored to have been suggested the national USA emblem by Franklin) or some certificate of membership- but as with any group of people how do we resolve who would be included or excluded and on what scientific grounds?

I am not sure what I had in mind in the designing of logos, regions of some virtual project, real or imaginary companies or guilds- we half rational dreamers even with coherent intuitive views know the sanity of it only after the fact and the timing of opportunities- but on bad days we should drift by and not loose faith.  I am most impressed when others can grow and change their positions and overcome their desire to be the limits of some new idea and design without considering the place of others before and after them- who can judge some of the intuitive realities of themselves and adapt to better truths.  That is the evidence of their glory and uniqueness, and sane competence in our learning what to do with our service in the sciences.

* * * * * * * *