I am one year older today.
Pausing for applause.
Seriously though, I don’t like getting older. Then again, I can’t imagine that anyone
does. You lose energy. You get squishier easier around the
mid-section. Your hair turns gray. You lose hair where you want it and gain
hair where you don’t want it. And as
more serious maladies then those pile up, you begin to wonder, “there must be a
way to stop all of this.” That is one
reason why I have become such a proponent of The Singularity, where human and
machine become indistinguishable. For
reference, see my posts on “The Cybernetic Stomach” and whatnot.
Only recently have I realized what I sound like when I talk
about such things: a fundy. They say,
“Jesus is coming back and when He does, everything will be ok.” We Singularity enthusiasts say, “The
Singularity is coming and when it gets here, everything will be ok.” In other words, there will be technological
solutions for many of life’s ills and we won’t have to suffer in the ways that
we do now. In this regard, the two
viewpoints are not at all dissimilar.
It must be an anthropological need in human beings, this
sense that one day everything will be all right or at the very least there are
better days ahead. Jonathan Zap, a
researcher and philosopher, was on Coast-To-Coast AM a while back
talking about his very notion. He spoke
of the recent uptick in “apocalyptic predictions,” The Singularity, and how
they both relate to continuing human evolution. Zap contends that humans need periodic jolts to the system to
spur on further developments in evolution.
"The message
from the Singularity Archetype is that what looks like the worst thing in the
world, may be exactly what is necessary to create a quantum evolutionary
jump," he says, adding that this is true on an individual level as well,
so that when a dire event happens to a person, it may prove to be a great
moment of opportunity.
I hope
so. It would be of great comfort to me
on this day if that were the case. Just
like a church-goer on his or her knees, praying to be saved, I keep hoping for
the developments in cybernetics and pharmaceuticals that will boost us to the
next level of evolution, to expand life expectancy and therefore give me more
time to do what I feel I must do. In a
way, maybe it’s that kind of anxiety about aging that in part brings out all of
the apocalypse talk. We each fear our
own mortality and end of the world scenarios are just one way that we express
that fear. Fittingly enough, Zap hashis own feature on aging as well.
Being that it is my birthday, you all have no choice but to enjoy the following from Duran Duran, the subject speaks for itself:
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