Just yesterday I went with my fam to watch The Martian. Loved it. I’ve loved this kind of science fiction from a very young age. I suspect that the future of our species is to be multi-planetary and enjoy reflecting on this.
In this interactive interview, author Andy Weir talked to IEEE Spectrum Senior Editor Stephen Cass about his book The Martian and movie adaptation.
Enjoy.
Imagine demographic studies of urban areas in the future. Might they one day include robot populations in their data?
Tokyo’s Robot Restaurant is a novelty eatery populated by robots. And, Henn-na Hotel, the world’s first hotel staffed by robots is open for business.
And now, with the introduction of RoboCab, Japan is leading the world in creating an entire society that accommodates autonomous vehicles.
Here’s a link to a 59-second video:
http://video-api.wsj.com/api-video/player/iframe.html?guid=1C974481-6D77-40CD-9516-2EFF4F4BAB15
We’ve recently discovered a planet that is very similar to Earth in orbit around a star very similar to our Sun. It’s truly exciting to imagine the possibility that somewhere in the universe there may be others who are both like and unlike us.
A recent Huffington Post piece titled, Earth 2.0: Bad News for God, attempts a preemptive strike against those believers who will try to “rewrite” history in order to accommodate the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. The author, Jeff Schweitzer, is a Ph.D. in marine biology and neurophysiology. Here, in his own words, is the reason he wrote this article:
“let me speculate what would happen should we ever find evidence of life beyond earth even if you think such discovery unlikely. I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world’s major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens. “
Makes you smile, doesn’t it?
The article is written as a “preemptive strike” against believers who will re-write history.
Not to get too basic here but “preemptive” means an action “taken as a measure against something possible, anticipated, or feared”.
It seems the Ph.D. in marine biology and neurophysiology came riding in to save the day, but the day had already passed.
Some religions, like Mormonism, will actually be reinforced by the discovery of Earth-like planets. Most Christians I know have world-views that easily accommodate life on Earth 2.0. They’re not waiting for some anticipated discovery to reassemble their beliefs. Their view of the cosmos is already big enough for other worlds. The worldview of many believers anticipates and expects life to flourish in the universe.
In fact, the articles cited in the piece itself (the Boston Globe and Live Science) point to the fact that extraterrestrial life and religion are often compatible. Religion already accommodates the potentiality of extraterrestrial life.
Oops.
Ok, so the author didn’t know that religious people (and religions) are all over the map when it comes to belief in life elsewhere in the universe.
But he couldn’t leave it there.
He had to write the article with a narrow swath of fundamentalists in mind.
That’s why I wrote this response to the Huff Post article. My question has nothing to do with intelligent life on other planets and their impact on Earth’s religions. My question is, What would happen to religion if we discovered intelligent life on this planet? And what would happen to science too!
The reason this question comes (again) to my mind is that this article demonstrates that achieving a Ph.D. in marine biology doesn’t necessarily translate to reading and interpreting literature. Sadly, the author’s understanding of the Genesis poetry is as impoverished as the understanding of some fundamentalist believers. Perhaps even more so.
One of his main critiques is that the Genesis literature doesn’t make any reference whatsoever to the existence of life on other planets. Therefore, the Genesis literature cannot be true.
So sad.
Nothing ever written contains a menu of everything that exists.
In order to evaluate a written piece, we must attempt to uncover the purpose for which something was written. That goes for pieces in the New York Times. It goes for Genesis.
The purpose of what we write determines what we include and exclude.
That’s basic.
Both scientists, like the author of this piece, and fundamentalist believers should take a Humanities class. They would be enlightened by a course in comparative literature, or perhaps a class in poetry.
Scientists:
Genesis is not an inventory of the universe. It is a poetic peek into the meaning of the cosmos spoken in the words of people whose language did not contain the sounds needed to describe what they experienced in the wild. I know you think that because you have a few new sounds which the ancients did not, you see more. But because of the way you approach this literature, you see even less.
Fundamentalist believers, same to you.
The Genesis community wrestled with the same questions that challenge us today. They hungered and thirsted for meaning. The discovery of Earth 2.o and the potential of life elsewhere in the universe doesn’t quench this thirst. It exacerbates it.
This is not bad news for God or religion because they’re not the issue here. It’s more basic than that.
The issue is us. The author of this piece sought to make a preemptive strike against religion and God, but it’s we who thirst to discover (or invent) meaning in the universe. We are the ones who interpret and reinterpret. We are the ones who are evolving and growing in our understanding of things. And as we invent new sounds (i.e. words) to describe what we see, it allows a little more light into the darkened lens through which we glimpse at God.
Technology is an extension of the hands of man.*
We fight with our fists and by extension with bombs. We heal with our hands and by extension with scalpels. With fire we warm our homes and we burn villages.
The power of humankind to hurt and to help are magnified by the technology we create. It extends our reach.
Recently, Listerine commissioned the creation of an app that allows the blind to “see” a smile. This is an example of how technology amplifies our humanity. And this is just the beginning.
Kudos to Listerine. Sure, it’s marketing. But isn’t it an advance when corporations, who are rightly motivated by profit, tap into the best of what makes us human rather than the most vulgar and vile? Love this.
Imagine: What might a future in which technology makes us more human look like?
*For more thoughts on the “new trinity” — biology, culture, technology — see Makers of Fire: the spirituality of leading from the future by Alex McManus.
I have two recent articles in mind.
The first is from TechCrunch titled, Baby We Won’t Drive Our Cars: the future of automotive transportation. The title begs to be sung to the melody of “Drive My Car” by the Beatles.
The second is from IMN Horizon Scanner, Nic Nelson, titled, Dethroning the King of Los Angeles: the ebb of car culture.
The two together are great fodder for beginning to imagine the city of 2035.
What if, as Nic’s find suggests, major cities like Los Angeles reduce! the number of traffic lanes. What if we were to degrade the capacity of our highways in order to allow the growth of pedestrian and bicycle traffic?
Or, what if the automated car, as suggested in the Techcrunch article, dominates the future?
Imagine how an automated car (that is not dependent on fuel) might change our future landscape. Here are some thoughts. (It should go without saying for regular readers, these are not predictions…the future cannot be predicted. These are ideas to get the imagination going and to increase your personal and organization mental elasticity.)
And the question is, of course, and what else happens because these things happen? What if, rather than a dark and dystopian “Blade Runner” style urban future, the future were greener, healthier, brighter? What are other possibilities for 2035 if we found ways to change the way we all get around?
Enjoy.
In the 20th century we called the Cable guy. In the 21st century, it will be the Robot Therapist. The Robot Therapist is the guy or gal who makes sure your domestic AI is feeling up to snuff.
In the last 12 months, the IMN horizon scanners have “spotted” and introduced to you the “cutting edge” of robotics.
If by 2050 robots will carry a heavy load of responsibility around the house, what job opportunities might this present for humans?
(Note: I want to be sure to recognize and give proper credit to the Inspired Minds Initiative. Along with IMN findings, we’re going to use their Careers2030 findings as fodder for our brainstorming and Ideating here.)
Given our aging population, robots will assist in elderly care. Their responsibilities will range from home security to cooking and cleaning. As some of our most vulnerable citizens become increasingly dependent on robots, maintenance and repair of these indispensable machines will become super important. That means that making sure our domestic AI is functioning properly may be a highly demanded future occupation and potential new business opportunity… for humans. Until the robots take over that job too anyway.
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Check out the IMN Trend Spotting:
Marine ecosystems are changing as ocean temperatures rise according to Global Change Biology. Remember, when thinking about the future, it’s not what happens, but what happens because of what happens.
One example of “what happens because of what happens” is the overfishing of marlin and shark off of the California coast. That is what happened.
What is happening because of this?
The numbers of aggressive squid appears to be growing near inhabited beaches, making them even more dangerous for swimmers and divers. ABC News in Los Angeles, for example, reported an explosion in the squid population off the southern California coast.
What happens because of this? We’ll see.
But a possibility may be that swimmers may no longer fear the shark fin but fear the squid tentacle. Imagine this: rather than being attacked by a shark, a swimmer is dragged by the feet hundreds of feet under the sea until their ears explode.
Ok, enough Hollywood. Back to the warming waters of the Atlantic.
The consequences of warming waters is that fish accustomed to warmer waters are pushing into the North Atlantic. Will cold water fish like Cod disappear and be replaced by Sardines? And, the million dollar question, what might happen if this happens? The potential consequences are many and, as of yet, unpredictable.
