Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Interstellar travel. - I just posted a reply and somehow it got lost.

re: Interstellar travel. - I just posted a reply and somehow it got lost.
JEKing — (archived)

"It would all be for naught if our bewithall would perish along the way"

Our bewithall is always in the process of perishing. Consider your own memories: they are all edits of edits. Initial edit: Your original perceptions of the past stream of infinite events in which you were immersed, in addition to impinging events affecting your awareness obliquely, were "selected" data, chosen according to the contingencies of your life; a tremendous quantity of data was ignored or truncated in an abstract. Edit of initial edit: imagining and 'remembering' are virtually the same process; memory is a creative act of imagination arising out of the need for coherence; in this process only rather idealized remnants of what really occurred are preserved.

Historical annals, cultural lore, and narratives underlying social coherence are even more in the nature of edits of edits of edits, though the complexity of many-faceted contributions results in a more epistemologically rich preservation than is accomplished by a single individual. There is nothing there that has much substance (alongside, say, the conservation of momentum or other abiding fundamentals).

The point here is that existence is fundamentally instantaneous. One might say that 'reality' for a subjective being arises instantaneously 'out of nothing'. So there is nothing to be gained or lost by editing that instantaneousness. Who you are today is not who you were yesterday. Our inferential efforts to sort out the truth of what is going on take us to pure science and mathematics; and would it matter if the stream of history favored the emergence of a more capable entity who could carry the torch of our most profound dialogue with Nature?

It may be that it is really pointless to ferry an essentially Pleistocene community to another planet to merely carry out an analogue of what has already transpired on Earth. Is it not more of a challenge to creatively break through our phylogenetic/ontic ceiling so that our efforts might be based in a truly fresh start?

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