RE: [pf] Progress?

by David A

20 December 2000 12:42 UTC

The belief that man is materially different from his machines is one of 
hubris itself. Man is composed of the very same materials as our 
machines, just arranged differently and with a higher order of what we, 
man-centered, choose to call complexity. But, of course, machines are 
complex in their own ways,and can accomplish feats of complexity which 
we can't begin to approach. We like to invent all kinds of reasons about 
why we're different, better, more real, etc., but the more we learn the 
more we find that we work on the same principles as the machines we 
build (which is why we are able to build them).

Kaleopono wrote:
> Tom, thanks for posting Kirkpatrick Sale's piece on five facets of the 
> myth
> of progress.  A well-written and thought provoking article.  Kaleopono
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > Herbert Read, the British philosopher and critic, once wrote that "only 
> > a
> > people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with 
> > machines."
> It
> > is a profound insight, and he underscored it by adding that "only such
> > people will so contrive and control those machines that their products 
> > are
> > an enhancement of biological needs, and not a denial of them."
> >
> > An apprenticeship to nature -- now there's a myth a stable and durable
> > society could live by.
> >
> > Kirkpatrick Sale
> 
>