In the opening paragraph of a high school science textbook, the author tried to inspire youth toward the future. He stated how humankind going into the future was like a baby coming forth from the womb. I agree with this and it was inspiring.
He then went on to describe his view of the future: humans leave their womb, Earth, and head out among the stars as miners or colonists of some kind. I find this to be unimaginitive and close to wrong.
It's close to wrong because we will have significantly less freedom in space and survival there will be much more claustrophobic. It is unimaginitive because life in space is not in itself any different than life on earth. After the novelty fades our colonists will rarely think "this is another day on Mars" but just "this is another day".
Space exploration will be best handled by robots and this will be true for a long time. But don't think of this as an unambitious outlook. We have barely begun to understand our potentials, not just for being better humans, but also for transcending humanity itself. Such transcencion might be heaven or it might be hell and my bet is that it will be a little of both. My point is that the walls of our womb are not physical boundaries in space and that our liberation will come from within.
Friday, October 10, 2008
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