Date:     Tue,  26 Apr 94 17:54 +0300
From: MARSHLU-AT-vms.huji.ac.il
To: technology-AT-world.std.com
Subject:  involvement




4/26/94

in reply to: Erik Tielking

>Technology helps give the world of possibilities in which we live its
>shape; we wouldn't even wonder whether certain modes of life were
>really ways of fulfilling our potential as human beings unless we
>lived in a world where such ways of life were possible, or at least
>imaginable.

O.k. Now try to imagine a world that allows us all, without
exception, to demand anything we physically require from a
computer (like a star Trek replicator). When we're finished,
instead of storing the object physically, we just recycle it.
Material forms become as common and free as air. With matter
totally devalued, human desire can no longer attach itself to
material possessions and the whole materialist paradigm, that
takes matter as anything but the thin crust of existence,
evaporates. Can you guess what kind of world that would be? What
do you think unlimited human desire will attach itself to then?

>I will admit that I wasn't paying really close attention to the
>extended discussion between Askanas and Devor by the end of it,
>so I may well have missed something in there.

Most of it transpired privately, off the list.

>But from where I am it's not obvious why one wouldn't wish to
>involve oneself intimately with the development of technology;
>it's my own (perhaps naive) opinion that if more people were
>meaningfully involved in it the results might serve a somewhat
>broader range of interests than at present.  I'd be glad to read
>something by way of explanation of this.

You'll find my concurrence and elaboration of this in my
response to Malgosia. Convictions serve better than "opinions,"
especially the "naive" variety. The trick is how to acquire the
unshakable ones.

Blessings to all,
David S. Devor
Project Mind Foundation

 Materialism is the unconscious conviction that existence
 is substantially physical. Just as the restriction of mind
 by matter occludes mind, the restriction of matter by mind
 reveals mind. - T.Kun