I respectfully disagree. Nothing you describe is anything more than a matter of degree. All of our activity is part of a closed system. This is inescapable.
We are all confined by our planet
It would be very difficult to live elsewhere, but we can always try.
I suspect we will try. We'll we engineer our species to survive other environments? If so will we still be the same species. Perhaps the "natural" progression is from asexual to sexual to engineered reproduction.
Good point! With all this genetic engineering we can just engineer ourselves to live wherever we want.. Perhaps in the oceans if we give ourselves gills
I think one of the most interesting things about humans is that we as a species have developed the ability though our language and culture to believe the illusion that the laws of nature apply to us in a special way that put us in a higher category than what we observe in the natural world. Our cultural adaptations gives us the ability to be more aware and attached to our past and future than the other creatures on the earth. If we were part of a hunter gather group without the culture adaptations we have today, we would probably be living in the "now" much more of the time, and probably would not feel nearly as "special".
I think that everything we do is part of our instinct for survival, it has just gone far beyond the basic needs for survival. I believe the problem with our cultural adaptations is that we are in someways having difficulty adapting to the cultural adaptations that were originally intended to help us surivive, not hinder survival. It's almost like we are the scientists that have created a huge experiment not understanding that we are actually the mice that are subject to the results of the experiment. It would be interesting to see where the experiment takes us, perhaps moreso if we were not the subjects of it.
Last edited by aghogday on 23 Dec 2010, 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What are "laws of nature", exactly? First, you would have to determine what they are before you can decide if we think they are applied to us in a special way, not applicable to other organisms.
Only time will tell...
What are "laws of nature", exactly? First, you would have to determine what they are before you can decide if we think they are applied to us in a special way, not applicable to other organisms.
When I say laws of nature I am not referring to physical or scientific laws, just those that we observe in nature like the need for food, water, shelter, defense against predators, etc. We are less subject to the laws of nature because of our cultural adaptations: air conditioning, heating, grocery stores, weapons, etc. Many people believe that humans have dominion over animals and even the earth. I doubt that this belief would be as prevalent if we were all naked living in the jungle without our cultural adaptations. Or in other words we would be more subject to the laws of nature than many of us are now and not feel nearly as special.
Only time will tell...
I believe that every creature that is born healthy has the instinct for survival. Whether or not a person's actions result in a positive outcome for survival depends on whether the action is a positive or negative adaptation to life. While cultural adaptations were intended to make life easier for us, the negative aspect is that they also allow us a greater potential to take actions that are against our instinct for survival. The best example is suicide. It is very unlikely that a mentally healthy person will commit suicide without some kind of cultural adaptation: A Gun, A rope, etc. One of the main reasons a person is hospitalized when they are threatening suicide or harm to others is to take away the cultural adaptations that can be used to assist it. The instinct for survival is more apparent when you take away the cultural adaptations. I guess you could say without cultural adaptation, the more subject we are to the laws of nature, and our instinct for survival becomes more visible. When I speak of humans as mice in the experiment of modern cultural adaptation, there may be many aspects of this that are destructive to our survival that we are not aware of. Yes, you are right only time will tell.