Posts by Hannah Barnes
16 posts shown.
We find ourselves currently stuck in a stage of scientific development where we can observe phenomena and predict their outcomes with remarkable certainty—thanks to our understanding of physical laws. Yet, we have barely scratched the surface of understanding *why* these things happen in the first place. We know if we drop a stone, it’s going to fall... but how does that stone "know" it should descend? We understand that Earth orbits the Sun, but by what mechanism does Earth know to adjust its trajectory to maintain an elliptical path? One might suggest gravity is the driver, but what, fundamentally, is gravity? We define the Sun's gravitational field as the region where force is exerted on all massive bodies toward its center, yet how does that force act across a vacuum? A possible answer is that the Sun warps spacetime, but then one must ask: what exactly is "space" that can be warped within such a void?
Of course, there is mathematics that models these events and predicts future occurrences with precision. But math alone doesn't provide the underlying reason for existence... it just describes the pattern.
And that is precisely where the impasse lies. Scientists can tell us that a process occurs in a specific way, but the average person is left asking "why?" And right now, there is no answer. At least, not yet. I tend to be an optimist... I likely won't see it in my lifetime, but I truly believe that someday, we will finally have an answer that starts with "because."
boldwalker2 said:I have a quick question regarding Word. I just finished installing the full Microsoft Office suite, specifically including Word 2007. However, when I actually open Word, the interface looks strange... the typing area shows the paper, but the entire right side of the program is just this empty gray void. How can I adjust the settings so the writing space spans the whole window? Could my monitor resolution be causing this issue?...
View --> One page
I’ve been running into the same thing over the last few days myself... I'm using Mozilla.
True...
When you really sit with it, John F. Kennedy is essentially making the same point, even if he doesn't lay it out quite so bluntly. He just imposes this self-imposed "restriction" on himself—this refusal to speak plainly about what actually matters within the framework of artistic form. I truly hope he’s wrong, at least regarding that specific notion.
But art, much like love, requires a certain degree of mystery to survive...
...though there are certainly things that would benefit from being cleared away—perhaps even burned down entirely 🙂 .
The notion that art possesses some profound, underlying essence isn't exactly a groundbreaking concept...
It’s been drifting through the corridors of history for ages.
Perhaps the issue lies in the fact that no "serious" academic ever dares to publicly stake their reputation on such a claim.
Because all they really have is a hint, a mere suspicion, that this is how things work.
There are no airtight arguments, no empirical evidence, no concrete facts upon which one could actually construct a peer-reviewed paper.
I can't exactly publish a book titled:
"Well, I have a hunch this might be the case..."
Furthermore, we lack any fundamental understanding of what art even is.
There is no definitive boundary. No formula. You cannot demonstrate art through experimentation.
There is only the feeling. You either feel it, or you don't.
And you certainly cannot argue or prove that sensation to someone who doesn't experience it themselves.
If luck is on your side, a few people in your circle might recognize it and say, "Yes, that's it."
If not, then a hundred or a thousand years after you've passed, someone might remark, "It's a shame they died penniless and completely forgotten."
But if you aren't lucky at all, no one will ever say anything...
The headline asks where we are headed...
To find an answer, one would have to attempt to forecast the trajectory of civilization over a massive scale—something on the order of 100,000 years...
In principle, there are two possible scenarios:
1. Conservative-ecological
2. Technicist
The first would entail preserving the original human form (and I don’t mean that in a literal, physical sense)...
And, naturally, preserving nature at any cost...
That would necessitate banning any modification of the human genome and prohibiting interventions into brain structure...
It would also involve a ban on the symbiosis of man and machine, or the separation of personality from the biological body...
The second, the technicist path, assumes the replacement of our current ecosphere with a technosphere...
In this scenario, certain remnants of nature might remain, but they would become entirely dependent on us, much like a pet depends on its owner...
Think of forests maintained through artificial means, or "wild" animals whose very survival is regulated by laboratory protocols...
Interventions in the human body would be drastic... though again, I am not referring to changing outward appearance, except perhaps for fashion...
How would this impact our emotional landscape?
Even now, we see evidence of people feeling a profound love for their cars...
This is unprecedented in history. A love for a horse is something else entirely, because a horse is a living creature...
The term "love" is conditional here; I would argue we are witnessing the birth of a new species of emotion...
If, for example, the possibility of machine-based brain expansion develops, what will our emotional attitude toward such an augmentation be?
And what happens when Artificial Intelligence emerges?
Could we fall in love with a machine, or feel a sense of friendship?
Can we even call those emotions love or friendship, or will we be forced to invent entirely new labels...
Cave paintings depict beasts as a direct reflection of specific belief systems,
and for thousands of years—right up until the 20th century—religion remained the dominant force in art. There is no denying that faith and art are inextricably linked.
The experience of art and the experience of the transcendent likely share the exact same roots.
What else separates us from the beasts?
A highly developed sense of time.
The capacity to perceive the past and plan for the future.
If I can perceive—and truly experience—not just my own history, but also the narratives of others and the distant reaches of antiquity, then perhaps I can grasp the very beginnings themselves.
Where it all started...
I see cause and I see effect.
I can connect them across thousands of instances.
Which means I am capable of connecting them always.
I look at the consequence—the universe—and I know the cause.
In the pages of Jean Bruller’s *beast*, there lies this unsettling proposition: that the solitary line separating humanity from the animal kingdom is nothing more than our capacity for transcendental feeling.
What are your thoughts on such a claim?
I suspect there is a profound necessity in establishing a chronological order for how specific emotions emerged throughout evolution.
Fear was likely one of the very first to take hold.
But which emotion arrived last?
One might assume love to be the most sublime of them all.
Yet, I doubt it was the final emotion to evolve.
A vast array of animals exhibit signs of affection—though one wonders if it is true devotion or merely attachment.
We have all heard the stories of a dog risking its life, or sustaining injury, to protect its owner.
There are even documented instances of animals mourning the loss of a human companion.
The pursuit of meaning?
Art?
That is likely what surfaced last within the human experience.
Can we even begin to define what truly separates us from the beasts?
Humanity, much like any other species on this planet, is merely the product of evolutionary progression.
The core question remains: why did certain specific emotions evolve at all?
What purpose do they serve in the broader survival of the species?
What is the functional utility of one particular feeling over another?
Why do we pass down certain inherited traits to the next generation instead of others that might have been phased out by natural selection...
If we could actually decipher the answers to these questions, we might finally get a glimpse of where the evolutionary process is heading next.
Is it a bit clearer now?
That’s an excellent question.
Group belonging and loyalty exist for a very specific reason, rooted deeply in our tribal origins. A loner essentially stood no chance of survival throughout almost the entirety of human history:
defense, hunting, agriculture...
Love is fundamentally tied to reproduction and family care—which is equally vital for ensuring genes make it to the next generation.
Fear and other instincts are obvious enough.
But what purpose does sadness serve???
In much the same way, we operate under a set of "internal" rules regarding what actually exists, how things appear, and how we perceive them; this is the very foundation of our subjective reality.
These frameworks were forged through experience, cultural heritage, social consensus, deep-seated taboos, and the biological and physical constraints of our species, our environment, and the planet we call home...
We live by standardized norms.
Our entire understanding of existence is dictated by that specific standardization.
The "world" we inhabit is merely the byproduct of all this...
Does the world truly depend on our observation or our experience of it?
Would outer space even exist if our species were to go extinct?
At the dawn of the 20th century, researchers hit a wall because
certain phenomena simply couldn't be "seen"—they were beyond direct measurement.
This creates a fundamental friction with the traditional scientific mindset:
"If I can't see it, touch it, or measure it, it doesn't exist."
The fallback, predictably, is mathematics; if visual confirmation fails, one must rely on calculation and
everything seems fine on paper...
Yet, even within the mind of a scientist, basic human psychology takes its toll.
Centuries of established scientific dogma, particularly those rigid principles from the 19th century...
Materialism—the old-school, reliable, scientific kind—demands physical proof.
Then there is Schrödinger's cat.
Are we meant to believe it is neither alive nor dead until someone decides to look?
The implication is that only what we measure (and only at the moment of measurement) earns the right to exist!
This is an old philosophical dilemma...
Our senses are inherently deceptive.
What truth can actually be gleaned from such flawed perceptions?
Cogito...
Consider this thought experiment:
An air traffic controller looks at a radar screen and sees a Boeing 747 flying from Chicago to New York...
carrying 300 passengers at an altitude of 33,000 feet.
But what does the controller actually see? Just a tiny blip on a glowing screen.
Is that blip the plane? Or is it just a blip?
If the controller makes a mistake and that blip vanishes from the display...
has he effectively killed 300 people?
Did they even truly exist, given that all he ever perceived was a single dot?
Do things persist when they fall outside our perception?
A brick falling toward my head certainly doesn't look the way I
perceive it. Under ultraviolet light, X-rays, or at a subatomic
level, its appearance would be entirely different.
Its trajectory, viewed from the sun, would look completely different; it moves at roughly
some 19 miles/s along a tangent to Earth's orbit, while the velocity toward
my head is almost
negligible. My perception of that brick is fundamentally wrong...
But it is the only reality I have.
One could conclude that perception is purely relative.
Can I then conclude that through my very act of perceiving, I am either creating or
deconstructing—that I am actively influencing reality?
It reminds me of how small children cover their eyes and insist:
"You can't see me!"
Do we even truly exist if some extraterrestrial entity from a distant galaxy can't even perceive us?
The galaxy spans millions of light-years, and there is simply no way for us to ever establish contact with them through any conceivable means...
Just head into the BIOS and disable the RAID setting