To Understand Is To Perceive Patterns
Jason Silva is not your regular vlogger. His charismatic and energetic optimism for mankind, science, nature and the universe meshes with select cuts of viral media and together they epically depict the “greater picture”.
The first of the two that caught my eye is a quick-fire approach to how the patterns of nature, infinity, human behavior and man-made constructs have similar patterns of inter-connectivity. How does everything relate?
The second of these looks at how the topographical shapes of urban areas, namely Manhattan, speak to a much larger concept than what might naturally be perceived. The idea is that the connections and patterns of the universe are just the bedrock for greater minds (whether they are human or computer) to use to create much more complex and intuitive technology. Together, the videos cast a very interesting light onto the future of mankind and the seemingly limitless potential of our species.
“Some time in the last fifty thousand years, with the invention of culture, the biological evolution of humans ceased and evolution became an epigenetic, cultural phenomenon… technology is the real skin of our species. Humanity, correctly seen in the context of the last five hundred years, is an extruder of technological material. We take in matter that has a low degree of organization; we put it through mental filters, and we extrude jewelry, gospels, space shuttles. This is what we do. We are like coral animals embedded in a technological reef of extruded psychic objects.” – Terence Mckenna
This guy blows my mind. He's so energetic and loopy. I love how his stated aim is to "infect you with awe", as if ideas and wonder are the cure to all.
The champions of humanity often speak of various ascensions given our most recently proven capability. We deal with physiological conditions to a point where change is no longer external or random. Ever growing levels of supreme control suggests the opportunity to replace random external change with something new. This hope comes from knowledge. Every life form is perfect at birth by one definition; it “fits” successfully with all external conditions, it survives and continues. Rather than await the emergence of the former, why not control the latter? To control all external conditions and assure “fit” we use technology to organize and then reorganize “all matter” into any new thing that might be found in the imagination of those who control the resources to do so. Thus the question is clear. Is it what “they” require to survive or is it what “we” might need to survive. This might be described as the American problem, but others might hold or “occupy” this prize in the future. The critics of human potential would agree to all of this but point directly to the “we/they” caveat. Our culture of privilege tends to leave the most important things unsaid as if it were unnecessary to speak. One of these “unsaid things” is about those made unfit, not by the exigencies of the wilderness in its selection process, but by our own hand. In this sense, human capacity stands before an abyss that it cannot see, or worse, sees and denies. There are those who see a raw biology teetering on the edge of a “corrective period” that will fix obvious imbalances regardless of interventions to save life. For this reason I prefer the optimism of Silva. It is obvious I am a pessimist, yet without his view I could not retain the possibility of being surprised.
[...] To Understand Is To Perceive Patterns – Urban Times. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. By Colin Mackay • Tagged complexity, emergence, pattern recognition, patterns, systems, understanding 0 [...]
[...] Hilton stumbled across two of his astounding Shorts, and published them in the post “To Understand is to Perceive Patterns“. Since then, I met with Jason in London and was blown away by his awesomeness. To talk to [...]