William Morse  wrote:

> wilkins{at}wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
> news:bjd46l$sfb$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 
> 
> > Tim Tyler  wrote:
> > 
> >> John Wilkins  wrote:
> >> 
> >> : As we affect the ecological balance of things, there will be a
> >> : cascade of effects that will result in humans becoming less
> >> : influential on the ecosystems they inhabit, though, so I have some
> >> : hope that we will end up marginalising ourselves int hat way. [...]
> >> 
> >> That seems pretty unlikely to me.
> >> 
> >> I reckon the chances are that humans will become more in control of
> >> the ecosystems they inhabit - not less.
> >> 
> >> As time passes, our technological prowess will continue to increase -
> >> and consequently, our chances of being marginised will continue to
> >> dwindle. 
> > 
> > I think that history is not on the side of unlimited technological
> > progress; not even recent history.
> 
> If you haven't read it, you might enjoy Evan Eisenberg's "The Ecology of
> Eden", which discusses in some detail (including much history on our 
> versions of utopia) the conflict between those who think we can control
> our environment with technology and those who think we are subject to a
> set of natural limits. 
> 
On to the reading list it goes :-)
> 
> My view of recent history is that it clearly shows limits to viability of
> a particular culture (look at Italy, Spain, France, Great Britain, and
> Germany since 1500). I am not sure that I see any historical limits to
> technological progress since the invention of the printing press, and it
> is  possible that the invention of the printing press marks a divide in
> cultural evolution, by allowing widespread dissemination and retention of
> earlier knowledge. 
> 
> 
> But certainly there is much historical evidence of eventual collapse of
> technologically based civilizations, so I would hesitate to make odds on
> our ability to avoid overshooting the carrying capacity of our 
> environment, even with our increasing ability to understand and control
> that capacity.

Don't misundertake me... I am *not* arguing for a cyclical or
developmental view of civilisations. Life is just not that tidy.
Societies are dynamic systems, and as such they are subject to the
normal fluctuations and instabilities of dynamic systems. Considerations
of such systems suggest that any dynamic system is going eventually to
fail. Experience suggests that we will eventually require more energy to
maintain the structure than is available at some time, and that the
structure will then collapse into smaller and extinct subsystems.
Moreover, it is the fate of all but a mere fraction of species so far
tested to fail eventually :-) Why should *we* be any different?

Even the paragon of progressive knowledge - science - exhibits the sort
of fits and starts and losses and collapses I would expect on a dynamic
systems reading. We have seen technological progress fail to be
maintained in the past - it bears remembering that much technological
and scientific knowledge is tacit and unexpressed in symbolic terms, so
once you lose, for example, an education system, you lose the technology
even if most of it was committed to paper.

Moreover, records degrade over time - how much information currently
exists as computer records. Imagine what happens if there's a solar
flare with a magnetic field big enough to erase computer-based data...

Culture exists as a standing wave of transmission and adaptation, and in
that regard is no different to the genome of a species.
-- 
John Wilkins
DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?
wilkins.id.au
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 9/8/03 3:14:14 PM