It totally is a paradox Nick, you are right.
Hidden under the very beginning of the subject surface, it just fails to justify what it preaches. Kinda funny, really.
It begs the question on whether humanity actually has a preset (and unknown) finite limit doesn't it? Some sort of cap on expansion/evolution on how far we really can go - in order to reach this 'Utopia'.
What exactly is the ideal Utopia, versus realistic Utopia? Utopia being the optimum and most perfectly balanced social world - versus the ecological Utopia of the maximum efficient capacity the world we know of can turn its cogs at.
I think both complement eachother, whereby the ideal Utopia on a social level (ie, science and technology MUST be able to fit the extents of the world at a physical level, ie, natural resources etc). So Utopia must therefore have some sort of peak. But then people start speaking of futuristic sciences like creating anything from a sub atomic level - controlling carbon molecules into gold etc.
How far into that we go, f$%# knows!
I still feel somehow the world, heck, the universe as we know loops on itself through evolution to devolution and so forth. I think the way we are heading, no amount of future advances and perfect society are going to reach beyond the capabilities of how the earlier world worked previously.
We are just too primitive in our insticts. We just really want to breed and feed at the root of it all, and somewhere, the desire is going to burn out, and we head back to square one before we get close to social and physical world Utopia.
Looking at what Nick has said, there are just too many artificial stumbling blocks that rupture how we progress today, notably politics and religion. Awkward constraints that govern how we are able to freely evovle as a species. It just won't work. Catch 22, and we start all over. A little purge.
It's like how the world has frequent 20k ice ages (documented in rock and ice samples), as if the world was self cleasnsing a bit. The same way society has these little purges, through goverment reforms, civil and world wars.
They just happen to happen.
Hey, heres another mixer to it all - animals and religion/politics. And if we compare them in terms of evolution to, say, humans and religion/politics.
We don't know for sure, but look how animals have evolved through time and have fluctuated through fighting/breeding. We've seen species go exctinct all on their own accord, prior to any of mankinds involvement. That's just down to nature. No politics and no religion. Just natures pecking order, excuse the pun. Haha.
If animals could reach a Utopia of efficiency, it would be that theres plenty to eat; and plenty to shag.
Ironically, with mankind, we dream of a Utopia that is social, not physical.
We then have invented an ideaology that we also caused the toxin for. Our existence and pettyness is preventing us hitting that g-spot in life.
Now if we presume animals don't have 'religion' in their lives, there are many people who preach that religion may be the end of us all.
I feel in agreeance on that one. Add politics to the mix too. It's capping us in a very big way from freely thinking as one, or at least, being allowed to go beyond the box.
So does that weigh in that there are multiple instances of Utopia again? A social level of Utopia (where society is at optimum evolution and progression); and a physical level of Utopia (where the physical world is at its optimum in terms of what it can accept and produce through input and output, ie, food and population ((breeding and eating being the crudest from of life requirements LOL))).
But really? What of all that jargon? That's just evidence that evolution as part of livingkinds progression follows a natural cycle of highs and lows independantly.
Utopia on its own as a social factor can only be reached by humans and human input, as we basically invented it, meaning it isn't a natural occurance.
That extinguishes ecological Utopia, as social utopia has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of the earth, and is simply a science/social/technology goal.
So we conclude that it hasn't happened on its own accord. Ever. So say, we are in control of our own destiny, right?
Religion is then one of our 'artificially introduced' external factors that can adversely affect how we reach this supposed 'Utopia'.
So you'd have to eradicate all forms of religion to reach Utopia because of all the conflicting disagreements holding us back. But as Nick was hinting sort of, eradicating that puts everything on a linear playing field.
If we all are the same (thinking along the lines of communism) then there is no distinction between one or the other so much, and so we sit in content limbo. Thus we don't progress.
But we need things like Religion to keep us arguing and fighting for something better.
Yet Utopia doesn't require it, and in Utopia every question is solved and the world works fluidly.
Religion, sheesh, now thats a whole new kettle of fish altogether.
But Nick, spot on with the impossibility of it all, its what I found difficult to weigh up without going in circles.
Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole itEdited 6 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2011 04:58PM by danm.