Im mining a couple of my comments under yesterdays post to create a new and separate post: Im a bit concerned that our species may bifurcate into one group bound for the stars and the rest of humanity doomed to self-extinction amid its own filth and squalor here on the planet. Its Darwinian if you think about it, though it will likely represent the next step beyond natural selection as the hi-tech star-bound group improves itself quickly and directly through genetic engineering. It has certainly crossed my mind such a bifurcation has occurred in the past. Those with the science, resources, drive, and vision are drawn off in the great interstellar adventure, never to return, while the great bulk of humanity remains Earthbound and clueless, their lives consumed in their daily struggles for food, water, shelter, and territorial defense. Robbed of the silver seed (Neil Young, After The Goldrush), the cream of their gene pool forever gone, the once great civilization devolves and modern-day archaeologists sift the remains for the mundane explanation (climate change, resource depletion, disease, religious extremism). When I look at the reality of Inca ruins on their bases of cleanly sliced and machined bedrock dubbed Hanan Pacha topped with massive stonework (Uran Pacha) fitted together so precisely that, even thousands of years later, there is no space between the blocks to push a very thin knife blade, and that topped with lesser stonework with rebuilt portions of crudely stacked blocks (Ukun Pacha), a process of devolution is clear. And it is at this latter stage of crudely stacked stonework that the Spaniards discovered the Inca civilization. This is not to say that there was one civilization that gradually slid to a more primitive level. It was likely a succession of civilizations rebuilt atop the most ancient sites, some of which may be tens of thousands of years old. What pinnacle might have been reached in ages past when the base layers of seemingly laser-carved and often vitrified bedrock were laid down? Ancient architectural features and artifacts suggest an aerial orientation and both Hanan Pacha and Uran Pacha formations, once recognized only from Inca ruins in the Andes, are now know from many regions of Earth, including Peru, Egypt, Turkey, Japan, and Europe. They are at minimum suggestive of a once global civilization and technology with the obvious means to travel great distances. Did the cream of this civilization reach for and attain the stars, leaving little enduring evidence of their highest achievement? Look at the technological distance our own civilization has journeyed in less than 200 years since the first mechanized rail transport, a blink of an eye during the probable time frame we must consider. Once started on an exponentially rising curve of technological advancement, how long would it take to reach the stars? And what enduring record of our own will exist 20 or 30 thousand years from now if a select few forever leave the gravity well of earth and the rest of us devolve in war and pestilence, resource depletion, toxic oceans, etc.? Perhaps civilization is like the century plant, Agave americana, which flowers after 100 years and then dies, only for us its a much longer cycle. We bootstrap our way heavenward until we are capable of flying Mother Natures silver seed to a new home in the sun (more Neil Young lyrics). Then we devolve, painfully rebuild over the millennia, and then reach heavenward again. (This of course is a purely Earth-centric conjecture. The reality may involve visitors to Earth who have fostered human ascendancy in a variety of ways. But it is all conjecture and must not be taken as a tenet of any sort of faith without far more convincing evidence.)
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 15:17:08 +0000