Newton’s laws are in a sense ‘hardwired’ into the monkeys that swing confidently from tree to tree. Just Six Numbers – The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe. 1999. Page 37.
Author Archives: Daniel Alroy
The prospect of controlling future human evolution
Biotechnology. Biotechnology now makes it possible to control future human evolution. This is the most important development in human history. It also proves that history is unidirectional. For this reason, the use of the past as a guide for the future is likely to have adverse consequences. A possible scenario. The strife among world powers […]
Philosophy, Gene Editing and The Next Phase of Human Evolution
We can now control future human evolution. It is the most far-reaching technological development since humans branched from other primates some six million years ago. There does not exist at present a conceptual framework with which to address this (or any other) long-term global issue. Typically, any long-term global issue is a looming disaster. Consider […]
De-nuclearizing North Korea
What has prevented atomic conflict since the Second World War is the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Kim Jeong Il discovered that this formula is inapplicable to the potential atomic conflict between a superpower and a small country. Instead, the superpower, having more to lose, is in a military disadvantage. This fact confers negotiating […]
Some notes relating to the forthcoming publications of the revised The New Foundation of Knowledge (2017)
A. Philosophy A1. The current state of affairs. Philosophy is the most basic and most troubled field of knowledge. Present-day knowledge is still based on assumptions about human nature that are now known to be false, that were introduced some 300 years ago. These assumptions underlie normative disciplines, including ethics, law, politics and economics. As […]
Why this century is unlike any other
T. Philosophy and survival T1. The state of the world. T1.1. Climate change. From the evolutionary perspective species come and go; Homo sapiens is still a work-in-progress. Climate change exemplifies the fact that long-term global consequences of technology are generally toxic, irreversible this century, and raises concerns about the challenge of surviving convergent natural disasters. […]
Philosophy: toward a dawn of a new day
A. Consciousness A1. The consciousness enigma. Being Conscious is the central fact of personal existence. Yet, to date, attempts to account for what consciousness is and what it does have failed. This issue is addressed below. A2. A criterion of physicality. The physical is publicly observable. Your dentist can see your aching tooth but not your toothache. The tooth, being […]
Focusing on What Matters Most
1.1 Wresting from nature future human evolution Biotechnology now makes it possible to wrest from nature future human evolution. This is the most far-reaching development in history since humans branched off from other primates some million years ago. The central challenge confronting humanity now is what ought to be done with this awesome power. 1.2 The prospect […]
A Note About The New Foundation of Knowledge
Being conscious is the central fact of human experience. Yet, it is not presently known what consciousness is and what it does. For example, Physicalism, the currently dominant theory of knowledge takes the position that the non-conscious brain can do anything that the conscious brain can do. Artificial intelligence (AI) takes a similar view, that […]
Two related patents for sale (Identifying the NCC)
In 2001 I filed with the United States Patent Office a patent application for concepts and methods for identifying brain cells that determine the qualitative aspect of simplest sensations. It resulted in two granted patents. The first patent, Number 7,680,602 titled Concepts and methods for identifying brail correlates of elementary mental states was granted in 2010. It involves identifying […]