This episode of "Shots of Awe"
is brought to you by Norton.
One of my favorite lines
by Terence McKenna,
to sum up the human
man machine story,
is that human beings--
the goal of humanity
is to effectively turn
ourselves inside out.
To actualize the
human imagination.
To literalize the human
mind with our creativity.
To turn our tools-- these
technological scaffoldings.
As you turn them into
extensions of mind
to expand the
boundaries of mind.
You know, Kevin Kelly,
co-founder of "Wired,"
calls technology the
seventh kingdom of life.
The Technium subject to the
same evolutionary forces.
Human beings taking matter
of low organization,
and we put them through the
filters of the human mind.
And we extrude space shuttles
and wireless communication
networks and smartphones.
With the Industrial
Revolution, we
transcended the
limitations of our muscles.
With the Digital Revolution,
we transcended the limitation
of our minds.
With the Biotechnology
Revolution,
we will transcend the
limitations of biology
by turning the software
of life into something
that is programmable.
We will upgrade biology.
With the Nanotech Revolution,
we will transcend the limits
of matter by patterning
the atoms the same way we
pattern bits of information
into digital space.
The whole physical universe will
become like the Pixar universe,
as manipulatable and as fluid
as the digital cosmos is.
The physical cosmos
will be programmable
at that point when we
pattern the atoms like this.
So consider these implications.
Consider then the
context in which
this places mind, in
which this places life.
You know, as Bucky
Fuller used to say,
life is an antientropic
phenomenon.
Life moves away from
entropy towards greater self
organization-- greater patterns.
Upwellings of patterns
and structure.
This is life.
This is mind.
And as David Deutsch said
in his book, "The Beginning
of Infinity," if
you look already
at the physical topography
of the city of Manhattan.
That's the topography in
which the forces of economics
and culture and intent have
trumped geology, right?
Literally, the
forces of mind create
more physical
topographical change
in the forces of geology.
Mind has trumped matter.
And as Ray Kurzweil in his
magnificent, magnificent book,
"The Singularity is Near,"
it turns out, my friends,
that we are central after all.
We're not just a pale blue dot.
Our ability to create
virtual models in our heads
combined with our
modest-looking thumbs
was sufficient to usher in a
secondary force of evolution
called technology.
It will continue until
the entire universe
is at our fingertips.
Having invented the gods,
we can turn into them.
That is the human story.
That is turning
ourselves inside out.
That is actually analyzing
the human imagination.
What is within becomes without.
