How Far Is Too Far?

I wrote this piece for a Contemporary Philosophy course at University more than a decade ago. I'm not old, but I'm older.

How far is too far, excessive technology has come close to reaching “scientific atheism”. If sheep could be created in today’s laboratories, then what’s next? Whole generations will then be the results of some experimentation seeking perfection which will never be established. I am basing my words on the mere certainty of the availability of a healthy social system; starting from the individual himself and ending as the collective conscience of the world population.

The human being today, having been taken apart from the natural environment he once lived in, is totally unaware of the “cons” of science and technology. This is well exemplified in the fact that family bonds are getting weaker with time. In fact, 50% of marriages in the U.S end up by divorce. Most of them became more of a deal than a supposedly limpid commitment based on love and understanding. The results are obvious and many: more suffering siblings, more psychosocial problems and a deep crack in the wall called society. Without noticing, men’s interest became more directly oriented towards the matter.

A paradigm, which is an acceptable model or pattern, is closely related in terms of meaning to the concept of Normal Science. The later refers to the knowledge added to the already obtained. A paradigm is called so only when it is believed that it will make a change for the better. The near-future expected scientific revolution will find lots of answers to the unexplained, but at the same time it will also lead to a myriad of other more complex interrogations. The shifting of paradigms from my point of view is a complete change in everything, and especially the human mind who’s the controlling kind of all known beings in this life.

The concept of relativity will then occur, if the smallest group in the society called the family is falling apart, then what will happen on the larger scale? Feelings will be considered rare commodities for those whose main concern will be greedily gaining more power, money or both. The ones who will survive this social revolution will be the uncommon; this group knows well his true mind power and will always thrive to be in control rather than to be controlled.

The unceasing amount of technological development is heading towards globalization, as claimed by governments today and people are reachable today only by pressing buttons. The truth is that the advancement is really happening but on a deeper level, it is slowly entrapping the individual’s mind. A sense of alienation will probably occur to those who will deal with science as a religion. Discriminations, instead of vanishing, will reach its extreme measures within the segments of societies.

The paradoxical issue of how science and technology could be both good and evil is not fully yet understood. Personally, I believe that the day will come when life will lead us instead of us leading it. Taking the Y2K phobia for an example shows how the machines are already in a state of domination. A logical, social revolution and a new concept of a paradigm will take place.

One cannot deny the major role science and technology have played in the evolution of the human mind. Without it, we would have ignored much indispensable knowledge we know about today. Medicine or space conquering are concrete examples of the importance of the scientific development we have undergone lately. New wonders of the universe are still discovered every day, helping us complete our understanding to the jigsaw puzzle of life. Just a few decades ago, 1 out of 3 people who got pneumonia lost their lives to the disease!

“Keep your eyes on the stars on your feet on the ground”, this quote by Theodor Roosevelt is a perfectly suitable illustration to what I’m aiming for. What’s happening today is that the advancement of science and technology is not only enabling us to “keep our eyes on the stars” and helping us understand the unknown but it’s also lifting “our feet from the ground” which is definitely not the wanted outcome, I believe. By departing from our base we’ll be lost in labyrinths of thoughts and questions that will never be all answered. For only the Divine knows the future and only the Devine is the symbol of perfection.

We have to learn how to use science for our benefit, bearing in mind the damages resulting, and trying to minimize them. One of the most sinister damages that have already occurred was the change of the concept of naturalism, which was famous in the late 60’s with the hippy movement. I believe that a more vicious one will be following and a breakdown will be the result due to the fact that we are getting more and more controlled by computers and machines. The individual will be lacking his freedom, his privacy and most of all getting further away from the nature he once lived in and embraced.

New concepts will take place as well as new believes, new ethics and new life styles. Furthermore, the change will climb its way up the ladder of materialism. On the society level, art, fashion, music and drugs will all experience transformation and every single component of the existing paradigm will probably be exchanged with other, newer and assumingly better.

Madness is also a very possible outcome of the scientific revolution. The feeling of being constantly controlled and embedded under the “science” umbrella will probably unleash a sensation of insanity. Also, a great need to break down the walls will be born, the one encircling the inner self and the much larger one: The New System. The urge to unchain all the rules and not being able to, will exhibit itself in sorts of abnormalities in humans’ personalities such as psychological disturbances. To stabilize the system and to keep societies under control, scientists backed by their governments, will then come up with more ideas like the use of mind/dream-controlling drugs. People will only be digitally identifiable and the use of names will be long gone history. New ideologies will then derive from the hands of the “enlightened” scientists and everyone will be included in the world order. Wanting to reach the Utopian life and the brave new world that Huxley once talked about, we will get further away from our essence and the nature bestowed on us.

I guess we will only have to wait and see where this shift of paradigms is taking us. Everything is predisposed and the future remains unknown, even to our scientists.

“Computers are useless; they can only give you answers”

                                                                       -Pablo Picasso

“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler”

                                                                       -Albert Einstein



Written in 1999