Why does the Recursion pause?
Why does the Recursion pause?
Yik Sheng Lee yesterday and today identified possible conflicts instigated by Shaper artifacts. Artifacts and places of power are taken to be commonplace in historical accounts, and then, vanish. While superstition remains constant, civilization's purposeful connection with the Shapers ebbs and flows.
We certainly seem to have lost touch with the "mystic" part of our history that's associated with Shaper tech/Shaper influence. Was 13Magnus responsible for sealing away these artifacts, to prevent further conflict, or where they lost as a natural cost of colossal wars (the Punic Wars in total cost upwards of half a million lives)?
There's another alternative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_%28historiography%29
Its possible the 13Magnus/Recursion cycles of the past, in certain regions, are correlated with the paucity of records from certain historical periods. Its not hard to imagine the success or failure of resurrection, and wars over immortality could shape the nature of a given region. We still align our calendar around the birth of Christ, whether you use CE or AD. The second Punic War, for example, ended the ambitions of Carthage's rulers to overtake Roman supremacy. The fall of Rome took centuries, but a fact remains: as their conquests waned, so too did their empire.
Are these dark periods times in which Shaper influence compels different methods of data storage, or change society such that outsiders view such accounts of Enlightened civilizations as fictional?
Or was the advent of Empiricism, what is largely credited with the downswing in mysticism, the result of the victory of the ancient Resistance analogues? The hegemony of Rome, much like the march of Alexander, eventually ground to halt; but these events were also adjacent to the flourishing of Arabian cultures and Indian kingdoms - both of which contributed significantly to our understanding of complex mathematics and astronomy. Following this pattern, can we expect a "Digital Dark Age", post ADA-instigated singularity, during which the balance of power shifts again?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age
Yik Sheng Lee yesterday and today identified possible conflicts instigated by Shaper artifacts. Artifacts and places of power are taken to be commonplace in historical accounts, and then, vanish. While superstition remains constant, civilization's purposeful connection with the Shapers ebbs and flows.
We certainly seem to have lost touch with the "mystic" part of our history that's associated with Shaper tech/Shaper influence. Was 13Magnus responsible for sealing away these artifacts, to prevent further conflict, or where they lost as a natural cost of colossal wars (the Punic Wars in total cost upwards of half a million lives)?
There's another alternative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_%28historiography%29
Its possible the 13Magnus/Recursion cycles of the past, in certain regions, are correlated with the paucity of records from certain historical periods. Its not hard to imagine the success or failure of resurrection, and wars over immortality could shape the nature of a given region. We still align our calendar around the birth of Christ, whether you use CE or AD. The second Punic War, for example, ended the ambitions of Carthage's rulers to overtake Roman supremacy. The fall of Rome took centuries, but a fact remains: as their conquests waned, so too did their empire.
Are these dark periods times in which Shaper influence compels different methods of data storage, or change society such that outsiders view such accounts of Enlightened civilizations as fictional?
Or was the advent of Empiricism, what is largely credited with the downswing in mysticism, the result of the victory of the ancient Resistance analogues? The hegemony of Rome, much like the march of Alexander, eventually ground to halt; but these events were also adjacent to the flourishing of Arabian cultures and Indian kingdoms - both of which contributed significantly to our understanding of complex mathematics and astronomy. Following this pattern, can we expect a "Digital Dark Age", post ADA-instigated singularity, during which the balance of power shifts again?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age
If anything the Enlightened perspective is associated with empiricism, for it demands that people not merely take what they are told about the universe at face value, but go forth and open themselves to experience. Hume's "wrecking ball" has demolished many old superstitions, and continues to be the guide by which ancient weakness is cleared away to be replaced by a new reality which becomes familiar.
ReplyDeleteIs there anything to suggest anyone was ever successful in reaching immortality? The examples suggest the cost of failure is so high as to reset things and undo successes. Perhaps it's an endless cycle with an ideal outcome but extreme cost of failure, people aspire and fail repeatedly throughout history... Are we now at a point where we can reflect and learn from those past mistakes to, for the first time in our known timeline, reach the 'goal' of immortality and whatever else comes with it? Is it even something worth pursueing when the risks are so high?
ReplyDeleteAre there alternatives that other human civilizations hadn't considered but that we, with technology as we have, May be able to explore? A lower risk version of immortality perhaps