EVOLUTIONARY & REVOLUTIONARY TIMES
Most people who witnessed Arthur C. Clarke's and Stanley Kubrick's
classic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey" remember the early scene where
in a group of apes cluster around a black monolith that had suddenly
burst from nowhere into their territory.
With fear and trepidation these pre-humans approached the monument
trying, with their then-rustic brains, to wonder what it was. Perhaps
because of a inquisitive element hidden in their minds, they eventually overcame the feeling of fear, doom, terror and unknown chaos,
and the most intelligent -- or most foolhardy or adventuresome -ape of them all finally built up enough courage to touch it. After
coming into physical contact with the strange edifice, he suddenly
was able to pick up an old animal bone and use it as a club, a tool.
This was the day technology was born. Ever since, ape, man or whoever started homo sapiens along that evolutionary path has never
been the same. That this was the exact link along the path will
likely never be known, but it did depict, quite indelibly, a course
that continues to this day. Something, somehow, had introduced these
savage creatures to "intelligence amplification". It was Leap #1.
Life became somewhat easier.
As this early evolutionary trail meandered through millennia after
millennia, there were other monumental leaps and quantum breakthroughs that permitted man to reach plateaux previously unknown,
and, until then, unknowable.
How the concept for the next major step was initially created is also
unknown, but in this instance, at least there remains of a portion of
the story. Whether this particular idea, conceived by John Pfeiffer
in his 1982 book The Creative Explosion, is correct will also perhaps
never be verified, but something similar did cause other monumental
changes in the thinking and learning practices of man that led to
intelligence amplification Leap #2.
Picture this. A group of young apprentices, from an early tribe of
wondering food-gathering nomads, after weeks, maybe months of
fasting, pain and fear are led one night along a non-existent jungle
trail by a wise village shaman and his magic drums to the entrance of
an unknown cave. He was about to show them the latest knowledge and
wonders of their world. They were about to be initiated into the new
skill of tool-making, a hitherto unknown art. Following his movements
and perhaps paying homage at each step to a series of spirits, they
entered the dark subterranean cavern and for a long period of time
followed the mighty shaman by holding a specific position on the his
trailing vine.
Eventually after many days and nights of discourse with the spirits,
the shaman instructed them to sit down in a selected chamber.
Trembling at the unknown they were about to face, they knew not what
to do. Nothing in their young lives had shown them how to handle the
unknown. What was the knowledge that only their shaman, up until that
moment in time, knew? Suddenly the shaman ignited a torch, still a
magic mystery to the apprentices. Moving swiftly, the shaman ran
from behind the sitting group and along the back wall of the chamber.
Drums rose in a crescendo of pounding hoofs. The shaman's flickering
torch illuminated the opposite wall and the eyes of the apprentices
reacting to the dim light, witnessed, with awe and wonder the worlds
first sound and light performance. A series of three dimensional
pictures of bulls, bison, stags, horses and mysterious signs and
symbols appeared to move in front of them, as the shaman ran along
the opposite wall leading these wild creatures. Knowledge was
transmitted, learning was being acquired, and an indelible change
occurred. Homo sapiens eventually developed insight and saw the
connection between seed and stars.
The shaman had learned how to use perspective and depth perception to
create illusions. This was the first "control" of cyberspace. This
anonymous shaman was the doctor at the time of intelligence amplification delivery. Much later we learned about binocular parallax
(3-D) and motion parallax where speed of an object appear to change
with distance from the viewer. This shaman had dared to push the
envelope beyond the borders of established wisdom. All subsequent
mankind owes him a debt.
This may have happened in the caves of Lascaux in France or at
Altamira in Spain and with time, in other caverns as the original
shaman's knowledge spread over the centuries. This was leap #2 in
the advancement of intelligence amplification. And so the Age of the
Nomad began to decline as man started planting crops developing new
tools, new technologies and became a village dweller. Famine started
to fade. Life became easier, and lifespans stretched to two decades.
But, the effect was even greater than those startling developments.
A new species appeared: homo sapiens sapiens. The doubly wise. CroMagnons appeared. In a flash on the time scale of history they
developed more tools than all their forebearers had produced in
millions of years. The previously dominant Neanderthals vanished,
almost overnight. Everything started to speed up. Technology was
going to kindergarden. Why does this appeal to me? I spent two
years of my adult life with Voodooists in Haiti learning what the
so-called civilized world thought was savage superstition. I wanted
to know about non-verbal communication. The unknown held more
possibilities than the known, which I knew would soon be instantly
available via 10,000 data bases. I have never regretted those days
of learning how to acquire insight under unusual circumstances.
Later, in distant and primitive Papua New Guinea, along a jungle
trail in the Kikkori rain forest, I received my first insight into
computers from a village chief and shaman of that Stone Age tribe I
discovered that intelligence is not locked up exclusively in universities and books and that learning is best accomplished by
exploring. Teaching only indoctrinates.
What does all this have to do with today and tomorrow as we approach
the Third Millennium? These, too, are momentous times ... both
revolutionary and evolutionary.
Each day we mutate a little. Some of this change is cellular. But
every time we learn something new, we also "mutate" intellectually.
Sifted information becomes knowledge. As we are forced to learn more
to survive, present reality is viewed differently. "Information
overload" is just the goad to the next leap. The world is no longer
flat.
Computers are the "torch" that is revealing many different realities.
Another quantum leap is about to occur. Through the rapidly advancing technology known as virtual reality, we will soon be able to
experience any "reality". It will allow us to "experience" virtually
everything. Much as airline flight crews since WWII have learned
many aspects of operating aircraft through "flight simulators", at
costs (both economic and physical) far lower than flying an actual
flying machine, we are about to learn "about almost everything" via
virtual reality. The "reality engines" of tomorrow will allow the
adventurous to create "reality" on demand. There are no limits. In
the interim, we have moved from pigments blown through hollow
branches (the didgeridoo musical instrument of the Australian
aborigine being the advanced model) on limestone cave walls, to
today's electrons and glowing phosphors directed upon glass.
When virtual reality hits world-wide distribution, it will, almost
overnight, make traditional educational systems (and much, much more)
obsolete and condense what formerly took four years to learn in high
school into the four-month crash course of tomorrow. Life is easier.
Average lifespans are stretching to eight decades.
Just as during the days of intelligence amplification (IA) Class One,
and Two, fear, doom, terror and chaos will overcome some in our time.
Yet, homo sapiens will survive. His culture and society will not.
Welcome to the Third Millennium and Intelligence Amplification Class
Three.
* * *
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