Vive hodie
“Vive hodie” is Latin for “live today.” I agree with this perspective because tomorrow might not be there, waiting for my plans.
But how practical is it? It depends on the consequences. Usually, living for today amounts to making the most of working in my cubicle. It amounts to making the most of opening as many browser windows as possible and reading as many articles as possible in the shortest amount of time possible, all without any real, clear purpose as to why or what I hope to get out of it all.
That’s one problem. The other is myopia. I lack foresight. I am simply no good at predicting how I will react emotionally in any given situation. For instance, I might think it thrilling to bungie jump. Yet, if I ever do, I might throw up and think it rather dangerous and retarded. Or, I might think it satisfying to jump while skiing. Yet, if I ever do happen to try that sort of stunt on, say, my second day of skiing, with weak and tired legs, I might find myself staining the snow and wishing that I had never talked myself into doing something so equally dumb. In short, regret and guilt tend to show up arm in arm when I least expect them.
What I have learned, though, and what I can use to offer as a bit of advice is that it usually helps a lot to quickly think through your impulses and weigh any foreseeable consequences before taking action. That usually helps.
Awareness and evolution
It fascinates me that, right at the point where technology and biology begin to intersect and coevolve, we are also beginning to understand how we came to exist, using such discoveries as chaos theory, fractals, and cybernetics. Yet, from a slightly broader perspective, this seemingly remarkable timing makes perfect sense given that science and technology have always coevolved.
My only fear is that technology will solve our problems for us without requiring our understanding. For example, we can already write AI software that learns from a few basic facts and solves incredibly complex problems for us, such as evolutionary optimization. Quantum computers are also being used to answer fundamental biological questions, like the precise energy of a hydrogen molecule. These are no doubt great advances. My fear is that we do not understand them and, therefore, cannot ask our newest oracle, as it were, the right questions.
Then again, the worst effect of our ignorance is probably slow advancement, since technology can also be used to help us optimize our questions. And, if not, then we will inevitably merge enough with technology to provide a different kind of “understanding” through brain-computer interaction. So, I guess my fear is irrational, a human quality that I would gladly give up in the merger.
Multiplication and division
What does it mean to ask why one exists? It seems wiser to ask why the universe exists, since we are part of it. And what could it possibly mean to ask that?
Using organic life as a guide, purpose relates to procreation or, more generally perhaps, multiplication and division. We are here to prove a math theorem?
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Welcome to IntrinsiMind
This blog serves as a repository for the collection of philosophical thoughts. I do not pretend to be a philosopher, only to have a deep interest in the subject. But in many ways, I find that everyone is a philosopher in some facet or other, merely as a byproduct of living.
