12 modern delusions that must be challenged: #11

No 11. The World is Speeding Up.

This, a favourite trope of globalisation theorists, confuses acceleration in some areas, such as the transmission of knowledge, with the fact that large areas of human life continue to demand the same time as before; to conceive and bear a child, to learn a language, to grow up, to digest a meal, to enjoy a joke, to read a poem, to make a pot. It takes the same time to fly from London to New York as it did 40 years ago, ditto to boil an egg or publish a book. Some activities - such as driving around major Western cities (Dublin!), getting through an airport or dying - may take much longer.

My Reply:

Number 11 could stray very much into the territory of subjectivity of existence. If we are not part of a True external reality, then we are merely experiencing a construct of our own senses and beliefs, which are quite malleable. The acceleration of knowledge acquisition forces the mind to view its own beliefs, and thus its own state, as less permanent all the time. Thus the 'world' of experience is literally speeding up, since no one part of it features as a fixture or landmark for quite as long as it used to. However, this is easy to say for someone who has never borne a child, which is an easy state alteration to achieve (many a slip twixt...) but much harder to move out of again short of the natural 9 month term. Other examples abound, as shown below.

The question that still holds for the accelerationista's after this argument is made, is that if experience is in fact subjective, and reality is in some way a construct of our self-consciousness (we think, therefore everything is) - well then, why is there an accelerating wave of biological science along with knowledge-based science, that could alter even such things as pregnancy terms, unless we are imagining for ourselves a future where thought and the external effect that it creates come closer and closer together, until cognitive causality is almost instantaneous.

It is the implication of the unfettered potential of human science, that in order to 'keep up' with it, we would not be able to remain human ourselves. The essential characteristics of human consciouness, never mind physiology, wouldn't hack it when things really start speeding up. The keywords as to why this is, for those who don't really get what I'm driving at, are massively parallel and non-selfhood.

Other replies (from Kris McGlinn):

Reminds me a little of Icarus.

This kind of makes me think about another question I have wondered about. At what point can we say we exist in the same world? For instance, I am aware of animals in the wild...does that mean that they must be aware of me in some sense? Or can I be aware of realities that other people I share this world with are unaware of, just like they may be aware of realities that I am not aware of...and at what point can we say we no longer exist in the same world?

I suppose what I am really getting at is, if there is some correlation between myself, the technology I use, my environment and the humanity I identify myself with (including its history and current technological advancements), then at what point do I become human? and how do we agree what it is to be human? and is there a point at which we can say we are no longer human? or is the entire concept of humanity as misguided as concepts of individual identity ( i.e. there is no division, we are all one)?

Kris.

Here is another thought for those interested in Numerology with a little bit of mythology mixed in (to be taken with a pinch of salt). Number 11 has caused us to question our reality, and of course 9/11 is brought up which is inextricably tied to the collapse of the twin towers. The twin towers are similar to the pillars of heracles which were also seen as gateways from one world into the next (see also Dantes Inferno). The twin towers were the pillars that opened up into the new world of america, these have now fallen. In their place we have ground zero, a term normally associated with the aftermath of a detonation of an atomic bomb (I believe the germans also called the remnants of their burnt out cities ground zero at the end of world war 2).

What will be raised up from the ashes in the place of ground zero? Will it be a reflection of the collective state of consciousness if not of the whole world, at least of the western world (I wont go into the implications of the phallic patriarchal giant tower, maybe that is for the feminists)? But I suppose what interested me was the point that was made, in that Bush sees his own reflection in islamic fundamentalism. If this is so, and the dots we join around 911 reflect how we choose to interpret the events building whatever narrative we feel gives our lives meaning (the events may be completely random, unpredictable and chaotic)...then what part of us does Bush and islamic fundamentalism reflect? Possibly our subconscious realisation of a dependence on oil and the part this plays in the bolstering of the oil barons, along with the suffering it brings to the people of the middle east?

Kris.