I’m going to cover a lot of ground here so bear with me.

From BetterHumans I was led to this Edge World Question Center response from Martin Rees:

Darwin himself noted that “not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity”. Our own species will surely change and diversify faster than any predecessor —— via human-induced modifications (whether intelligently-controlled or unintended), not by natural selection alone. Just how fast this could happen is disputed by experts, but the post-human era may be only centuries away.

This quote brought me back to a question I have asked Laura many times: How do you reconcile reincarnation with exponential population growth? You can see that as the human population increases, other populations have decreased. It is really an energy shift from plants and animals to increasing numbers of humans. I got to thinking about this last night as I was watching Planet Earth. I was afraid that the series would be depressing, making me think about how destructive mankind is, but I am really enjoying it. Still, as I watched it I wondered, what are we here for? It seems we do more harm than good in the natural world.

I think that this idea of “post-humanism” is key. We can consciously evolve, using our technology to maintain the planet while still expanding the horizons of human potential. Rebalancing the energy that has shifted from nature to humanity, we can continue to grow as a whole. I think humans might exist to be the conscious witnesses of the material universe. The Tao (God, universal life-force, whatever) has manifested itself in nature and in each of us. Needless destruction of nature goes against the Tao and thereby causes injury to each person. A positive post-human future would result in a harmony between nature and technology, with man and the intermediary. Perhaps we are the catalyst for a post-natural universe: the Singularity.

Technology is neither our enemy nor our savior. I believe it is the natural evolution of the Tao as embodied in matter. A tree becomes a table becomes a calculator becomes a laptop and so on. Which is closest to infinity? The tree at the source or the technology on the horizon? It is an endless loop of potential that we have the responsibility to be stewards of.