Teleological Telescopy

We are rapidly reaching a point in our common human history when we are achieving a realization that alternative systems are logically coherent independent of our knowledge of them or our context in which we discover them. The consequence of this is that meta-systems will become emergent in the world as a property of the modern world, intrinsic to the world, with their own sense of momentum and developmental trajectory in the world. The point is this--once a new technology has been invented, it is only a matter of time before it catches on, and once it does, it is here to stay. New technology doesn't go away, but, somewhat like the microwave oven, becomes common place--no longer a luxury but a necessity; not just a "convenience" but a built-in part of the woodwork. 

This is an issue that must be taken seriously. Technology, for instance, to build nuclear bombs is well-known. There are few secrets any longer to building a back-yard budget doomsday device. There are restrictions in terms of obtainable materials, workmanship, etc. But what is hypothetically possible, becomes in the structure of the long run and the large not just a probability but an inevitability. It is something to be expected, if not exactly predicted. 

There is a sense that the main stumbling block to building a better world, a future global utopia, is not due primarily to the lack of technology or know how. It comes from the lack of collective will to change the world, or to implement and develop technologies that are already available. As Dennis Gabor put it, we move ahead with technological invention, but lag way behind in terms of social innovation. Human social resistance to change therefore is becoming the main stumbling block and rate determining factor to the implementation of developmental change, to its rapidity and directionality. We find this clearly in terms of the advent of new computer technology, and the limited capacity and long learning curves that most people require to master such technology. Staying on top of this game becomes a whole obsessive profession in itself, and by the one time one gains a reasonable skill-level with a given system, it is probably made obsolete by the introduction of newer systems. Individual human beings just can't keep up with all these changes or the pace of change.

Not all developmental change is equally "progressive" even if all technological development is by definition teleologically "progressive" in the sense of the augmentation and integration of reality that it leads to. Forms of change that result in destructive consequences in some larger framework cannot be considered "progressive." Nuclear weapons are in a sense inevitable forms of progressive technology, and will eventually become widespread forms of technology, which virtually guarantees their wide-ranging deployment and misuse in the structure of the long run. The destructive consequences of such misuse are inestimable. This is a vital issue to try to understand and deal with in our collective future.

The development of applied systems will continue at an accelerated pace whatever their long term outcomes. The genie has been let out of the bottle and will not go back inside again. This development furthermore will be increasingly "pre-planned" and intentional, rather than merely serendipitous and unintended, though the outcomes of such development may become increasingly complex and chaotic and hence unintentional. Research systems are themselves forms of development that will further facilitate the invention and discovery of new knowledge and new systems in a deliberate and systematic manner. No country or nation that does not have an eye to its future can afford not to promote and organize frameworks for development.

Foreshortening and accelerating developmental cycles, something to be expected as an emergent property of future technologies, requires the proportional enlargement of what I would call meta-system frameworks for their realization and "adaptive equilibriation" in terms of human systems and the "built-in" limits of human systems. The pattern of response most people evince in life are patterns of response that are characteristic of the human species given the prevailing circumstances and cross-cutting influences of people's lives. With increasing alienation, anomie and complexity in life, one should expect greater frustration and conflict occurring, and possibly greater deviance and sense of fundamental psychological/behavioral discrepancy. These kinds of contradictions are clearly evident in contexts like contemporary mainland China where rapid modernization is running headlong against deeply ingrained and long-established and very conservative ethno-cultural traditions.

Such contexts make coherent and consistent meta-system frameworks even more urgent and necessary, and not less appropriate for alternative development purposes. Of course, the saying is far simpler than the doing, especially when what is to everybody's long term interest may seem to nobody's short-term or selfish sense of interest.