The link to this section of the site appears under the heading "Fun Stuff" in the main page. But if you looked close you would find the text "more or less" appended to the heading as an afterthought. This page is the reason why that was added. Here you would find vague, often oblique, comments on different issues. They are the outpourings of a sometimes over-worked (and generally under-fed) brain.
If you feel strongly about an issue that I've discussed here or would like to put forth an alternate view point you are most welcome to do so. Please voice your protests, opinions, rants, raves etc., to acheeriunni@yahoo.com.
Enjoy :).
The end of the second millenium approaches, and I am covered in dust! There is dust in my mouth, nose, eyes, ears and every other organ unfortunate enough to be a part of the exo-skeleton. The pangs of development, they say. The groaning of an expanding economy, they proclaim. May I humbly ask - an expansion of what? Or rather, an expansion at the expense of what?
When the first millenium ended, there was no one to celebrate. On 1/1/1000, people took up their swords and spears and went about their daily carnage. On 1/1/2000 we will do it with nuclear-tipped Tomahawks. A thousand years later what we have really managed to achieve is to do what the ancient man did, but in a slightly less messy and a significantly more effective way.
After the first millenium, Man slept. In his sleep he burnt women calling them witches, killed his brothers thinking them his enemies and slaughtered his children for they were of a different race. He looked down upon his bloodied hands and repented. Towards the dusky closing centuries, however, he awoke! In a frenzy of creativity, he created a whole New World. New however, only in its more creative use of armaments to achieve the same hoary objective of the ancient past - self destruction.
And now we look with glazed, bleary eyes the coming of the next thousand years - the beginning of a new chapter in the black history of this hapless race.
"There is no way out or round or through.... It is the end."-- H. G. WELLS (1866-1946), on his outloook for humanity.
If it were possible to man to manifest, in any manner that he chooses, all his fantasies and desires would the world be a better place or worse?
In the movie "Sphere", the people in the submarine (or at least three of them) are endowed, without their knowing it, with a power to make true their wildest fantasies (and fears). Never mind from where they acquired the power or how; it is sufficient to know that they did acquire it. Now these fantasies were often manifested in the real world through their dreams. Whatever they dreamt became reality!
One person for instance had an inexplicable fear (a phobia) of giant squids. Therefore whenever he slept the submarine would be attacked by giant octopuses! Another person was afraid of the various unknown vicious forms of sea life that might lurk in the murky depths; and each time he went under water he would be assaulted by extremely aggressive variations of species like the jelly fish and sea snake!
The movie largely focused on the more virulent manifestations of the different kinds of phobias that people possess. However if such a capability were conferred upon humans in the real life it is but inevitable that the entire human race is immediately wiped out!
Man has already devised ways of artificially manipulating biological processes to cause the development of tissue and organs in unnatural locations and forms. There for instance is documented evidence of scientists having successfully caused controlled development of additional limbs in the wing of a chick. Similar processes have been used to clinically cause new bone to grow in a patient whose legs were "irreparably" damaged.
These experiments are a result of research into the cause for natural processes - the isolation of elements responsible for fundamental biological functions and their use in incompatible ways in the laboratory. The study of the results of such use undoubtedly provide valuable insight into these processes but the ethical reasoning behind artificially causing the birth of chicken with more than 2 wings or rodents with strange bone growth from their stomachs is questionable.
The Moral Sense is the faculty that enables humans to distinguish the right from the wrong. However, it does not in any manner assist him in the making of the right choice once the alternatives are identified.
The process of making a choice unfortunately is influenced far more by factors that do little to enable the making of the right choice than those that do. Far too many unnecessary details cloud the mind when a decision is pending. This is especially true in cases where it is a moral decision that is required. The natural inclination in most cases appears to be the making of the wrong choice. What qualifies as a right or a wrong choice is of 'course a subjective matter.
Man appears to have evolved (if indeed he as evolved) with a certain ability to recognise the goodness of and in things and choose evil. This, contrary to popular notions is not a quality that one acquires during the course of one's life; rather, it is a quality that is as innate and as intrinsic to human nature as the most basic of his needs as food, clothing and shelter.