TO BE HUMAN

Cambria Ca

     There's a great wheeze about three theologians sitting around and discussing when life begins.
     "We believe life begins when the egg and sperm cells unite. It is at that moment, even before the zygotic process that life begins," observes one of the scholars.
     "Well, I understand your view," the second nods, "but we think life doesn't fully bloom until the fetus emerges from the womb and breaths independently for the first time. It is as though the oxygen in the lungs, free from a maternal link, signals the beginning of life," the theologian opines.
      "Well, those are wonderful ideas, and beautiful too I might say," the third says scratching his goatee, "but as for me, I says life begins when the kids leave home!"

     But seriously folks.....
     The older I get the more I sense there is almost nothing of the most profound nature of human existence where we can find consensus. Our differences emerge early. So with that as prelude:
     I wonder if any of you have given thought to what it means to be a human being? How do we classify human existence? What is our hard line definition? What makes it so? Heart beat, brain function, blood flow, vital signs? What?
     
     Let me stretch this question with a few posits. Many of us are hopeful that new medical processes and technologies will improve and even extend life. Immuno therapy offers new horizons. Wonders to ponder in gene engineering, in vitro diagnoses, cloned, banked or engineered replacement parts and organs, interaction with neural circuitry, other brain health advances, and in fact a cascade of innovation and discovery that we have yet to threshold with understanding. People talk now of pushing life expectancy, and with a confident expectation.

      Years ago I covered rookie training camp for an NBA team as a participant. I checked into a room at the college, was issued all the material and was expected at work outs, practice sessions, meetings, and ate at the training table. Everybody was very understanding that I was just a reporter, but they seemed to appreciate I was busting my butt to report a story.
      One day I was in the training room, nursing an old knee injury on a cybex machine, flexing the knee. Next to me was a genuine star, Len Elmore. Even back in the 70's he was not only a great athlete, but an intelligent and deep thinking man.
      As we flexed away, Elmore said that perhaps someday the professional jocks would be more artificial-better working mechanical knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists and etc. 

     I can't tell you how many times over the years that idea has marched across my brain. But now we live with a kind of fulfillment. The idea of a cyborg is no longer an outrageous fantasy.
     Wouldn't a patient with brain loss jump at the opportunity of an implanted chip that could make up the deficits, or failing kidneys accept an synthetic transplant, or a failing heart supplanted by a technology, etc, etc, etc.
    In fact the dawn on this age has already come and we living into it, but I suspect without a longer arching view about what does it mean, where does it end, what are the implications?

    There are some in silicon valley with seemingly unlimited financial power and an interest in pushing the boundaries of old fashion physical death, even to the point of eliminating it. For some it is personal, for others, it is an art of science.
   There are creative and great minds pondering the coming impact of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and have sparked an important debate about weaponizing computers, robots, and giving machines sanction to take human life.
     See, we have backed into a future where the very existence of a human life can be extended, mechanized or artificialized while never defining the nature of a human life.
     When do we cross a Rubicon and evolve not so fully flesh and blood and human aspiration but also manufactured or engineered and algorithmized?  What makes us human?
     Does the fact that our lives are finite, even fragile make us more fully human than say a future iteration where bio mechanics or living cellular chips or some such can make us almost immortal? Is there a point where machine intelligence is so much more efficient as to render human instinct, spiritual inclination or devotion, creative musing, sensuality, and a range of human emotion as out of date, no longer valuable, irrelevant?

      Before this rambles into some shadow game of Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Arthur Clark and company, it seems some basic definition, delineation, or understanding might be helpful. It won't be easy. Like those theologians talking about the beginning of life, we'll be taxed by a diversity of thought but in the asking we might learn a bit. And it could make a big difference someday, perhaps not so much to us, but to our grand kids, who already live in a world vastly different than our own.
    

     growing

San Luis Obispo

   All it takes is a little blue sky and a patch of sun and an urban sideway becomes a mini vineyard.

From Griffin Park, Cambria

     We enjoyed the recent eclipse but failed to bring home a great shot. Still after stumbling from sleep a few times between 3:00 AM and 5:30 AM you need to show something for your efforts. We are only human.

    See you down the trail.

Finding Focus

     Something is going on, changing deep in the inner universe that is consciousness, mine and perhaps yours too.

      Maybe it is age, or the jarring reality of recent social change. I'm at a bridge where personal interests are being over taken by a concern for those who will live when I no longer do. 

      No, this not that sort of post or motivation. Certainly am not rushing wanting to depart. I'm fortunate to enjoy life and living but some measurements are beginning to change, lengthening and even broadening.

      Climate, resource protection and reclamation, changes in nature, pressure points in the human food chain, ethical treatment of human suffering and misery, political order, anticipating the impact of artificial intelligence, burgeoning medical technology, the wonders of regenerative medicine, evolution of our specie, preserving life in an interdependent eco system, genetic manipulation and more that present us with profound issues and questions. First, are we even mature enough to deal with the consequence. 

       There is a positive charge in engaging in something that will go beyond our own shadows. Strategizing, trying to establish and enable dynamics, systems and adaptations for a future. I am no scientist as my chemistry lab partner Janice Anderson discovered many years ago and as I have been reminded many times when I struggle to read science tracts and research. I am awed by those who advance knowledge and understanding. I appreciate their touching the arc of history and from time to time I have interpreted their efforts for a reading or viewing audience. I am not a man of science, but a man of words.

        Words matter too. They are the glue that gives our purposes structure. Getting older, reflecting on a life in journalism, study of philosophy, spirituality, religion, creeds, social compacts and decades of politics I think I have emerged as a kind of postulant ethicist. No one appointed me. There are few professional ethicists, but it is the "ethics of living" that have begun to calibrate and reboot in my inner mind, making me an unwitting accomplice in this concern about the future. As the latest iteration of human bipeds perhaps we all should consider the ethics of human existence on this verge of something.

         Living in the orbit of Silicon Valley, I am perpetually fascinated at advancements in artificial intelligence, mixed reality, virtual reality, bio medicine, big data and the like. But I have begun to also note that we make jumps and leaps without giving prior thought to what it will mean; i.e. how will this likely change things, or how could this go wrong, could it be weaponized, that sort of thought.

       We make giant leaps at a time when more people think only as deeply as 140 characters, or their Facebook news, when we see increasing evidence of a decline in critical reasoning skills, when history is barely known, when classics are replaced by Marvel, as we seek happiness in what we buy or own.

      Have you given any thought to what it means to be a human being? What makes us human? A brain, a heart, emotion, love, what?  Now consider how many implants or  replacements, or memory chips in the brain, or bio mechanical organs, prosthetics or synthetic blood do we need before human life, as we know it, ceases and something new emerges? 
       These wonderful but profoundly changing circumstances will have more impact on our children and grand children than us.

      Probably few people have given it much thought and that in itself is an ethical issue. We cannot nor should we impede science and research or healing systems and technologies. In just one simple query-how well equipped are societies for extended life spans?
       Isn't now the appropriate time that humanity deliberates, before epochal changes? Sci-fi writers and directors have long toyed with these themes but would we be content to see life imitate art?

     For the record we've had 8.7 inches of rain on the California central coast since January 1. That is more than we had for the full year 2013-2014. Total for the season is 20.93 making it the most since 2010-2011. Yes, there have been mud and rock slides. Historic Santa Rosa Creek road caved and it will be some time before repairs are made. Scenic Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, has also taken some abuse, but after 4-5 years of drought, we are happy we've been blessed with the rain.

The bluff trail north of Cambria

standing together

    A lot of people are pushing the White House Correspondents Association and other Washington based media groups to push back against early signs the new administration intends to play rough and dirty with some media outlets.

    Tough questions are simply part of the process. An adversarial relationship is the nature of the game and everyone, the White House, the media and the electorate are served when the media plays a watch dog role.  

     Divide and conquer is a technique of this administration. Combine that with the too common "careerist" motivation of some of the press corp and we could be on a slippery slope. Reminding the outlets that if one is targeted or banned, all could be has been the effort of many around the country. This is no time to forget the important role of the 4th estate.

     One thing they need to do a better job of is pressing this administration for details. We still haven't seen the health care plan that is supposed to replace the Affordable Care Act. Nor does the president elect ever give much detail. At some point we hope he realizes he's got to be presidential. He seems stuck in the mode of being the hustler on the campaign trail.  He's done nothing to convince me he's not an narcissistic idiot incapable of a complex sentence, let along thought. But maybe I'm wrong.

     See you down the trail.