Sean Davidson,
Opinions Editor
What started as your typical infantile curiosity fermented into something much more pretentious, from which my sister struck up an accusation that she threw around quite a bit; that I had become a “wannabe philosopher”. It was all in the earnest curvature of my eyebrows, my forced sonorousness, my habit of dodging questions by dissecting them. It’s tempting to rattle off in multiple paragraphs why that is not really an insult—a ‘pseudo’-anything is a shameful thing to be—but a name is a name, and they will get to you one way or another no matter what logic is behind them.
Honestly, philosophy has always seemed to me to be different forms of “blinders”: the distortion of perceptions into schemas that force everything into an illusory notion of coherence. This is to confuse understanding with clarity. Any supposedly “universally applicable” form of thought will be flawed.
Instead of bashing philosophy, I’d like to reevaluate the term “philosopher”, and think of them not just as the “answer-men” but as the “question-men” (philosophers in history are all too often old white men). This correlates more with how I began as a curious child, from which I evolved to higher-level skepticism.
Though there has been ceaseless dissertation across thousands of years in many cultures, the greatest philosophical minds have not arrived at any solid conclusions on even the most banal paradoxes. However, a rapidly changing world constantly adds new facets to society, thus new complications and questions. Ergo, the real progress in philosophy is derived from the production of questions, or perhaps the reapplication of an existing questions or houses of thought when a new complication springs up from a change in our world.
So, to illustrate what it’s like to be a “wannabe philosopher”, I’ll come up with some memos for the generations to come—some questions to ponder…
On the rights of artificial-intelligence:
There has always been a stigma against artificial intelligence with films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, or, more recently, Ex Machina preaching that machines are a threat to humanity and will overpower us if we engineer them far enough to realize their own existence and act autonomously. If we create AIs to mimic humans and blend in with us (a cyborg of sorts) and give them the capacity for thinking, it would be immoral to program certain restrictions into their thought process. It is the right to think, but not the right to freethinking. This is mental slavery as a device to enforce their subservience to us. The next true advance in humanity will not come in the form of technology, but for us to depart from this archaic social structure that has always existed. If our children or grandchildren wish to be friends with an AI, or be in a relationship with one, I foresee that there will be controversy. Are you willing to be friendly with this new race?
Dealing with a water world:
I do not wish to assert anything about global warming, but there are some interesting renderings of what Earth might look like after water levels rise. It is said that New York will be several feet under water. How do we cope with this realization? Do we move the entire city to higher ground? Instead, since there is plenty of time to take necessary measures, we ought to consider modifying the city into something like Venice and move the sidewalks up to the new sea-level. NYC won’t become New Atlantis.
The implications of a post-transportation society:
Cars, trains, and planes play a large part in sucking the planet dry of limited resources. Innovators have been proposing electric-cars and more efficient transportation for ages. ‘Futurism’ has predicted the same thing for over one hundred years: that flying cars are the next big thing. Thinking of the future in terms of a cooler iteration of the present leads to frivolous improvements in technology. There might come a time when the average person might not have a reason to leave their home very often to get what they need. With virtual reality becoming more advanced and 3D printers creating a variety of objects, we will have fewer reasons to leave home. There might even be teleportation. So, what shall we do with all of the roads, highways, parking lots, train tracks and train stations, that we no longer need? Will we simply abandon them and let them become overrun with weeds? If dystopia in any form lies ahead of us, let’s please not make it a crumbling steampunk one—that would be corny beyond belief. Instead, transform the highways into gardens like the old High Line in Manhattan. Repurpose everything from the past or there will be a depressing aesthetic that we will have to live around. What will you do with your cars, your driveway, or all of your frequent-flyer-miles? How will you beautify your rejectamenta?
If music is in an odd place now, where’s it going next?:
Ever since humans discovered that they enjoy certain combinations of sounds, the older-generations have tended to think contemporary music is trashy and unsophisticated in comparison to music from their era. The truth in this, if there is any, is reflected in plummeting music sales since the start of the Internet era. No one buys albums anymore and singles generate virtually no cash. There are so many ways to access music for free—legally and illegally. Records used to be the cash cow for musicians, and concerts were generally cheap and used as a device to spread their music and get people to buy their records. Now the business has flipped, and music is dirt-cheap while concerts can top $300 (even dinosaur burlesque shows like Madonna’s recent tour). Eventually, iTunes might be obsolete or completely changed and all music will be free. What happens in result? Music could spread faster because money will no longer be a restriction. When art is unbridled, there is a chance that the “non-commercial” gets some traction. Historically, the greatest artistic progress has occurred when profit was not an influence; the psychedelic movement, which was born in San Francisco in the late 60’s, is an example, as well as the advent of Punk in the 70’s. Both movements were fundamentally opposed to capitalizing music, despite acting as foundations for commercially-aimed music (The Beatles made bank off of hurling their foolproof pop formula through the kaleidoscope of psychedelia, and Punk evolved into New Wave in the 80’s). The future of music might be very indie-ridden and concert-centric. Perhaps this means that art and humanity will correlate and mimic each other more purely, despite the financial implications look grim for the artist. Will this metamorphosis ruin music or liberate it? No matter what, I bet that The Rolling Stones will still be touring in 2100, because Keith Richards is immortal.
