APPENDIX VI
As Written By Ann O'Nymous
Okay. I'm a MOOist. What do I believe?
Well, that's not a really well defined question. AS a MOOist,
I don't believe anything. Or, put another way, being a MOOist has
nothing to do with what I believe or don't believe. The effects of
MOOism on my brain have been to make me question my beliefs,
experiment with different beliefs, and instill in me a kind of
rampant agnosicism. I don't know whether faith or skepticism is
more true. I don't know whether or not God exists. I don't even
know for SURE that I'm really an agnostic: I might just be fooling
myself. The effect of MOOism on my mind has been to reduce my
certainty and trust, and increase my thinking.
But isn't that just skepticism?
Well, no. MOOism has made me reject rampant skepticism too.
It doesn't have to do the same to you, or anyone else. That's what
it did for me. But, in my relaxed times, away from the bustle of
my own thoughts, I always return to the basics.
I believe what I can justify believing, and nothing more. And
that means skepticism. I have to question what I see, compare it
with my experience, my own understanding of what makes sense.
I have to ask myself about the integrity of the person telling
me something, about the consistency of the ideas, about the
parsimony of the theory...
Skepticism is one system of thought which can never be
undermined by experience, one thing I can trust... Maybe. The
assumption that the TRUTH is minimal, is rational, is something we
can never know. But skepticism is pragmatic. Pragmatism is what
it takes to survive.
No, I don't BELIEVE in my skepticism, but I use it because it
WORKS. When it comes to thought-systems, I use what works until it
doesn't work any more, and then stop. Skepticism has always
worked, always revealed illogic and nonsense. But even skeptical,
rational agnosicism leads to religion when explorations of reality
are carried far enough.
The rational assumption is that, if we are skeptical and
rational, our understanding of reality will approach the truth, and
we will gain more and more control over the world. Scientists find
that our minds, our environment, everything we perceive, all are
governed by the same underlying laws. As our understanding
increases, so does our control. Our control over ourselves and our
environment is increasing exponentially: this is a fact which can
be verified by any skeptical inquirer.
Skepticism is a very shaky worldview, and any belief a skeptic
holds one day might be thrown out the window the next. Yet many
skeptics manage to hold an optimistic, futuristic view of the
future. New developments in areas like nanotechnology, robotics
and space exploration, artificial intelligence and cryogenics,
biotechnology and human neurochemistry are all indisputably taking
place in the scientific world. All these can lead to an
unimaginably bright future.
Many estimates suggest that within 50 to 100 years, we may
have effectively infinite lifespans, incredibly fine control over
the structure of matter, the ability to augment our intelligence,
or translate it completely into another medium. Our ability to
project into the future breaks down beyond a certain point. Even
as we approach some limit, and our ability to project improves, the
time into the future into which we can predict will diminish, until
we pass some unknowable point.
The limits to what we can acheive seem to be incredibly
remote. Translating our minds into artificial environments, moving
into space, travelling through time (using artificial wormholes)
and even becoming what appear to be Gods. All these are
possibilities that don't appear to be restricted by the laws of
physics.
Yet I can believe this while being perfectly willing to throw
it out if evidence turns up which makes it insupportable. What I
do know is that I can maintain my confidence in human potential
enough to believe that anything which is physically possible may
someday be acheived.
Skepticism and optimism: these are two basic tenets of my
beliefs which MOOism's radical ability to make my change my mind
and experiment with idea-structures left unchanged, or even
reinforced.
Why? Maybe only because these are necessary to survival, and
I HAVE to maintain them, or die. But together, rational skepticism
and dynamic optimism lead to a brighter, more realistic picture of
the universe than any I've ever seen anywhere else.
Should YOU believe these things too? Fucked if I know. You
decide for yourself.
A Floydian Slip:
Floyd, Proverbs, 6: Thou shalt not worship gravy images, for it's
hard to carve images in gravy.