Eywa Exists

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Clarke

You don't know what she wants, and it's very likely she knows exactly what you want, better than you do yourself.

No, I dont know what she wants, but obviously Eywa does keep Pandora in balance, supports life and the people and does not take it lightly if sky people come and destroy that. I do not know why this should inherently happen with a "Posthuman god" really.

They screwed up. They did not effectively use all of the resources available to them.

My point was to say that humans are NOT like gods that can walk around in Avatars (in the original meaning you referenced), even if they think they are. I think that was literally one of the messages of the movie, that humans did think they are like gods, created Avatars (like in the Hindu mythology) to walk on Earth. They are even blue, just like in some of those old myths. And the end of the story is that this illusion is shattered, that humans after all are NOT god-like but "just humans".

Fusion: Well, the additional component you need is electricity

And processing plants and enrichment facilities and catalysts, electrodes, magnets,...

We're working on it. Look up "bioprinting."

But that is again my point - up to now there was no progress in that it got getter and better all the time, that the impact was less and less over time. I am operating on reality, on what is and has been, not on what might, could or should be. Maybe you can do bioprinting meat or make meat from sewage or algae - it remains to be seen what the implications of those theoretical ideas will be. Fact is that up to now, better technology and more efficiency usually lead to an increased demand and usage. This was described a long time ago and still is valid under the name of Jevons paradox.

Singularity: Also, the version I heard didn't specify "on Earth", which is how it makes the insanity disappear; it says the best idea is to disassemble the inner planets into a virtual reality hypervisor and let Earth deal with itself.

So you think there is some heaven in the sky that is seperate from Earth and in which posthuman people will exist without impacting the Earth? Just saying by using that vocabulary that this again sounds a lot like christian mythology.
And seriously, I do not even understand what you are talking about. This is total science fiction. I can make up a story, too if I like to - about some future that could happen if.... that is however fiction - maybe it is probably or possible fiction, but still it is fiction.

Nobody noticed a problem earlier because they didn't have the data.

Oh definitely they had data in the past. People starving is a good data to indicate there is not enough food, deforested landscapes in Europe or on the Easter islands or in Japan certainly got people to think about the implications of taking too much wood and so on. There always was an awareness of the impact of civilization on humans and the Earth, it was chosen to ignore this and move on. And this time is no different. And if the hopes rest on a technologcal saviour, the future will not be different either.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Saying 'the extinction rate is orders of magnitude higher' is false logic. Higher than when?

Higher than in geologic history. One can pretty well estimate the extinction rates in the fossil record. The periods that match todays extinction rate exist of course, they are called "Mass extinction events"...

Once again you ignore facts - fusion reactions are run today, they do not need some mythical material you claim does not exist. Nobody said anything about being free except for you

Originally Posted by Clarke

The fuel for fusion power is seawater. It doesn't even need to be filtered.
[...]
[technologies that] make electricity across the globe too cheap to meter

... I did not say free, I was replying to Clarkes claims. Fusion if it is possible will be just another energy source, cost money, materials, fuel that has to be processed and so on...
And the mythical material that is missing yet is the one that can actually capture the energy emitted. What they maanged as of now is to sustain a few seconds od fusion - the rest of the technology is as of now missing

The original post was about Avatar

The original post was about how we on this planet have our own connection to something that one might call "Eywa". This world, our Earth is a living being. The essence of life flows through all the places on Earth. The energy is given by the sun and passed on and shared by the living beings on this world. The connectedness and interdependence of all living beings, all individuals, each ant and bug and bear and sturgeon and butterfly and human takes part in that whole ensemble. My point is that this whole relationship is alive, that the Earth is alive, that we are part of something bigger that one may call Gaia or Eywa or Earth or Eairth. And that even though we do not and possibly cannot know if there is sentience in it, there is more to it than parameters, DNA codes, nutrient flows. And I would even say that I personally can imagine that this world is sentient, but that it is so on a different level. Consider that on Pandora, the people do not hear a voice of Eywa. They see signs, hear their ancestors, get feelings and by those phenomena they listen to Eywa. They do not have scientific evidence, because they do not need to have it. Why should we expect to hear a voice or see electric currents running between trees? Why should we limit ourselves to that narrow perception of sentience or intelligence. Some days ago, I had the opportunity to stand by the newly born Ammer river in the mountains and look at it, feel it, touch it, see the trees, feel the coldness of the rocks under my bare feet and the warmth of the sun, smell the pines, listen to the water splashing over rocks, look up at the marvellous colors in the sky at the sunset behind the huge mountains patterened in dark green and white and grey and brown. That communiction of this world with me is way more coplex than the feeble words I write here can express. The Earth talks to us, synergestically, not in words, but in sounds and light and patterns and touch - it invokes emotions and thoughts by that, just like when I talk to a human being.
I know that some people do not see this, want to describe this all as a matter of mechanistic physics and programmed reactions. But what is the human brain but a network of cells that exchange electrical signals - all physics and simple biology, how can that be alive and sentient. And yes, that was a bit sarcastic, because of course I realize that humans are sentient, but I do not see why the ability to take something back to its physical and chemical roots diminishes its value as a being that is sentient. So the physical world around us communicates with us all the time - how dare we say that this is nothing, that this is not the product of a living, thinking, feeling entity? Just because we have forgotten to listen, to SEE and to feel. Like the infamous three monkeys we stand in a world full of voice and color and ignore the communication towards us and refuse to communicate back.
And it is this world, that communicates to us that my allegiance is with. This is why I am getting into a rant if I meet people who ignore this, who diminish the value of this communication and existence, who claim to be superior, god-like, creators and think they are entitled to determine how everything should be because they are the only ones who understand, who are sentient and intelligent, who are powerful and who are alone in that, while in fact the consequences of that thinking ruin the beautiful being that is our planet, just as the bulldozers ruined the place that was shown in the first post.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

No, I dont know what she wants, but obviously Eywa does keep Pandora in balance, supports life and the people and does not take it lightly if sky people come and destroy that. I do not know why this should inherently happen with a "Posthuman god" really.

Because you're an ant trying to understand the Internet? That's roughly the scale differential involved.

My point was to say that humans are NOT like gods that can walk around in Avatars (in the original meaning you referenced), even if they think they are. I think that was literally one of the messages of the movie, that humans did think they are like gods, created Avatars (like in the Hindu mythology) to walk on Earth. They are even blue, just like in some of those old myths. And the end of the story is that this illusion is shattered, that humans after all are NOT god-like but "just humans".

Yeah, and it's specifically mentioned in the backstory that the RDA held themselves back because of the politics involved. Defeating the Na'vi and the animals is not that difficult when you basically have access to artificial meteor strikes. Or bioweapons. Or fusion bombs. Or electromagnetic disruption weapons.

Like I said, the RDA did not utilize the resources available to them and/or were limited by PR. Taking a mass of rock is not that difficult now, let alone with 140 years of robotics technology. The Na'vi can do absolutely nothing about unmanned robotics.

And processing plants and enrichment facilities and catalysts, electrodes, magnets,...

What is there to enrich? And wait, what? Catalysts? In a fusion reaction?

You start with seawater and your actual fusion reactor. You electrolyze it, sort out by mass, and that gives you your deutrium. You stick that into your reactor, fuse it, and sell off the resulting helium. (Sorting by isotope if people are pansies. ) That's a theoretical energy gain of 110x. In practice, it'll probably be 10-20x.

But that is again my point - up to now there was no progress in that it got getter and better all the time, that the impact was less and less over time. I am operating on reality, on what is and has been, not on what might, could or should be. Maybe you can do bioprinting meat or make meat from sewage or algae - it remains to be seen what the implications of those theoretical ideas will be. Fact is that up to now, better technology and more efficiency usually lead to an increased demand and usage. This was described a long time ago and still is valid under the name of Jevons paradox.

I didn't know about the Jevons paradox, so I looked it up, and learned that it only applies in the case of elastic demand, which I doubt applies to the meat industry. Additionally, I'm not talking about a mere increase in efficiency with bioprinting; it'd be a complete paradigm shift. If someone implemented bioprinting, demand for meat is irrelevant, since you are no longer using land to grow food for the animals; you're just growing animal out of relatively raw material.

So you think there is some heaven in the sky that is seperate from Earth and in which posthuman people will exist without impacting the Earth? Just saying by using that vocabulary that this again sounds a lot like christian mythology.

Of course it's not there right now; the posthumans build it, because they want energy and computing power, and they noticed the astronomical fusion reactor on our doorstep.

And seriously, I do not even understand what you are talking about. This is total science fiction. I can make up a story, too if I like to - about some future that could happen if.... that is however fiction - maybe it is probably or possible fiction, but still it is fiction.

It is speculation, and although that is technically fiction, it's quite clearly not what you mean by the word. Nobody's been able to produce a convincing argument as to why it can't be done, (though I'm sure there's plenty as to why it shouldn't be done) so it's not Star Trek. The sort of future-technology I'm talking about is based on extrapolating known science, not making science up to get a cool machine out the other end. It's a possibility, and IMO, one we should definitely strive towards.

Oh definitely they had data in the past.

Not in the 19th century when most of the "dirty" tech was actually invented/introduced. Ozone pollution could not possibly be detected until after the Space Age, let alone in 1900 or so when you'd have had a chance to actually get rid of coal-powered technology. We simply did not have the chemistry or ecology knowledge to step in before the inertia set in.

Higher than in geologic history. One can pretty well estimate the extinction rates in the fossil record. The periods that match todays extinction rate exist of course, they are called "Mass extinction events"...

Last time I checked, mass extinction events usually last a few thousand years, at minimum. (Though it seems experts' opinions vary.) This one has lasted, at the very most, 150.

... I did not say free, I was replying to Clarkes claims.

Incidentally, we can't get free fusion power with known technology; the other ingredient is literally Unobtanium. (Since the major obstacle is resistive losses in your transmission lines.) That's why I said breakthroughs. However, that doesn't mean that fusion power itself is impossible with current tech.

Fusion if it is possible will be just another energy source, cost money, materials, fuel that has to be processed and so on...
And the mythical material that is missing yet is the one that can actually capture the energy emitted. What they maanged as of now is to sustain a few seconds od fusion - the rest of the technology is as of now missing

The engineering isn't there. There aren't any technological issues, AFAIK. It appears to be possible to do with known materials and technology, we just don't know exactly which ones. (and we obviously want to get it right first time)

The original post was about how we on this planet have our own connection to something that one might call "Eywa". This world, our Earth is a living being. The essence of life flows through all the places on Earth. The energy is given by the sun and passed on and shared by the living beings on this world. The connectedness and interdependence of all living beings, all individuals, each ant and bug and bear and sturgeon and butterfly and human takes part in that whole ensemble. My point is that this whole relationship is alive, that the Earth is alive, that we are part of something bigger that one may call Gaia or Eywa or Earth or Eairth. And that even though we do not and possibly cannot know if there is sentience in it, there is more to it than parameters, DNA codes, nutrient flows. And I would even say that I personally can imagine that this world is sentient, but that it is so on a different level. Consider that on Pandora, the people do not hear a voice of Eywa. They see signs, hear their ancestors, get feelings and by those phenomena they listen to Eywa. They do not have scientific evidence, because they do not need to have it. Why should we expect to hear a voice or see electric currents running between trees? Why should we limit ourselves to that narrow perception of sentience or intelligence. Some days ago, I had the opportunity to stand by the newly born Ammer river in the mountains and look at it, feel it, touch it, see the trees, feel the coldness of the rocks under my bare feet and the warmth of the sun, smell the pines, listen to the water splashing over rocks, look up at the marvellous colors in the sky at the sunset behind the huge mountains patterened in dark green and white and grey and brown. That communiction of this world with me is way more coplex than the feeble words I write here can express. The Earth talks to us, synergestically, not in words, but in sounds and light and patterns and touch - it invokes emotions and thoughts by that, just like when I talk to a human being.

You're anthropomorphizing. Earth isn't a thing; it's hundreds of trillions of things all acting together, and the only organization is evolution. Ideas that don't work get brutally destroyed. Nature is incredibly nasty by modern standards.

Ewya is orders of magnitude more organized than Earth's systems. You need that sort of organization to be communicative.

[auroraglacialis]

Clarke, I will put the replies to the offtopic stuff in a seperate post.

You're anthropomorphizing. Earth isn't a thing; it's hundreds of trillions of things all acting together, and the only organization is evolution. Ideas that don't work get brutally destroyed. Nature is incredibly nasty by modern standards.

Ewya is orders of magnitude more organized than Earth's systems. You need that sort of organization to be communicative.

Ok, you put off my attempt to return on topic by that short reply with reference to simplistic, mechanistic Hobbesian or Dawkinsean worldviews? That makes me sad - I think the mere fact that there are these trillions of living beings (they are not "things") all acting together is wonderous and marvellous and requires an incredible amount of organization and communication. It is vastly complex, intertwined and reactive. To say that "the only organization is evolution" is reductionist at best. Firstly we do not know if that is the only organization and certainly it does not only work on a biological level. Other beings have cultures, there are options and possibilities in these beings that are expressed as a reaction to other beings, there is communication happening everywhere. Yes certainly things that do not work will die out eventually - is that so wrong, that those ideas that are better will be continued? After all that is the same principle the modern world also operates on. But that was not the point anyways - if evolution as a rule is brutal or not. Organization was the topic and communication. As in Eywa or Pandora as a whole. I think even on Pandora, species will change, some will go extinct, others created. The NA'Vi evolved from the lemures in the trees. Living beings die and are born, species die and are created. That is a natural cycle - on Pandora as on Earth. All that Eywa does - and for that matter our Earth version - is to provide a kind of balance. An environment in which that can happen. "Eywa does not take sides", neither does "Mother Earth".
Why is it so hard to draw a comparison between the two - in that in both cases the world is alive, communicating and reacting. If people go and cut 50 trees in the forest, the living world reacts, creates grass and bushes and eventually trees. If people cut more, maybe the trees do not return and it will be a savannah or grassland - in any case it is a reaction of life. I think people are too hung up on electrical impulses as a means of communication. In analogy to your words before, I could say that a human brain is not "a thing" - it is a multitude of things all acting together, and the only organization is evolution and the only means of communication is electrical impulses. After all humans are also a product of evolution and even within the brain, those neural connections that are unused will (brutally?) wither and die while new ones are created. Yet what comes out of it is more than the sum of its parts - a human being, a human mind, a wealth of knowledge, learned behaviour, self awareness, consciousness. What is the basis of denying the living world this feature, that the sum of its trillions of parts is not all there is. In fact I would go further and say that human brains are even limited int hat they only use electrical impulses. The living world we are inside of is not that limited. It can use light and sound and smell and touch to communicate. The color of a tree, the sound of a bird, the smell of a flower carry far and fast and are perceived by others, who may reacto upon them. And humans participate in that crescendo of communication by speaking and creating colors and artwork and music, by touching and interacting with other beings. And at the same time we ourselves are free - our very individual reaction to these communications, our actions take part in that whole. And it saddens me deeply, that a lot of the communication of humans is only with other humans or with the objects that are shaped by humans. Its like an enclosed part of the world that has lost communication with most other parts. We need to communicate again, listen to what the world around us has to say to us. Just like the NA'Vi on Pandora cannot "plug in" and talk to Eywa, so can we not do this here. Just like them, we have to rely on other forms of communication. Eywa talks to the people by the bahaviour of animals and plants, by the appearance of seeds of the sacred tree, by the colorful Auroras in the sky, by the shapes of the arches, by the glowing of the bioluminescent forest. Earth talks to the people by similar but distinctly different means. The change in color of the leafs of the trees talk about the coming winter, the shape of the clouds in the sky tell a story about the coming rain, the appearance or disappearance of animals or plants from a place are mysterious but meaningful. Science sometimes deciphers one of these messages, but these are always only bits and pieces.

[Clarke]

Ok, you put off my attempt to return on topic by that short reply with reference to simplistic, mechanistic Hobbesian or Dawkinsean worldviews? That makes me sad - I think the mere fact that there are these trillions of living beings (they are not "things") all acting together is wonderous and marvellous and requires an incredible amount of organization and communication.

But it's not just life. There's the weather, the long-term climate, natural disasters, etc. The actual set isn't really relevant, other than the absurd scale.

It is vastly complex, intertwined and reactive. To say that "the only organization is evolution" is reductionist at best. Firstly we do not know if that is the only organization and certainly it does not only work on a biological level. Other beings have cultures, there are options and possibilities in these beings that are expressed as a reaction to other beings, there is communication happening everywhere.

My point is that there is no all-directing overseer, in contrast to what we see of Eywa's abilities. (How else would the Na'vi get hammocks made of webbing? ) All the creatures across the world just look out for themselves, (which usually involves eating smaller creatures) and it's amazing we get any sort of stability at all, really. It's not guaranteed, again apparently in contrast with Eywa.

Yes certainly things that do not work will die out eventually - is that so wrong, that those ideas that are better will be continued?

The deeper point is that nobody cares, because there is no overseer. More accurately, was no overseer until fantastically recently. If humanity went extinct, then evolution could continue until the Sun expands and nothing would care about all the dead ideas.

As in Eywa or Pandora as a whole. I think even on Pandora, species will change, some will go extinct, others created. The NA'Vi evolved from the lemures in the trees. Living beings die and are born, species die and are created. That is a natural cycle - on Pandora as on Earth.

But evolution would disrupt the balance of nature, however slightly. Depending on the evolution involved, it might even completely destroy all existing life.

All that Eywa does - and for that matter our Earth version - is to provide a kind of balance. An environment in which that can happen. "Eywa does not take sides", neither does "Mother Earth".

There is no balance on Earth. The fact that we can have this conversation at all is proof of that. When the most powerful meta-meme of all appeared and spread, nothing stepped in to stop it. We hit the "singularity" of natural evolution about 10k years ago; nothing in Nature has been able to keep up with us since then, and unless something very bad happens, nothing will be able to keep up with us, or stop us ever again. A human can out-think almost everything on this planet, by orders of magnitude. (Only running into issues when faced with multiple creatures, or a particularly chronic lack of data.) That's pretty much the opposite of "balanced."

Why is it so hard to draw a comparison between the two - in that in both cases the world is alive, communicating and reacting. If people go and cut 50 trees in the forest, the living world reacts, creates grass and bushes and eventually trees. If people cut more, maybe the trees do not return and it will be a savannah or grassland - in any case it is a reaction of life.

If you cut down 50 trees on Pandora, every predator within 10 miles attacks you immediately. On Earth, life falls back to equilibrium. On Pandora, that equilibrium is actively, intelligently restored and nature-as-a-whole will retaliate. No such retaliation is possible on Earth.

I think people are too hung up on electrical impulses as a means of communication. In analogy to your words before, I could say that a human brain is not "a thing" - it is a multitude of things all acting together, and the only organization is evolution and the only means of communication is electrical impulses.

And that's the key difference: evolution is not the only organization. There is a section of the brain dedicated to analyzing and discarding ideas and memes intelligently, and that intelligence has meant we've "evolved" in ideas in years, rather than millennia. The difference between generations of humans is astronomical, to the point where any given person will have a huge amount of trouble surviving in his grandparents' or grandchilds' society. That timescale does not apply to pretty much any other animal, whose lifestyles vary over centuries, rather than individual years.

It does, however, work as a multitude of things interacting together.

What is the basis of denying the living world this feature, that the sum of its trillions of parts is not all there is. In fact I would go further and say that human brains are even limited int hat they only use electrical impulses. The living world we are inside of is not that limited. It can use light and sound and smell and touch to communicate. The color of a tree, the sound of a bird, the smell of a flower carry far and fast and are perceived by others, who may reacto upon them

.
Bandwidth is bandwidth, IMO. It doesn't really matter if you're using 30 different methods of communication if my one has a rate 100x faster.

And humans participate in that crescendo of communication by speaking and creating colors and artwork and music, by touching and interacting with other beings.

But only other humans can understand most of it.

And at the same time we ourselves are free

You've not noticed the gigantic amount of social statistics analysis going on by various people? Individually, we're mostly free, but averaged, peoples' behavior in immensely predictable.

our very individual reaction to these communications, our actions take part in that whole. And it saddens me deeply, that a lot of the communication of humans is only with other humans or with the objects that are shaped by humans. Its like an enclosed part of the world that has lost communication with most other parts. We need to communicate again, listen to what the world around us has to say to us. Just like the NA'Vi on Pandora cannot "plug in" and talk to Eywa, so can we not do this here

.
I'm fairly sure it was implied that that was exactly what Jake did do in the scene just before the big battle with the bulldozers.

Just like them, we have to rely on other forms of communication. Eywa talks to the people by the bahaviour of animals and plants, by the appearance of seeds of the sacred tree, by the colorful Auroras in the sky, by the shapes of the arches, by the glowing of the bioluminescent forest. Earth talks to the people by similar but distinctly different means. The change in color of the leafs of the trees talk about the coming winter, the shape of the clouds in the sky tell a story about the coming rain, the appearance or disappearance of animals or plants from a place are mysterious but meaningful. Science sometimes deciphers one of these messages, but these are always only bits and pieces.

Needz moar data. Science can't tell you exactly how the system works, but the best that any other way of looking at the world can tell you is an imprecise, unrigorous, mostly useless "explanation" that's only slightly better than "the gods are angry."

[auroraglacialis]

Clarke - I am very reluctant to reply at all. That tendency to fragment posts into bits and pieces and refuse to reply in a more coherent matter annoys me. I guess it is your nature, your worldview that facilitates that. The reductionist approach, to divide the world into little pieces and analyze them seperately. By that you miss the point of the arguments I make by taking single sentences out of context and even reply to some of them with a completely independent argument that was not part of the original discourse.

I just wrote a lengthy reply, but I deleted it, because I think it is rather pointless. You picked out tiny details of my argument and start to debate about failures in my metaphors or thought experiments, that I just used to illustrate something else. I am not willing to discuss the reaction of a 13th century person that is given a piece of 21st century technology when the argument I was trying to make with that whole paragraph was something else altogether, namely the potential of any time, including our own to solve its problems and shortcomings with other means than technological development and that the expectations to technological development are overestimated, distracting from reality and taking energy and motivation away from creating real change here and now instead in some distant future.

But I guess you are more interested in nitpicking than actually debating over the philosophy of these things, the same is true for the second part, in which I was trying to explain a philosophical way how to see the world as a living being rather than a stupid rock tumbling through space that just was lucky enough to have life long enough for humans to evolve, the great species that will finally bring order to the world and establish a balance.

You nitpick at my statement that Jake did not talk to Eywa and so we here cannot talk to "Gaia" by saing that he did in fact do so. Did he get an answer? No.There is no two way vocal or mental communication in that way.

Processing power is about speed not bandwidth? Not really - parallel processing is very powerful.

There is a section in the human brain that processes ideas? How does that change the point I was making that even these parts are on a biological level "just cells connected by neurons". The point is that by looking only at the dissected brain, you cannot see ideas or thoughts. So by looking at only the material parts of Nature in a statical way, you can also not see her thoughts and ideas.

But as I said, these ponderings are more philosophy than science and are coming from a thinking that is more holistic, encompassing and connecting rather diametrally opposite of what you look for - chopping things up in bits and pieces, seperating them all from each other and then make claims from that fragmented world.

This could be an interesting debate comparable to Goethe and Newton with very different understandings of natural sciences, but the style of debate you try to use - taking a reply and analyzing it sentence by sentence - is not one I am willing to follow neither do I have the time to clarify each misunderstanding you have about each of these sentences that would make sense if you read and comment on the whole paragraph.

So I will leave it at that, unless there is interest by others to explore the idea of a sentient Earth, a really existing Eywa on our planet.