"Isaac Asimov On Upgrading Our
Realities And The Risk Of Ignorance"
By Postanly Weekly
Excerpt: "When you think about the meaning of life, you probably don’t think about Isaac Asimov. But this famous scientist had a lot to say about life and its meaning. In a book proposal for "The Meaning of Life" edited by Hugh S. Moorhead, 1989, Asimov said, “If all of life were suddenly to disappear from earth and anywhere else it may exist, or if none had ever formed in the first place, I think the Universe would continue to exist without perceptible change. However, it is always possible for an individual to invest his own life with meaning that he can find significant. He can so order his life that he may find as much beauty and wisdom in it as he can, and spread as much of that to others as possible.”
Asimov’s views were shaped by his experiences growing up in Soviet Russia, which was a time of famine, terror, and extreme anti-religious sentiment. Perhaps best known as a science fiction author, Isaac Asimov was also an essayist, biographer, and professor of biochemistry. With more than 400 million copies of his books in circulation, he is one of the most widely read authors of the 20th century. In addition to writing about why we must make love, not war, and how nothing will end war but education, Asimov wrote about life’s meaning in several different essays.
Asimov is best known for his "Robot" Series and "The Foundation Trilogy." These works helped to shape the way we see artificial intelligence today, with many of them continuing to be influential even 30 years after they were published.
Collective wisdom is not the whole truth: Isaac Asimov thought, “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” He couldn’t be more right. Science, the study of how things work, has made incredible progress over the last few centuries. The rate at which new discoveries are being made today is staggering.
There’s no question that science is a powerful tool for understanding the world around us. However, as science gathers knowledge at an ever-increasing rate, it’s becoming clear that society is not keeping pace. It takes time for society to absorb scientific knowledge and incorporate it into its collective wisdom. We are slow to upgrade our assumptions and perceptions. We hardly change our subjective beliefs about life and living.
When you think about it, there is no reason for things to be the way they are. Science gathers knowledge at an ever-increasing rate, yet we seem to be no closer to solving major world problems than we were 50 years ago. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why this is the case: humanity’s collective wisdom has not kept pace with scientific discoveries. This seems like a problem that should be easy to solve. After all, if knowledge were to become more widely distributed, society would grow wiser.
One way to overcome Asimov’s concern is by challenging our assumptions and thinking critically about what we know and don’t know. Through this process, we can develop a deeper understanding of how things work and make more informed decisions about our future."
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Freely download "The Wellsprings Of Life", by Isaac Asimov, here:
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