Re: The dead level of mortality
Posted by:
Knygatin (IP Logged)
Date: 19 May, 2020 12:38AM
I think CAS meant that they were searching for things, ancient and vast cosmic things, beyond the puny limited perspectives of short-lived humans, and that this was something frightening, beyond our grasp and control. "Dead level of mortality" would then signify that human insight and wisdom is dead, because our mortal shells die much too soon for us to develop in any significance. (Even collective wisdom, from our limited mundane outlook, gathered by the race over centuries and millennia, can easily be forgotten and erased, because it is not consistently harbored in any single entities.)
From where we stand today, CAS's observation is correct. I one looks at it from a longer perspective, and more optimistic, like Arthur C. Clarke liked to do, genuine collective wisdom may come slowly and gradually through evolution, over thousands, millions of years. But even that is not certain. We might as well be wiped out, and replaced by some other mortal entity that starts the climb all over again. Insect, crustacean, bird, reptile, perhaps? I think birds stand a good chance of superseding us. But of course, for now, our human point of departure, is to keep struggling and perfecting.