{"id":12225,"date":"2009-11-12T18:49:10","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T18:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/12\/proud-to-be-a-human-being\/"},"modified":"2009-11-12T18:49:10","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T18:49:10","slug":"proud-to-be-a-human-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/12\/proud-to-be-a-human-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Proud To Be a Human Being"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a hell of a thing to be a consciousness encased in flesh and riding on a rickety skeleton. A precarious predicament, exposed as we are to the rude impacts of a physical universe that cannot even be called indifferent. A mere reed, but a thinking reed, an engineering<\/em> reed. A reed who risks his hide to explore and to know.<\/font><\/p>\n

In the westbound lane of U. S. 60 a huge tractor rig appears, escorted by police cars and hauling a long flat-bed trailer atop of which sits a monstrous turbine or reactor core. A surge of pride energizes me, a pride in belonging to a species of animal that envisages and implements great projects. I am reminded of the exhiliration I felt as a man of twenty two returning from a six month European sojourn. As we took off from London\u2019s Heathrow, I glanced out at the wings and the jet engines and contemplated the audacity of essaying to ride through the air on a controlled explosion.<\/font><\/p>\n

How pusillanimous and shortsighted, therefore, those who balk at space exploration. Have they stopped to consider what \u2018satellite TV\u2019 means? Are they aware of how those communication satellites were placed in their geosynchronous orbits? Do they think that money spent on a Mars expedition would be wasted and better spent on terrestrial needs? That\u2019s an illusory way of thinking.<\/font><\/p>\n

Had all the time and money spent on pure research and exploration over the centuries been spent on alleviating immediate needs we would have none of the technological wherewithal with which we most marvelously and most efficiently — alleviate our immediate needs.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a hell of a thing to be a consciousness encased in flesh and riding on a rickety skeleton. A precarious predicament, exposed as we are to the rude impacts of a physical universe that cannot even be called indifferent. A mere reed, but a thinking reed, an engineering reed. A reed who risks his … Continue reading “Proud To Be a Human Being”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-predicament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}