Space Technology

By: Denis Frith
I have been fascinated since my youth by the dichotomy that is the subjective and objective worlds. Part of the fascination stems from the knowledge that the objective world will continue although my subjective world will end with my demise. My subjective world is my knowledge and experience of what is happening in our civilization. It goes beyond breathing, eating, drinking, thinking and doing. It encompasses driving cars and flying in airliners. It includes my relationship with family, friends and work mates. It includes gazing in awe at such wonders of the modern world as the Eiffel Tower. However, money flow plays a big part even though it is a creation by people and has no place in the objective world of what happens. It just affects the decisions made by people. The fanciful growth of monetary wealth is encouraging the ignoring of the power of the objective world.

My objective world is based on my understanding of what has happened over time. I know a little about how the universe has evolved over billions of years since the big bang. I know a little more about how life has evolved here on earth. I know a little about how the geological face has been affected by the natural forces of plate tectonics, in earthquakes and in volcanic eruptions. I know Australia was once joined to the continent further north.

However, it is quite clear that overall these natural forces have produced a degree of self-organization and self-regulation of the evolutionary process. That is why humans grow to a roughly predictable size, as do whales and microbes. It is why rivers contribute to biodiversity as well as geodiversity. Watching a tree swaying in a wind serves as a reminder of how natural structures cope with stresses and strains. Structural engineers have learned much from this aspect of the objective world. Birds fly by using natural forces naturally. Airliners fly because our aerodynamicists have learned how to shape airfoils to harness natural forces to provide lift.

Sustainable eco systems have slowly evolved under the impetus of these controlling factors. Species have come and gone. I know a little about how civilizations have developed and, in some cases declined. Easter Island is one oft-quoted example but the eclipse of the Sumerian and Mayan civilizations are more illustrative of what is happening to our industrialized civilization, which I call Tityas in view of its analogy to the Greek mythological rampaging son of Gaia. I know that if I wish to know more about what has happened I can access works on the subject by people who have spent their lives arriving at understanding in their field. This personal view is illustrative of society in general. Collectively, people have appreciable understanding of the evolution of the objective world from the dawn of time up to today's galloping transformation. However, they do not take this understanding into account in their subjective world. They get on with living.

For most people this understanding of the objective world is of academic interest only. They work and play in their subjective world. A paleontologist studies fossils to gain awareness of the evolution of life forms, a constituent of the objective world. However, his/her life is dominated by the subjective world. Many people are used to money playing a central role in all decisions as they are able to take the influence of natural forces for granted, most of the time. They do not envisage their subjective world changing profoundly because they are blinded by the dollar sign.

Let us now turn to consider the objective world in more detail. It has evolved over billions of years. It is what has happened in the evolution of the eco systems, biological and geological, terrestrial and oceanographic. Natural cycles have played a central role in what has happened. There was no subjective world then because there were no people able to think deeply until recent millennia. The objective world is also what is happening now in these eco systems and in the systems of civilization during their limited lives. The crustal stocks of a multitude of raw materials, including the fossil fuels, are depleting speedily. Rapid climate change is having its multifaceted impact globally. The unusual acidification of the oceans is another feature of what has happened. Depletion of soil fertility vies with de-forestation and take-over of arable land in their degradation of the terrestrial eco system. The objective world is also what will happen in the future. Natural forces will slowly remedy some of the devastation of the eco systems by civilization. Many of our cities will go the way of the Mayan cities. The objective world on this planet is, and always has been, the consequence of natural forces in operation. That evolutionary process will continue whilst the Sun continues to shine on Earth. Our objective world is as simple as that. It is not dependent on the operation of the systems of civilization although they always entail using natural forces. People do no more than make wise and unwise decisions about the use of some of these forces. Other organisms do the same without having the scope to do so much harm to their life support system. They have very few tools and none like money.

Many knowledgeable people have strived over centuries to garner understanding of some of the detail of the objective world. Darwin's theory of evolution is a prominent example and there are many others. But that is only part of the objective world. We can take much of what happens for granted. Earthquakes are traumatic events but we know their impact will be temporary. Wild fires will be followed by the recovery of ecological succession. We have yet to accept, however, that some of our systems have done irreparable harm. There is no way that the nutrients our city sewerage systems flush down to the oceans can be restored to their rightful place in the soil.

Humans gaining understanding helps to determine what technology can do with natural forces. These forces, however, have never been changed by human inventions. The steam engine revolutionized the means of doing many forms of physical work but they use the heat provided by the combustion of fuel provided by nature. The natural replenishment of trees has been one of the major societal benefits of the objective world for millennia. The current spate of de-forestation just shows how ignorant society in general is. Re-forestation is something our descendants will be able to depend on as Tityas decays.

The reaction of most people to this discussion of the subjective and objective worlds will be ‘so what'. They will continue to live within their subjective world. They know there is little they can do to change what happens in a broad sense. They know that the powerful will continue to use their leverage to pursue their agenda without consideration of the consequences.

The point is that our subjective world is misleading. It conveys the impression that humans are in control of what happens. Science has provided sufficient understanding of natural forces to permit the installation of technology to use some of them. Our medical people have learned a lot about metabolism in the human body and how to treat some of the disorders that can occur. But this metabolism is very little different to that of our ancestors, Homo erectus. That medical knowledge is part of the subjective world of society but metabolism is part of the objective world.

There have been many traumatic occasions over the eons, including five mass extinctions. The climate has had its ups and downs. The Holocene epoch over the past ten thousand years was preceded by the last ice age. However, there have been many others over the past millions of years. There is appreciable controversy about what caused the demise of the dinosaurs. It is a common view that humans have caused the current rapid climate change. That is not so. Humans made the decisions that have led to the fossil fuels being released from their crustal store but natural forces did the work. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other so-called natural disasters have disrupted the operation of the eco systems many times in the past. That has been a characteristic of the objective world. It is ironic that the current climate change trauma is also a function of the objective word. That it is a consequence of human decisions does not change that fact. It is no different in principle to a beaver disrupting the flow of a stream by building a dam. The impact of the release of the fossil fuels is no different, in principle, to the impact of earthquakes and of volcanic eruptions. However, there is a vast difference in the magnitude of the impact on the eco systems. The biggest difference is that the release of the fossil fuels is a one-off event in the time-line of civilization although there has been a number of such events in the distant past..

It is easy to accept rapid improvement in the material standard of living for many in society, particularly in the developed and developing countries. That is a failing in the subjective world. It is akin to a smoker who blithely ignores the consequences of that habit. There is still widespread belief in the virtue of economic growth even as it results in increasing destruction of natural material wealth. The continuing devastation and degradation of so many aspects of the objective world goes unnoticed by them for now. Even the inevitable depletion of oil has not resulted in much action. There are many, however, for whom what has happened to their life support system is a major part of their subjective world. The billions of poor are not so blinded to what has happened but they are powerless due to lack of money.

It is fascinating to contemplate the view of the objective world that people will have centuries hence. It is quite possible that the life of our civilization, Tityas, will then be called the Anthropocene epoch, as that is a term that has already been discussed. A distinguished group of British geologists has provocatively proposed that the Holocene is over and that we have entered a new geological era—the Anthropocene—in which the systems of human society have left such a distinctive footprint on the Earth's surface through carbon pollution, nuclear fallout, urbanization and other traces of our immense technological power that it should be officially recognized by international scientific bodies as "a formal epoch". There is logic behind that proposal but it leaves out the major impact of our systems, the denuding of the crustal stores of material resources, including the fossil fuels, to produce the goods and services for us during their lives.

I presume that Homo sapiens will still be an active species despite the mass extinction that many regard as being very likely in the near future. Some realists see the demise of global industrial civilization as the sixth mass extinction. "The Sixth Great Extinction: A Status Report," by Janet Larsen on the Earth Policy Institute site mentions the previous five mass extinctions with their natural causes and then notes the evidence that human activities are having consequences that could well be leading to the sixth mass extinction. She does not point out that the impact of Tityas on the objective world is no different in principle than that the natural disasters that precipitated the previous mass extinctions.

Just as my subjective world will end, so will the subjective world of the Homo ravishers populating, Tityas. Their descendants, the Homo saviors will have a subject world much closer to the unremitting objective world, which will slowly recover from some of the rampaging by Tityas during the short, by evolutionary standards, Anthropocene epoch.

Those who question this doomsday scenario should think through their view of how the world has operated over past eons without any interference by human-determined activities. They should contemplate what will happen in the future when we are no longer able to produce temporary systems that degrade the objective world. How will New York fare without fuel and electricity to power its operations and maintenance and to provide goods and services to its populace? They will wake up from their dream and face the stark reality that natural forces still control what happens and will continue to do so even as their power declines. They will realize that the future decisions of society can only ameliorate what Tityas has done wrong. Money will lose out in the tug-o-war with the natural forces.

A natural question is what purpose is served by spelling out this reality. Doubtless, the vast majority of people will beaver away in their subjective world with scant regard for its slow demise or the stark reality that the Anthropocene epoch is ending. There will be some people, however, who learn this lesson and rise to the challenge of making the subjective world more reasonable.