However, this could have been possible long ago if the progress of science had not succumbed to the spread of monotheistic religions. This might be possible late in this century, in view of how much we are learning about how human brains work - and the growth of computer capacities. For then we should be able to duplicate that information - and then into more robust machinery. in all probability, we live in a century too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection.Įternal life may come within our reach once we understand enough about how our knowledge and mental processes are embodied in our brains. to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life at any period, however distant for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But. As Stephen Hawking advocates, humanity would be safer if it expanded beyond the earth.īenjamin Franklin: I wish it were possible. Still, it's hard to predict 100 years ahead. The green movement is accompanied by occasional minor violence, but a green Hitler or Stalin seems unnlikely. Communism is dead as a motivator of violence. It is important that the political causes of the 20th century disasters, virulent and militaristic nationalism accompanied by letting one man take power, do not exist in major countries today. Hilaire Belloc, 1898, The Modern Traveller, part 6. In philosophy, as elsewhere, this tendency is visible and it is this, rather than formal argument, that has thrust aside the classical tradition for a philosophy which fancies itself more virile and more vital.'Īs for Arab jihadism, I think they'll get over it as soon as a new generation matures to oppose their parents' slogans. The barbaric substratum of human nature, unsatisfied in action, finds an outlet in imagination.

Hence William James's protest against what he calls the 'block universe' of the classical tradition hence Nietsche's worship ofįorce hence the verbal bloodthirstiness of many quiet literary men. 'To us, to whom safety has become monotony, to whom the primeval savageries of nature are so remote as to become a mere pleasing condiment to our ordered routine, the world of dreams is very different from what it was amid the wars of Guelf and Ghibelline.

Even in April 1914, Bertrand Russell could write: In 1907, no-one predicted such troubles as happened. Serious attempts at world domination accompanied by at least threeĪdmittedly something bad and surprising could happen. Only Africa and the Arab world are in bad shape.Ĭontrast this with the time between 19, when there were Prospect of a major war threatening western civilization and its present extensions to the actually developing countries. Instead I want to express optimism about world politics, especially about world peace. I'm optimistic about the sustainability of materil progress, but since I'm known for that, I'll refrain.

Undermine purple torch