Death and technology

Nowadays people have switched their faith to science and technology hoping to get immortality and defeat death. But is this not another illusion to go against our destiny of being mortals?
Can cyborgs still be considered humans? If we upload somebody's mind in a cloud and then put it in robots, can we still say that he/she is still the same person?
What about all the information that we are unconscious of or are stored in our cells?
Finally, are we considering all the risks related to modifying people genetically?
In the crazy search for immortality we risk to put an end to humanity and destroy the planet. 

L'oblio dell'Essere

Heidegger diceva che l'uomo ha dimenticato l'Essere. Io penso che l'uomo si e' ingabbiato nelle citta' cincondandosi di oggetti che lui stesso ha prodotto e si dimentica di domandarsi da dove tutto cio' viene. Solo il contatto con la natura che cresce spontaneamente ci permette di non dimenticarci dell'Essere, a patto che restiamo aperti alla contemplazione e al domandare.
Perche' gli enti di natura sono spontaneamente cosi'? Perche' ci sono invece del niente?
Solo se sorgono queste domande e ci apriamo all'ignoto siamo anche in grado di prenderci cura delle cose e degli enti di natura. 

The Church and the Environment

Pope Francis has recently said that God created nature which should be taken care and not destroyed by us humans. However it is written in the Bible that Man is at the centre of creation and must dominate on everything else. It is also written that Man was created at God's image and it has been interpreted as superior to any other living being.
He is trying to change this interpretation following Saint Francis but I think it will take a lot of time, if ever possible, to consider all beings as equal as humans because we are all part of the same Whole, or all creations of God as some religions say.
Only then we might come up with an ethic that consider nature worthy. But even now we should realize that we are destroying the planet and we are going too far. I fear that it will soon be too late! 

The Being as possibilities

If we look at Being as a static object we could assume that we could grasp a kind of truthful principle that might explain how the universe works. However we can also think Being as infinite equal possibilities, the ones that materialize and the ones that don't.
If we imagine and think Being as such it would not be possible to grasp, calculate, control or manipulate everything as we would always be subject to the unknown.
This has a great ethical implication, we can and we should know more but we will never get to know everything and there will always be a possibility which we did not considered and had not the chance to control. 
However this does not imply that we are free to create reality which instead comes from the Being.
Freedom can only be assumed but not demonstrated.  

Can we explain the mystery with a mathematical formula?

Some scientist think that everything can be explained with a short mathematical formula. When the universe was born, how life started, how the universe works, how our mind works, etc..., anything can be reduced to a formula. Beneath this there is the idea that we can grasp the mystery of life and that it can be calculated and put under control. But can we really reduce mind and life to a mathematical formula? Can we really put ourselves at the very beginning?
Why cannot we accept that we are limited beings within the infinite? Of course we can try to explain as mush as possible but we will always get to a point where we run out of words, where we face the abyss. Then we must let it go and abandon to the mystery.  

Heidegger e l'Essere come (non) fondamento

Heidegger pensa l’Essere non come fondamento per non ricadere nell’errore metafisico. Tuttavia, non essendoci un fondamento, il divenire e’ libero da ogni vincolo. Questa e’ anche la critica di Severino. La tecnica e’ un tentativo illusorio di combattere l’angoscia che ci provoca l’inesorabile scorrere annichilatore del tempo. Quindi a mio avviso l’Essere concepito come non fondamento non e’ efficace per neutralizzare la tecnica. Secondo me si puo’ pensare all’Essere come fondamento, come immutabile e allo stesso tempo non definibile, non calcolabile, non riducibile ad oggetto. In fodo noi siamo parte del tutto e quindi non possiamo mai afferrare l’Essere nella sua totalita’.

What is BEING?

Can we define, calculate, capture the BEING? I think we cannot and if we attempt to do so we would end up considering the BEING as a thing. However the BEING is not a thing, it is not a sum of all things, we can only talk about it in metaphors. I would compare the BEING to a puzzle. It is a sum of all pieces put in a precise order so that it is equally important to consider both the pieces and the order they are put to get the full picture of the puzzle. As we are little pieces of the puzzle we can never grasp the wholeness and the meaning of it. We can have an idea of the whole but we can never fully comprehend it. We live in an era dominated by technology, we think that one day we will be able to control the flow of time and eventually become immortal. I think that it is just a crazy idea due to our incapacity to live in the uncertainty. Stating that we cannot grasp the whole implies an ethical assertion: we are limited and we must learn to cope with that.

Alan Watts on death

There are several videos of Alan Watts on the web and I found particularly interesting the ones about death. It is seen as something natural and as part of the circle of life. We live in a society where we hide death and repress the idea of it, we do not want to talk and think about it. We indulge ourselves in any kind of consumism to avoid the anguish of death. We even think we can progress technologically to the point that we defeat death and become immortal. However, why cannot we think that death is part of the low of nature and that there is nothing wrong with it? We have to live space for others. Moreover, even if we will not have consciousness of ourselves anymore, and we do not know about that for sure, our ideas, our energy, our atoms will still live. We are so attached to our ego that we are not able to let it go. But we are part of the whole and we have to prepare ourselves to embrace the mistery. If we take death as part of our life we would live better. Otherwise we risk to destroy humanity instead of becoming immortal! 

Il sacerdote Odifreddi

Vorrei commentare il seguente articolo:

http://odifreddi.blogautore.repubblica.it/2016/01/06/ogm-e-superstizione-parole-di-un-nobel/?ref=HROBA-1

Al di la' del dibattito su sugli OGM mi ha impressionato la suguente affermazione del prof. Roberts:

"La manipolazione genetica oggi ci permette di fare la stessa cosa (giocare a fare Dio), ma procedendo non a caso e per tentativi ed errori, bensì in maniera pianificata e controllata",

e quella di Odifreddi ad un commento:

“C’e’ una sostanziale diffidenza nei confronti della scienza, che porta a credere che ciò che si fa a caso sia meglio di ciò che si programma. perché la "natura" è benigna e divina, e l'uomo cattivo e diabolico”.

Quindi rovesciando il discorso dovremmo pensare che siccome la natura e’ maligna e l’uomo e’ buono dobbiamo preferire cio’ che l’uomo produce in laboratorio a cio’ che viene fuori dalle leggi di natura? E chi pensa che e’ piu’ saggio e razionale affidarsi alla natura sarebbe un antiscientista che vive nel medioevo? Ma stiamo scherzando? O ogni innovazione tecnica e’ per forza positiva? Questo e’ fede nel progresso, non razionalita’!

Inoltre come si puo' paragonare le piccole manipolazioni fatte dall'uomo in passato (es. innesti, incroci di animali, etc.) con quello che si fa oggi in laboratorio?? 

Infine dovremmo distinguere tra la scienza che cerca di capire le leggi dell’universo e la tecno-scienza moderna che e’ manipolazione. Mi pare proprio che anche la scienza contemporanea sia ormai diventata una religione e i divulgatori scientifici i nuovi sacerdoti.

Pollution no stop

In many cities in the world there is a pollution allarm these days, in other areas there are floodings, temperatures are well above avarage everywhere. When will we realize that we have passed the limit and that we are distroying the planet? Yes, politicians talk about that and they agree that something must be done but it never happens, why? Because we are so caught up in this system of unlimited growth (economical and technological) that we are unable to stop. We live in the illusion that, through technology, we can create heaven on earth, living longer and better. We are scared of sufferying and dying, thus we worship technique as our saver. However that will never make us happy, it will only take us to the brink of self distruction, to hell!