Thinking about the END OF HISTORY.

To you, there is no hope for the human beings, right?

I wouldn’t put it at zero just yet, but it is really pushing it hard and fast.

But to you (and b.t.w.: not to me!) the end of history would be almost the same like the end of human beings, right?

Which one you want to refer to is arbitrary to me.

If history is lost but human development not lost, then you can see the real Eloi or the “renaissance” of the Stone Age life.

If you were there to see it. :sunglasses:

History will never be lost, only the sense of it will be lost. Keep the sense of it, You keep history.
can this be done?

Sure. Just rewrite it every few hundred years… always fresh… always a reason to fight over it… eternal fresh carnage.

No reason to let it go to waste.

If the sense of history will be lost, then it will make no sense to have history at all, because there will be no one who knows anything about both the sense of history and the history itself. There will be no historian, no one who knows what history and ist sense is, probably even no one with a sense for the meaning of the past for both the present and the future.

If history will totally become also a part of a modern ideology like any other cultural phenomeneon, then it will be merely part of a religious system, although a modern one, and no longer be its own system - provided that some other historical existentials will also be lost -, so the ideological (modern religious) system and its language (media) will be able then to “sweep” history under the ideological (modern religious) “carpet” and afterwards nnihilate it. That will be done, if the chance will be there - certainly. We have been seing this bad development because it has been becoming more and more obvious. Interestingly it has been having a correlation with the modern development of the machines and all the other modern developments. Thus: amongst others the machines are strongly involved in that process.

It seems to me to have any certainty about the end of history, one must have great certainty about the variables for change and contact. IOW it would presume things like the standard model in physics is, say, 95 percent complete and we can from this and standard models in chem and bio, determine likely possible changes and encounters and, well, potential modes of life. Personally I think current science covers a much smaller % than its utterly loyal adherents have decided (intuitively!). So to me there is something more hypothetical than is stressed in the thread. If these standard models are correct and we generally extrapolate from them correctly and with good strong intuition, then the end of history is or will come [enter date or process step].

Yes, and with the utmost probability those standard models are correct.

I don’t know how one determines this. Not empirically in any case. But actually there has been growing evidence that constants and laws are more local in time and space than previously thought. IOW the ontology/notion of natural law is being called into question. (which does not mean it is all just chaos, hardly) But my point was more focused on the completeness than the accuracy, though I have serious questions about the latter also. (which again does not mean I think all those experiments just ran a weird anomalous streak and mislead us.)

Oh, Jimmy, you’re such a pessimistic creature. :mrgreen:

Humanity has often let humanity down - at first - but then it’s also come to its own defenses with great courage and solidarity.

We just can’t really know about the end of history.

As Vollgraff put it, as long as there is a drive for society, there is a self-preservation instinct in people.

Yeah, no man has ever fallen from a high mountain, because his great spirit and courage prevents his fall.
Man never gets so lustfully drunk that his will to survive doesn’t prevent any car wreck.
[size=85]…ummhuh.[/size]

What are the signs of the end of history for you?

When I can sort through the news and see only deja vues.

In today’s paradigm of eternal deciet, documented, hard to change, history is strongly disliked (shades of Nineteen Eighty-Four).

… the new socialist America (and entire West actually, if not the world).

That is partly why they favor people living for only 30 years, so they can’t ever get old enough to realize that what they are seeing is merely a rerun. They hate long term memory of any sort.

Yeah.

Do you also know Orwell’s book “Animal Farm”?

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” :wink:

I’ve been intrigued by the End of History debate quite a bit so I thought I’d give it a go. I read through the first 6 and last two pages of this thread so hopefully I didn’t happen to miss the post which says exactly what I’m about to say.

The way I’ve understood the End of History debate is that the primary assertion was that society has been created to provide humanity comfort, well-being, an easy and happy life. The French Revolution had asserted some of the cornerstone ideologies, so to speak, of what that happy life would be like (Liberté, égalité, fraternité), there are more attributes to it, you can throw in notions of socialism and even communism depending how you want to spin it, but ultimately the idea is that everyone will be equal and free of necessity and compulsion, the government aiding and maintaining this state of affairs. The End of History is not something that is meant to have already occured, but that, barring a few stags and detours along the way, humanity is supposed to be moving towards these ideals.

The debate does not only center around this “final state” being the “End”, but also the idea that, if all of our wants are taken care if, there is nothing really left for us to do, nothing to rebel against, no more great deeds to accomplish. There will be daily events, but no real “history” so to speak, and I’m pretty sure this is meant in the sense of monumental history, there will be no great figures to stand above the rest, because everyone is equal (presupposing that equality has been acheived).

I find it difficult to really pick a side on what I believe. I think it is possible that an End of History could be reached in this sense, if there were genetically designed test tube babies as well as many other special circumstances… but maybe in the end I don’t think it is likely. It doesn’t really seem like it is human nature to stay satisfied even under the best of circumstances (though again, I get to thinking, couldn’t some kind of soma or other synthetic be produced to keep us satisfied?)… it is difficult to say, though still I think that we define ourselves as a species by accomplishments. Even though I’m not terribly fascinated by it personally, even if a state of bliss and equality and all that was reached, part of that bliss might be achieved by venturing into space, for example, and we can never know what we might encounter there.

What I really think is important about this debate that doesn’t really have to do with picking a side or not, but can amount to the same thing, is contemplating on how we as humans (at least some of us) can be very much satisfied and appeased. Society has become intricately structured, and for the main (in the west at least) a life plan has been set out for us (ie. grow up playing a little, learn how to function in school, get a job, enjoy certain designated liesure activities, make a family, and so on)…

Some people do not follow the expected life plan, true, but then it is frequently the case that their lives do not possess monumental historicality. Even a lot of recent inventions that are monumental, internet and computers, for example, though they impact our lives greatly and have certain benefits, have in a lot of ways sunken us deeper into the intricately structured fabric of society… Many people spend a lot less time out of doors, even taking physical action in general… also computers have done much to increase social/governmental efficiency and controls.

There are certain aspects of this issue that are not new. I don’t think people always just went out and took destiny into their hands. Human society has always been quite structured and had many social rules and customs (both if you were nobility or a peasant, though the life of a peasant was significantly more limited).

It seems to me like the philosophical school existentialism never really caught on, and was never really progressed by many thinkers beyond the mid-twentieth century… Maybe it’s because the idea of being able to do whatever you feel and make it your meaning seemed so vague to hold any weight? But I think there could have been potential there to really revolutionize the way we interact as a species, breaking down roles and customs, if we could keep our historical heritage and our humanity as a way to communicate, perhaps putting more of a focus on that issue as well, how we can communicate (share meaning, and about what?) when customs are broken down, as well as tying in more pragmatism and making existentialism a pragmatic philosophy of praxis, as well as our relation to existence…

Anyway, now I’m just rambling.