Where Do You Draw The Boundry?

Coherent photons that form sub-atomic particles that compose atomic particles that combine into atoms that cluster into molecules that become amino acids that construct proteins that develop into cells that create organs that comprise bodies that organize communities that associate as cultures that belong to species that mold eco-systems that occupy planets that constitute solar systems that mingle in galaxies that populate universes...

Where on the micro/macro scale from the virus to the eco-system do we define organism? From what level of existence do we draw our identities? Can not the internet be conceived of as the earth growing a neral network? Can we not liken the onslot of media images and sounds to the earth's internal dialouge? Does not the emerging global economy bind all humans into ever tighter interdependence? Are we not develpoing into a global organisum?

When Community Needs And Individual Needs Balance, Cultures Flurish.

Which Is it?

I have been told that we live in the industrial age, the space age, the computer age, the information age. I have heard that we live in the age of DNA and designer drugs, the age of robotics and nano-technology, the age of the digital revolution. Most fundamentally, however, we live in the nuclear age, the age of weapons of mass destruction, the age of impending ecological catastrophe, the age when our technological prowess cannot be ignored.

Which One Is Appropriate?

Our ancestors were very much under the dominion of and acting in response to external forces; the outer world reaching in. Back the, we were plagued by subjective preconceptions about the cause of these forces, believing that droughts were the result of wicked social behavior or that a lightning strike was divine retribution. We were at the mercy of diseases we did not understand. Nature seemed a ruthless enemy poised to destroy us at any time. We eventually brought objective scrutiny to these external forces, aided by the invention of ingenious tools that deepened our understanding. An honest and objective understanding of natural forces liberated us from their grasp. In the last century our life span has doubled. We defeated polio and learned to predict hurricanes. We cultivated great freedom to mitigate how our external world influences us. This freedom has given us a wide range of actions to choose from. Not long ago we were so busy staying alive that we did not have time to wonder if we were in the right marriage or were pursuing a fulfilling career. Our choices now reflect our inner desires and aspirations much more than those of our ancestors. As more and more we are able to impose our will on our external world, that world becomes a mirror reflecting our inner motivations and inspirations. We humans have gone through a profound, a profound transformation. Instead of being shaped by external forces reaching in, we are doing the shaping with internal forces reaching out!

We are threatened by devices born out of the human imagination, under human control. It is the internal and not the external that now challenges our survival. This challenge calls for an internal, not external, technological response. We must bring the same objective scrutiny to our internal workings that liberated us from subservience to weather patterns. Realizing our current survival crisis is brought about by internal forces and that our response will have to be internal, is the pivotal step one takes in the campaign to avert planetary catastrophe. It is recognizing where the conflict is being fought and where one can most effectively expend energy.