In a simplistic way to view it, ignorance is the lack of knowledge or lack of desire for knowledge that is generally acceptable to be a productive/accepted member of society.
Humility simplified can be said to be the nostalgic feeling of loss we endure when we accept that we are ignorant; but have a desire to overcome.
Hubris simplified can be said to be ignorance running rampant.
To admit that I am ignorant is not difficult, I am. Yet, to think that humanity, with all of its advances has individuals questioning the curvature of the Earth, or the age of the Earth, that is rather lacking in humility. Science has brought us to this age we live in, yet some of us deny science. Though my degree is not that of a doctorate in any field, I must think that these individuals making claims aforementioned must have such degrees to assert such things.
Self-aggrandizing in our decade is a rather interesting phenomena. I consider it being due to the rapid advancement of technological notions of electronic social enterprises; talk about an oxymoron. For a sizable community of individuals who purport to have a certain knowledge and then impart that knowledge by means of propagation in any or various forms, creates a medium for information to be consumed without filter. There is no problem in that if the receiver has the capacity to be or use a filter with which to process said data, as one would read a fable, and understand that reality is not within what was read. Fiction, I ponder, has taken a form that is alive in everyday electronic social medium rhetoric.
To say that chatting online is a new enterprise is to ignore decades of instances where users used other means to communicate online via systems like mIRC, AOL, and others. In the late 1980’s, when I was first introduced to computers, huge amounts of kilobytes used by programs, garnering even megabytes of information, was something not talked about as computers were relatively new to the general public and its parts not well known. Small software programs took from 1 to many, even dozens of floppy discs (though there were other storing mediums at the time).
Why the talk of humility, hubris, ignorance, social media and mediums, storage devices, and ultimately communication? Have you ever wondered about who may be listening? I’m not talking about some conspiracy where a government or persons are listening to everything we say (though I am not admitting or denying that). All of this communication, its methods of transportation from point A to point B, the power used to allow the powering of those devices, and etcetera, can all be transformed from one method of delivery to another.
Have you ever heard an artificial intelligence voice come through the speakers of a computer? That was written data in a software somewhere that is now in the form of a signal of sorts that transports the data from one medium to another (let’s call it a wave). Think of a sentence in your brain that you now share with someone else. The information doesn’t necessarily change, the medium where it is carried does, from electrical currents in your brain to sound waves (or fluctuations) in the air. That can be picked up (and listened to if we follow the aforementioned notion). The concept here is, if the apparatus with which to monitor, pick up, and decipher information is strong enough, all data can be essentially shared, regardless of the storage medium that once housed it; that is to say, the quantity or size of the data would be irrelevant.
What then does it mean, if a civilization in our own galaxy, has achieved modes of communication somewhat more advanced that ours which unlike our own listening arrays, are able to gather all this data and read it, or listen to it? From the days of West African talking to drums, to the telegraph, all the way to today’s technological upheavals like electronic social mediums all that data being carefully analyzed to discern what kind of planet this is, what embodies such a place, the types of communication it is able to achieve, how far or archaic are the modes of communication reception and expression currently in use, and etcetera.
Ask yourself, how would you feel after analyzing an entire civilization’s information regarding something called religion? What is religion to an outsider? Religion is categorized (in a simplistic notion) as a belief system. But, what else do we believe in? A lot actually. We believe in electricity for starters, and the list from there is quite long, from fundamental particles all the way to the complexity of the brain. How can you, if an unbiased outsider, read about belief and then read that there is a thing that sort of ranks belief in itself, but 8 billion habitants can’t agree in one belief? Does that mean that all the other things we believe in are just as ambiguous? If so, is anything in the record of information obtained factual at all?
From the outside looking in, it appears that the data being looked at without a filter, without any background data with which to separate fact from not, and without context would be rather difficult. What if the civilization that now houses all that data does not have a thing called a fib? What then? Does it then mean that 8 billion inhabitants in this civilization all believe in all those innumerable entities? Does it then mean that this planet is both round and disc shaped? How can this planet be part of a galaxy that took billions of years to form but but simultaneously believe that the planet they reside in only took some 6,000 years to form? How can that outside civilization, without knowledge of people being able to hurt one another easily and without pretense at times as ours does, be able to understand any of that data without first analyzing it through a filter? That is just religion. Imagine when they get to the research on war. What a pitiful existence the beings of this planet must have where they wage wars on nearby countries for the sole purpose of becoming a bigger nation; especially when other historical narratives are very clear on how difficult (albeit probably impossible) it is to rule a large empire..
However, if the civilization is like our own, and has or has had wars, understands the subject of belief systems, and has or has had mediums of socializing electronically, how then do they look at all the data? I would be fearful of a civilization that is willing to wage mutually destructive war with means to destroy portions of the planet in which they live without regard. Yes, I would be very fearful indeed. To even think that a civilization (like ours) is able to mistrust one another to the degree we do, electronically hack and disrupt one another for no reason other than we can, spy on one another, and so forth, is certainly something that were I on the other side, receiving all this horrible data, I would pass it on with a note that this solar system and possibly the entire galaxy, is not to be approached.
Though only speculation, that is certainly one way to look at it. That civilization is one of beings that much like us have a relative lifespan and in the end would like to protect their livelihood, not necessarily by means which we think of protection, but by maintaining a clear distance while continuing to monitor. Then I ask, what if the civilization that first acquires this data is a robotic one? It is estimated, in some circles, that if humanity is to reach other stars, we must think about nanorobotics or other types of robotics which can seek livable environments for our civilization to survive in or simply to explore on our behalf. If so, it is feasible that a robotic outpost may be created as a relay facility if nothing else in order to ensure communication of favorable or other discoveries is shared at a faster rate than if no such system were in place. So, if these entities receive all this data, and begin to process the data, how will they relay the findings? Possibly by nothing that a world replete with beings able, willing, and already destroying themselves are searching for other places in which to do the same.
What if that civilization and others among their galaxies and even the universe are connected via say quark relays? Will this information about this system of destructive entities be relayed to all and become the center of understanding on how to judge other civilizations? Warring, peaceful, scientific, illiterate, enlightened, incomprehensible (inferior to illiterate), incomprehensible (far more advanced than themselves), and others? While I’d hate to think that we could or already are the bane of galactic nations that together stand in fear of a civilization (us) that can and probably would wage destruction on all others it finds the same or worse than it already does itself… it would be a sense of bewildering horror, shared by all involved while we remain the little dot Dr. Sagan so reverently shared with us.
If not much else were discussed, the communication between shared entities or civilizations may be primordial in advanced societies (compared to ours) where they help thwart space accidents by alerting one another of asteroids or other things that may be a danger to them and so on. A more utopian approach to scientific endeavors, shared knowledge, and the ever humbling sharing of information that can help their civilizations thrive and advance further; something our own may be unable to achieve in millennia (but even that may be wishful thinking). If nothing else, as it goes, this can be said to be nothing more than an elementary contemplation of the Kardashev Scale.
