In successful IT teams, members have learned how to coordinate ball juggling expertise and strategies such that the balls of important colors never touch the ground before they can be delivered to their bins.  New team members can easily be rotated into the team to take over juggling so that other team members can occasionally take a break.  And rarely ever does any ball touch the ground.  But when it does, everyone works quickly to pick it back up and get it to it’s bin.

— John Haverlack

I conjecture that our motivation to influence political direction is driven by what we individually value.  And our values are driven by our beliefs and what I will call subliminal goals and fears.  I have observed that we make value judgements based on goals and fears of which we may not be cognitively aware.  And the reason we see so much controversy in politics is because we do not share the same fears and goals.  By bringing those goals and fears out of the subliminal and stating them out right we can better understand ourselves and evaluate the legitimacy of our fears and goals.  And possibly (but not probably) make better decisions.

We humans spend an excessive amount of emotional capital debating morality and political direction.  But to what end?  Clearly there is an evolutionary advantage for humans to protect culture and cultural moral values.  We are social beings and our cultures have served us well.  Some of our cultures have helped us to develop moral values which have resulted in the successful propagation of our species.  However, some cultures fail and go extinct.  Cultures, like species must necessarily adapt and change to environmental conditions or risk extinction.  Ironically this leads us to the logical conclusion that it is not possible for one culture or cultural set of values to persist indefinitely.  Those that fail to adapt will die, and those that adapt have changed. Logically one might conclude, there is not one universal moral code to determine what is right and what is wrong.  Rather there are morals that benefit the successful propagation of the human species in particular environments at given times.

But there is something more sinister going on here.  While we humans are sufficiently preoccupied with the importance of our moral concerns and how these impact us as groups and individuals, none of our concerns matter.  Because evolutions is fundamentally about the propagation of genes not species.  In as much as a species can successfully propagate genes, the species will continue to survive.  If a species fails to serve the propagation of the genes, the genes will have no reason to serve the needs of the species.

The genetic machinery behind the game of evolution is only about the competition among genes.  Species are merely and ends  to these means.  As a species, humans are slaves to the need for our genes to propagate.  Our genes drive our sexual and social behavior.  Our successful genes serve us as an organism to protect us against pathogens and keep us fit an healthy so long as we are capable of reproduction.  As we age and stop reproducing there are no remaining selection pressures to keep us healthy.  And so our bodies begin to deteriorate.  It’s not pretty.  But it’s not about us, it’s about our genes.

We humans are unique as a species in that we are presumably the only species on the planet capable of understanding our own evolution.  Our technology is progressing to the point where we may one day be able to free ourselves from the slavery of our genes.  Through biotechnology, nanotechnology and cybernetic advance in machine intelligence it may one day be possible for humanity to evolve into an organism which is served by memes and genes rather than the current paradigm.

I suggest that future of humanity currently stands on the edge of a knife.  On one side we may reproduce and consume ourselves out of a viable planet and ecosystem.  Eventually going extinct like so many species before us and taking many other species with us.  On the other side, the technology of human civilization may create a new cybernetic arms race that will leave biological humans obsolete and lead to our eventual extinction.

If human civilization is to succeed into the distant future we will first have to understand the many complexities in the evolution of biological and cybernetic systems.  We will need to define and share common goals that are both sustainable and achievable.  And we will have to resist convergence and expand our habitation to more than one planet.  If we can navigate this delicate maze of complexity, it may just be possible for us to be the first species to transcend our own evolution.

Using similar arguments I will also conjecture that any alien species we would ever encounter will most likely be similarly cybernetic.  But that’s for another blog post.

$.02

Steve and Linda

Dr. Harold Steve Adams, a close personal friend of mine, passed away last Sunday. Steve and his wife Linda have known me since I was about 3.

As a kid I remember our family going over to the Adams family for an evening of good eats and conversation and fun-filled hours of childhood adventure.  My sister and I had a blast playing with the Adams sons.

My memory is not so good these days.  And it’s funny the things that one remembers.  I can’t remember what we had such a good time doing as kids.  I know it involved StarWars and G.I. Joe action figures.  I do remember learning early on that when the call came from upstairs that it was time to leave, that really ment we had another hour or so to play before we actually left.  If we went upstairs too early we’d wind up waiting an hour while the adults finished talking.

Steve and my dad used to teach biology, forestry and other things green, squirmy, or otherwise with a pulse at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge Virginia. Growing up I remember tagging along on many hikes with dad and Steve to go out and survey a stand of timber, or hike to the top of Big House Mountain to search for an endangered plant species.  Steve and dad used to take their college students on a field trip to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee.  While my memories from those trips are few, I do remember many stories involving dad, Steve, black bears, long hikes, emergency room visits and general college student mayhem.

As a young college student I was fortunate to be able to join Steve as a chaperone for a Field Biology Governor’s School at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College for which Steve was the director.  For 10 years I joined Steve and about 20 middle and high school students each summer for a back packing trip to Laurel Fork in Highland County Virginia. This incredible opportunity that Steve provided for me and the people I met as a result had the single most influential impact on me deciding to go into teaching.  Because of Steve, I met several friends, mentors and future colleagues.  I fell in love with teaching and learned how to engage students, ask probing questions, and develop critical thinking skills.

I remember many fond campfire discussions with Steve.  In an ironic, but likely not so coincidental turn of events, the year after I graduated from college I started teaching at Alleghany High School, where I graduated from high school.  That first year of teaching I had the pleasure of having Steve’s son Mason as a student in my Physics class.  Mason (who we called Jeremy) was one of my best students.  I remember a surreal parent teacher conference with Steve and Linda.  It was a true full circle moment for me.

The Locust Springs and Laurel Fork area is one of the best kept secrets in Virginia.  It is a high altitude ecosystem, and reminds me of a little piece of Alaska in Virginia.  In my time with the Governor’s School I gained a great appreciation for this landscape and for the majestic beauty of red spruce trees.  As I write this, I’m only now coming to understand that I probably owe this appreciation and the fact that I now live in Fairbanks Alaska to Steve.

Steve was a model human being.  He was a strong role model to myself and countless others.  Steve led by example, and inspired others around him to be better people.  To me Steve was a teacher, mentor and friend.  Though I no longer teach, I will never forget the intellectual catalyst Steve provide for me during a formative time in my life.  Steve’s lessons continue to serve me to this day.

I have been in close contact with my parents and friends this week sharing pictures and memories of Steve.  Though I was not able to make it back to Virginia this week I have felt the deep connection that Steve had with the community back home.  I have been thinking about Steve all week and my heart and thoughts go out to Linda, Mason and Seth for their loss.  I can’t possibly explain how much Steve meant to me.  Steve, thank you for everything and I will miss you.

— John Haverlack