Here is why.
THE MOON WAS AN ANCIENT GOAL
For a huge long time - ever since the world began billions of years ago, there was no knowledge of the nature of the World. The Moon was always a goal, because living organisms were moved back and forth, toward the Moon and away from the Moon, in the seas by the Moon's gravity.
THE MOON IS NO LONGER A FUNDAMENTAL GOAL, NOT NOW.
TWO ANCIENT EFFORTS
The several thousand years of constructions involved several different approaches. Two stand out as by far the most significant. Others exist which have economic importance but essentially resigned their own form of adaptation.
ONE: NATURE MIGHT REACH THE MOON
Birds must have tried. Sensing the rising Moon's gravity for the first time and mistaking it for a distant mountain range, young and inexperienced birds could easily have chosen on occasion to fly that way. Maybe some animals have long necks or hop a lot in nature's dim-witted attempts to conquer by reproduction.
Among human efforts leading toward success, one was an attempt to progress toward the Moon by generally adhering to nature and studying the world more carefully and systematically by using recorded information and a particular, stable procedure for minimizing statistical variance through the use of random selection from written works.
That place was China, and the tools were written works and the casting of lots to identify selections among a work called the Book of Changes. India's polytheism attempted to solve something too, possibly the multiplicity of species, but that is less clear.
China was surprisingly advanced in mathematics and the 64 hexagrams of I Ching much to do with binary logic and the modern computer-especially the 64-bit processor. International Business Machines was persuaded to sell its entire small computer line to China, possibly as a result of China's historical preeminence in that logic.
USE COMPREHENSION
All three of the Sun's 200 million year orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy, planet Earth's annual orbit around the Sun, and the world's daily 24-hour turning on its axis must be in correct order to comprehend history well. That includes the highly stable exterior galaxies, which easily comprise theology's sophisticated concept of the 'firmament'.
Ancient literary works and much of philosophy seem to take on new meaning if one has the temporal order in good ephemeral and celestial order. Ancient ideas seem much less dangerous and more like the early, exploratory thought they are.
TWO: BUILD STRUCTURES DURABLE TO LAST
Reaching the point where living organisms could begin construction for the purpose may continued until early mound builders began and their work had culminated in stone pyramids. These markers were clearly beyond nature's instincts alone, and they endured, lasting through many generations.
The other of the two began in several places around the world with earth mounds, and emerged most clearly in the Nile Delta region of what is now known as Egypt. Because of its importance, it is very well known. After the first enduring, visible pyramids were constructed, patterns of rule began to emerge that were increasingly recognized as having much in common with previous patterns that had existed, yet collapsed.
REMEMBER THE GOAL
The Moon and Sun were quickly recorded as goals through many paintings of bird-headed men standing in winged boats sailing across waters toward a disk in the sky. These images quickly recalled to those in each new dynasty, at least one of the purposes which the great pyramids and other structures were dedicated.
Later, with experience, both goals and their representations improved in clarity and quality. The Moon and Sun were recorded as goals of voyages and journeys through many paintings of bird-headed men standing in winged boats sailing across waters toward a disk in the sky.
TRANSCEND
Existence of the pyramids began to transcend all time. By three thousand years they had existed longer than any known living organism, and mankind was clearly on its own in new territory.
Designed architecture, art, implements, memorials, and many other antiques from previous dynasties essentially welcomed each new civilization into an inheritance not only of power, but of knowledge, purpose and direction.
CREATE RENEWABLE LEADERSHIP
The patterns of rule turned out to be through the leadership of most powerful families. They were not necessarily enduring themselves, particularly in the Old Kingdom. Rule by the most powerful family is now known as dynastic.
Even powerful concurrent families were known to be of only temporal endurance, but in each case the re-emergence of the resurrected lineage took place in the presence of the durable and highly visible pyramids.
ATTAINMENT OF THE MOON
Attainment of the Moon then became only a matter of time, and it was on the order of thousands of years before the grand attainment that spanned only a century, most of which was unnecessary war since the only thing the wars did was practice designing rockets. The entire project took only ten years to prepare, and the several flights, each lasting only a few days, spanned only five years.
THE FUTURE IS DIFFERENT IN KIND
The future of human destiny is no longer a struggle to reach the Moon. Now the Moon has footprints on it in several places. The image of the Earth from the Moon and other places in space was recognizable everywhere in the world instantly. The entire population of the world knows what the Earth is.
THE FUTURE IS LONG
Conceptual changes in which adaptation accommodates the new and clearer understanding of the world will naturally span thousands of years and cannot be foreseen.
THE FUTURE IS BETTER
The increasing times of peace will be much happier than the preceding strife. THE CONFLICT OF THE PAST MUST BE ABANDONED. Communications shows a capacity for rational thought and self-government in every country in the world.
THE WORLD IS CONNECTED
Transportation and communication suddenly made the world a very much smaller place, and most people most everywhere are busy making the peace, healing wounds, reconstructing or designing anew habitations, cultivating and gardening the planet, and conserving its resources and other living beings including whole species.
THE ATTAINMENT IS NOW
The Moon was attained only fifty years ago and by now the entire planet is connected with transportation and communications systems of many kinds. It will never go back to totally isolated regions or peoples again, and the communication will never be through arduous foot or animal transport.
Machine driven transportation and electric communication are recognizably of such fundamental nature and vital importance that their total loss for any time at all cannot be even faintly foreseen, although it seems clear the world will become much quieter and more moderate with time, self-knowledge, seasoning and experience.
THERE ARE PROBLEMS IN BELIEVING IT
Distinct though few, problems remain, particularly dynastic or imperial aggression. Those institutions were so successful in the past exactly because they were slow, strong, patient, did not back down, forget their goals, and were not quick to be intimidated or deceived. It requires thirty years, the orbital period of the slowest visible planet Saturn, to catch the attention of a dynasty or an empire.
DYNASTIES AND EMPIRES: TOUGH, SLOW AND THICK
Dynastic and imperial institutions are a bit thick about niceties. The Apollo project to the Moon was a nicety. Spanning only ten years in the preparation and five years in the attainment, it hardly exceeded the ten year periods of menarche and Jupiter. to the Moon.
In short, traditional forms of dynasty and empire and some other less well defined forms of human groups have not really comprehended yet that the Moon was attained, that the Moon has footsteps on it, and in clear principle the Moon can be attained again if there is any good reason to go there. There are not very many good reasons to send human beings to the Moon right now.
THE MOON WAS NOT INVITING
No compelling reason to return to the Moon exists, because the Moon has no air, no water, no ice, no campfires, no plants, no trees, no animals, no birds, no fish, no people, no temperate locations, and is too far to go without idiotically great expenditures. Cost is an object in these times when so many important factors on Earth are in distressed need for attention.
Plague, starvation, brutal random violence, organized war, sectarian conflicts over religion, grossly extravagant human population, pollution, rapacious overkill of earth's wildlife, mechanized slaughter harvests of sentient beings on the land and in the waters of the sea as if they are so much dirt, and digitized but vague tendencies to create a tyrannical world holocaust seem hopelessly dangerous in the face of the pitifully small funding that international cooperation is given.
THE MOON IS STILL NOT INVITING
Even though a return to the Moon is inevitable, it is not likely to happen in time to be figurative in forming an enduring worldwide, global peace unless China plays a strong hand in that, and it looks like that is not happening because China is playing a defensive role. Pity. There are some ancient reasons for China's delay.
China's history was a much more timid approach to the Moon, and hardly began that kind of progress. It was loathe to violate any engendered patterns of nature, a pattern that was enforced by Taoist principles which still exist even in the post-Apollo era.
That timidity is why China's first astronaut, justifiably happy and exuberant at his triumphant return alive, was feeling bruised. China's people were playing ping pong for exercise in space flight, which Americans were playing football, Canadians were playing ice hockey, and Europeans were playing soccer.
WORLD PEACE IS STILL A TERRIBLY DIFFICULT PROBLEM
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Having coffee while naming this one
Time is, as was recently discovered, not invariant. It changes slightly with altitude, and with latitude as well. Different time zones mean that time is relative throughout the world. With the absolute offset from time zones and the good-grief RATE offset with altitude and latitude (the earth is an ellipsoid) it is a wonder we can talk at all.
The Eurasian land mass has taken the larger mass of that which determines what time it is in the progressions of history. This is not surprising. America was like a great caterpillar in preparing the world's first flights to the Moon. (Interestingly, Russians used the image of a slug, the mollusc without any shell.)
Suddenly, something a billion years old was over. Much of the rapidly developed infrastructure, technology and other factors was obsolete. Only new generations can determine which is which. It is too late for anybody as old as this writer to determine that for the future. I spent all my determination in the projects to reach the Moon-in Project Mercury, specifically.
All the enthusiasm we had for the Apollo flights made us feel determined to go out and conquer and colonize the planets, take worlds away from the space monsters, and overpopulate the Galaxy. That was not to happen. What's more, it seems likely that younger and more logical people probably feel that way too, though at a different time and rate of progression.
Asia may find it propitious to go to the Moon. While the rationality of the Roman traditions so deep in our laws (a good thing) makes that relatively unnecessary, and our militarist egos would like to think so as well because then our land would be the only part of the world that did walk on the Moon, the real fact is that as far as that half billion years of evolving instinctive curiosity is concerned, there's no point in it. There is no air, water, food, people, animals, plants or space aliens on the Moon. Yet ancient determination and contest by immense numbers of animals and other sentient beings has left us with energy to spare for just that -more flights to the Moon until true satiety and exhaustion temper the world's sheer lust for action.
But if China does not immerse itself in THAT struggle, there is a dreadful danger that all those millions of years of pent-up zero sum struggle to conquer (the essential ingredient in predator-prey survival) will appear in international relations, ambitions, conflicts and worse.
The result is not only emotional detachment from the realities of nuclear energy. It is a sense that the aggressive powers with human beings that were groomed through thousands of years of military heroism and adventurist exuberance will be tempted to play dice in the aggressive world of national dominance. These issues are deeper than mere wood and concrete foundations in the earth. They are challenged with good but slight effect by major constructions-tunnels through mountain ranges, tunnels under the sea, bridges across formally impassible or erosive valleys, and other titanic ventures that serve to divert our natures to more civilized goals worthy of the real destiny of this lovely planet Earth.
America was chosen for the flights to the Moon by God, by the Mandate of Heaven, by Allah, the Earth, the birds, instinct from long ago-it does not matter what we call it. If that had not been decided long ago the choice to go to the Moon would probably not have occurred by now and the flights might not have occurred yet at all.
It was destiny that the Old World began moving the Conquest of Light to the New World with the inventions of the lens, the prism, and the telescope 1500's. That was the beginning of the fourth quarter of two thousand years that had been foreseen in the light of Pliny's Moon when the Sun appeared in the Moon during the moment of truth of Pompeii. It was four hands of centuries that played out.
Had we not attained the Moon, there would probably have been nuclear war on a massive scale already. That is a good sign. It only wants those negotiating the disarmament to have faith the Moon was actually reached. Yet if the world does not believe quite enough in America's Apollo flights, and if the Old World does not turn itself to the eventual flights from Eurasia, that too could cause nuclear war.
It is very important to understand this. The Old World must busy itself with its own Moon projects visibly, with increasing money, news, economic activity, publicity and widespread agreements. Otherwise it risks bumbling into nuclear war. America, highly respected, can play a key role even in just in being an enthusiastic audience and source of encouragement.
It is fortunate that much preparation existed and that few of the most vexing and egregious difficulties of history remained. The terrible practice of slavery, too long upheld because of its ancient origin, remained to reject. It was the only great war in the United States before the Moon flights, and the moon was attained not by slaves.
Neither was it important what color the skin was in the shoes of the persons who first walked on the Moon's surface. The race and color of the persons who made those footprints will be forgotten long before the footprints themselves disappear.
What does remain is to look to the day when the Old World Sun rises in Moon as it comes up over the Atlantic seaboard, and look to it with good will and cooperation, for it is more inevitable than America's dominance, opulent prosperity, and chaos.
America must now turn itself to patiently abiding the Old World's progress toward the Old World's Moon. After that it will be decided what the World and Moon are. In all the Old World's land mass, eliminating whatever practices that remain in its slowly gathering preparations for its own flights to the Moon constitutes a persistent, inevitable flow of its activities.
It was not given this writer to say more about the Old World's preparations for its own flights to the Moon. Those events are unfolding there. Each will bring surprises.
China recently launched an astronaut into orbit, and though it was a triumphant and happy return, the flight was found surprisingly bruising. It is good to know what the consequences were; the problem will be solved with, say, football instead of table tennis. It was only that, and does not need flogging the ocean waves to defeat the tides, or many other things in history that would have condemned future attainments of the Moon to bloodshed and war.
It is probably better not to attempt to be or cause perfection in the real world by force. The Old World was committed to attaining the Moon too, long before the Americas were settled by Europeans. Neither do the people of Asia and Europe have the choice any more than the people of the Americas. The destiny is already upon those lands and their people are already groping toward the goal to the greatest extent they find possible.
It cannot be safely said that the United States will have no role in that, even if it is only Amici Americi. Americans we would be wise to make our opinions opinions and policies toward Europe in the East and toward Asia to the West distinctly similar. It would do great good at little cost.
One suspects we should regard the extent to which the inhabitants of the North American continent dictate to the rest of the world as something it is desirable to greatly perfect. We should minimize capitalist marketing and military aggression and permit more than England to dictate to the United States what Europe and Asia are.
We should cultivate greater expertise in being responsive to their progress, without attempting to change its course. It was not Asia's choice and Europe's choice to be undertaking the next flights to the Moon any more than it was America's choice. Nobody in the old world can avoid yielding to the necessity of that destiny. They may not see it as the first thing they wake up to yet, but the day is approaching when they do.
America, after all, cannot choose to be the only part of the world that attains the Moon. The option is already gone; it disappeared with the manufacture of off-the-shelf robots and avatars. The real attainment again, this time by the Old World, is a destiny on the Moon already devolving even now.
We might choose to perfect something like an absolutely essential dainty, like coffee that makes life just nicer until long after Europe has its size nines on the celestial orb. America as Philioses Paleos Cosmos.
The Eurasian land mass has taken the larger mass of that which determines what time it is in the progressions of history. This is not surprising. America was like a great caterpillar in preparing the world's first flights to the Moon. (Interestingly, Russians used the image of a slug, the mollusc without any shell.)
Suddenly, something a billion years old was over. Much of the rapidly developed infrastructure, technology and other factors was obsolete. Only new generations can determine which is which. It is too late for anybody as old as this writer to determine that for the future. I spent all my determination in the projects to reach the Moon-in Project Mercury, specifically.
All the enthusiasm we had for the Apollo flights made us feel determined to go out and conquer and colonize the planets, take worlds away from the space monsters, and overpopulate the Galaxy. That was not to happen. What's more, it seems likely that younger and more logical people probably feel that way too, though at a different time and rate of progression.
Asia may find it propitious to go to the Moon. While the rationality of the Roman traditions so deep in our laws (a good thing) makes that relatively unnecessary, and our militarist egos would like to think so as well because then our land would be the only part of the world that did walk on the Moon, the real fact is that as far as that half billion years of evolving instinctive curiosity is concerned, there's no point in it. There is no air, water, food, people, animals, plants or space aliens on the Moon. Yet ancient determination and contest by immense numbers of animals and other sentient beings has left us with energy to spare for just that -more flights to the Moon until true satiety and exhaustion temper the world's sheer lust for action.
But if China does not immerse itself in THAT struggle, there is a dreadful danger that all those millions of years of pent-up zero sum struggle to conquer (the essential ingredient in predator-prey survival) will appear in international relations, ambitions, conflicts and worse.
The result is not only emotional detachment from the realities of nuclear energy. It is a sense that the aggressive powers with human beings that were groomed through thousands of years of military heroism and adventurist exuberance will be tempted to play dice in the aggressive world of national dominance. These issues are deeper than mere wood and concrete foundations in the earth. They are challenged with good but slight effect by major constructions-tunnels through mountain ranges, tunnels under the sea, bridges across formally impassible or erosive valleys, and other titanic ventures that serve to divert our natures to more civilized goals worthy of the real destiny of this lovely planet Earth.
America was chosen for the flights to the Moon by God, by the Mandate of Heaven, by Allah, the Earth, the birds, instinct from long ago-it does not matter what we call it. If that had not been decided long ago the choice to go to the Moon would probably not have occurred by now and the flights might not have occurred yet at all.
It was destiny that the Old World began moving the Conquest of Light to the New World with the inventions of the lens, the prism, and the telescope 1500's. That was the beginning of the fourth quarter of two thousand years that had been foreseen in the light of Pliny's Moon when the Sun appeared in the Moon during the moment of truth of Pompeii. It was four hands of centuries that played out.
Had we not attained the Moon, there would probably have been nuclear war on a massive scale already. That is a good sign. It only wants those negotiating the disarmament to have faith the Moon was actually reached. Yet if the world does not believe quite enough in America's Apollo flights, and if the Old World does not turn itself to the eventual flights from Eurasia, that too could cause nuclear war.
It is very important to understand this. The Old World must busy itself with its own Moon projects visibly, with increasing money, news, economic activity, publicity and widespread agreements. Otherwise it risks bumbling into nuclear war. America, highly respected, can play a key role even in just in being an enthusiastic audience and source of encouragement.
It is fortunate that much preparation existed and that few of the most vexing and egregious difficulties of history remained. The terrible practice of slavery, too long upheld because of its ancient origin, remained to reject. It was the only great war in the United States before the Moon flights, and the moon was attained not by slaves.
Neither was it important what color the skin was in the shoes of the persons who first walked on the Moon's surface. The race and color of the persons who made those footprints will be forgotten long before the footprints themselves disappear.
What does remain is to look to the day when the Old World Sun rises in Moon as it comes up over the Atlantic seaboard, and look to it with good will and cooperation, for it is more inevitable than America's dominance, opulent prosperity, and chaos.
America must now turn itself to patiently abiding the Old World's progress toward the Old World's Moon. After that it will be decided what the World and Moon are. In all the Old World's land mass, eliminating whatever practices that remain in its slowly gathering preparations for its own flights to the Moon constitutes a persistent, inevitable flow of its activities.
It was not given this writer to say more about the Old World's preparations for its own flights to the Moon. Those events are unfolding there. Each will bring surprises.
China recently launched an astronaut into orbit, and though it was a triumphant and happy return, the flight was found surprisingly bruising. It is good to know what the consequences were; the problem will be solved with, say, football instead of table tennis. It was only that, and does not need flogging the ocean waves to defeat the tides, or many other things in history that would have condemned future attainments of the Moon to bloodshed and war.
It is probably better not to attempt to be or cause perfection in the real world by force. The Old World was committed to attaining the Moon too, long before the Americas were settled by Europeans. Neither do the people of Asia and Europe have the choice any more than the people of the Americas. The destiny is already upon those lands and their people are already groping toward the goal to the greatest extent they find possible.
It cannot be safely said that the United States will have no role in that, even if it is only Amici Americi. Americans we would be wise to make our opinions opinions and policies toward Europe in the East and toward Asia to the West distinctly similar. It would do great good at little cost.
One suspects we should regard the extent to which the inhabitants of the North American continent dictate to the rest of the world as something it is desirable to greatly perfect. We should minimize capitalist marketing and military aggression and permit more than England to dictate to the United States what Europe and Asia are.
We should cultivate greater expertise in being responsive to their progress, without attempting to change its course. It was not Asia's choice and Europe's choice to be undertaking the next flights to the Moon any more than it was America's choice. Nobody in the old world can avoid yielding to the necessity of that destiny. They may not see it as the first thing they wake up to yet, but the day is approaching when they do.
America, after all, cannot choose to be the only part of the world that attains the Moon. The option is already gone; it disappeared with the manufacture of off-the-shelf robots and avatars. The real attainment again, this time by the Old World, is a destiny on the Moon already devolving even now.
We might choose to perfect something like an absolutely essential dainty, like coffee that makes life just nicer until long after Europe has its size nines on the celestial orb. America as Philioses Paleos Cosmos.
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