on the understanding that life is cyclical, progress to me is moving along the cycle of life. I don't believe in a heirarchy of progress. pretty much everything falls into the life-death-life cycle ( or what we can understand of it) I think progress is when you ( or your works) make the transition between states without too much resistance. So ironically progress would be transition without a great deal of movement or energy expenditure. Kind of the way plants grow, I suppose...
interesting thoughts, monty. but would that apply to, say, scientific progress, which often involves a significant expenditure of effort and is not without resistance? great scientific findings or discoveries are often attained after a struggle.
Is the flow of water a struggle? When I watch it procede down a creek or stream it seems like a tremendous struggle finding the easiest way to procede.
I think you can argue from now until doomsday (some might argue the end of everything is progress – was the Great Flood a sign of progress?) about the merits of any event with regards to progress. There's a lot of political import in assigning a progress tag on events. I think a paradigm shift of some magnitude must take place, such as the advent of home plumbing (and water), refridgeration, or personal (affordable) automobiles, the net, jet travel for "progress" to be felt. Of course, progress might also be the death of us... hard to tell. Read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.. this evolutionary biologist has some interesting thoughts on progress.
I would argue how great the scientific discoveries are to the communities who don't benefit. For example finding a cure for something and then means testing the cure is, to my mind, rarely a sign of progress. For me technology / science has to benefit the whole society / community in order to be considered progress. Something like the light bulb, or the telephone, or the wind up radio.
ok, so if we take the light bulb as an example, i think it is fair to say that thomas edison struggled quite a bit to make his invention work. i believe he ran thousands of experiments before he was able to demonstrate that it can work.
Progress to me is an entity, represented by the concept of say, God. It permeates our essential being as well as all of existance. I do not think we have the ability to comprehend it but we do have the ability to feel it and to know that it exists. It moves, but we know not in which direction because it has no direction. The creation or invention of the lightbulb and the processes involved is not an example of progress but a consequence of it. Linear progress to me has an end and a goal, something we can strive for. But once we reach it we discover that it is only a concept or a meme. I prefer to redefine my concept of progress as more processual.
I found this in an article by Gary Younge Monday November 14, 2005 in the guardian. The article was discussing the Paris riots. I thought it was relavent to this discussion 'If there is no struggle, there is no progress," said the African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1641908,00.html
10 Comments:
on the understanding that life is cyclical, progress to me is moving along the cycle of life. I don't believe in a heirarchy of progress. pretty much everything falls into the life-death-life cycle ( or what we can understand of it) I think progress is when you ( or your works) make the transition between states without too much resistance. So ironically progress would be transition without a great deal of movement or energy expenditure. Kind of the way plants grow, I suppose...
7:58 AM
interesting thoughts, monty.
but would that apply to, say, scientific progress, which often involves a significant expenditure of effort and is not without resistance? great scientific findings or discoveries are often attained after a struggle.
12:43 PM
Is the flow of water a struggle? When I watch it procede down a creek or stream it seems like a tremendous struggle finding the easiest way to procede.
1:25 AM
I think you can argue from now until doomsday (some might argue the end of everything is progress – was the Great Flood a sign of progress?) about the merits of any event with regards to progress. There's a lot of political import in assigning a progress tag on events. I think a paradigm shift of some magnitude must take place, such as the advent of home plumbing (and water), refridgeration, or personal (affordable) automobiles, the net, jet travel for "progress" to be felt. Of course, progress might also be the death of us... hard to tell. Read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.. this evolutionary biologist has some interesting thoughts on progress.
1:55 AM
I would argue how great the scientific discoveries are to the communities who don't benefit. For example finding a cure for something and then means testing the cure is, to my mind, rarely a sign of progress. For me technology / science has to benefit the whole society / community in order to be considered progress. Something like the light bulb, or the telephone, or the wind up radio.
4:03 PM
ok, so if we take the light bulb as an example, i think it is fair to say that thomas edison struggled quite a bit to make his invention work. i believe he ran thousands of experiments before he was able to demonstrate that it can work.
10:03 PM
Progress to me is an entity, represented by the concept of say, God. It permeates our essential being as well as all of existance. I do not think we have the ability to comprehend it but we do have the ability to feel it and to know that it exists. It moves, but we know not in which direction because it has no direction. The creation or invention of the lightbulb and the processes involved is not an example of progress but a consequence of it. Linear progress to me has an end and a goal, something we can strive for. But once we reach it we discover that it is only a concept or a meme. I prefer to redefine my concept of progress as more processual.
5:33 AM
I found this in an article by Gary Younge
Monday November 14, 2005 in the guardian. The article was discussing the Paris riots. I thought it was relavent to this discussion
'If there is no struggle, there is no progress," said the African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1641908,00.html
1:44 AM
I think if you are at point A, if you have a plan or a passion to get to point B and you get there. you have made progress.
12:38 PM
... is that irrespective of the consequence?
11:36 AM
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