Philosophy of Technology

 

Welcome to the home page of

Reilly Jones

Several essays centered on how the world will cope with humanity’s natural drive towards cultural and physical speciation.

Homeorhetic philosophy - a philosophy steering a course between idealism and materialism: the Tao, the Logos, the living arrow of creation. A conceptual flux between chaos and order approaching the source of coherency and intelligibility, the transcendent realm. The self-organizing honing in on a moving point of purposeful disequilibrium in a dynamic pattern of increasing complexity.

In Isaiah Berlin’s words: “An unstable equilibrium in need of constant attention and repair.... an open future.” Berlin adds, “The glory and dignity of man consist in the fact that it is he who chooses, and is not chosen for, that he can be his own master.”

Consider the consequences of the concept that we are not one world, that we are not one species, that we are not approaching one destiny, when thinking about the future... observe carefully the fences of a “one-world” philosophical stockyard that restricts our liberty, they are well camouflaged. Outside this stockyard, as J.R.R. Tolkien phrased it, “Resistance still had somewhere where it could take counsel free from the Shadow.”


2007 March - Study Guide & Website Sampler - Guide to technological innovation and the future for interested individuals with limited time - streamlined access to: 1) my generalized preferences 2) my recommendations for source material 3) my evaluation methodology for source material and 4) short samples of my writing from this Website


Essays marked with * contain more technical material

2008 August - Education and Brain Structure - UPDATE Updated and restated education initiative designed to maximize innovation in a knowledge-based economy

2008 October - Ontology Essay * - Foundational to the philosophy of technology, particularly in how technology both increases the scope and complexity of molecular ensembles subject to common volitional intentions and alters volitional intention itself - liquid cosmology - the physical location of the transcendent realm - ‘man is the center of all things’

2005 November - Cultural Bootstrap - UPDATE Updated renditions of Prometheus Bound & Oedipus Rex accessible to all ages and fabric mosaic art inspired by historical art works showing the great range of differing aspects of women’s strength

2003 December - Proposal to Attract and Retain World-Class Intellect - Initiative for the Oregon Business Plan’s Leadership Summit 2003: Shaping Oregon’s Economic Future

2003 August - Purpose of Education - Preparing the Individual for Future Conditions of Extreme Novelty

 

 Conceptual History (Selected Works)

Conceptual Timeline: Part I - Born 9th cent. BC through 1860 AD

Conceptual Timeline: Part II - Born after 1860 AD plus Addendum

 

 Articles published in Extropy Journal

1996 2nd Half - A Critique of Barlow’s “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”

1995 June 18th - A History of Extropic Thought: Parallel Conceptual Development of Technicism and Humanism

1995 2nd/3rd Qtr. * - Consciousness: Spontaneous Order and Selectional Systems - Part II

1995 1st Qtr. * - Consciousness: Spontaneous Order and Selectional Systems - Part I 

1994 3rd Qtr. * - Review of Origins of Order by Stuart Kauffman (1993)

 Internet Discussions

Ethics of Human Speciation: Sapience, Intolerance and Volitional Freedom

Cyber-Chartres: Learning the Design Processes Which Cross the Line between Profane and Sacred Spaces

Ominous Crimson Glow: New Science (1744) by Giambattista Vico & The Crooked Timber of Humanity (1990) by Isaiah Berlin

Two American Traditions: Decline of the West (1918-1922) by Oswald Spengler & Dominations and Powers (1951) by George Santayana

Recycled Nihilism and Determinism: The Life of Greece (1939) by Will Durant & The Killing of History (1997) by Keith Windschuttle

Unity and the Death Wish: The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) by Miguel de Unamuno & Way to Wisdom (1951) by Karl Jaspers

Science and Rationality: * The Philosophy of Biology (1993) by Elliott Sober & The Nature of Rationality (1993) by Robert Nozick

Defining Human: Evangelium Vitae (1995) by Pope John Paul II

Conversation with a Physicist: The Revolt of the Masses (1930) by José Ortega y Gasset

Epistemology: * Three Aspects of Reality, Conceptual Attractors, Search for Ground & Hermeneutics

 Notes on Books

The Transparent Society - (1999) by David Brin

The Fourth Turning - (1997) by William Strauss and Neil Howe

Out of Control - (1994) by Kevin Kelly

 Miscellaneous

“Divide et Impera” - motto of Louis XI and successors

Quotations - Assorted

2003 July - Transtech Proposal to Oregon - Knowledge-based Economic Development and Educational Model

Letters to the Editor - 1996-2000


Links

Biographical Information

 

 E-Mail: reillyjones@comcast.net

©2001-2008 Reilly Jones - All Rights Reserved

Last Updated 7/2/08