From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: An Insight
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 20:33:55 GMT

In article <Sep29.235329.69115@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
trzyna@CS.ColoState.EDU (wayne trzyna) writes:
I noted:
4K naked-eye visible stars.
>Oh Eugene.  You're so left-brained!  (Don't feel bad.  That's a line
>an old room mate used to apply to me all the time.)

I just purchased Betty Edwards drawing with the right brain.
BTW: I am ambidextrious.  Worse of both worlds.
Another interesting book is Tom West's The Mind's Eye: notes how the
visual thinkers are having a run in with language types like lawyers
and writers.

>Well, it's a wild, unknown expanse.

I don't see the wild, unknown, yes.  Few animals out there yet to eat us.
However, my view is sort of like Alien before they encountered it: cold,
empty, dark, etc.

Space is largely a cost issue: it's non-linear.  We have to find something
out there we really want (eocnomic).  This is the challenge of the so-called
information revolution.

>Our culture has a very bad case of technological arrogance.  We think
>we're really hot stuff.  Other cultures we consider primitive have
>had specific technologies more advanced than ours, which we are only
>beginning to understand.  Some Eskimos built better kayaks, for instance.

Agreed.  We only find out when we strip some of it away.

>The Eskimos knew better, however, than to extrapolate that their efficient
>boats would allow them to paddle to the moon!

The star ship and the canoe.  (Steve Roberts just met George Dyson in the
flesh, I just briefed Steve on this book, Steve is trying to built a
high tech computerized kayak).

>The beauty of the sky as wilderness, is that it remains untouchable,
>undeveloped, uncorrupted.  The great beyond: it stands as a symbol,
>a tranquil reminder that humanity is not in control.  Yes, we've still
>got some residual thinking left: that humankind will dominate and subjugate
>the universe.  We've only begun to catch on to the importance of harmony
>with, versus subjugation of, our surroundings.  Admit it.  Those
>stars are just too far away to exploit.  

We exploit the stars right now in many ways: navigation, baselines for
research.  The sky is a 2-D illusion left over from the days of the
flat earth (and similarly old philosophical ideas we occasionally see
in the group).  The question is the derivative: will we change fast enough?
I'm not certain, I think other forces will predominate.  My view of space
in this sense is like Nimoy's comment in the second Star Trek film as he
is voicing over a 3-D rotation from an E&S planetarium unit.  We are a part
of this star stuff.  We are the universe coming to know ourselves.

>Space, the final frontier?  Wrong.  Social, political, economic, 
>and scientific harmony and quality of life, the final frontier. 
>Space is a realm for scientific exploration, nothing more.

Agreed.
I just saw James Burke's most recent series for the first time (ep. 1).
I think I will try to watch this, then mail him a letter after seeing it.
I should get the book as well.

>No prisoners. ;-)

I wouldn't take any.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Acting Associate Editor, Software and Publication Reviews
  Scientific Programming
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
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