| Abstract - Implicit in any discussion of ethical or what
questions concerning the use of technology, viz., what can or
should be done with technology relative to its consequences,
is the necessary assumption that the course of the future is
subject to rational intervention. This requires either that (i)
nature is not deterministic in the Newtonian/Laplacian sense
and that humans have some non-privileged access to seeding the
future as part of the natural evolution of cosmic processes,
or that (ii) humans sit supernaturally outside of nature (whether
Newtonian/Laplacian or not) as instruments of some supernatural
will. Recent advances in complex systems theory now provide a
theoretical basis for (i) (1-5). The old view of the second law
of thermodynamics that transformations from incoherent to coherent
states are "infinitely improbable" has been shown to
be false. The second law can now be understood as the underlying
creative principle in the universe. Opportunistic, self-accelerating
structuring through the spontaneous emergence of increasingly
specified levels of coherent reflexive states is now known to
be the product of physical law. Nonlinear relations between components,
seeded by indeterminate, non-average, microscopic "events",
puncture the space-time limits to entropy production by extending
the diffusive of the nonequilibrium flow fields from which they
emerge. Although this process provides the non-privileged acccess
to seeding future states required for rational intervention,
non-privileged should be heavily underscored. Although cultural
systems may use rational human constructions as components in
their own production they are not rationally constructed systems.
Thus the extent to which seeding can be "rational",
or the extent to which future states (the pathways that are seeded)
might be "good" for humans (which humans? with what
values?) is unclear at best. What is known now is that (i) opportunistic
structuring is predicted by physical law; (ii) this structuring
is successively seeded at instabilities - particular evolutionary
"moments", by indeterminate microcopic events (fluctuations);
(iii) there is some finite number (perhaps large, perhaps not)
of different microscopic events that at each moment meet the
physical requirements for spontaneous amplification to macroscopic
proportions; (iv) the (possibly extremely small) differences
in these events may lead to drastically different macroscopic
outcomes (futures); (v) the process is irreversible; and (vi)
we are rapidly passing through (approaching) a moment (a succession
of moments) on planet Earth right now. Clearly insofar as questions
of responsibility, accountability and alternative future states
are concerned, the implication of these findings run deep. Recent
theoretical results are outlined, and some of the implications
briefly discussed. A rapid expansion of transdisciplinary research
is called for. |