The Early Modern World: The Hope for Fertile Ground

The words of Girolamo Cardano are prevalent today: "The most unusual circumstance of my life is that I was born in this century in which the whole world became known... " I think that were are in a time of another great coming together of the "whole world". We can communicate and share ideas with the whole realm of humanity with the technology of today. It is allowing us to have a new conception of the world and our place in it, which is on a larger scale, but parallel to the experience humans, especially Europeans were having during the 15th and 16th centuries. I do feel as if once again certainties are being exchanged for uncertainties. it is a vulnerable time for us as a human community, because we are now again a human community. As I wrote about in a past entry, we have come back together after much time, travel and experience. We have come back together and we can choose how we want to progress into the future. Do we want to remain hyper competitive and dominate with and within our environment and ourselves? Or do we want to evolve on an emotional level becoming more empathetic, understanding, cooperative, collaborative, and unifying as a species? I believe that we have this capability and I do not think that it will take the usual extended period of time evolution usually take to transform ourselves. Will this create a new species of human? Homo emotinalis? Maybe? That might really give homo sapiens someone to bully... Back to the time of change and uncertainty. As was true for the people of the 15th and 16th centuries, this change and uncertainty created a rich and fertile ground for the scientific revolution (as stated in the book). So, I am so curious what kind of ground will this time of change and uncertainty create? Right now many people think our ground is no longer fertile, we have blanched it and therefore it will soon be completely sterile. I am more hopeful than that. Perhaps I am ignorant and the innate need to find the silver lining is blinding me to the fact that it is already over. Like in the movie Jacob's Ladder when the palm reader is looking at his palm and tells him, "Baby, you're already dead." I am still clinging to the silver lining that our uncertainty will bring us together as a species instead of ripping us apart. Maybe I sound a bit like my ancestors, they were so inspired by this change and thought that these new ideas would bring them closer to god or the truth and eventuality to themselves. At the time they could not imagine the death and destruction this new technology would bear future generations 400 or so years later. (wc 467)