WHAT IS CALOUSIA? (continued)

More About Calousia
Definition Details

Section Summary
(A) More About Calousia
(1) Highly desirable
(2) Distinctive and characteristic
(3) Universal
(4) How we know Calousia exists
(5) Next major destination of humanity
(6) A testable hypothesis
(7) Calousia potentially near
(8) But our success not assured
(B) Definition details
(1) Detail on technical definition
(2) Detail on descriptive definition
(3) Regarding mature powers
(4) Regarding humanity’s mature state

(2) Distinctive and Characteristic Future Condition
What makes this future distinctive? What differentiates it from all the other cultural states between our present state and that one? It is not merely the Calousian’s enormous powers. It’s that a great cluster of their powers are maximized and can never be significantly increased however much sci-tech grows thereafter. And the larger this cluster is and the more influential it is in shaping Calousian existence, the more distinctive and significant Calousia becomes. And we found the cluster of limited fundamental power-aspects overwhelmingly large, so it is both very limiting and influential.

The Calousian’s great cluster of powers makes them stand out from all intelligent systems in the universe
with lesser powers. It also leaves them identifiable among systems whose sci-tech continues to advance, because that great, limited, specific and characteristic cluster of powers persists.

As our brief history suggests, the kinds of sci-tech a people have determines their powers, and so it exerts
a strong influence on their lives and cultures. Accordingly, in a universal perspective (see below), there ought to be a great similarity in the sci-tech of Calousian systems and a resultant similarity in their powers. This should tend to create among them a strong similarity economically, socially, culturally and environmentally. In other words, it gives these systems, individually and as a group, their distinctive character. In fact, it characterizes them.

This is why the Calousian level of culture is distinctive and characteristic. And it is one of the reasons Calousia is a most significant state. If you look at the Calousian mold* from one point of view, it seems a hindrance. It closes off vast areas where further sci-tech growth might conceivably generate wondrous advances. If you look at it the other way, however, especially from where we are today, the universal mold looks enormously promising. It opens up a fantastic and fabulous future. And it establishes a particular and significant sci-tech base, an inexceedable base, which must exert a profound influence over the culture or cultures built upon it.
*The universe has in effect created a kind of mold to shape us into Calousians. See #4 below.

(3) Universal
Note also that Calousia is a universal state. Any intelligent beings who may evolve on other planets
throughout the cosmos would tend to accumulate knowledge, because it is useful. And if they keep at
it, they would eventually meet the same limits we will meet. We can expect that Calousians, having most
powers in common, will have much else in common as well. This is why Calousia is a universal state.

(4) How Do We Know Calousia Exists?
After all, we can’t point to our present state as proof; we are too little advanced. And we can’t point to the condition of others elsewhere in the universe, if they exist, for our tools remain too primitive to detect them. We’re just learning to spot planets of the nearest stars.

We know Calousia exists - our only present proof – for two reasons. First, because we understand the cultural-developmental process. We recognize that it is characterized by our kind’s tendency to keep acquiring ever more sci-tech, and so ever-greater powers. We know it, second, because it’s evident the universe prevents most of these aspects from having an endless growth.

So, on one side, we have growing sci-tech, this moving, expansive process of ever-increasing powers. On the other side, we have the mass of the fixed, immovable rules of the universe which place an overwhelming cluster of limits upon the growth of our powers.

It’s a case of an expanding force - knowledge growth, power growth - finally coming up against all the immovable parts of its universal container. In short, the universe forms a kind of Calousian glass-blower’s mold which ever more definitively shapes us as we progress, as our powers and influence grow to meet the immovable inside face of this container. In consequence, if we can keep our powers growing, we must eventually assume the distinctive shape, i.e., the character, determined by the universal Calousian mold. This is how we know Calousia exists.

(5) The Next Major Destination of Humanity
If you think of our planet as “Spaceship Earth,”
And you think of our developmental progress on this planet
As a special kind of journey,
Then it is evident that the next major destination
The universe has scheduled for “Spaceship Earth”
Is Calousia.

(6) A Testable Hypothesis
Calousian existence is testable in two ways. It’s testable where we can prove that the universe does set a preponderant cluster of limits to the growth of the six powers. It would also be testable through a confirming contact with high-capacity beings originating beyond the Solar System.

Regarding the latter, some effort has already been made using radio. It began as SETI, The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and was first sponsored by NASA, the U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is now privately funded and operates in Australia under the name of "Project Phoenix.(3) After over four years of listening, however, no extra-terrestrial message has been detected. Perhaps radio is too low-tech a medium, like searching for smoke signals.

But, again, though a message for an extra-terrestrial Calousian confirming the existence of Calousia would be a most welcome proof, it’s not necessary. It’s really enough to know that when expanding powers meet all the limits of the Calousian mold the result is a distinctive, significant and characteristic level of cultural existence.

(7) Calousia is Potentially Near
This point is extraordinarily important, because when assessing where we are, we tend to look backwards rather than forwards.

We humans have participated in our cultural development for some 50,000 years. (1) Accordingly, this process appears tediously long, particularly when compared to our brief lifetimes. From this perspective, a Calousian future seems far to distant for practical concern now.

But it’s not!

One reason it’s not is that we live in the process’s fast-accelerating, i.e., “inflationary stage,” to borrow from economics and cosmology. This inflation derives primarily from the rapid and accelerating growth of scientific and technological knowledge, particularly over the past 300 years. The long, slow development of the past is therefore no temporal guide to the future. Our accelerating modern pace hastens us ever faster and closer to Calousia.

Another reason Calousia is near is that we’ve acquired an increasing sci-tech means to make new advances, for example, scientific methods, research institutions, and highly developed tools, techniques, and materials. Also the increased spending on research - public and private, national and international - demonstrates a determination to use these means to further our advance. Compare this situation with Sumerian times when means were few and support for their growth extremely modest or non-existent. These growing means and continuing determination suggest our rapid acceleration will continue rushing us toward Calousia.

Calousia is near also because our sci-tech is growing ever more profound. We’re nearing a basic understanding of the way the universe is assembled, the way it works, that gives true control. We’ve discovered the three families of fundamental particles; we’ve integrated nature’s three force particles and are trying to integrate the fourth - gravity; we can manipulate particles and move individual atoms about; we’ve discovered DNA and have deciphered the genome of humans and an increasing number of other species, and should soon begin to understand differentiation; we’ve moved, at least temporarily, to another astronomical body, the moon; we’re beginning to understand universal evolution, from the Big Bang’s first fragments of the first second to the processes and evolutions that have created the universe we see today; our telescopes reveal entities billions of light years away, toward the edge of the universe, and are improving fast; etc. Though an enormous amount of essential research remains before us, we are close to understanding, many basic universal processes at their fundamental level. And this shows we near Calousia

Finally, and perhaps most important of all in causing Calousia to be near is our growing awareness of Calousia itself, this awakening to our true developmental position and its potential Calousian future. We are therefore beginning to see a different purpose for sci-tech. We are beginning to understand that however valuable growing it is for food production, health care, defense, new products for a better economy and life, etc., it is perhaps most valuable of all as the chief means for our advancement, for fulfilling humanity’s developmental potential. And this awareness should cause us to become far more focused and deliberate in our progress. And this should not only hasten our advance to Calousia, but make our success in reaching it far more certain.

For all these reasons, then, Calousia is not millenniums away and beyond practical care, but fast approaching and so potentially quite near. Considering the advances made since Galileo (1564-1642) and the acceleration we experience today, if we continue as we should, we should acquire most of the advantages of Calousia in the next 150years.

In other words, Calousia can be very near, indeed! Or does 150 years seem a long time?

It’s not even two long consecutive life-times. Compare this to the tens of thousands of years it took us to progress just to agriculture. Note: building of some European cathedrals took 300 years.

And as we will show, (See Tasks) the consequence of this nearness makes what we do now- or fail to do - ever more critical and significant.

But just because Calousia is potentially just ahead does not mean we humans will get there soon, or even get there at all.

(8) Our Success Not Assured
The cultural process we participate in is naturally and inherently progressive. This is not because the process has a built-in endpoint, one that pulls us toward it, but simply because it has a tendency toward an endpoint. And this tendency exists because new powers are advantageous - e.g., economically, socially, politically, etc. Nevertheless, this developmental process is also difficult, and its outcome uncertain. Calousia is humanity’s opportunity, not its destiny.

And we could fail in many ways. For example, we could be destroyed by disasters of extra-terrestrial origin, say a change in solar radiation or by a great comet impact before we had learned an effective defense. And, locally, a plague might wipe us out. More likely, we will destroy ourselves by our own actions or inactions. We have already noted how our increasing powers make small groups increasingly destructive. We could also, for example, initiate a planet-wide war that spirals into a catastrophic nuclear or biological disaster, or we could live with constant, nasty little aggressions where striving for survival supplants any hope of progress.

Then again, a harsh dictatorship might gain world dominance and seek to keep it by restricting freedom, deliberately destroying our accumulated knowledge, and enforcing a belief that all one needs to know is written in a small tract, political or religious. The Taliban, North Korea and China under Mao come to mind. Such dictatorships could arise as we keep creating an ever larger ill-educated, impoverished and angry population that Earth’s diminishing capacity is ever less able to support.

Finally, we can fail just by ignoring our true evolutionary position and just wandering multiple other paths that lead to inferior states or to nowhere. Yes, we are knowledge-acquiring and therefore potentially progressive beings, but we can regress. We can descend again into a Dark Age. And perhaps one so dark a renaissance or dawn becomes impossible.

So the human developmental process evidently accompanies its increasing advantages with increasing dangers. We see, then, why attaining Calousia is not easy, and this leads to the suspicion that even if culture-bearers commonly appear throughout the universe, only a small fraction of them may succeed in the difficult task of reaching Calousia. Perhaps the pre-Calousian systems of the universe are like salmon eggs, in that out of thousands produced only a few succeed in becoming mature.

In sum, although the developmental process we’re in certainly tends toward Calousia, it doesn’t necessarily get there. But we must get there if we keep our sci-tech growing and keep adjusting rationally to the resulting changes.

Calousia is a closely-defined technical state. But note that for some power-aspects we find more than one limit. Take transportation speed, for example. If Einstein is right, Calousians can’t travel as fast as light. This is one limit. How much slower, to be determined in the future, is a second kind of limit. And further limits apply if Einstein is wrong and speeds faster than light become possible. (See The Transportation Power) In short, if we find more than one limit to a power-aspect, we needn’t determine now which is the true one. It’s enough for now to find the category limited.

Note also that after Calousia is reached, sci-tech could continue to grow in two areas. The first is among the six fundamental power-aspects; namely, in those that are unlimited. In synthesis, for example, one unlimited area concerns the alteration of organisms, for the number of possibilities is infinite. The second possible growth after reaching Calousia could occur in areas beyond the six fundamental powers. For example, as we explore the universe, we might keep encountering new fossils.

Nevertheless, by the time high-capacity beings reach Calousia, we expect that they will have acquired in both categories most of the powers basic to their way-of-life.

(2) Detail on Descriptive Definition
The second definition of Calousia is that it is a state of mature powers, and in consequence can be considered humanity’s mature state.

These are big claims. How can we justify them?

In two ways. The first has to do with powers, the second with the use of these powers.

(3) Regarding Mature Powers
With respect to powers, here are three reasons why the term mature is appropriate. The first is that the six fundamental powers (see Six Fundamental Powers) are so important to how high-capacity beings live in the universe, and that so many of their significant aspects are limited, and that Calousians, by definition, can fully wield all the limited aspects up to their limits.

Consider, for example, how limits in communication and transportation determine the size of the sphere within the universe available to Calousians, and also much of the areas of intense interaction within that sphere. Consider how limits to the energy power tend to set the metabolism rate, so to speak, of Calousian systems. Consider engines of all sizes from nano-scale (billionths of a meter) to astro-scale and how they enable and limit the work Calousians can do. Consider the extraordinary capacities of Calousians in synthesis. All this knowledge gives control over an enormous and extremely influential cluster of unsurpassable powers.

The second reason for regarding Calousia a state of mature powers is that Calousians could not exercise all the fundamental powers up to their limits without first acquiring all the additional sci-tech underpinning this knowledge. Think of what must be uncovered just to fulfill the synthesis power: creating particles and elements from energy, making crystals and minerals, synthesizing from on-the-shelf chemicals bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, and even planets. And the five other fundamental powers are almost as demanding. So reaching the limits among the six powers signifies that those who achieve them have acquired an extraordinarily great and basic cluster of sci-tech powers.

And the third reason for considering Calousia a state of mature powers concerns all the other useful and important sci-tech that gets discovered on the way to mastering the six fundamental powers. Consider, for example, all we have already uncovered. In other words, it’s evident that reaching Calousia demonstrates an extraordinarily broad and deep understanding of our universe, the way it is put together and the way it works. And, again, many of the most basic powers can never thereafter increase.

Yes, as noted, sci-tech could continue to grow in the few unlimited aspects of the fundamental powers, and in other areas as well. But what we consider here is maturity, not a god-like knowledge of everything. And, yes, in special circumstances new sci-tech must be uncovered and will play an important role, e.g., after some catastrophe or the loss of a primary resource, or on a planet colony with conditions unusual even for planets, etc. But in most circumstances, the influence of any new sci-tech would be modest.

Or look at it this way: as sci-tech continues its growth, is there ever a condition over the course of culture-bearer development, between the hunter-gather days of the past and the farthest reaches of their future, that can be considered the time of mature powers? If so, there is no better condition to satisfy this designation than Calousia. One way to evaluate mature powers is this test: Given a one gram sample - animate, inanimate, terrestrial, or extra-terrestrial- the Calousians’ knowledge, materials, tools and techniques are such that they can soon analyze it and soon thereafter synthesize a fair copy (see Synthesis).

But how do we make that great jump from thinking of Calousia as a state of mature powers to considering it humanity’s mature state?

(4) Regarding Humanity’s Mature State
Why is “mature state” appropriate? It involves the use of powers. Reaching Calousia is not just about acquiring powers. It’s also about adjusting reasonably to them. We’ve noted that the greater our powers, the more advantages they bring, that is, the more an individual can do. This is the good side.

The bad side is that the greater our powers, the more effectively they can be used against us. On the one hand, the powers themselves become increasingly potent - progressing, e.g., from spears and hand axes to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. And on the other hand, the greater our powers, the smaller the number of individuals who can unleash their destructiveness. For example, in a society of self-reliant hunter-gatherers, an individual with a grievance can probably injure only a few others before being stopped. Today a small group could create and detonate a dirty nuclear device in an urban center, or perhaps one person could poison a major water supply.

In a high-tech spaceship, one person merely poking a hole in an outer wall, might kill all. In short, our increasing powers can leave society ever more open to disruption by a few: the dissatisfied, the greedy, the deranged, those willing to destroy all for a cause, etc.

In consequence, just to succeed in reaching Calousia demonstrates wisdom and restraint in the use of powers. And isn’t this also evidence of maturity? Or, to put it the other way, a people who cannot handle their growing powers appropriately will never reach Calousia.

They will either annihilate themselves or descend to a condition and environment so degraded as to make recovery improbable. Therefore, those who learn to exercise to the limits all the significant limited aspects of the six fundamental powers, have by this action also demonstrated the wisdom and restraint that characterizes them as mature.

And maturity means something else. From our earliest times we have used sci-tech to enhance ourselves. Hunter-gatherers did it with red ochre and scarring of the skin. We now do it with hair implants or hair-growing chemicals, with false teeth or teeth implants, with contact lenses or radial keratotomy, with hip and knee replacements, etc. Can anyone doubt that with our growing knowledge of the workings of DNA, we will eventually enhance ourselves genetically? We can therefore expect Calousians to be those who have given themselves most of the basic enhancements desired by high capacity beings. They are therefore different from us, perhaps as different as we are from Homo sapiens, or even Homo erectus.

So in sum, Calousia can be considered a state of maturity both from the standpoint of the state of its powers and the demonstrated rational use of them.

> Next Why Calousia is important.

References and Notes
Author, Scientific American p21 (July 01)
J. E. Peebles, D. N. Schramm, E. L. Turner, and R. G. Kron. Scientific American, p57, (Oct 94).

Author, San Francisco Chronicle, pA4 (January 31, 1995)

© Warren A. Musser 2005