They had it wrong. All those other mad scientists and supervillains. Remake the world in their image, by their designs, cutting away the unnecessary components to create perfect simplicity. They really didn't understand the world.
Day to day life and the workings of society were easy to understand. The monumentally complex forces which directed our cultures were similarly plain to their eyes. But their understanding would run out soon after. Perhaps they would excell in one aspect, but more often than not, it was by way of that field that they sought to change things to suit them. That doesn't mean anything other than they stepped just a bit beyond the scope of the rules and, looking back, saw a way to cheat.
In effect, they were still playing the same game that everyone else was. The only difference was that they had found a loophole or technicality that allowed them to do things that were barred to the rest of the players. But in that brief backwards glimpse at the game board, they could see other areas which lay beyond the rules, but which they could not penetrate. If they could come here, then it was likely possible for others to go there and find other ways to cheat.
Perhaps it was a conscious action against the theoretical inhabitants of those undiscovered realms, or it could have simply been the subconscious fear all humans have of the unknown. Whatever the reason for it, the pruning off of these budding rivals is inevitable. They try to scale back and limit everything to those areas, once so vast and amazing but now so limited, over which they could be sure of their own supremacy. In doing so, those so-called geniuses become as narrow-minded and unseeing as they believe the rest of humanity is.
Rule the world.
Change the world.
What they mean is change the world so that they can rule it.
The world will always be where we come from when we venture out into those undiscovered realms where the old rules no longer apply and new rules wait. Cutting away parts of it, even in attempts to add new parts, only means that one day we will have to venture out to discover them once again.
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3 comments:
Reality is based on certain rules. Things that comply with this rules work. Things that don't, don't. We don't know all these rules. Science is an attempt to find out.
Some people insist that they've found loopholes. They are usually wrong about this. (Typically, they've made a math or conceptual error and refuse to admit it, no matter how much evidence you show them.) We call these people "cranks" or "crackpots."
So...how would you cheat at science? Or life?
By using science to discover new rules which make exceptions to the old ones! For most of the 18th century, scientists operated under the assumption that the atom was the smallest form of matter, impossible to break down or alter in any way. But then the world of the subatomic was discovered, and with it the myriad of new rules by which it operated. Before, energy was primarily produced by way of burning fuel and other chemical reactions. According to these new rules though, if conditions are manipulated just so… Behold! Atomic Power! In those early days of discovery, how many envisioned a world where everything from street lights to air-ships ran on atomic power?
What is a loophole but a set of conditions under which the normal rules can be circumvented? If that loophole was available for anyone to use… Well, it’s not cheating any more if we‘re all allowed to do it. But a skilled player doesn’t give up his assets; he uses them to press his advantage.
*We have entered the Age of the Atom! Generating power through cumbersome coal-burning and other archaic means has become unnecessary and will soon be a distant memory. And even though these new sub-atomic rules suggest the possibility of other methods, such as drawing minute amounts of energy from sunlight, those are nothing but mere scientific curiosities. Soon the entire world will run on atomic power! (And as the un-rivaled provider of atomic technology, I will rule that world!)*
A good scientist publishes the results that he or she discovers, thus opening the "loophole" that you describe to everybody.
Science is the map. Reality is the territory. A good map reflects the territory to help people get around.
I suppose some scientists are not good, and hoard information to their own ends?
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