Aubrey Lieberman Selected Poems and Essays

  Learning to fly Memetic evolution follows biological evolution.  Biological evolution is the result of a process of endless repetition, many blind alleys and occasional breakthroughs, the allelic mutations which are beneficial, enabling survival and procreation of an organism and the species to which it belongs, and which evolve from it. The resultant synthesis of organs in the body of an animal enable these products of heuristic processes, but require a calculable but humanly unimaginable amount of time. This is certainly an inefficient process, and even more certainly deserving of our profound gratitude. The requisite for memetic evolution is the organ we call the brain, for which biological evolution is responsible. Ideas in a population evolve at speeds varying from those encountered on a modern highway, an approximation perhaps reasonably described as brain speed, and then transmitted amongst individuals in the human technologically enabled population at speeds approach...

  The long life The impetus to extend life is born out of the unique human capacity to create wealth. As long as a society of humans believe that money is precious, the house of cards, monetary wealth,    will stand. The wealth of the achieved is the lifeblood of those on the way, on the same pathway to security. It is not the amount of money that matters. Money can't buy love or happiness. It is just a sufficiency issue. Non-monetary wealth is the outcome of enough invested money to generate a supportive monetary income which will do the survival work for you (plural). This is the price of freedom In his book, Rationality, published in 2021, Steven Pinker records the following observation. Poverty needs no explanation. It is the natural state of human beings. What needs an explanation is wealth. David A. Sinclair, in his book, Lifespan, published in 2019, summarizes the scientific field of the study of aging, in which he has been a leading light for decades, despite bein...

  The intelligent universe We live in an intelligent universe the origin of which is entirely opaque to all of us at present All of the energy that is the universe now was confined within  narrow boundaries without subatomic particles or atoms or molecules perhaps confined  by massive gravitational forces the chains of which were broken and our expanding universe born Interactions governed by the physics  of the primordial plasma resulted in the particles and forces which produced the first atoms and all of the elements necessary to make stars  and galaxies and rare worlds where biology becomes possible and life becomes a minuscule component of the massive universe This is the process in which we live a process which doesn't know and does not possess the capacity to care a process which we are not able to affect in any meaningful way and will never be capable of doing so All forms of life are intelligent able to exist within a contextual moment during which entr...

  Stonewall The house I live in was built at the start of the twentyfirst century of the common era on what was once a meadow until well into the twentieth  People who grew up  around my place remember the cows wandering across the field  curious about the people admiring them from the side of the meandering road that once was a carriage way between Providence and Boston now called Bay Road A rough stone wall running north to south separates our front acre from the back one and the big pond adjacent to it I can't help  but notice it often a time machine that sometimes carries me back several centuries as I go about my day I like to walk along it and have only altered it ever so slightly to improve stability preserving its integrity character and perseverance akin to that of  a stubborn confederate general  standing his ground  We live in a place  the hills and woods of which I am blessed to wonder along trails ancient and new which lead me to...