"How do we define what is real? If technology can create a perfect virtual reality we will have to redefine "real life".
The separation between mind and body will be ever more strenuously challenged." -- Connie McClellan "Everything about human development on Earth seems to be accelerating, which one of the major themes of Connie's move on Earth and David Brin's novel 'Earth.' The effect of advancing technologies on the Earth is a crises. Crisis however, as defined by the chinese, is mearly dangerous opportunity. The advancement of the artificial as documented in 'Synthetic Pleasures' makes us wonder how we will navigate this crisis if we value technolgies to the exclusion of nature. " -- Robert C. Cohen |