Matthew Godfrey - The Insanity Of Ideas: Why ideas are now leaving human control and developing minds of their own. (English Edition)

First published in 2021.

Copyright by Matthew Godfrey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of quotations in review.

The publisher and the author have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time. While this publication is designed to provide accurate information regarding the subject matter covered, the publisher and the author assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any other inconsistencies herein and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. This publication is meant as a source of valuable information for the reader based on the opinions of the author, however, it is not meant as a substitute for either direct research or expert assistance.

www.theinsanityofideas.com

ISBN Paperback 978-981-18-0292-8

Cover design by cherriefox.com

First edition. 2021

CONTENTS

For Dorothea, Orion, Austin, and Alyxandra.

Introduction

H umanitys extensive back catalogue of innovative ideas is unparalleled, incredible and often awe inspiring. The wheel, electricity, sanitation, medicine, energy, art, agriculture, architecture, computing, space travel, music and even the chocolate eclair. All are objectively brilliant and unmatched on the planet. We collectively accomplished all this with the relative speed and ease of a super-intelligence compared to all the other species that crawled, slithered and swam before us. Bold, beautiful and breakthrough ideas that have saved lives, sparked happiness and propelled us magnificently and supremely forward. Unfortunately, our resume is also blotted by a body of tremendously egregious ideas as well. War, slavery, inequality, racism, pollution, terrorism, crime and extinctions would all be high on that list of shame.

Where do we stand now? With our powerful tools, knowledge and intellect, are we in the prime position to select only the best ideas going forward? Or will the growing cacophony and pace of available ideas, circulating in our minds, cities and screens, outstrip our ability to correctly assess their merit? Alternatively, should we now actively delegate this critical responsibility to the very ideas that we are now creating? Is that complete insanity, to be avoided at all costs, or an evolving, inevitable, insatiable reality? Either way, we are all going to find out very soon.

CHAPTER 1

What is an idea?

A ntoine Laurent Lavoisier was a gifted visionary who materialised truly ground-breaking ideas for his time. He was both an aristocrat and a wealthy scientist, born in 1743 into the turmoil of 18th century revolutionary France. A few of the incredible ideas he was involved with include the creation of the metric system, the first list of all known elements, the naming of oxygen and hydrogen, and predicting the existence of silicon. He was also very passionate about creating innovative solutions to improve Paris hygiene, water, and air quality. His mind continuously bubbled and fizzed with ideas. The lucrative Tobacco industry was also attractive to his sharp intellect. He devised and set the standard for the precise amount of water required to enhance a pleasant smoky flavour without destroying the stability of the tobacco. Apparently, 6.3% is the magic number, but it was an idea he would later live to regret. One of his most insightful ideas has since caused seismic scientific ripples. He is credited with discovering that all matter is neither created nor destroyed. In his view, once matter had exploded into existence, the universe, in its wisdom, deemed that it was thereafter, eternal.

Unfortunately, revolutionary France didnt quite agree that Lavoisier was a bonafide genius to be treasured by the people. On Thursday, May 8th in 1794, his very inquisitive mind was permanently separated from his wealthy body by the sharply indifferent blade of a guillotine. On that day, his Father-in-law also suffered the same fate, as well as twenty-six other souls accused of crimes against the people of France. Amongst their charges were tax evasion, as well as fiddling with the water content of Tobacco to line their own pockets with deceitful profits. For these crimes, his brilliant head was permanently divorced from his body, placed in a common-sack and buried in an unmarked grave.

If he had any last thoughts, it may have been to consider himself a very lucky man to only suffer this fate. The idea of the guillotine had been first employed for execution in France just two years earlier, starting in 1792. The customary favour was usually the iron bar generously smashed across the heart.

A year after Lavoisiers relatively swifter and more pleasant death, the French State quietly admitted that they may have had the wrong opinion of him and sent a belated note of acquittal to his widowed wife.

His request for a legacy of reputation was eventually fulfilled. He is now widely regarded as the Father of Modern Chemistry His ideas on the eternity of matter, now called the conservation of mass, has since evolved to have a lasting impact on modern science and how we view our world. Einsteins even more famous idea on the powerful tango between energy and matter, enshrined in E=MC, and Fred Hoyles concept of a Big Bang which proposes the mechanism that unleashed all matter in the Universe, are both ideas that arguably share their roots with Lavoisiers unique insights. Moreover, centuries of subsequent experiments have proven his bold ideas on the nature of matter as being fundamentally correct, even if the Universe may eventually entropy its way to a frigid, dispassionate pool of particles trillions of years from now.

Today, science is convinced that mere nanoseconds after the Big Bang, all the seemingly infinite material in our Universe irrevocably erupted into being. Why this happened may always remain a mystery, but Lavoisiers relative eternity of the conservation of mass is now difficult to be denied. For aeons, the trillions and trillions of particles created at the seminal moment have since been constantly rearranged, manipulated, fused, and even split by the most powerful forces that nature has assembled. Fourteen billion years later, virtually all of this matter is still defiantly and stubbornly standing in one form or another. Amazingly, every single particle required to composite everything humans are and all planets and life-forms, already existed, and was passively loitering around a galaxy waiting for either an energy or perhaps an entity to give it movement or purpose. From the atoms that combined to form the synapses in Lavoisiers brain, to the calcium in the bones of your body, or even the ethanol molecules in your next tequila shot. All of the core building blocks of every atom has been innocently, silently, and patiently awaiting their assembly instructions for billions of years. The lego pieces of the probable, improbable, and almost impossible were created in an instant after the Big Bang and have been waiting for cosmic instructions ever since.

The Universe is designed like an eternal Ikea catalogue and humanity is just the latest intelligence continually fumbling with the instruction guide, box by infinite box. We act like a small conspiracy of freshly educated lemurs, tucked into a microscopic corner of a vast jungle, trying to assemble wondrous artefacts armed with little more than a wrench, flange screws, and randomly assembled genes. We are only limited and guided by the laws of physics which have been slowly revealing themselves to Lavoisier and others, as immutable.