Chapter VI Self-annihilation of Human Being

The extinction of human being refers to the overall destruction of human being. From the above-mentioned analysis we can draw a definite conclusion, that is, from the view of external factors, taking the sun evolving into a red giant star as a sign, human being do not need to worry about that risk of overall destruction in several billion years. Thus, except the external threat, whether human being can be continuous reproduction in an endless succession depends on them. In addition, from the above-mentioned analysis we can also draw another definite conclusion, i.e. the force of extinguishing human being fully depends on the factor of science and technology. It is because only by relying on science and technology can human being is extinguished. Any other force doesnt have the capacity to extinguish human being that is a dominate species and greatly intelligent.

 

Section I  Necessary Occurrence of Annihilating Measure No.1

Philosophy Assumption

I. Inconceivability of Science and Technology

Development of science and technology is closely linked with history of human being themselves. When you turn up the pages of History of Science, you can find solid experience to identify these facts. The earliest achievement of science and technology in human history was the application and chipped stone tools and using fire. These primitive inventions were just the beginning of human history.

The ancestor of mankind has undergone hundreds of thousands of years development, during which, they have overcome numerous obstacles in the field of science and technology. During any period, human being experienced incomprehensible natural phenomenon, had a strong will to conquer nature and remake nature, also, hold nature in awe. The achievements created by science and technology are always unbelievable and imaginable. So many things, which have thought to be unchangeable from generation to generation, have been changed by human being. People even couldn’t believe even though some scientific and technological achievements have been fulfilled, even some scientists leading in this field had the some feelings. The reason for this is that the force of science and technology is so huge that far beyond the subjective imagination and experience.

In order to fully illustrate the inconceivability of science and technology, let me introduce several scientific and technological achievements which have exerted far-reaching influence on human beings, from which you will find that, some achievements are very magic, even from the perspective of today. 

 

(I) Electricity, Electromagnetic wave and the Application

In 1844, the United States Congress established a telegraph circuit from Washington to Baltimore, which was the earliest that taking electricity as information media. 21st, May was the first day of opening of the telegraph circuit. Hearing that information between two places could be exchanged by a wire, people thought it was so amazing. The telegraph apparatus room was crowned by people ring upon ring. Curious people were discussing and betting that, telegraph was not faster than a good horse. At that time, national congress of the Democratic Party was held in Baltimore. The name list of the candidates for President has spread throughout Washington through telegraph. All the bystanders and American politics were astonished and could hardly believe.

It is screaming and ridiculous for us today to discuss that whether the telegraph is faster than a horse. The speed of electricity is almost the same as the speed of light, and is zillion times faster than a running horse. Besides, it is not limited by weather and topography and dont need rest during intermission. But, at the beginning of 19th century, measures to pass on messages used by human being were horse, boat and two legs of themselves. Though signal fire could send messages, it could only transfer abstract war messages, not detailed contents. Because people have did that for generations, it was natural for them to bet whether telegraph was faster than a horse.

Because of the discovery of electricity, telegraph was put into application. Before making know of electricity and electric current, people could not break away the concept that transferring messages by the movement of animals and themselves. Let us just imagine from the perspective of that times, we could comprehensive this.       

There is another thing that is as fast as electricity, i.e. electromagnetic wave. Today, even an ordinary middle school student can know a simple physics theory, i.e. electricity and magnetic can be interacted, from which electromagnetic wave can be produced. This is the basic knowledge of electromagnetics, a sub-discipline of physics. However, it was difficult to discover this regularity. At the early stage, it was nearly unanimously thought that, electricity is electricity; magnetic is magnetic, which are two totally irrelevant things. At the early 19th century, after philosophical thinking, Oersted believed that there is links between electricity and magnetic. After several experiments, in April 1820, he was the first to verify the magnetic action of electricity. In the following, Faraday verified that magnetic could induct electricity in laboratory, and put forward the Law of Electromagnetic Induction. After summarizing the electromagnetic theory, in 1864, Maxwell put forward the deduction that electromagnetic induction can produce electromagnetic wave, which was verified by a young scientist called Hertz later during his experiments. This is the early process of establishment of electromagnetic theory.

Discovery of electricity and establishment of electromagnetics have brought humans into an era of electric appliances. Due to the recognition for electromagnetic induction, electric generator and electric motor were invented, which enabled different kinds of circuits crisscross the country at present time. In the past, the only recognition for people to sky was wind, rain, snow or cloud and fog. But today, we know clearly that, there is a substance existing in the air anywhere, which can’t be seen and touched, but playing an important role, that is electromagnetic wave.

By virtue of electromagnetic wave, we can chat with our friends and family members thousands of miles away anytime and anywhere through mobile phone, just like talking face to face; when we turn on TV and see various entertainment programs and news, we see them just as the real things; we can carry out remote control on the earth for a space vehicle even it flies several billions of miles away and to the distant fringe of the solar system. But we take all these wonders in science and technology for granted.

However, just imagine, what should we feel about if we were back to 200 years ago?

We often see in science fiction films that men living in several years ago come to todays world through a time tunnel. When they see the images in TV, they are frightened out of their wits and much curious just like see some ghosts and gods. It can be ascertained that, if living 200 years ago, most people cant believe the reality in todays world.

In fact, even we have fully understood the speculative knowledge about electricity and magnetic, we are amazing about the scientific and technical payoffs which are brought about by this knowledge.

In 1883, Edison found an interesting thing when he was developing light bulb. When sealing a sheet metal and lamp filament into a light bulb, there was electric current running through the lamp filament and sheet metal if positive voltage was applied to sheet metal; otherwise, there was no electric current. At the early 20th century, vacuum tube was invented on the basis of this research achievement. Diode can be used for detecting action, while triode can be used for amplifying signal.      

The invention of vacuum tube created conditions for radio-communication and broadcasting, through which, people can receive radio signals by radio. Music and news can be transmitted in air through the form of electromagnetic wave. They can be broadcast through radio without using the electric wire, which is much better than wire line phone and telegraph.
Based on vacuum tube, scientists developed the first electronic computer at the end of 1945, which could carry out calculation as a substitute for human brain. It was palpable that what a wondrous thing replacing human brain by machine, more wondrous was that this machine was produced by human being, while its computing capacity was far better than any of the smartest person. The first computer was really a huge monster, with total of 18,000 vacuum tubes, weight of 30 tons, covering an area of over 170 square meters. It could operate 5000 times per second. During its 10 years of operation, calculation amount carried out by it was more than total amount of human brain in history. How many people would believe and understand this outstanding achievement before the invention of compute? However, after 60-odd years of today, when we looking back to see computers at early stage, we just can’t help but unanimously think that was just a primitive “department of pediatrics”    

In the mid 20th century, transistor was invented by applying semiconductor materials. Transistor not only has the same performance as the vacuum tube, but also has some advantages such as small volume, light weight, long life span, and low cost, low energy consumption and without warm-up. So, vacuum tube was immediately replaced by transistor which was applied in the fields of radio and computer at once. The application of semiconductor materials has undergone three stages, that is, from transistor to integrated circuit to large-scale integrated circuit. A vacuum tube was as large as half of a fist, while the earliest transistor was as small as a rice grains. Later, integrated circuit was formed by combining electronic devices and components and electronic circuit on a chip. At the beginning, an integrated circuit composed several transistors on one piece of chip. With the improvement of techniques, today, a small piece of integrated circuit can contain millions of or even hundreds of millions of transistor