Yes, our ancestors could not build a nuclear reactor, the australian natives spent 40 thousand years without constructing a bow and arrow. Neither the Australian natives nor anyone else has built a cold fusion reactor. Running half way doesn’t mean you’ve won the race.
Putting ourselves in the category of “entities who can build anything” is like putting yourself in the category “people who’ve been on the moon” when you’ve never actually been to the moon but really really want to be an astronaut one day. You might even one day become an astronaut but aspirations don’t put you in the category with Armstrong until you actually do the thing.
Your pet collie might dream vaguely of building cars, perhaps in 5,000,000 years it’s descendants might have self selected for intelligence and we’ll have collie engineers, that doesn’t make it an engineer today.
Currently by the definition in that book humans are not universal constructors, at best we might one day be universal constructors if we don’t all get wiped out by something first. It would be nice if we became such one day. But right now we’re merely closer to being universal constructors than unusually bright ravens and collies.
Feelings are not fact. Hopes are not reality.
Assuming that nothing will stop us based on a thin sliver of history is shaky extrapolation:
Yes, our ancestors could not build a nuclear reactor, the australian natives spent 40 thousand years without constructing a bow and arrow. Neither the Australian natives nor anyone else has built a cold fusion reactor. Running half way doesn’t mean you’ve won the race.
Putting ourselves in the category of “entities who can build anything” is like putting yourself in the category “people who’ve been on the moon” when you’ve never actually been to the moon but really really want to be an astronaut one day. You might even one day become an astronaut but aspirations don’t put you in the category with Armstrong until you actually do the thing.
Your pet collie might dream vaguely of building cars, perhaps in 5,000,000 years it’s descendants might have self selected for intelligence and we’ll have collie engineers, that doesn’t make it an engineer today.
Currently by the definition in that book humans are not universal constructors, at best we might one day be universal constructors if we don’t all get wiped out by something first. It would be nice if we became such one day. But right now we’re merely closer to being universal constructors than unusually bright ravens and collies.
Feelings are not fact. Hopes are not reality.
Assuming that nothing will stop us based on a thin sliver of history is shaky extrapolation:
https://xkcd.com/605/