Would Isaac Newton have remained a mystic, even in that earlier era, if he’d lived the lives of Galileo and Archimedes instead of just reading about them?  If he’d personally seen the planets reduced from gods to spheres in a telescope?  If he’d personally fought that whole war against ignorance and mystery that had to be fought, before Isaac Newton could be handed math and science as a start to his further work?

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and in doing so, the power that we wield is far out of proportion to the power that we could generate for ourselves.  This is true even of our revolutionaries.  And yes, we couldn’t begin to support this world if people could only use their own strength.  Even so, we are losing something.

But we have traded quality of insight for quantity of insight.

Seduced by imagination - Vagueness usually has a poor name in rationality, but the Future is something about which, in fact, we do not possess strong reliable specific information.  Vague (but justified!) hopes may also be hedonically better.  But a more important caution for today’s world is that highly specific pleasant scenarios can exert a dangerous power over human minds - suck out our emotional energy, make us forget what we don’t know, and cause our mere actual lives to pale by comparison.

A harmony can be achieved between two seemingly opposite viewpoints much like a rhythm.  Tapping into something larger than yourself gives you sight and you may work with those that wish to trick you or force their outcome