References
Editorial: Like always, I encountered far more good material than I can possibly accommodate within the few pages of this Quarterly. The work of Ayala, Rue, and Hefner, for instance, should have received a few pages each rather than just a few lines. There is so much of value in our world -- penetrating thoughtfulness as well as admirable emotions. If only the best thinkers in humanity could be made to cooperate, to understand each others language, and to benefit from, and integrate, each others knowledge! -- That is the aim of E.O.Wilson's work Consilience, which I consider one of the most hopeful and workable strategies ever suggested. It would turn suicidal fragmentation into a combined search for the solution of global crises.
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During entire aeons a man's lot was identical with that of the group, of the tribe he belonged to and outside of which he could not survive. The tribe, for its part, was able to survive and defend itself only through its cohesion. Whence the extreme force of inward coercion exerted by the laws that organized and guaranteed this cohesion. A man might perhaps infringe them; it is not likely that he ever dreamed of denying them. Given the immense selective importance such social structures perforce assumed over such vast stretches of time, it is difficult not to believe that they must have made themselves felt upon the genetic evolution of the innate categories of the human brain. This evolution must not only have facilitated acceptance of the tribal law, but created the need for the mythical explanation which gave it foundation and sovereignty. We are the descendants of such men. From them we have probably inherited our need for an explanation, the profound disquiet which goads us to search out the meaning of existence. That same disquiet has created all the myths, all the religions, all the philosophies, and science itself.
Jacques Monod
Chance and Necessity
We are in effect facing an evolutionary exam, a cosmic intelligence test. We have prodigious powers at our disposal -- enough to harm the planet -- and before we can continue our evolutionary journey we must prove that we have the wisdom to use these powers for the benefit of all.
Peter Russell
I reject any dogmatism, zealotry, or belief that suggests that anyone at any time or place had the whole and only truth, regardless from what holy source.
Geraldine Schwartz
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Anti-Millenium-Fever Medication:
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
Lord Kelvin
Mathematician and Physicist, 1895
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Excerpts from the Preface of a special Neuropsychologia issue
in honor of ROGER W. SPERRY
by Charles R. Hamilton
Reprinted from NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, Vol. 36, No.10, p. 953, 199 8, with permission from Elsevier Science.
Roger Sperry (1913-1994) was an exceptional neuroscientist who enjoyed a career unique in its intensity, diversity, and accomplishment. His quiet demeanor was notably unpretentious, reflecting his reserved New England Heritage. How could an unassuming person be so remarkably effective? During each stage of his career he devoted himself completely to a strongly focused attack on problems he identified as critical. He modestly observed that diligently pursuing carefully targeted goals, accompanied by reasonable intelligence, would lead to important discoveries. Sperry's success certainly seems to follow from such determined attacks on key questions, aided by a keen intellect and an enviable ability to recognize important problems for which he could fashion viable solutions. He also realized the need to restrict his intensive thinking to one issue at a time, considerately leaving other areas of his interest for the appreciative members of his lab to freely explore on their own. Despite claiming to have only a one track mind, he expertly discussed and incisively critiqued his students' varied research and written reports. His laboratory was a wonderful place for young investigators to begin their careers, packed with provocative colleagues and ideas, favored with the freedom to follow one's interests.... Sperry's major work centered on four areas: the innately determined embryogenesis of complex neural networks (1940-1965), the organization of cortical mechanisms for higher cognitive functions in mammals (1950-1970), the lateralization of cognitive abilities in human beings (1960-1980), and the relationship between brain and mind and between science and values (1965-1994). Several reviews of his contributions were published following his Nobel Prize in 1981 and his death in 1994.*
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*Editor's note: I had the privilege to work for R.W. Sperry from 1981-1990.
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A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON KNOWLEDGE
Review of
CONSILIENCE
by E. O. Wilson
Anyone searching for a deeper understanding of the human condition, the origin of the problems it created on Earth, and the possibilities for realistic approaches to their solution, will find substantial support in the book's thought provoking arguments.
Consilience is the "falling together" of research from different branches of knowledge to obtain a more accurate understanding of human nature -- its solid archaic anchorage and its potentials -- than any of the specialized fields now pursued in isolation can provide. The entire range of knowledge concerned with the human condition -- from science to the humanities, including economics, politics, art, religion, and so on is relevant. Our hope lies in the attainment of a New Enlightenment that would provide us with a more complete picture of reality, an essential prerequisite for successful strategies.
Our future will be determined by a combination of discoveries from different fields into one single class of explanation, which "traverses the scales of space, time, and complexity to unite the disparate facts of the disciplines by consilience, the perception of a seamless web of cause and effect." (P.266).
A superficial first impression might lead to the judgment that Wilson's outlook is basically pessimistic. "Human nature can not be changed -- ever." (P.168.) The genes prescribing our physiology and behavior have been selected over two million years ago for in-group support and out-group aggression among small tribes. All our emotional responses are geared for that vanished era; irrational fears and beliefs, vivid imagery, explanatory myths and religions -- all these are part of our innermost make-up and still pervasive. The thin veneer of rationality, science, and culture arose far too late to have affected our genetic command centers, nor is there any chance that it would do so before the sustainable lifestyle (including population control) that is needed to save our planet can be reached.
A thorough study of the book, however, reveals it to be a source of hope that is more solidly grounded than any idealistic fantasy. Wilson's own progressing insights are part of that hope. They show the existence in human nature of promising key features, such as open-mindedness and honesty. For instance, he admits that he had been wrong in his former insistence that altruism is impossible because evolutionary selection works against it. "I grant that scientists often fall in love with their own constructions," he says. "I know; I have." (P.52). -- In fact, his biographical sketch in Consilience does not even mention his famous book Sociobiology, a work of monumental labour and knowledge, that conquered the world in a storm of controversy.
That he was in his youth attracted to insects, snakes, and other lower animals (which to thoroughly study and classify was his original ambition) is common knowledge. Much less known is that he was a devout Baptist believer and a reborn Christian, who had read the Bible twice. Both these experiences should have predisposed him to a strictly circumscribed view of the world. Instead, when introduced as a young student to a book on evolution, he was fascinated and immediately attracted to that larger, encompassing explanation. Though he remained a deist, his innermost potentials had been tapped. Moreover, he later took seriously his friends' criticism of his extrapolation from earlier species to human beings, and developed an entirely new conception of how human minds work: their striving for integrity and fairness leads to the cohesion of their societies, and to the generation and protection of further human evolution.
Courage is another one of his outstanding qualities. "It is, I must acknowledge," Wilson says, "unfashionable in academic circles nowadays to speak of evolutionary progress. All the more reason to do so." Though it cannot be defended if progress is identified with advance toward a preset goal, it is an obvious reality if it is understood as proceeding through action of evolved creatures and phenomena upon one another. Such progress leads toward "increasingly complex and controlling organisms and societies, in at least some lines of descent, with regression always a possibility....In this second sense, the human attainment of high intelligence and culture ranks as the last of the four great steps [beginning of life; complex eukaryotic cells; multicellular animals; humanity] in the overall history of life." (P.98)
And here, in humanity, the most promising frontier deals with the brain sciences. (p.100). Wilson's chapter on The Mind, which includes the determinism-free will problem, is illuminating. "There can be no simple determinism of human thought. ....Confidence in free will is biologically adaptive. Without it, the mind, imprisoned by fatalism, would slow and deteriorate." (P.120). -- Thus, all phenomena that emerge during evolution -- even constructions of the human mind -- have important effects on evolution's path and direction. Emergence is well understood. "At each level of organization, especially at the living cell and above, phenomena exist that require new laws and principles, which still cannot be predicted from those at more general levels." (P.55) Due to emergence, the author admits, materialistic science runs into difficulties. "The accurate and complete description of complex systems...[is] the greatest challenge in all of science." (P.85). (Emphasis added.)
Genetic information plays a key role in Wilson's book. "The psychic unity of mankind is the product of millions of years of evolution in environments now mostly forgotten." (P.132). More trends are influenced by genes than formerly believed -- but their study also shows the reverse. The assumption that alcoholism is overwhelmingly inherited, for instance, has to be abolished. (P.142). Besides, though human nature cannot be changed, it is predisposed to learning, and cultural influences are -- within limits -- effective. The more we know about these limits, the more successful our efforts will be. That leads to an important conclusion: we may well learn that without constant influence of especially responsible and enlightened persons civilization will become dysfunctional.
All evolution is co-evolution. "The natural environment is the theater in which the human species evolved and to which its physiology and behavior are finely adapted." (P.192). Therefore, the sharing of knowledge between human biology, ecology, the social sciences, etc. is of such importance, and consilience, once established, will lead to the overcoming of obstacles that now seem unsurmountable.
My favourite quote deals with the relationship between ethics, religion, and science: "True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. (Emphasis added.) Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety. -- Nor is science the enemy. It is the accumulation of humanity's organized, objective knowledge, the first medium devised to unite people everywhere in common understanding. It favors no tribe and religion. It is the base of a truly democratic and global culture." (P.246). (Emphasis added.)
To satisfy the need for religion, which is part of human nature, Wilson suggests to integrate the findings of science about the cosmos into a new sacred narrative, "a true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry," (P.265) which would appeal to the most noble sentiments and most elevating emotions of our species.
The deeper understanding of the origin and potential of our species conveyed by this narrative will, he believes also prevent genetic engineering, except to repair disabling defects. The emotions and inherent rules of mental development will be perceived as too unique and valuable to be tampered with "because these elements compose the physical soul of the species." Although it might be possible to make people "in some sense `better,' they would no longer be human. Neutralize the elements of human nature in favor of pure rationality, and the result would be badly constructed, protein-based computers. Why should a species give up the defining core of its existence, built by millions of years of biological trial and error?" (p.277)
Nevertheless, human survival depends upon appeal to the best in humanity, including its reasoning ability. To believe that environmental disaster can be avoided by simply continuing present habits and lifestyles is an unforgivable gamble. Even if the odds were in our favor, losing that gamble would mean that all we have, all we may look forward to, would be lost forever. P.287.
The more thoroughly Wilson's book is studied, the more unjustified appears the rejection of his thinking by a large part of our society. Perhaps, expressions like "the physical soul," or "the material mind," which seem out of place, should not have been used. Wilson himself understands very well, and explains in detail, that most of the time ignorance of another specialist's terrain and lack of a common language, rather than fundamental differences in mentality, lead to misunderstandings. (P.126) He furthermore knows that any knowledge about brain functioning that could be discovered in the future, no matter how exact and detailed, could never convey the subjective feelings and sensations elicited by it. (P.116) Why then
does he use the words "physical," and "material" in combination with mind and soul? I believe it is to differentiate his position from Cartesian Dualism, which perceives the mind and the soul as having a separate existence from the body, to which they are only temporarily connected during the latter's lifetime. (Professor Sperry, who shares Wilson's rejection of Cartesian Dualism, nevertheless refers to thought, emotion, and consciousness as mental processes, because they differ fundamentally from anything material, and because the general public would misunderstand him otherwise. His choice of words make it easier to retain the miracle and mystery of the human "psyche," even when perceived as an emergent of brain function. It is that choice of words which opens the door to the integration of science and values, which Wilson and Sperry both recognize as essential.)
That the integration of science and values is one of Wilson's most important aims is clearly and beautifully expressed in his last chapter: "We have begun to probe the foundations of human nature, revealing what people intrinsically most need, and why. We are entering a new era of existentialism, not the old absurdist existentialism of Kierkegaard and Sartre, giving complete autonomy to the individual, but the concept that only unified learning, universally shared, makes accurate foresight and wise choice possible. -- In the course of all of it we are learning the fundamental principle that ethics is everything." (p.297). (Emphasis added.)
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E.O.Wilson, most widely known as author of Sociobiology, On Human Nature and The Ants, taught at Harvard, where he is Honorary Curator in Entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. He is currently Pellegrino University Research Professor, gives many lectures throughout the world, and received numerous fellowships, honors, and awards.
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Our moral sense is an adaptation helping us in the struggle for existence and reproduction no less than hands and eyes, teeth and feet.
Michael Ruse, Professor of Philosophy
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KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING OUR ORIGIN
Excerpts from and comments on
Earth Story
by Desmond Berghofer
The August 1998 issue of The Visioneer contains one of the most impressive and delightful stories written about the evolution of the cosmos, life, and thought. The Earth Story compares favourably with the Universe Story by Swimme and Berry, but it has the advantage of being far shorter, more concentrated, and lacking the idiosyncrasy of giving personal names to significant cosmic events or advancements in the development of early life. Such names were probably thought to make it easier for children to remember important steps in the development of our world and to get personally involved in its drama; for many adults, however, they detract from its magnificence.
As the following excerpts show, the Berghofer-style does not lack vivid and memorable imagery:
"Somewhere, most likely deep in the primeval ocean, sulphurous emanation from the interior of the earth belched into chemical reaction with the seawater. In this seething Hades-like garden of the deep, far from the light of the Sun, primitive membraned structures emerged in clouds of expectant bubbles. They rushed to the surface of the sea where the energy released by the reaction extracted carbon from the atmosphere and there burst into life the first primordial bacteria.
"After that, things played out slowly for a very long time. The early bacteria were a tenuous lot at best -- not much of a bet for launching a glorious dynasty. However, things picked up when one of them -- probably spiked with infection carried by a comet that came to Earth from interstellar space -- learned the trick of using light to generate the energy needed to separate carbon and oxygen from the atmosphere. Photosynthesis we call it now, but by whatever name, it was a clear winner.
"Tiny molecules of green chlorophyll within the bacterium were the secret. They enabled the cells to extract energy, take up the carbon, puff out the oxygen, divide and die. They multiplied into prolific green mats of primordial slime spread out around the ocean fringes, incessantly puffing oxygen into the atmosphere over several thousand million years. When some of them learned the further trick of somehow swallowing one another, then multiplying by dividing into multicelled organisms, then things were on the move. All that took up 85 percent of the Earth's four billion year existence, a long slow start to a climactic denouement in our time."
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Many weird creatures appeared "until the Earth played a new hand and wiped most of their hard won promulgation out of existence with a devastating ice age -- not once, but repeatedly every two hundred million years or so. The ones that won the lottery were the ones that had the luck of the right stuff at the right time. The ungainly armoured fish that survived gave us animals that one day walked on land. But first there had to be a greening of the continents."
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"Now, it's one thing to flip flop out of the ocean onto dry land, grow legs and run around on the forest floor; it's another to sprout wings and take to the air. But the combination of determined mutant insects and great slaps of time came up with successful wing design, from glider to flapper, and aeronautics got a lift. So successful were these efforts that as the huge trees of the Carboniferous era climbed skywards, dragonflies as big as seagulls soared among their leafy canopy. Spectacular hardly describes it -- at least until the Earth went through more of its tectonic and climatic convulsions and drowned a lot of the forest and its creatures under seawater. This created huge seams of carbon and fossilized remains which would reappear later, after more terrestrial upheaval, to an inquisitive newcomer to the planet, as the coal beds of the industrialized world."
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"For many millions of years following this time, in the Permian era, cosmic forces tore the Earth asunder, splitting its great continent of Pangea into drifting pieces, thereby pushing the waters of its one huge ocean into sub parts, shifting the poles, sending icesheets cruising towards the Equator, and turning lush forests into deserts. Woe piled upon woe for the struggling life forms. Survival of the fittest? Hardly. The true law of cosmic evolution is survival of the lucky. Chance -- the great selector of the cosmological bandwidth, where a species was tuned in or out according to what it was, where it was, and when it was. -- Surely, one great enigma of prehistoric life is how after each wave of mass extinction a great new surge followed, lifting speciation to an ever higher level."
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The rise of the dinosaurs is now described, and their sudden end due to a meteoric impact. "In a matter of weeks or months their huge bodies collapsed and slipped into the primeval swamps, gone forever, unprepared victims of their world's re-encounter with its cosmological origins. -- While the dinosaurs dominated the landscape as reptilian aristocracy for a hundred million years, their poor country cousin mammals, underfoot and undergrowth, had eked out an inconspicuous and inconsequential existence on the margins of the estate. With the lords of the manor gone by way of cosmological catastrophe, the warm-blooded animals and birds took over every vacant ecological niche. Outstripping the remaining lizards and their like in adaptiveness, these erstwhile nonentities surged into prominence in a virtual stampede of new designs. Herbivores, carnivores and insectivores swarmed over the Earth, while some returned to the seas to become the dugongs, dolphins and whales of our time. On land, as the continents continued to drift apart over the next several million years, various mammalian species became isolated where they had become most dominant, none more extraordinary than the band of marsupials who sailed off to the south on the island continent now known as Australia."
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"If that had been all there was -- tale told, story ended -- it would have been astonishing enough. But far from being the end, it was only the beginning. For out there in the tree tops on the margins of the African savannah was a nondescript mammal whose descendants were destined to change the world in a way that none of their ancestors could ever do. Enter the ape family. Differentiate from quadrupedal to bipedal and mark the beginning of the hominid line. It was the great turning point in the story of evolutionary biology on the planet."
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"...suddenly, there we are, a distinct family, Homo sapiens, somewhere in Africa, only about forty thousand years ago, setting out to populate the world, equipped with the same skeleton of our hominid forebears, but possessing the one biological innovation that has made all the difference -- a brain patterned for language linked to vocal cords that could produce sounds that became words."
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The story of Abraham is now told, of the perception of God, and of the perception of an open future rather than endless cycling. "Five thousand years later the heritage to humankind of these Hebrew nomads is the power of Western thought. Guided by a meandering stream of philosophy, the apex of this branch of human consciousness is Western science, the most powerful way of knowing ever to be invented. It has brought us to where we are as Homo sapiens, the wise ones, enormously advanced over our ancestors in knowledge of our material universe, but no more wise than they in our ability to control our impulses for conquest and power."
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In spite of his high regard for Western science, Desmond Berghofer includes into his story (which ends with a long and beautiful poem) the belief that consciousness is not an emergent of brain function, but exists -- and always existed -- independently in the universe. The brain is merely a device to connect with it or tune in to it. My study of neurophysiology makes it impossible to accept such an explanation. Nor do I believe that the world therefore becomes meaningless. On the contrary, being originators of the first glimmer of consciousness ever existing makes humankind far more valuable than it would otherwise be. It conveys upon us a responsibility for future evolution that makes our lives more meaningful -- far more meaningful -- than commands of an exterior intelligence or lofty spirit could ever do. Such spirit exists, but it is not exterior. It is the content of our dreams, the description of our aims, the expression of our innermost selves. It is the potential that leads humanity forward.
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Desmond Berghofer is co-director of Creative Learning International, 209 - 1628 West 1st Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V6J 1G1.
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The December 1998 issue of Zygon (Journal of Religion and Science),contains a remarkable succession of articles on the relationship of biological and cultural evolution, and the importance of its full understanding for the future of humanity. All these articles accept E.O. Wilson's conviction that archaic genetic information cannot be changed, but emphasize to a far larger degree our predisposition for -- or rather dependence upon -- the impact of culture. -- It was Burhoe, the founder of IRAS (the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science) and original editor of its organ Zygon, who described that relationship as being one of symbiosis. All articles are variations on that theme.
Professor Francisco J. Ayala (biological science) discusses human biological evolution and its difference from that of animal evolution. He describes culture as a necessary consequence of biological evolution (e.g. larger and more convoluted brains), but contradicts the 16 common assumption that ethics and morals are extensions of certain animal instincts (e.g. care for the young.) Only the moral sense (like the ability to use language) is rooted in our nature. But the moral codes -- proscribing what is good and what is evil -- are, (like the kind of language spoken) a product of culture and dependent upon our intellectual ability to choose after assessment of consequences.
Professor Loyal Rue (religion and philosophy) asks the question why human beings, who share molecular systems, reflex systems, drive systems, emotional systems and cognitive systems (as well as 99% of their genes) with chimpanzees are yet acting so remarkably different from the latter. The secret, he believes, lies in the symbolic system of humans, that permits a complete reprogramming of animal thinking -- which is easy when archaic instincts and moral codes coincide, but very difficult when they do not. Religion, he explains, is a powerful tool to achieve the latter successfully. "Chimps can sacrifice and cooperate," he says, "but normally only within the limits of the local group...[they] cannot manage anything as global as universal brotherhood. Nor could we, if we did not have the mediation of symbols to help us override our default morality....And here perhaps is the deepest lesson offered to us by sociobiology: that without constant efforts at moral discourse and emotional nurturing, our biology will be our destiny." (P.533).
Professor Philip Hefner (systematic theology) concentrates on the need for an "Epic of Evolution" to build a scientifically acceptable framework for human spiritual yearning. Spirituality, for Hefner, is future-directed. "[It] is not some supernaturally oriented package of ideas; it is a close-to-the-ground perspective that is deeply immersed in the particularities of our evolving world but focuses on what these particularities can become." (P.540). "All of the various weavers of meaning will find a communality in the scientific warp and in the cultural crisis that faces us all, and each will learn from how others negotiate their visions within the warp's constraints and possibilities."
During discussions concerning the nature of consciousness, I am constantly running into walls and dead-ends, even with otherwise wonderful and reasonable persons. I am therefore grateful to Professor Wojciechowski for debating the problem thoroughly, and from the point of view of philosophy.
"As a subject of research from the scientific viewpoint," he frankly declares, "consciousness is a nuisance." Why? "Consciousness is not a thing, it does not seem to have a shape or a size or well defined dimensions. It does not appear as a distinct entity, it cannot be seen or measured. It falls into the grey area between scientific fact and the occult. Nonetheless, its existence is rather evident and cannot be denied. Moreover, its existence is a prerequisite for all scientific activity." (P.315)
Cultures differ in their perception of consciousness. In the Western tradition, it is a human characteristic, in India it is a property of all life. (Unfortunately, the author does not deal with consciousness as a property of the cosmos, residing in non-living as well as in living matter, the point of view I encounter most frequently.) Culture itself is a product of consciousness, as is science -- a precisely defined and specific mode of knowing, which is enormously successful. That success, however, comes at a price: everything that is unverifiable has to be excluded.
Wojciechowski explains the rise of science in the Western culture as deriving from the fact that only here "a clear distinction between the notions of objectivity and subjectivity" exists. (P.317). That distinction is essential for a scientific mentality -- and yet, it exludes many of the most important aspects of reality and especially of life. To understand life, a systems approach is needed -- the integration of a multitude of various elements into a complex autonomous unity which displays qualities different from those of its parts. Following his bent to formulate laws, he states: (Law II) "The adequacy of the analytic method is inversely proportional to the complexity and to the level of integration of the subject studied," and (Law III) "The more the organism as a totality is different from its parts, the more it is perfect and complex and the higher is the degree of its integration." He further explains that "The most perfect of all organisms is the human being, and the highest aspect of that being is consciousness." That is why consciousness cannot be studied using the analytic method. As consciousness arises from life and its organization of matter, and as Einstein explained that matter is created from energy, it is best to understand life (and consciousness) in terms of energy.
I like to digress at this point to quote from a paper I wrote more than a year ago for the "Foundation For the Future." Here, I explained that "Matter is one manifestation of energy, consciousness is another one." (Pp.3/4). It is deeply gratifying to find the same thoughts expressed by a highly regarded philosopher.
Wojciechowski explains the difference between living and non-living matter in a concise sentence: "organisms transform energy into higher forms, i.e. sublimate energy." (emphasis his.) (P.319) The difference between plants and animals, and between higher and lower organisms, he believes, is the degree to which they sublimate energy. The brain, which appeared latest in the process of evolution and may be understood as an indicator of its direction, is by far the best sublimator of energy, and "consciousness [is] the highest form of energy produced by the L-state [life]." (P.320).
Rather than seeing evolution as resulting from a struggle for existence, the author concentrates on life's aspects of co-existence and interdependence -- which, however, do not exclude freedom. Freedom is the result of efficient energy transformation; the more energy can be transformed into higher states the more freedom exists. Intellectual energy permits choices that cannot otherwise be made. Co-existence is not cancelled out be freedom, however; it becomes richer and more meaningful.
An important differentiation is made between two kinds of energy storage: inside the organism and outside it. The former is characteristic of all life, the latter (culture) of humans alone.
Culture, too, was at first stored inside the organism -- as memory. Only after transmission by images and by writing was invented, culture was stored externally too, so that it could be passed on even if the chain of information was interrupted. Moreover, the storage capacity of brains is limited, the one of culture is not. The vast and additive expanse of culture presents a new environment for humans that constantly exercises and challenges their mental capabilities.
The author believes that we are justified to look toward the future with hope. "The principal products of cultural evolution are: the emergence of evermore rational and conscious individuals and the growing unification of the human species, i.e. the humanization of humankind....[Human consciousness] allows the human agent to evaluate, to choose and consequently, to act purposefully and efficiently. In other words, consciousness allows the best possible use of energy. Seen from the point of view of energy, consciousness appears to be a fully justified evolutionary device. It opens for humankind the possibilities of progress, the limits of which are beyond our imagination." (Pp.330/331).
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J.A. Wojciechowski is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, K1N 6N5.
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REFLECTIONS
An entire new world of understanding and insight was opened for me when I first heard that chromosomes contain a large number of unexpressed genes -- superfluous material which is "just there," not playing any positive role because it is not needed, but neither being deleted, because it is not harmful either. I remember the exact moment when I learned about this fact. It was during one of those stimulating lunch discussions at the California Institute of Technology, and the person who talked to me was Dr. Charles Hamilton. We spoke about drosophila flies, but in my head I applied the new knowledge immediately to other species, especially humans. Should not a species with a larger number of genes also have a far larger number of those that remain "unemployed"? I had always felt vaguely dissatisfied with biologist's explanations of every single quirk of divergence from the normal in terms of its evolutionary advantage. Could not some traits or behaviors simply be there because they happened to be neutral? Now I knew they could.
Far more important is, however, that such neutral material could, in a changed situation, suddenly become either useful or deleterious. The retention of superfluous baggage in the chromosomes is of enormous evolutionary advantage. It allows survival under a variety of different environmental conditions for those species who possess it, while those who don't will succomb to the slightest stray from the norm. -- Now, it may be argued that humans don't really need such devices. Their intelligence makes it possible to adjust far more successfully to changing conditions than stray gene material ever could. They don't wait for fur to grow on their skins in cold climates; they buy fur coats.
Yes, intelligence has led to phenomenal technological progress. But what about our archaic emotions and our difficulty with progress in ethics? Could unused genes here possibly hold the key? E.O. Wilson maintains that the core of human nature is ancient and unalterable, covered by a fragile layer of intelligence. Ayala, Rue, and Hefner believe that predispositions can be reprogrammed, but only with great effort -- except when moral codes happen to be in alignment with them. The possibility exists, however, that innate predispositions are far more variable than generally assumed -- within any ethnic group -- but that they have been reprogrammed to comply with the dominant belief system of specific separate groups -- often, in ways that are detrimental to the global ethic we urgently need. How else would it be possible that courageous, independent thinkers free themselves from the authority of their in-group and reach out to others of their kind -- not only because it is intellectually prudent to do so, but because they are drawn into that direction with all their passion, their heart and their soul.
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Change the minds of even 5% of the population and you effectively change the entire society.
Buckminster Fuller
Acknowledgments:
I wish to thank the Elsevier Science Ltd. and Dr. Charles R. Hamilton for permission to use excerpts from the Special Neuropsychologia Issue in Honor of Roger W. Sperry. Also thanks to Desmond Berghofer for permission to use excerpts from "Earth Story" and to Random House, Inc. for sending me a review copy of E.O.Wilson's Consilience.
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REFERENCES
Ayala, F.J. -- Biology Precedes, Culture Transcends: An Evolutionist's View of Human Nature. Zygon, 33, 507-523. December 1998.
Berghofer, D. -- Earth Story. The Visioneer, Vol.6, No.4, August 1998.
Fuller, B. -- As quoted in "Do-It-Yourself World-Bettering." The Futurist, Vol.29, No.6, Nov./Dec. 1995, p.50.
Hamilton, C.R. -- Preface; Special Issue in Honor of Roger W. Sperry.
Neuropsychologia, 36, 953-954. October 1998.
Hefner, P. -- The Spiritual Task of Religion in Culture: An Evolutionary Perspective. Zygon, 33, 535-544. December 1998
Hutcheon, P.D. -- The Monistic Naturalism of Ernst Haeckel. Humanist in Canada, Winter 1999, pp.17-19.
Kelvin -- Essays on the 2000 Millenium "Brave New Epoque" by Allan R. Gregg. Maclean's, April 6, 1998, pp.56-60. (Inset on p.60.)
Monod, J. -- Chance and Necessity. New York: Knopf, 1971. (Pp.166/167).
Rue, L. -- Sociobiology and Moral Discourse. Zygon, 33, 525-533. December 1998.
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