Humankind Advancing, Vol.11, No.1 January 2000

Theme: Looking Forward With New Hope

CONTENTS

Quotes from HopeWatch and from Easterlin

Editorial

End of Anti-Millennium-Fever Medication Series

Quotes from Bradley and from Teske

Voyage Into Uncharted Waters - an essay by Erika Erdmann

Quote from Einstein

Thought in Action:
The Sunshine Foundation of Canada

Acknowledgments

References


If humanity has any hope of a decent future, it lies in the awakening of a universal sense of responsibility, the kind of responsibility unrepresented in the world of transient and temporary earthly interests.

HopeWatch


In the end, the triumph of economic growth is not a triumph of humanity over material wants; rather it is the triumph of material wants over humanity.

R.A.Easterlin


Editorial: From the perspective of this Quarterly, there is a very good reason to look forward with new hope. Alan Levin (U.S.A.) has offered to prepare a web site for Humankind Advancing, stating as his only motive the belief that the issues need a larger audience. No compensation for his work is expected, nor does he wish to interfere with the freedom of my choices. Needless to say, I feel the deepest gratitude and a new confidence in the quality and fate of humankind.

To further celebrate the New Millennium, I permitted myself to publish one of my own papers, "Voyage Into Uncharted Waters." This paper has been originally written for the Foundation For the Future upon their request and is designed to express the spirit of that Foundation: the aspiration and ambition to move forward into the unknown with the most outstanding knowledge and wisdom that can be found -- or generated -- here on earth.

The Foundation for the Future has been launched on July 16th, 1997 in Seattle, Washington, by the inventor and philanthropist Walter P. Kistler, founder of Kistler Instrument Company, and cofounder of Kistler Morse Corporation and Kistler Aerospace Corporation. It is dedicated to the increase and diffusion of knowledge, both technical and ethical, concerning the long-term future of humanity. During its development so far, it has been acting as a magnet attracting the best minds on our globe.

My paper is one of over 40 original (unpublished) background-papers available to the Foundation's members, but I have been assured that my publication of the paper in Humankind Advancing and on the Web would not affect its continuing use. Although I have retained the copyright for it, I feel indebted to the Foundation. This paper is therefore exempt from my blanket permission to copy from my work whenever you like. Please contact me before you do so.

For Humankind Advancing, the New Millennium opens the door to a new world. As described in the editorial, its impact will be expanded without a change of its character or nature. The initiative was not my own; the offer to place my Quarterly on the web was presented to me like a gift from heaven. My gratitude belongs to Alan Levin for preparing the web site and to Dr. Pat Duffy Hutcheon for drawing his attention to my work.

The web site address is: http://humankindadvancing.humanists.net

===================================
End of Anti-Millennium-Fever Medication Series

To counteract a possible Millennium Panic caused by predictions of Armageddon-like events, each issue, throughout the year of 1999, contained a fatalistic forecast by a well-known authority in the field which turned out to be fundamentally mistaken. I am confident that the same will happen at the beginning of the New Year. However, should I be wrong and the world will end on January 1st, 2000, after all, I'll meet you all in the beyond. Readers who know that I speak about the beyond only in metaphoric terms will doubt that this is possible; but I have it on good authority that it works nevertheless.

(1) Niels Bohr. When the famous physicist once visited a friend, he found a horseshoe nailed on his door. "Do you really believe in that?" he asked astonished. "Of course not!" the friend answered, "but I heard that it works even if you don't believe in it."

(2) More directly, Eliane Lacroix-Hopson, a resolute and outspoken airplane engineer and designer, designer of Paris clothing, publisher of Yachay Wasip `Simin' (promoting the Inka culture), promoter of the Bahai religion, of Teilhard de Chardin, and of the cause of the United Nations, once wrote me:

"R. Muller* believes the Christian doctrine, while you believe that all life ceases with the death of brain/consciousness. I think, you both will be surprised when I meet you in the spiritual world..."

*(Her reference is to Dr. Robert Muller, former Assistant Director General of the United Nations.)

I can think of no more delightful way to express that the heavens don't ask for background convictions but care only for what each of us actually does for his or her fellow beings, for humanity, and for our earth and our future.

* * * * *
I don't think heaven is a place...heaven's in your heart. And that's where I'm going to be.

Bradley
(A ten-year old boy, dying of cancer, speaking to his mother.)

* * * * *
The real promise of faith is not that I will live forever, which given my flaws and limitations I might well abjure, but that my life will have meant something when the sands of time run out.

John A. Teske
Professor of Psychology


VOYAGE INTO UNCHARTED WATERS
by Erika Erdmann, PhD

Independent Researcher, Lockeport, Nova Scotia, Canada
(former Library Research Assistant for Nobel Laureate R.W. Sperry at the California Institute for Technology, Pasadena, California)

I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by - -
-- John Masefield, "Sea Fever"

Abstract: A successful venture into the unknown requires a full understanding of the nature of evolution, of emergence, of creativity, and most of all of the effect of newly emerged phenomena (including our brains, our thoughts, and our values) upon the future course of evolution. It is concluded that the survival and advance of our species depends upon conscious science-value co-evolution and the generation of a new profession: we urgently need "Intermediaries" -- persons able to understand the core principles, viewpoints, and language of two or more specialized fields and to make them comprehensible to one another, such that a network of integrated knowledge can be established that prevents antagonism caused by misunderstandings, and that provides a large and encompassing vision in spite of constantly proliferating specialization.

Copyright Copyright (c)1998 by Erika Erdmann. Published by the Foundation For the Future, with permission. Released to FFF to publish in all forms.

All others please contact me first. Exempt from blanket permission on inside cover.

When the Phoenicians or the Vikings took off into the wide open sea, their main driving force was the thrill of exploring the unknown. But without the patience, knowledge, and reliability of competent ship builders, they would have perished. Nor could they have ventured far from their shores without the skill of star-guided navigation.

The possibilities inherent in ongoing evolution are vastly greater and more wonderful than our imagination can conceive; and yet the depths and dangers ahead may end our voyage shortly after leaving the shore. -- How can we build ships, safe enough to carry us forward into an unknown future? -- How can we find the right stars to guide us?

Ever since human thinking expanded beyond immediate necessities, questions were asked about the origin of the world, and answered in accordance with the best knowledge available at any given time. Animals or their spirits, the wind or the sun, were deified and received offerings to secure their favour and protection; they shared the cravings and shortcomings of mere mortals -- even when they were elevated to Gods in human shapes ruling from Mount Olympus in ancient Greece. -- It was a large advance in mental maturity when God was conceived of as a single superhuman reality, the incarnation of absolute justice, wisdom and benevolence -- an ideal that no human being could reach but toward which all of humanity must strive. How farsighted that conception was is being realized only now, thousands of years later.

We now know that God is not a separate entity, but a construct of our mind. Without this construct, this ideal, however, humanity would have destroyed itself. -- Conceived of as an external authority whose laws cannot change, God himself becomes destructive; he prevents desperately needed ethical adjustments to a changing biosphere. Conceived of as a useless fiction to be discarded, he will leave a void that acts like a magnet, attracting confusion and irresponsibility. But conceived of as the product of the finest minds on earth, as an eternal part of those who passed away, of their urging to search for the best in us and our world as they did in theirs, he becomes a star that guides us on our voyage through uncharted waters.

The safety of our voyage ahead depends upon constant co-evolution of knowledge and values.

The Ship Of Well-Established Knowledge

During a discussion after his guest-lecture at the California Institute of Technology about a decade ago, Nobel Laureate James Watson, the co-discoverer of the intricate structure of the DNA molecule, was asked by a young listener: "If you were a student entering university and trying to decide on a field in which you had the greatest chance to make fundamental discoveries, discoveries with the impact of those you have made, which field would you choose?"

"The brain -- how we think," Watson answered at once.

The speed and conviction of the answer was even more impressive than its content. Watson apparently spoke about something that had occupied his own thought for a long time.

And why is the brain of such importance? Because our human future and the future of our earth depend upon its performance. More knowledge about how we think, and why we think as we do, may prevent hopeless efforts in the solution of our problems that would lead only into dead ends. It may shed light on how to find more adaptive ways of thinking, and how to achieve genuine progress toward a desirable and sustainable quality of life.

Therefore, the evolution of the brain will receive a disproportionate amount of attention in the following summary of core principles inherent in evolution.

Core Concepts of Evolution. Evolution is the consequence of energy activity, the origin of which is shrouded in mystery. Occurring at first by chance alone, evolution gradually displayed increasingly lawful behavior, as chance-created events and formations assumed guiding functions of their own. But chance is never absent, and the future cannot be predicted, even if full knowledge of the past could be achieved. The dramatic story of the cosmos, its emergence from a highly condensed energy source, the appearance of galaxies, stars and planets in the turbulence of its energy flow, the production of ever more complex atoms during successive star creations and explosions, the bonding of atoms to form chains of diverse molecules, and finally, the advent of self-replicating super-molecules surrounded by protective cell walls -- the evolution of life from inorganic matter -- has been told in detail in nearly every biology textbook, and is constantly being refined by eminent scientists. 1,2 Thus, this paper will be restricted to the discussion of only the drama's core concepts.

Emergence and Downward Causation. Everything is energy, although semi-permanent interlocking of specific counteracting energy forces is perceived as matter by our brains. When two or more atoms, molecules, or constellations of molecules combine, a completely new entity is created. Properties and qualities of the constituent entities disappear, and new properties and qualities come into being. Such an event is called emergence. If it happens for the first time during the process of evolution, something is being created that never existed before.

For instance, two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, both gases, will combine into water. The qualities of water, and its effects on previous evolution, are fundamentally different from those of the elements that brought it into being. Water, but not its gaseous constituents, can carve canyons into rocks, collect in ocean basins, and provide an environment for early life to flourish. The effect of newly evolved entities on previous evolution is an example of downward causation.

There is nothing extra-worldly about the change of properties in chemical combinations, nothing that is not inherent in all matter. No mysteries are involved, except the one basic great mystery: the existence of energy; the existence of the tendency to act. The properties of a congregation of atoms or molecules in the gaseous stage result from an increase in speed of their vibrations, which leaves no time for the weaker cohesive forces to become effective -- as they are in a liquid or solid. The latter differs from the former again only by the degree of its constituents' independence. In a liquid, cohesive bonds are not strong enough to resist attempts of exterior gravity to separate them, in a solid they are. Other properties, like color or texture, are based on the reflection or absorption of portions of the light spectrum or on the particular arrangement of atoms in a solid. All properties are the result of different relations of energy.

Matter itself is an emergent property of energy. Subatomic events do not have to be matter to create matter, nor do atoms have to be alive to create life. Similarly, only of infinitely more complexity and more impact, are the changes that led from living matter to conscious experience. There is no point where the mind enters the body as there is no point where life enters into non-living chemicals. 3

The rejection of these thoughts is based on the common misconception that mind is therefore degraded to matter. That is not the case. Matter is one manifestation of energy, consciousness is another one. Neurons in the living brain are not conscious. They are the substructure and framework facilitating, organizing, and guiding billions of constantly changing energy interactions, which we subjectively experience as thoughts and emotions.

Cosmic, biological, and cultural evolution are the effects of constantly ongoing emergence and downward causation -- of continuous changes in energy relationships, continuous creation of new phenomena, and continuous effects of these phenomena as wholes upon previously evolved nature. It was water, not hydrogen and oxygen in separation, that provided the medium for early life to flourish; it was a living organism, not its separate atoms and molecules, that first moved forward in a preferred direction, which led to the increase of the front ganglium (neuronal complex) and the development of the brain, and it was the interaction of billions of energy constellations in the brain that gave rise to conscious thought, the most powerful phenomenon affecting our world at present.

While the concept of emergence was understood and used by science for over hundred years, the concept of downward causation was neglected and even ridiculed as anti-scientific until a few decades ago. Consciousness, the most fascinating and powerful part of brain activity, was considered a mere useless side effect. Values did not count. As a result, life was flat and meaningless, unless refuge was found in supernatural beliefs. All this changed about thirty years ago, when neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate R.W.Sperry elevated downward causation to a concept of greatest importance in brain function, dedicating all of his later life to its explanation and that of its consequences. 4,5,6 First vigorously rejected, the insight that consciousness is causal is now widely accepted in science. 7

Consciousness is subjective experience of energy interaction, translated into meaningful information by the brain. We don't see billions of sparks flitting about, we see flowers and trees and we experience their beauty -- we see the sun set beyond the horizon and we experience a sense of elation. This translation, and it alone, enables us to direct energy interaction in the brain deliberately.

The Evolution of Purpose and Meaning. The most common misconception about evolving nature is that our lives are meaningless and without purpose, unless purpose preceded, and guides, evolution. Like consciousness, however, purpose and meaning are results of billions of years of chance interactions, which gradually became constrained and directed by new emergents. That does not detract from their significance. On the contrary: as creations of evolution, our inner experiences of freedom and responsibility co-determine the further flow of evolution and infuse our existence with a new and deeper meaning.

(A more detailed step-by-step description of the evolution of purpose has been provided elsewhere.) 8

Conscious purpose evolved as a result of forward movement in one direction. Single-celled organisms without neurons move in random directions, initiated by changes in the membrane due to outside agents, e.g. light rays or olfactory chemicals, which induce course reversal when a region of optimum living conditions is left. In multicellular organisms, cell specialization led to preferential survival and reproduction of creatures with nerve cells, with ganglia (nerve centers) along the back and with coordinating interneurons. Forward movement led to concentration of special sense receptors in the front ganglion, or the head.

During the passage of millions of years, ever more specialized neuronal centers developed and pushed the old ones aside. These did not disappear or become inactive, however. Ancient reflexes are still active to avoid damage to eyes or limbs before the association cortex is consulted and thought occurs. Of importance, too, remains the early autonomous nervous system, which, without conscious input, regulates such vital functions as breathing, heartbeat, and digestion, and which remains active even during sleep or anesthesia. The next step in brain development, decision making in the limbic system, determined by interacting hormones and sense impressions, likewise still acts independently if the neocortex (new cortex) is impaired, e.g. by drugs or alcohol. But before this impressive center of reasoning arrived on the scene, an older structure took its place, which integrated sense input and regulated muscle activity. That old cortex, now pushed toward the back of the brain and called the cerebellum, is also still actively involved in its original function, which proceeds without conscious input. The entire brain is a conglomerate of task-specialized units, each of which evolved millions of years apart in response to then prevalent conditions, and all of which affect one another. 9

Conscious choice, purposive activity, decision making, and thought arose with the growth of the neocortex, which acquired deep inward folds to gain more space. The most remarkable and latest addition, however, the prefrontal cortex, evolved only 100 000 years ago. That structure, with vital connections to the neocortex (the reasoning center) and the hormone-regulating limbic system in the interior of the head (the center for emotion), functions as the seat of social sensitivity, foresight, and long-range planning. This latter ability is found in one of the latest evolved convolutions, the lateral sulcus principalis. 10 It is surprising that the prefrontal cortex does not affect intelligence. 11 The superiority that is measured by IQ tests is not the same as the wisdom we most urgently need. Without a functioning prefrontal cortex, the necessity to care for the fate of our earth and the fate of future generations cannot even be perceived.

The entire evolution of the brain was accompanied by a perfection of learning and memory, which involves changes of neuronal firing that intercept and reroute innate stimulus-response sequences. That did not happen without a price: An animal in its natural habitat is attuned to its environment. It can act according to its impulses and at the same time do what is best for its survival and that of its species; all detrimental instincts have been eliminated by the death of their bearers. Only where learning has advanced to such overwhelming importance as in the human species, only where detrimental impulses can be suppressed while its bearer lives and reproduces, only there is a separation between desired action and right action possible. 12 If both coincide, however, life achieves a special glow.

The source of that inner glow may lie in the care for those one loves, in the feeling of being one with nature, or in the perfection and use of a special gift. The most distinctively human source is creativity.

Creativity cannot be forced into being. It takes place below the level of consciousness, but only if a problem has been thoroughly worked through at the conscious level. Often, an inventor wakes up at night with the solution to a puzzle that had evaded him or her for weeks -- or a new insight occurs during preoccupation with another task. It seems that subconscious wrestling with a difficulty permits chance-interconnections of thoughts, which streamlined logic prohibits. For the same reason, uninitiated outsiders, or newcomers to a field, can often find a solution that is invisible to professionals with life-long experience. Not all inspirations are solutions, of course. Evaluation by experts, and controlled tests, help to discover errors.

Also, even if creativity cannot be forced, it can be facilitated, for instance by what Edward De Bono calls "lateral thinking." Instead of pursuing a problem in a linear fashion, it is being put aside and then attacked again from a different direction. 13 The same happens when worldviews and cultures clash, or when we recognize that we have entered a terra incognito -- a situation that never before occurred on earth.

For creativity to proliferate and become a desirable part of our culture, it was first necessary to loosen rules and regulations enough to accept new thoughts, but not so much as to lead to the collapse of society. A standard of ethics had to be developed and constantly updated to take new knowledge into account. In short, a science-value co-evolution had to be initiated upon the conscious continuation of which our species depends.

Our Guiding Stars

During another influential lecture at the California Institute of Technology, a place that produced an unusual number of Nobel Laureates in spite of its small size, Aron Kupperman, professor of chemical physics, stunned his audience by exclaiming that "intelligence is the most dangerous product of evolution!"

He argued that brains have evolved through fierce competition; they incorporate the urge for fierce competition. They have to, otherwise they would not have succeeded in their development. -- All life is competitive, but especially animal life. As the ability for photosynthesis was lost, as amino acids had to be taken from other living things, normal competition turned into a fierceness that steadily increased. The invention of ever more potent weapons may make the self-destruction of any intelligent, technologically competent life unavoidable -- not only here on earth, but on any planet anywhere in the universe. Self-destruction at our stage of civilization may be the law of the universe. 14

The Cosmic Principle of Self-destruction. Many scientists are well acquainted with the Cosmic Principle of Self-destruction, though not all share the chemical physicist's conviction that we are abandoned to a fate beyond our control. For instance, the space scientist Eric Chaisson grants that mutual destruction could result from "a drive toward complexity that effectively runs out of control," an accelerating rate of change that eventually exceeds the capacity of the human brain to handle it. For those who believe in it, he says, the universe will never progress beyond the present "matter dominated" stage. His own thinking, in contrast, includes the hope that minds somewhere in the cosmos, "though not necessarily here on earth," may acquire the wisdom to circumvent such a threatening fate. His suggested solution is to "adopt cosmic evolution as a guiding paradigm and nouveau scientific philosophy for our time," which involves "to think in dynamic rather than static terms, to forge a link between natural science and human history, to realize the evolutionary roots of human values, to renew a sense of hope." 15 -- As history shows, the consequences of thinking in static terms are disastrous.

The Fate of the Easter Islands. Just as instinct-directed organisms disappeared, entire civilizations vanished when their rigid guidelines were not changed in response to changing environmental conditions. Such was, for instance, the fate of the Easter-Islanders, as reported by Duane Elgin:

"With a mild climate and rich, volcanic soil, Easter Island was a paradise covered by forests and filled with diverse animal and plant life when it was first settled by Polynesian colonists in approximately 500 A.D. As the Islanders prospered, their numbers grew to 7,000 or more, and they used the resources of the island beyond its regenerative capacity. Archeological evidence shows that the destruction of the forests on Easter Island was well underway by the year 800 -- about 300 years after people first arrived. By the 1500s, the forests and palm trees had disappeared as people cleared land for agriculture, and used the remaining trees to build ocean-going canoes, burn as firewood and build homes. Jared Diamond, professor of medicine at UCLA, describes how the animal life was eradicated:

"The destruction of the island's animals was as extreme as that of the forest: without exception, every species of native land bird became extinct. Even shellfish were overexploited, until people had to settle for small sea snails...Porpoise bones disappeared abruptly from the garbage heaps around 1500; no one could harpoon porpoises anymore, since the trees used for constructing the big seagoing canoes no longer existed..." 16

"The biosphere was so devastated that it was beyond short-term recovery. With the forests gone, ocean fishing no longer possible, and animals hunted to extinction, people turned on one another. Centralized authority broke down, and the island descended into chaos with rival groups living in caves and competing with one another for survival. Eventually, according to Diamond, the islanders "turned to the largest remaining meat source available: humans, whose bones became common in late Easter Island garbage heaps. Oral traditions of the islanders are ripe with cannibalism" (Diamond, 1995). By 1700, the population had crashed to between one-quarter and one-tenth of its former level. When the island was visited by a Dutch explorer in 1722 (on Easter Sunday), he found it a wasteland almost completely devoid of vegetation and animals." 17

Apparently, no-one on the island thought of population control and resource preservation (as was done on other Polynesian islands), or these solutions were disregarded and their promoters expelled. Instead, an inordinate amount of ingenuity, work and effort was expended to build huge stone statues, probably in expectation of relief due to their metaphysical powers. It was not spirituality that was missing, it was its link to empirical evidence. Duane Elgin calls this behavior of the Easter Islanders "collective madness" and compares it with the present behavior of Western Industrial Civilization, encouraged by the mass media, which denudes the earth of resources in the vain hope to find satisfaction, happiness, and meaning in the accumulation of unneeded material possessions.

Islands of Sanity. It was Jonas Salk, the discoverer of the Salk-vaccine against polio, who suggested building "Islands of Sanity" in this ocean of collective madness. These would consist of persons with extraordinary wisdom and insight who protect each other against destructive forces from the outside. He envisioned the merging of such islands into continents of constructive positive attitudes, leading to a predominance of sane and healthy thinking on Earth. 18

Islands of Sanity are now being built everywhere; my quarterly Humankind Advancing is dedicated to the search for, and promotion of, the work of persons with the gift to lead our species toward greater maturity. Space limitation prohibits the mention of even a small part of the remarkable thinking I have discovered -- but I must make one exception: It is the thinking of Dr. Robert Muller, who encountered the darkest sides of human nature during the war and during his thirty years of service for the United Nations (as Assistant to the Director General during the last of them) without ever losing hope and confidence in humankind's potentials, who invented and implemented a new system of education, starting during early infancy, that implants the realization of being a part of the cosmos and of being responsible for the planet into a child before local history is being taught, and who is an irrepressible wellspring of new ideas. 19 It was he who entrusted me with vital and fascinating work for our future.

Taming Complexity. That work led to new insights. An inherent drive of evolution either toward more love or toward more competition is questionable; a drive toward more complexity is not. That drive, as Chaisson warns, may run out of control. As our knowledge grows with breathless speed, specialization will proliferate and mutually incomprehensible worldviews and languages will increasingly clash with one another, leading to ever more ferocious conflicts. How can we tame complexity?

As brains became more complex, interneurons evolved which transported sense inputs from different sources into the association cortex for adequate decision making. Similarly, inputs from different special fields must be combined into a new overarching network through which more farsighted, future-oriented choices of action become visible. We need "Intermediaries," persons able to understand the basic principles, language, and world views of two or more specialties, and to make them comprehensible to one another.

In addition, new standards of excellence are needed as we proceed forward. Instead of categorizing persons according to the size of their I.Q., it will become necessary to ask whether their conduct is conducive to the generation of an atmosphere of fairness.

The Challenge. 3.9 billion years ago all then existing life was nearly poisoned by the evolution of photosynthesis and oxygen accumulation in the atmosphere, until organisms were "invented" which used oxygen in their life cycles. That solution did not merely rescue life on earth, it caused an unprecedented proliferation and diversification of life, that ultimately led to the emergence of intelligence.

Now, intelligence itself threatens to poison our biosphere unless the small flickers of wisdom and foresight appearing here and there on earth are condensed and allowed to grow. These flickers are, in comparison with other determinants of human behavior, presently so insignificant that many highly capable scientists are unable to see them at all. Kupperman, for instance, argued that our only salvation is to go into outer space and search for advanced intelligence elsewhere in the universe. "Everything was predetermined in the content of the tiny ball from which the universe started -- in its pre-atomic components. If we can find only one single civilization in the universe more advanced than ours -- only a single one among possibly millions -- then we would know that survival is possible." 20

Conversely, the struggle for power in nature has become invisible to a large number of well-meaning individuals, who decry its presence in humankind as an aberration that occurred only during the last centuries of our history and is rooted in reason. Reverse history, they demand, reverse evolution, and start all over again with a time of blissful harmony between human beings and nature. -- That would not help, however, even if it could be done, because a state of blissful harmony never existed. Paradise, like God, is an ideal to strive for. The struggle for power is part of nature. Though symbiosis and co-operation are also important elements, as notable biologists and evolutionists point out 21,22, they do not eliminate the struggle for power, they make it more successful. Whether at the level of atoms, cells, organisms, or nations, unification leads to competitive advantage.

But it is not necessary to deny that competition was an important factor in evolution to arrive at the insight that, in the presence of increasing intelligence, further single-minded concentration on this aspect would be fatal to human and other life on earth. -- To change course, not the rejection of science and reason is required, but the full understanding of the concepts of emergence and downward causation, the fact that later evolved phenomena influence the course of previous evolution.

Reason is lethal only if it remains the servant of the struggle for power; as soon as it becomes its master, reason will be our savior.

Knowledge, responsibility, wisdom (which is reason combined with love), these are the building materials we need to carry the sails of our exhilaration and creativity. -- Our guiding stars are our ideals -- which we cannot see if we rely on reason alone, and which we cannot reach if we abandon reason.

End Thoughts.

Consciousness led to insight into the waste and cruelty of blind progress, and, in spite of its amazing results, prohibits continuation of its methods. Evolution took two hundred million years -- each year generating, testing, and discarding innumerable evolved cell types -- until finally two prokaryotes were compatible enough to work together. The results were dramatic: their symbiosis produced the first eukaryote, which contained an organizing device that made all subsequent evolution vastly more efficient. 23 Can similar progress be achieved with more humane and less wasteful methods? I believe, it can -- if evolution of the subjective experience of freedom is understood as a new causal determinant in our world, and if responsibility is merged with courage.

_ _ _
Well-informed but fearless, standing in the bow of a storm tossed vessel, with the hand firmly gripping the steering wheel and the mind alert, the venturer into the unknown is inspired by a sacred conviction:

Even if competition is an integral part of evolution, even if it threatens to destroy all technologically advanced civilizations, has already done so on other planets, and left the cosmos void of life -- even if the Cosmic Principle of Self-Destruction is the law of the universe -- I will not despair.

I will steer our ship toward yet undiscovered shores of wisdom!

I will prove the law of the universe wrong!

CONCLUSION

1) The survival and further advance of our species depends upon conscious science-value co-evolution.

2) We have to develop a new profession of "Intermediaries," -- persons able to understand the core principles, viewpoints, and language of two or more specialized fields and translate them into each other.

The most important ethical requirement to cope with increasing factual details, however, is trustworthiness. At one point in the future, even the most proficient translator will be unable to understand more than a small part of our growing knowledge. At that time, unless we can trust one another and know that our knowledge is being used for the common good, the Cosmic Principle of Self-Destruction will become effective.

____________________________________
I wish to thank Duane Elgin, the Fetzer Institute, and Eric Chaisson for permission to quote from their work, and David Stover for reading the paper and making valuable suggestions.


REFERENCES

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2) Swimme, B. and Berry, T. -- The Universe Story. London: Penguin Books. 1992.

3) Erdmann, E. -- Realism and Human Values. New York: Vantage. 1978.

4) Sperry, R.W. -- An objective approach to subjective experience: Further explanation of a hypothesis. Psychological Review. 77, 585-590. 1970.

5) Sperry, R.W. -- Holding course amid shifting paradigms. In: W.Harman and J.Clark, (Eds.) New Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, pp.99-124. Sausalito, CA: Institute of Noetic Sciences, 1994.

6) Erdmann, E. and Stover, D. Beyond a World Divided. Boston: Shambhala, 1991.

7) Edelman, G. -- The Remembered Present. New York: Basic Books. 1998.

8) Erdmann, E. 1978 -- op.cit.

9) Wise, R.A. -- [Notes from his] Lectures in Physiological Psychology, Montreal, Sir George William's University, 1969/1970.

10) Erdmann, E. -- "Neural Substrates of Planning and Voluntary Activity." Unpublished term paper for Psychology 413. Supervisor: Professor Jane Stewart, Montreal, Sir George William's University, 1970.

11) Warren, J.M. and K. Ackert (Eds.) -- The Frontal Granular Cortex and Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1964.

12) Erdmann, E. 1978 -- op.cit.

13) de Bono, E. -- Future Positive. New York: Penguin Books, 1979.

14) Kupperman, A. -- [Lecture notes from] "Cosmology -- The Origin of Life, Evolution and Religion." Lecture at the California Institute of Technology, Feb. 12, 1987.

15) Chaisson, E. -- "Our Cosmic Heritage," ZYGON, 23, 409-479. 1988.

16) Diamond, J. -- "Easter's End," Discover Magazine, August 1995, p.68.

17) Elgin, D. -- Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing. A Report to the Fetzer Institute. Millennium Project. P.O.Box 2449, San Anselmo, CA 94960. U.S.A.

18) Salk, J. -- "The New Epoch," In The Omni Interviews, P. Weintraub, Ed., pp. 95- 115. New York: Ticker & Fields. 1984.

19) Muller, R. -- Ideas and Dreams for a Better World. Santa Barbara, CA: Media 21. 1997

20) Kupperman, A. -- op. cit.

21) Margulis, L. -- Symbiosis and the evolution of the cell. In: Yearbook of Science and the Future. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 1982. pp. 104-121.22) Laszlo, E. -- Evolution: The General Theory. Cresskill (New Jersey, U.S.A.): Hampton Press, Inc. 1996.

22) Laszlo, E. -- Evolution: The General Theory. Cresskill (New Jersey, U.S.A.): Hampton Press, Inc. 1996.

23) Mayr, E. -- "The Probability of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life," in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, E. Mayr, (Ed.), pp. 67-74. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.

* * * * *
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom the feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties -- this knowledge, this feeling that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.

Albert Einstein
(From a selection of Einstein-quotes by Alan Levin)


THOUGHT IN ACTION

The Sunshine Foundation of Canada, 1710-148 Fullarton Street, London, Ontario N6A 5P3, Canada, has a very special mission: to help bring joy into the lives of kids who face life-threatening illnesses or have severe physical disabilities that make every day a challenge. For over ten years now, the Foundation has been making dreams come true for such children. Little Bradley, whose words are quoted on p.4, is one of these children. To learn more about him, please contact the Foundation directly.


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the Foundation For the Future for their assurance that the publication of my original paper, written specifically for them, will not affect their continuing use of it. Further, I wish to express my gratitude to Eliane Lacroix-Hopson for her permission to quote from her letter, but most of all to Alan Levin and Pat D. Hutcheon for the HA web site.


REFERENCES

Easterlin, R.A. -- Growth Triumphant: The Twenty-First Century in Historical Perspective. (Quoted on p.14 in "Happiness and Wealth" by E. Cornish, The Futurist, Sept. Oct. 1997, pp. 13-15.)

Einstein, A. -- Albert Einstein: The Human Side. H.Dukas and B.Hoffman (eds.). Princeton University Press, 1954.

Erdmann, E. -- Voyage into Uncharted Waters. Original paper, written for the Foundation for the Future upon request in March 1998.

HopeWatch -- Quote from p.3 of HopeWatch, Newsletter of the Center for a Science of Hope, Winter 1997.

Lacroix-Hopson, E. -- Letter to me of Sept.10, 1994, p.3.

Teske, J.A. -- The Haunting of the Human Spirit. Zygon, 34, 307-322, June 1999 (p.319).