Yes, as odd as that may seem, I currently have a few (what I mean is, actually, a lot of) ideas and notes underway, that I would like to (that meaning: if I maintain the discipline and perseverance I will)develop into essays and articles for your consumption and viewing on this online blog publishing site thing. Hoorary for modern technological capabilities (I will, in actuality, be critical and in some cases negative of the impacts of said capabilities in (hopeful) coming pieces). Subjects and topics will range from drugs legislation to human behavioural ecology to theoretical cosmology to various political issues of the day.
That said, good day (or good night, or morning for that matter) to you. Also, watch this space, as the old proverbial saying goes, or some such.
12/19/2010
12/08/2010
Socrates' Unexamined Life
I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living--that you are still less likely to believe.
Socrates as quoted by Platon in section 37E to 38A of the Apology.
Arsenic-based bacteria point to new life forms
Arsenic-based bacteria point to new life forms, an article in New Scientist.
12/06/2010
Life As We Don't Know It
Life As We Don't Know It: NASA's discovery of an 'exotic' DNA changes everythingAn article by Professor of Theoretical Physics Dr. Michio Kaku of the City University of New York in the Wall Street Journal.
When NASA announced last week that it would unveil a new discovery "which would impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life," it sparked a firestorm of speculation, with journalists and scientists clamoring to know whether NASA had finally discovered alien life in space. So great was the media stampede that even the White House and members of Congress were calling on NASA to clarify.
As expected, NASA scientists did find alien life—not in space, but in California, in the form of an exotic microbe with DNA never seen before that feeds on arsenic, a poison. After all the hoopla, science-fiction buffs considered this announcement to be a resounding dud. But to the scientific community, this was a spectacular result. It means that every biology textbook now has to be revised. Even the very definition of life may have to be changed.
All DNA on the earth is basically the same. By rearranging the components of DNA, you can convert the DNA of yeast into that of rabbits, elephants and even humans. But for the first time in history, scientists have found a new type of DNA that does not incorporate the usual six elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. These microbes have replaced the phosphorus atom in their DNA with arsenic, a sleight-of-hand once thought to be impossible.
These micro-organisms were found near Yosemite, in Lake Mono. The run-off from the Sierra Nevada mountains gives rise to unusually high concentrations of arsenic in the lake. Scientists first isolated these bacteria and then gradually replaced the phosphorus in their environment with arsenic. Most organisms die when exposed to these toxic levels. But some of these microbes had mutated so that they actually thrived on arsenic. Incredibly, scientists then found that the arsenic was being incorporated directly into their DNA.
The discovery raises the possibility that "shadow" life may exist on earth—and perhaps even on other planets. There might be other microbial life forms out there that have, over billions of years, been forced to modify basic DNA in order to survive in toxic environments. There will now be a surge of scientific interest in finding new variations in the DNA molecule, and also finding new organisms that exploit these mechanisms. Arsenic-based DNA are, one hopes, not the only exotic forms of DNA in the universe.
The real lesson here is that extreme forms of life can sometimes thrive in extreme environments that are usually too toxic or unsuitable for life. When searching the moons of Saturn or extra-solar planets hundreds of light years from earth, scientists cannot assume that life will mimic the chemistry found on earth. We have to be open-minded about what kinds of life can exist in the harshest of environments. (After all, our own DNA may have first originated at the bottom of the oceans, near volcano vents emitting a noxious brew of toxic chemicals.)
When the two Viking probes landed on Mars in 1976, soil samples of the Martian desert were analyzed for the presence of organic compounds, such as hydrocarbons. Disappointingly, none were found. But in light of this discovery, scientists should have broadened their definition of the chemicals of life. This new understanding of DNA may impact directly on NASA's current multibillion-dollar program to find life on Mars. This may also affect the current investigation of the moon of Saturn, Titan, which has a methane-like atmosphere, or the moon of Jupiter, Europa, which has a vast liquid ocean under its icy surface.
Eventually, after much more work, there is also the possibility of commercial and industrial applications. In the past, micro-organisms have played an important role in our understanding of fertilizers, energy production, oil processing, photosynthesis, organic chemistry, etc. Because entirely new domains of biochemistry may open up as new forms of DNA are discovered, this may have a direct impact on industrial and commercial processes in unforeseen ways.
As Shakespeare once said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
On the Concept of Life: Why it should be no surprise about arsenic based life
If we limit our immigrations for the concept of life – an altogether abstract concept – we risk conforming to our intuitive cognitive constraints. We must realise the immensity of possibilities in our cosmos, all mathematically theoretically more than probable to include the certainties of earth like planets and alien civilisations. To limit life to mainstream formulas is wrong. The history of scientific knowledge has been an exponential history of growth and expansion. Therefore if we extrapolate this historical record we have a future of enlightenment and the realisation that we are not alone in this cosmic sea and that life is more complex than thought.
The newfound discoveries of arsenic based life and synthetic replicating DNA show that life is such a diverse and abstract concept that our outdated definitions are on the brink of major reformation. When we gaze up at the distant stars and galaxies, at their stellar and galactic figures, what we are actually looking at are systems of planets and specs of cosmic dust that maintain a high possibility of life. We, humans, tend to like to believe that we are special and that we hold all the knowlegde about life. Yet, this flaw is special in its self.
Just as the Fermi Equation shows us the likelihood of alien life and civilization, surely the mathematical and theoretical immensity of possibilities and the plethora of chances and diversity, new and interesting and even bizarre concepts and facts are revealed all the time.
The realms of life science and biochemistry, where biological complexity and chemical possibilities converge to formulate immensities of life forms, show us that even the basic biologies are not to be underestimated. We must replace our preconceived parameters for such an abstract concept of life and use innovation inspired by the nature that is all around us.
The newfound discoveries of arsenic based life and synthetic replicating DNA show that life is such a diverse and abstract concept that our outdated definitions are on the brink of major reformation. When we gaze up at the distant stars and galaxies, at their stellar and galactic figures, what we are actually looking at are systems of planets and specs of cosmic dust that maintain a high possibility of life. We, humans, tend to like to believe that we are special and that we hold all the knowlegde about life. Yet, this flaw is special in its self.
Just as the Fermi Equation shows us the likelihood of alien life and civilization, surely the mathematical and theoretical immensity of possibilities and the plethora of chances and diversity, new and interesting and even bizarre concepts and facts are revealed all the time.
The realms of life science and biochemistry, where biological complexity and chemical possibilities converge to formulate immensities of life forms, show us that even the basic biologies are not to be underestimated. We must replace our preconceived parameters for such an abstract concept of life and use innovation inspired by the nature that is all around us.
12/03/2010
The Look-Up-More Society
There are myriad multitudes and diversity in type of clouds; from cirrus to nimbus and stratus to altocumulus. Clouds also maintain the potential for a wide variety of colour: be it a piercing bright white during a crisp winter morning, or the gloomy greyness and perpetual stillness synonymous with industrial backwaters, or be it the mellow orange-yellow-redness in the right circumstances of sunsets and sunrises, or be it the dark and powerful storm clouds of tropical typhoons - clouds are colourful, and also indeed beautiful. Clear blues skies are nice; however clouds give substance and character to their plainness. Clouds intermingle with sunlight, are both solitary and collective entities of the atmosphere, they bequeath the precious resource of rainwater, act as useful indication of weather conditions, and provide us aesthetically pleasing artistic shows as they are blown about by winds. They even offer us shade. So in short, clouds are important to us. Now you may be asking yourselves why I am going on about clouds. Well you see I became privy to the aforementioned and somewhat unknown information whence once I looked up. Something that the majority of people neglect, fail to see or do not do enough of is look up more. A while ago I decided I would begin the task of doing just this, looking up and admiring the liquid objects suspended above our heads, which fill the atmospheres and cover the skies. I had no motives or preconceived outcomes for doing so, but I found myself in a state of serenity, with an enhanced perspective of life after looking up. After a search for meaning I have been exposed to the serenity of clouds.
A wonderful poem that also deals with the eternal search for meaning is Exposure, written by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. It is the last piece in his collection of poetry north written in 1975, which deals with the Troubles and the problems of Irish society, thus reflecting a time of major change and many tribulations. The poem is centred on the narrator, an ageing man who reflects on his life, asking “how did I end up like this?” Heaney conveys unsatisfactory feelings about his life in the poem and how he has yet to make his life meaningful. He uses the imagery of the comet to portray a substitute, something that would dash into his life and add meaning, which he longs for. Now Heaney was writing at a time during great change of the troubles in Northern Ireland and their aftermath with its profound and unique experiences. Now, I have fortunately never experienced such profoundness or major predicaments, but in a small way I can relate to his experiences of major change, and the search for meaning. We have come to the end of our secondary schooling careers and we are facing the final days of a long engagement with this institution and its individuals, whilst preparing for the induction into adulthood and its associated independence, responsibility and maturity. Now, in this profound change, towards the end of last year I began to feel disillusioned, and began a search for meaning. Also, just as Heaney expresses a lack of satisfaction, I also felt unsatisfactory in relation to the way I am with my father. The nuances of melancholy employed in the poem are similar to my relationship him. Now my lack of meaning and my lack of satisfaction in relation to my father both became resolved when I started to look up more. Now this simple act has had a major impact to the way I view life. Every time I looked up and gazed at the sublimity of the clouds, I was facilitated in realising meaning in my life. Just as Heaney wanted meaning to be exposed to him like the comet, I was exposed to meaning by the clouds. Heaney was and I am ending a phase of life and thus I reflect on the Look-up-more society.
I had found a new energy source of joy and happiness accessed through looking up and appreciating the grandness of the clouds and the serenity of the skies. My daily routine of school, then running training, then chess and then the transit home began to change when one afternoon I suddenly saw something. I was walking to the bus stop in late afternoon, and I looked up at sublime clouds and stopped in my tracks. Above my head was something of serenity and I became capsulated by it. Now suffice to say this single moment is not what has had an everlasting impact on me, but rather the continual action of looking up at the clouds is the ideal that has indeed had a positive effect.
Clouds can be volatile. Another thing that can be volatile is my relationship with my paternal patriarch, namely my dad. Indeed I immensely love and am proud of him, but there are times when storm clouds of animosity begin to show, and somewhat vulgar interactions happen between us. However, one cloudy early morning day, as we were driving into the city, I thought to suggest to him to look up more. To my utter surprise, my father did just that. And so began a series of events that still take place to this day, the activities of the look-up-more society. My father and I never miss a moment to gaze up at the skies and briefly daydream of the meanings of life and ponder the nature of the universe.
My father and I decided to diverge from society, and do something different. We started to look up more. We started to look at clouds and sunsets and sunrises with a deep intent. This inclination enabled us to gain perspective and to witness the serenity that is all too often missed. Each day I would wake up to actually looking forward to commuting into school with my dad and his camera phone and my camera. We share this passion of looking up, and we send emails and texts to each other about amazing cloud formations we witness. This takes place much to the amusement of my mother and sister, who sometimes stumbles upon one of us daydreaming with our heads leaning back as we stand idly in the front garden beneath the serenity above us. Sometimes my father goes off into tangents at work about the wonders of clouds and their never-failing-to-inspire beauty. We took photos of clouds and emailed them back and forth, from school to work, and our common activity bonded us and helped mend a diverging relationship. I would post such photos on my online blog and exact some pleasure in doing so. We commented on cloud formations on early morning drives into the city, and we marvelled in their wonder in the afternoons during the setting of the sun on the bus home. Our daily lives became open to the serenity and the sublime nature of the big white puffy things above our heads, and more importantly our lives became closer with this common ideal. I would say my relationship with my dad is perpetually in contention, but there are times, in fact there are wonderful times, when we share a moment and gaze upon the clouds. It may be early morning in our front garden, or late afternoon walking home, we both share this interest which allows us to escape the harm, and attain some sort of happiness. Through this avenue we escaped the monotony and competition of contemporary society and we transcended into a state of content tranquillity, rejecting the consumerist attitudes and hateful prejudices rife in our times.
In a milieu of competition and elitism, I decided to diverge from this and instead of looking down at people, I looked up at clouds. I would notice these sublime clouds above our heads and realise the banality and superfluous reality of our contemporary lives. We ramble through life, trying to be successful, striving for the best, when all we really need to do is to appreciate the wonders around, amongst and above us. As Heaney writes in his final stanza of Exposure:
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet’s pulsing rose.
I have witnessed this once-in-a-lifetime portent, and I witness it daily, and as Heaney puts forward, I feel every wind the blows, and this enhances my life. Together a father and a son were connected by a common ideal, an ideal that enabled self-realisation, appreciation of the natural world, the bonding of kin, and an insight into the meanings of life. By looking up more my dad and I are happy.
A wonderful poem that also deals with the eternal search for meaning is Exposure, written by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. It is the last piece in his collection of poetry north written in 1975, which deals with the Troubles and the problems of Irish society, thus reflecting a time of major change and many tribulations. The poem is centred on the narrator, an ageing man who reflects on his life, asking “how did I end up like this?” Heaney conveys unsatisfactory feelings about his life in the poem and how he has yet to make his life meaningful. He uses the imagery of the comet to portray a substitute, something that would dash into his life and add meaning, which he longs for. Now Heaney was writing at a time during great change of the troubles in Northern Ireland and their aftermath with its profound and unique experiences. Now, I have fortunately never experienced such profoundness or major predicaments, but in a small way I can relate to his experiences of major change, and the search for meaning. We have come to the end of our secondary schooling careers and we are facing the final days of a long engagement with this institution and its individuals, whilst preparing for the induction into adulthood and its associated independence, responsibility and maturity. Now, in this profound change, towards the end of last year I began to feel disillusioned, and began a search for meaning. Also, just as Heaney expresses a lack of satisfaction, I also felt unsatisfactory in relation to the way I am with my father. The nuances of melancholy employed in the poem are similar to my relationship him. Now my lack of meaning and my lack of satisfaction in relation to my father both became resolved when I started to look up more. Now this simple act has had a major impact to the way I view life. Every time I looked up and gazed at the sublimity of the clouds, I was facilitated in realising meaning in my life. Just as Heaney wanted meaning to be exposed to him like the comet, I was exposed to meaning by the clouds. Heaney was and I am ending a phase of life and thus I reflect on the Look-up-more society.
I had found a new energy source of joy and happiness accessed through looking up and appreciating the grandness of the clouds and the serenity of the skies. My daily routine of school, then running training, then chess and then the transit home began to change when one afternoon I suddenly saw something. I was walking to the bus stop in late afternoon, and I looked up at sublime clouds and stopped in my tracks. Above my head was something of serenity and I became capsulated by it. Now suffice to say this single moment is not what has had an everlasting impact on me, but rather the continual action of looking up at the clouds is the ideal that has indeed had a positive effect.
Clouds can be volatile. Another thing that can be volatile is my relationship with my paternal patriarch, namely my dad. Indeed I immensely love and am proud of him, but there are times when storm clouds of animosity begin to show, and somewhat vulgar interactions happen between us. However, one cloudy early morning day, as we were driving into the city, I thought to suggest to him to look up more. To my utter surprise, my father did just that. And so began a series of events that still take place to this day, the activities of the look-up-more society. My father and I never miss a moment to gaze up at the skies and briefly daydream of the meanings of life and ponder the nature of the universe.
My father and I decided to diverge from society, and do something different. We started to look up more. We started to look at clouds and sunsets and sunrises with a deep intent. This inclination enabled us to gain perspective and to witness the serenity that is all too often missed. Each day I would wake up to actually looking forward to commuting into school with my dad and his camera phone and my camera. We share this passion of looking up, and we send emails and texts to each other about amazing cloud formations we witness. This takes place much to the amusement of my mother and sister, who sometimes stumbles upon one of us daydreaming with our heads leaning back as we stand idly in the front garden beneath the serenity above us. Sometimes my father goes off into tangents at work about the wonders of clouds and their never-failing-to-inspire beauty. We took photos of clouds and emailed them back and forth, from school to work, and our common activity bonded us and helped mend a diverging relationship. I would post such photos on my online blog and exact some pleasure in doing so. We commented on cloud formations on early morning drives into the city, and we marvelled in their wonder in the afternoons during the setting of the sun on the bus home. Our daily lives became open to the serenity and the sublime nature of the big white puffy things above our heads, and more importantly our lives became closer with this common ideal. I would say my relationship with my dad is perpetually in contention, but there are times, in fact there are wonderful times, when we share a moment and gaze upon the clouds. It may be early morning in our front garden, or late afternoon walking home, we both share this interest which allows us to escape the harm, and attain some sort of happiness. Through this avenue we escaped the monotony and competition of contemporary society and we transcended into a state of content tranquillity, rejecting the consumerist attitudes and hateful prejudices rife in our times.
In a milieu of competition and elitism, I decided to diverge from this and instead of looking down at people, I looked up at clouds. I would notice these sublime clouds above our heads and realise the banality and superfluous reality of our contemporary lives. We ramble through life, trying to be successful, striving for the best, when all we really need to do is to appreciate the wonders around, amongst and above us. As Heaney writes in his final stanza of Exposure:
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet’s pulsing rose.
I have witnessed this once-in-a-lifetime portent, and I witness it daily, and as Heaney puts forward, I feel every wind the blows, and this enhances my life. Together a father and a son were connected by a common ideal, an ideal that enabled self-realisation, appreciation of the natural world, the bonding of kin, and an insight into the meanings of life. By looking up more my dad and I are happy.
A History and a Critique of Evolved Primates
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive.” That was an extract from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and those ape-descends are in fact us, Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens, as we tend to taxonomically call our collective species, or Humanity, is a very interesting entity of life indeed. We have come rather a long way, from the big bang, through the evolutionary process to end up as bipedal primates with a better cranial capacity than our ancestors the apes, amazingly with the ability to contemplate all the aforementioned, as you all are inevitably doing right now. So, you may be asking yourselves what I am going to give your evolved primate brain to feed on now, well my purpose today or rather my intended aim for today, is twofold: to talk about our history, and I say our history because we are all brothers here, both in the genetic and metaphoric sense of the word; and to give a critique of the humanity of humanity in this 21st century of the Gregorian calendar, that is our western almanac of dates.
But, let us begin the story of humankind. We are an utterly imperfect species, but we are nonetheless a very special species. You and I began with a traumatic ejection from a strange world as a single celled organism. The evolution of a single egg to a foetus to a baby to a child to an adult is one of the most fascinating and amazing processes in nature, and you and me and just today about 250 000 other homo sapiens have gone through this process. We are living this life and sojourning with the other 6.8 billion humans on this earth. Of the 14 billion years of the universe, the 4.5 billion years of the earth, and the 4000 million years of life, anatomically modern humans have only existed for 200 000 years of this, and the behaviourally modern human only for 50 000. If the scale of existence was stretched down to the length of an arm, humanity would be but the top of our middle fingernail. So you see we are somewhat insignificant in the grand scale of existence and the vastness of geologic time.
Now, let us proceed onto the story of our characteristics of our species. Humanity has been brilliant at adapting to and manipulating the environment. From the creation of the first primitive tools, humankind began the divergence from the laws of natural selection and unbound itself from the wildness of the wilderness and formed societies. As soon as environmental and practical factors caused the early humans down from the trees and onto the savannas, our physical and mental physiologies began to adapt. The step to bipedalism (no pun intended) enabled our hands to employ objects, and consequently we experimented and with each new successful and useful piece of technology our brain capacities evolved. As we voyaged out of Africa we encountered an immensity and diversity of environments and situations, and we continued to adapt and manipulate in order to survive. The next advanced step from tools was to agriculture around 10 000 years ago. This technique further enabled the ease of life but also the ability to further advance our brains. Just as bipedalism freed our hands, agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, freed our time. Further skills and arts were developed, such as the wheel and the sail and the customs and rituals unique to ancient cultures around the world. Agriculture encouraged trade and cooperation too. Moreover, with our time freed we were enabled to contemplate existence, formulate complex linguistics and interact on large social scales with 6000 years ago the formation of the first civilisations. The beginnings of modern morality are based in this step to congregate. The social interactions of early humans were limited to family relatives and those who were tribally close. Thus, it served early humans well to be nice to such persons, as it was more likely for those that were treated nicely to treat you back nicely. And so these behaviours became instinctive and passed down through generations coded in our genes. With this innateness of altruism, societies evolved further and advanced further. In fact, other human beings have been one of the major driving forces of human evolution. It is universally accepted that human beings, or rather their emotions, are complex. Thus, on the basis for survival, it steered us well to have big brains in order to understand and interact with other human beings. We live in constructs and social systems to escape the monotonous and anarchy of selfhood. We necessitate social interaction; it stimulates brain activity and is a means to an end. Humanity comes together and sacrifices some personal freedoms in order to have a better chance of survival and an easy yet fulfilling life.
As the basic but fundamental foundations for life we necessitate: food and water for energy; shelter for protection; kinship for social interactions; leisure and work for fulfilment. However too much of one can be harmful and too little of one can be harmful, as can a combination of a few be harmful. We, humanity, have designed many and diverse systems and tools to make living easier: from the bridge to the telephone to the jet, from letters to literature to photography. It is a universal observation that when anarchy or chaos or disorder of any degree is introduced, established systems and structures crumble apart. Also, the assumptions we have used to establish our systems are continually being questioned and modified. Moral philosophy is just as evolutionary as biological physiology. It is progressive and change take place continually. We need to work and play, eat and sleep. We try to coexist with other complex beings, sharing and living every day. Sometimes we disagree, sometimes we fight, and sometimes we call each other names and even destroy entire communes. Yet sometimes we cooperate on immense scales, and achieve global goals and exist with empathy that encompasses the entirety of the earth. Overall, we are bound to the basic social and biological constraints of our humanity. We are, after all, evolved primates trying to live with each other the best we can. We are just primates, with primitive needs of any animals, with some evolved needs such as customs and meaning, due to our mental capacity; however also the need for understanding and curiosity. We create systems to help our lives, such as laws, and so on. We establish classifications and orders to facilitate the navigation through chaos and disorder. These actions extend from social interactions to tool utilization to cooking to chemistry. We have evolved through necessity of survival, and the brain’s power evolved hand in hand with the body, but also the brain evolved in order to better relate and understand fellow human brain holding animals.
Indeed we have achieved the zeniths of many objectives, and so on; however I fear that now in the 21st century on the Gregorian calendar, in the midst of modernity, we are losing or changing for the worse the very concept of human nature, human condition, and human behaviour. I fear we have become distracted and detached from our integrity, complacent about reality, and diverging from what makes us so special: our humanity. As Albert Einstein wrote in 1931, “How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.” I believe we need to reflect, and I believe these ties of sympathy are in danger of becoming relegated to the end of humanity’s list of priorities.
We are travelling through modernity, in a century already infamous for hedonism and hate, consumerism and conflict and materialism and mistrust, and we have come so far that I believe we are losing or changing for the worse our humanity. In a short moment in geologic time, we have achieved immensely and gone through immense change. But in this current time, I believe we have forgotten our basic needs and replaced them with superfluous and wasteful wants. We have turned to self-interest and this is the point on which I believe we are fundamentally diverging from our human nature. We are losing our civility. We are moving further and further apart from our brothers, that voids are being created, and we are trying to fill these voids with things other than each other. As we lose our civility which is the basis of civilisation, society begins to rumble and even crumble. We have witnessed this with the global financial crisis and are witnessing it with climate change. These are perhaps warning signs of further societal dysfunction and depredation.
We are just evolved primates with better mental and emotional capacities than the other animals we share this biosphere with. We are adaptable and pragmatic and we make life easy for ourselves. The annals of human history contain innovation, experimentation and experience; we have gone through renaissance and revolution and we have made our lives more comfortable, whilst enabling us the time, resources and capabilities for further renaissances and revolutions. From the industrial revolution, to the atomic revolution to the space revolution to the information revolution, Humanity has continually been expanding the frontiers of knowledge, manipulating the world for benefits and forging new and bold ideas and ideals. It is also interesting to note that in the period of modernity we are now in we are somewhat paradoxically making our lives harder, more stressful and more harmful to our communities and our Earth. Through prevalent pollution and pillaging for economic prosperity and ease of communication, transport and energy, we are harming our Earth. The modern ideology of materialistic consumerism is causing an immensity of both physical and mental waste. From non-recyclable technological waste, to superficial fashions and socio-cultural customs based on unethical positions, Humanity is facing unprecedented issues. Climate Change, a growing population and flawed economies are all contributing to detrimental and fundamental issues that we must correct, as an entire collective of people. We have come a long way, we have some unique qualities, yet we are not as special as we should consider ourselves. Yes, we have dominated our Earth and we are at the top of the food chain, but in the grand scope of existence we represent one of the tiniest proportions, and we really do not know anything at all. We came out of Africa and spread around the globe. We have a strange biological and physiological structure. We are unconscious for one third of our lives. We can contemplate our existence. We can somewhat understand how we got here. We are innovative and compassionate, and sometimes headstrong and steadfast, and we maintain an array of powerful emotions, that sometimes take control of us and lead us to be manipulated or manipulate. We have created ideas and ideals that are powerful tools, which helped to explain or preach ethical views. As we have evolved we have gained knowledge and skills, we have created the amazing and have understood the amazing. However, we are just, after all, evolved and godless primates, with quite a few beneficial qualities, quite a few detrimental qualities. But, overall we have come this far, and thus we must aspire to inspire each other for a better future.
We are grounded to our small pale blue green dot, and we are connected to each other by our biology and cultures. Through societal cooperation, collective power and the progressive passion of the people, humanity has ascended to the peaks of life. There is grandeur in our existence. We are special, living on this small pale blue green drop in the grand cosmic oceans, with a remarkable beauty and brilliance of diversity. Yet, we should not and cannot lose sight of our story, or mislay the meaning of being a member of the human family. In this age we live in, division and hate, coupled by self-interest and excess has led humanity into dark days. From environmental damage, to flawed economies, and from perpetual poverty and political prejudices, we face unprecedented issues, all centred on our human nature and behaviour. We must not lose sight and descend farther. As the Roman philosopher Lucretius stated “Thus the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed, and like runners, pass on the torch of life.” I say we must experience and appreciate the amazing nature of our world we call home and moreover, appreciate life and our way of life. We must continue our cooperation; maintain the integrity of human nature, and coexist the best we can whilst ever after that pursuit of happiness whilst in the constraints of our humanity.
© T.J.S.B. 2010
But, let us begin the story of humankind. We are an utterly imperfect species, but we are nonetheless a very special species. You and I began with a traumatic ejection from a strange world as a single celled organism. The evolution of a single egg to a foetus to a baby to a child to an adult is one of the most fascinating and amazing processes in nature, and you and me and just today about 250 000 other homo sapiens have gone through this process. We are living this life and sojourning with the other 6.8 billion humans on this earth. Of the 14 billion years of the universe, the 4.5 billion years of the earth, and the 4000 million years of life, anatomically modern humans have only existed for 200 000 years of this, and the behaviourally modern human only for 50 000. If the scale of existence was stretched down to the length of an arm, humanity would be but the top of our middle fingernail. So you see we are somewhat insignificant in the grand scale of existence and the vastness of geologic time.
Now, let us proceed onto the story of our characteristics of our species. Humanity has been brilliant at adapting to and manipulating the environment. From the creation of the first primitive tools, humankind began the divergence from the laws of natural selection and unbound itself from the wildness of the wilderness and formed societies. As soon as environmental and practical factors caused the early humans down from the trees and onto the savannas, our physical and mental physiologies began to adapt. The step to bipedalism (no pun intended) enabled our hands to employ objects, and consequently we experimented and with each new successful and useful piece of technology our brain capacities evolved. As we voyaged out of Africa we encountered an immensity and diversity of environments and situations, and we continued to adapt and manipulate in order to survive. The next advanced step from tools was to agriculture around 10 000 years ago. This technique further enabled the ease of life but also the ability to further advance our brains. Just as bipedalism freed our hands, agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, freed our time. Further skills and arts were developed, such as the wheel and the sail and the customs and rituals unique to ancient cultures around the world. Agriculture encouraged trade and cooperation too. Moreover, with our time freed we were enabled to contemplate existence, formulate complex linguistics and interact on large social scales with 6000 years ago the formation of the first civilisations. The beginnings of modern morality are based in this step to congregate. The social interactions of early humans were limited to family relatives and those who were tribally close. Thus, it served early humans well to be nice to such persons, as it was more likely for those that were treated nicely to treat you back nicely. And so these behaviours became instinctive and passed down through generations coded in our genes. With this innateness of altruism, societies evolved further and advanced further. In fact, other human beings have been one of the major driving forces of human evolution. It is universally accepted that human beings, or rather their emotions, are complex. Thus, on the basis for survival, it steered us well to have big brains in order to understand and interact with other human beings. We live in constructs and social systems to escape the monotonous and anarchy of selfhood. We necessitate social interaction; it stimulates brain activity and is a means to an end. Humanity comes together and sacrifices some personal freedoms in order to have a better chance of survival and an easy yet fulfilling life.
As the basic but fundamental foundations for life we necessitate: food and water for energy; shelter for protection; kinship for social interactions; leisure and work for fulfilment. However too much of one can be harmful and too little of one can be harmful, as can a combination of a few be harmful. We, humanity, have designed many and diverse systems and tools to make living easier: from the bridge to the telephone to the jet, from letters to literature to photography. It is a universal observation that when anarchy or chaos or disorder of any degree is introduced, established systems and structures crumble apart. Also, the assumptions we have used to establish our systems are continually being questioned and modified. Moral philosophy is just as evolutionary as biological physiology. It is progressive and change take place continually. We need to work and play, eat and sleep. We try to coexist with other complex beings, sharing and living every day. Sometimes we disagree, sometimes we fight, and sometimes we call each other names and even destroy entire communes. Yet sometimes we cooperate on immense scales, and achieve global goals and exist with empathy that encompasses the entirety of the earth. Overall, we are bound to the basic social and biological constraints of our humanity. We are, after all, evolved primates trying to live with each other the best we can. We are just primates, with primitive needs of any animals, with some evolved needs such as customs and meaning, due to our mental capacity; however also the need for understanding and curiosity. We create systems to help our lives, such as laws, and so on. We establish classifications and orders to facilitate the navigation through chaos and disorder. These actions extend from social interactions to tool utilization to cooking to chemistry. We have evolved through necessity of survival, and the brain’s power evolved hand in hand with the body, but also the brain evolved in order to better relate and understand fellow human brain holding animals.
Indeed we have achieved the zeniths of many objectives, and so on; however I fear that now in the 21st century on the Gregorian calendar, in the midst of modernity, we are losing or changing for the worse the very concept of human nature, human condition, and human behaviour. I fear we have become distracted and detached from our integrity, complacent about reality, and diverging from what makes us so special: our humanity. As Albert Einstein wrote in 1931, “How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.” I believe we need to reflect, and I believe these ties of sympathy are in danger of becoming relegated to the end of humanity’s list of priorities.
We are travelling through modernity, in a century already infamous for hedonism and hate, consumerism and conflict and materialism and mistrust, and we have come so far that I believe we are losing or changing for the worse our humanity. In a short moment in geologic time, we have achieved immensely and gone through immense change. But in this current time, I believe we have forgotten our basic needs and replaced them with superfluous and wasteful wants. We have turned to self-interest and this is the point on which I believe we are fundamentally diverging from our human nature. We are losing our civility. We are moving further and further apart from our brothers, that voids are being created, and we are trying to fill these voids with things other than each other. As we lose our civility which is the basis of civilisation, society begins to rumble and even crumble. We have witnessed this with the global financial crisis and are witnessing it with climate change. These are perhaps warning signs of further societal dysfunction and depredation.
We are just evolved primates with better mental and emotional capacities than the other animals we share this biosphere with. We are adaptable and pragmatic and we make life easy for ourselves. The annals of human history contain innovation, experimentation and experience; we have gone through renaissance and revolution and we have made our lives more comfortable, whilst enabling us the time, resources and capabilities for further renaissances and revolutions. From the industrial revolution, to the atomic revolution to the space revolution to the information revolution, Humanity has continually been expanding the frontiers of knowledge, manipulating the world for benefits and forging new and bold ideas and ideals. It is also interesting to note that in the period of modernity we are now in we are somewhat paradoxically making our lives harder, more stressful and more harmful to our communities and our Earth. Through prevalent pollution and pillaging for economic prosperity and ease of communication, transport and energy, we are harming our Earth. The modern ideology of materialistic consumerism is causing an immensity of both physical and mental waste. From non-recyclable technological waste, to superficial fashions and socio-cultural customs based on unethical positions, Humanity is facing unprecedented issues. Climate Change, a growing population and flawed economies are all contributing to detrimental and fundamental issues that we must correct, as an entire collective of people. We have come a long way, we have some unique qualities, yet we are not as special as we should consider ourselves. Yes, we have dominated our Earth and we are at the top of the food chain, but in the grand scope of existence we represent one of the tiniest proportions, and we really do not know anything at all. We came out of Africa and spread around the globe. We have a strange biological and physiological structure. We are unconscious for one third of our lives. We can contemplate our existence. We can somewhat understand how we got here. We are innovative and compassionate, and sometimes headstrong and steadfast, and we maintain an array of powerful emotions, that sometimes take control of us and lead us to be manipulated or manipulate. We have created ideas and ideals that are powerful tools, which helped to explain or preach ethical views. As we have evolved we have gained knowledge and skills, we have created the amazing and have understood the amazing. However, we are just, after all, evolved and godless primates, with quite a few beneficial qualities, quite a few detrimental qualities. But, overall we have come this far, and thus we must aspire to inspire each other for a better future.
We are grounded to our small pale blue green dot, and we are connected to each other by our biology and cultures. Through societal cooperation, collective power and the progressive passion of the people, humanity has ascended to the peaks of life. There is grandeur in our existence. We are special, living on this small pale blue green drop in the grand cosmic oceans, with a remarkable beauty and brilliance of diversity. Yet, we should not and cannot lose sight of our story, or mislay the meaning of being a member of the human family. In this age we live in, division and hate, coupled by self-interest and excess has led humanity into dark days. From environmental damage, to flawed economies, and from perpetual poverty and political prejudices, we face unprecedented issues, all centred on our human nature and behaviour. We must not lose sight and descend farther. As the Roman philosopher Lucretius stated “Thus the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed, and like runners, pass on the torch of life.” I say we must experience and appreciate the amazing nature of our world we call home and moreover, appreciate life and our way of life. We must continue our cooperation; maintain the integrity of human nature, and coexist the best we can whilst ever after that pursuit of happiness whilst in the constraints of our humanity.
© T.J.S.B. 2010
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