Somewhere in this conversation the idea has emerged that the human race is not a loose conglomeration of individuals but an organismic whole. When I say that the human race is an organismic whole I mean that it is a unified organism in the same way that individual human beings are organisms. And just as each of us is born and develops into mature adulthood there was a time when the human species was birthed by the earth’s ecosystem and it has gone through a process of development or evolution towards maturity.
There was a time in the distant past when one could traverse all 196,935,000 square miles of this planet, the third rock from the sun, and not find one single human being. But when humans did arrive they found a thriving eco-system that supported a great number of disparate species and life forms. We were “welcomed” as a legitimate member of that eco-system with the obligation to preserve it. This young new system was able to thrive and grow because it shared the same properties of cohesion and trust that marked the other species on the planet.
But how did we know what to do when we arrived here? It is easier to deal with that question by thinking of the human race in its infancy being in the same position as an infant human being. Cell life is guided by DNA and when a human being is born this DNA guides its physiological and biological development. It is not up to the fetus to decide where its organs will be located within the body or how many body parts it will have. But infants also lack the information necessary to know what to do culturally.
Humans have accomplished so much technologically it is difficult to grasp that compared to non-human species humans in the infant stage were totally clueless. We did not know what to eat; we did not know what to wear. If we did not have the animals to copy from we probably would not have survived the first hundred years.
What we call human intelligence begins to look more like managed ignorance and it is clear we have not managed it quite a well as we would have hoped. None of the non-human species exchanged trust for distrust. Why did we?
A systems level discussion on Organizational Leadership and World Peace written by:
© Darius A. Lecointe, Ph.D., J.D., M.A. Join in the discussion here or through dalecointe@gmail.com
5 comments:
DAL - this is a really good post.
Thank you, Avonia. Your comments and questions are welcome.
Let us look at the records for moment. We have a G-d that uses speech to bring everything into existence but ultimately he puts his hands in the mud to create man and then he blew life into his nostrils. When we look at every thing he created why not being amazed? But, man's first task was to be like his Creator, create a world of names. Did he succeed? Of course! What skills did that task require for completion? Was the task-master satisfied? There's no proof to the contrary for two reasons, at least:
1--man's creation remains since each animal named still carry the label (translation or not).
2--man was prompted to make ethical decisions, not feasting on a specific fruit. Did his final decision reflect ignorance, passion, curiosity or else?
After his decision to eat, man has consistently been failing himself. His oldest son became an accidental murderer and the records testified that the make repented that he created man.
What can we conclude? Did man fall from a lofty position: from knowledge to ignorance? Was he born ignorant? Or was man elevated to higher position: Ignorance to knowledge?
Humans are shaped not only by the information transmitted in their genes, but by the information transmitted in their memes. The behavior threatening the fitness of our species may be better explained by faulty memes than faulty genes.
Philosopher Dan Dennet asks the question of why an ant in the field crawls up a blade of grass, falls down, crawls back up, falls down, and continues this odd behavior until it affixes to the top of the blade of grass. The answer is that the ant’s brain has been hijacked by a Lancet Fluke—a parasite. The parasite assures its survival by eventually getting into the stomach of a sheep or cow.
The brains of humans have been infected by a parasite—memes. This parasite propagates by passing from one mind to another. Said more simply, suicide bombers have infected minds.
With a better understanding of potentially destructive memes, we can develop better immunity to them as a species.
It seems this is what you are attempting here.
Absolutely correct, Avonia. As I have always said, the resolution our problems is already available in the information we have already. I have not discovered anything new. All I am doing is presenting it in an appropriate paradigm that will benefit us as a species rather than as a fragments of that species.
You have well stated the issue.
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