Let’s move away from aggression, violence, war, destruction, and domination and let us embrace a spirit of cooperation, collaboration, peace and love toward all living beings and species. A spirit of wonder and humility.
It seems to be all bad news lately, but this is a beautiful thought. Thank you, Perry.
True; one problem is that negative events tend to make the news. Positive events not so much, yet they do happen. I worked as a journalist for many years and I know the reason why news is slanted toward the negative. So, we have to make our own positive news. I find you and others I read do this.
Yes, you are right. I love that thought of making our own positive news. I quit consuming the news a few years ago and I am happier and nothing in my life has suffered for lack of knowing what goes on out there. And thank you for the kind compliment, I do feel you are the same!
Lots to think about here, Perry. It will be interesting to see how we humans manage to evolve and if we will survive. I totally agree on the hubris, sadly. There needs to be change including more cooperation. Thank you, Perry. ✨
Thank you, Trudi, for your comment. The need for cooperation is the thesis of this article. Humans have, until recently, cooperated with each other and with Nature. This is our only true path to survival.
"Bear in mind that Darwin never used the phrase, “survival of the fittest;” this was coined later by Herbert Spencer, who was a social Darwinist, taking the theory of natural selection in another direction." ... - and Social Darwinism, leading towards (justifying) transhumanism, seems to still have the upper hand in people’s consciousness.
Transhumanisn is, in my view, eugenics in a different bottle. Look who supports it and you will see it is a lot of tech billionaires.
It has nothing to do with biological natural selection; it is the worst of human impulses, trying to bypass the evolutionary biological process, which is on the scale of millions of years.
'I have come to see and believe that humans need to (and will) evolve further...'
Yeap, I strongly agree with this point. We're mainly emotional by default, rather than actually intelligent and rational....this needs to change if we are to actually survive and prosper.
I am not at all sure that repressing humans' innate emotionality is a good idea. Centuries of suppressed emotions, whilst trying to elevate 'rationality' as a higher evolved state, has led to the violent world we now live in.
Thank you for the clarification. As understand it, the rational faculty of the mind (= Intellect) has an important role to play - along with other faculties of the mind such as the Instinct, Intuition, Imagination, Inspiration, Soul, Will, Body-Mind-Action. It's a co-operative balance between these aspects of our conscious existence on this planet.
Where I have my doubts is that in Western Culture, "rationality" has been elevated above all the other faculties, instead of being just a 'team-player'.
I agree; this is one of the factors, but there are others, no doubt. For example, there is a lot if scientific evidence that in hunter-gatherer societies, our ancestors, collective violence was rare.
I was also thinking about our need to overcome what I view as a learned habit of trying to dominate Nature and the Earth and all of the millions of species that live here. We Homo sapiens will either change and adapt or face extinction. If it is the latter, then a new form of hominin is likely to appear, perhaps in millions of years.
Thank you for this fascinating post, Perry. Among so many well taken points, I appreciate that you highlight Darwin’s point on survival, that it is not of “the fittest”.
Yes, I will elaborate on the meaning of “survival of the fittest” in a future post It was coined by Herbert Spencer, who took Darwin’s theory of natural selection and applied it to human societies. This idea of social Darwinism, however, bas been generally discredited and it has nothing to do with biological evolution of plants and animals.
Thank you, Perry. Darwin described “fitness” not the “fittest”. Spencer made the distortion which set a foundation of many things to come in terms of perceptions of human supremacy.
Cancer the aberration that consumes tissues to point of killing the host that provides it a questionable life existence. Humans could be considered a cancer as well. Consuming resources that provide sustenance and create plastic pollution that is to be our own demise. Big brains have not found a way to coexist with each other let alone hunt to extinction life on earth.
I agree; even so, it is chiefly because modern humans have taken a detour of sorts from its hunter-gather ancestors, where collective violence (incl against Nature) was rare and cooperation was the norm. The question for me is whether humans can survive long enough to return to what has been its normative state of being.
Normal? Glaciers melt no time to wait.ice cubes in our oceans. Salinity and sanity changes. Take a drink of warm water with a porpoise in your gas tank driving to the store.
It is very well written. I especially like what you wrote: "...where a million years is one-four thousandth the age of our Earth. It is like in a full day, 20 seconds have passed. It is a blip. And, yet, such blips are measured in millions of years. It is both difficult and awesome to think in such ways."
As I read, I thought humans were the only species that could destroy the planet. But then I thought, no, we will not destroy the planet. We will destroy ourselves—the sixth extinction. Other species will survive. The human race will become nothing more than a fossil—a 20-second blip.
Perhaps so, but new hominins might result. We really don't know the future of humanity, though now it appears dire, bleak. The smarter among us admit it and go about with more humility. Thanks Joel for your comment.
Let’s move away from aggression, violence, war, destruction, and domination and let us embrace a spirit of cooperation, collaboration, peace and love toward all living beings and species. A spirit of wonder and humility.
It seems to be all bad news lately, but this is a beautiful thought. Thank you, Perry.
True; one problem is that negative events tend to make the news. Positive events not so much, yet they do happen. I worked as a journalist for many years and I know the reason why news is slanted toward the negative. So, we have to make our own positive news. I find you and others I read do this.
Yes, you are right. I love that thought of making our own positive news. I quit consuming the news a few years ago and I am happier and nothing in my life has suffered for lack of knowing what goes on out there. And thank you for the kind compliment, I do feel you are the same!
Lots to think about here, Perry. It will be interesting to see how we humans manage to evolve and if we will survive. I totally agree on the hubris, sadly. There needs to be change including more cooperation. Thank you, Perry. ✨
Thank you, Trudi, for your comment. The need for cooperation is the thesis of this article. Humans have, until recently, cooperated with each other and with Nature. This is our only true path to survival.
I agree with your argument, Perry 👏
"Bear in mind that Darwin never used the phrase, “survival of the fittest;” this was coined later by Herbert Spencer, who was a social Darwinist, taking the theory of natural selection in another direction." ... - and Social Darwinism, leading towards (justifying) transhumanism, seems to still have the upper hand in people’s consciousness.
Transhumanisn is, in my view, eugenics in a different bottle. Look who supports it and you will see it is a lot of tech billionaires.
It has nothing to do with biological natural selection; it is the worst of human impulses, trying to bypass the evolutionary biological process, which is on the scale of millions of years.
'I have come to see and believe that humans need to (and will) evolve further...'
Yeap, I strongly agree with this point. We're mainly emotional by default, rather than actually intelligent and rational....this needs to change if we are to actually survive and prosper.
I am not at all sure that repressing humans' innate emotionality is a good idea. Centuries of suppressed emotions, whilst trying to elevate 'rationality' as a higher evolved state, has led to the violent world we now live in.
I'm not for repressing our emotions...rather we should be applying more of our rationality and common sense.
Thank you for the clarification. As understand it, the rational faculty of the mind (= Intellect) has an important role to play - along with other faculties of the mind such as the Instinct, Intuition, Imagination, Inspiration, Soul, Will, Body-Mind-Action. It's a co-operative balance between these aspects of our conscious existence on this planet.
Where I have my doubts is that in Western Culture, "rationality" has been elevated above all the other faculties, instead of being just a 'team-player'.
I agree; this is one of the factors, but there are others, no doubt. For example, there is a lot if scientific evidence that in hunter-gatherer societies, our ancestors, collective violence was rare.
I was also thinking about our need to overcome what I view as a learned habit of trying to dominate Nature and the Earth and all of the millions of species that live here. We Homo sapiens will either change and adapt or face extinction. If it is the latter, then a new form of hominin is likely to appear, perhaps in millions of years.
Yeah, indeed....we're too arrogant and take the Earth way too much for granted.
Thank you for this fascinating post, Perry. Among so many well taken points, I appreciate that you highlight Darwin’s point on survival, that it is not of “the fittest”.
Yes, I will elaborate on the meaning of “survival of the fittest” in a future post It was coined by Herbert Spencer, who took Darwin’s theory of natural selection and applied it to human societies. This idea of social Darwinism, however, bas been generally discredited and it has nothing to do with biological evolution of plants and animals.
Thank you, Perry. Darwin described “fitness” not the “fittest”. Spencer made the distortion which set a foundation of many things to come in terms of perceptions of human supremacy.
Precisely; thanks, Heidi, for this important differentiation. Not fittest, but fitness. Big difference. 🐦🕊🦜
Cancer the aberration that consumes tissues to point of killing the host that provides it a questionable life existence. Humans could be considered a cancer as well. Consuming resources that provide sustenance and create plastic pollution that is to be our own demise. Big brains have not found a way to coexist with each other let alone hunt to extinction life on earth.
I agree; even so, it is chiefly because modern humans have taken a detour of sorts from its hunter-gather ancestors, where collective violence (incl against Nature) was rare and cooperation was the norm. The question for me is whether humans can survive long enough to return to what has been its normative state of being.
Normal? Glaciers melt no time to wait.ice cubes in our oceans. Salinity and sanity changes. Take a drink of warm water with a porpoise in your gas tank driving to the store.
A lot of research and thinking went into the framing of this post. Well done!
Yes, thank you.
Perry,
It is very well written. I especially like what you wrote: "...where a million years is one-four thousandth the age of our Earth. It is like in a full day, 20 seconds have passed. It is a blip. And, yet, such blips are measured in millions of years. It is both difficult and awesome to think in such ways."
As I read, I thought humans were the only species that could destroy the planet. But then I thought, no, we will not destroy the planet. We will destroy ourselves—the sixth extinction. Other species will survive. The human race will become nothing more than a fossil—a 20-second blip.
Joel
Perhaps so, but new hominins might result. We really don't know the future of humanity, though now it appears dire, bleak. The smarter among us admit it and go about with more humility. Thanks Joel for your comment.