Once again we are going to strip down yet another commonly held assumptions, one head as obvious by the empiricists, the rationalists, the hardcore scientists, evolutionary biologists, the materialists and consequently the general mindset of the general public it seems.
The assertion is that all phenomena in the course of history has progressed and that this is evidenced by the resulting explosion in mind power and consciousness in the human species that exists now, at the very end of time here on earth.
i want to show how this is incredibly inaccurate but also incredibly damaging, on all levels.
What’s better…a tree or a protein…or a bacteria…..and why?
We say that humans are the ‘best’ precisely because of our level of complexity, our mental prowess, our self awareness. And the reason that makes us better is because of its utility. It gives us dominion over our environment. We can know it, control it, manipulate it. So you could say that how we are judging ‘best’ is it’s level of complexity and its usefulness, its functionality.
So using this rationale, it means that simple life in the early universe wasn’t as good as us humans here at the end of the universe. From simple and useless to complex and useful. From the worst to the best.
What about somewhere in the middle of this chain of progression….
How is a complex tree better than a simple protein, or a basic bacteria? All three of these things are essential for life. Their functionality is equal, when seen as serving other life including us. We actually couldn’t even be here without any of them.
If we say we are in a chain of progression, with humans as the pinnacle of complexity at the end of this chain, then that implies everything else would have to have been progressing before human beings in the same linear way. But does nature, life (other than humans) progress? What are we judging it by? Why is better exactly? What end does the complexity serve?
We are assuming nature is purposeful and is aiming at something! How ironic, that a materialist, human centric assertion seems to be implying the mind within nature!
So then we have two uncomfortable truths: Nature has progressed into humans, the most complex life form, but no other aspect of nature has progressed because no one life form is ‘better’ than another.
We can’t just say that humans are a result of progression but nothing else is. And if noting else is, as clearly shown, then human beings are no more a progression in nature than anything else. We are not ‘better’ than anything else in nature.
There doesn’t appear to be a satisfactory answer as to why complex is best. It’s a circular theory that needs itself to prove itself. We’re better because we are more complex, and whatever is more complex is better. It never arrives at anything substantial.
Did things ‘progress’ into dinosaurs? The largest life forms of all time, and the most complex of that era? If it did ‘progress’ into dinosaurs, then surely when they died out, and life forms were less complex again, that would be regression? There’s no linear progression to be seen here unfortunately.
It’s more adequate to say that things simply change, evolve. Things are in flux.
What about if we use other metrics to judge ‘better’ by.
Let’s say our metrics are
to ensure survival
to decrease and lessen suffering,
We equate material gain and economic advantages with alleviation of suffering, but In the year 2022, in the world’s oldest and most advanced civilisations, we are undergoing the biggest crisis in mental suffering. The rise and rise of depression, anxiety, addiction is documented far and wide, not just in adults but in younger people now too.
We simply can’t make a correlation between material prosperity – the result of our amazing knowledge and dominion of our environment – and happiness, and there is insufficient scope in this article to address this meaningfully.
A casual cursory look around could well result in a conclusion that says the world AND the earth is on the brink of collapse in many areas. Our knowledge – a bastion of our supreme complexity – doesn’t appear to have a hold on the potential for disasters that threaten our survival greatly. You could say that the problems are greater than ever before as they seem to be more far reaching.
And is our knowledge and ‘bestness’ evidenced in the quality of our lives?
Again, it is unfortunate that our priorities when it comes to health and life are somewhat imbalanced, evidenced in our healthcare systems whose main aim seems to be to elongate life sometimes at the expense of the quality of life. The healthcare system is overloaded with medications and operations that deal with severe ill health and disease rather than methods that prevent and enhance wellbeing before severe illness occurs.
Maybe if we value knowledge, we could say it’s the accumulation in our knowledge as humans, our scientific progress and ability to solve problems is the reason for our place at the top of the pile?
We would have to ask the question, what use is knowledge when we are still no further in overcoming our propensity for more gaining advantage over our brethren, our proclivity for selfishness, greed and dominance over each other, for power and influence not to mention outright corruption i.e. the misuse of all that comes with knowledge and power.
Where’s the progression there?
The British Medical Journal, the foremost authority on British scientific articles and research has declared that science is corrupt and is beyond saving. Science and academia has been infiltrated by the rich and powerful and are now tools for their own ends.
There is a further irony with the views of those who believe humans to be at the top of the pile. In seeing it this way, you see yourself as part of the pile. But the assertion is how we are different from, or separate from the pile. It’s a contradiction and it’s a contradiction because the premise is false. It’s the only explanation. It follows that if you are part of nature then you are not better than anything else because there is no inherent value in complexity over simplicity. And you certainly are not progressing because nature, what you are part of by your own slippery admission, does not progress. It changes. It moves, evolves, rises and falls.
We simply cant have it both ways. We can’t say that nature progresses and also that humans are not part of the natural world, or separated from it.
The idea of better or progression is yet another human centric idea that we have imposed on the world. The World of course being the state of affairs that we imbue with meaning, with narrative, with a sense of story – THE MENTAL CONSTRUCT.
See last week’s post for more on this.
Maybe we could say that life has evolved to have meaning, to have beauty, and it’s come all the way from a meaningless, empty void with stark beginnings.
But again this is only viewing things from the story of the earth. If we widen our boundaries and include the whole universe in the story, there it’s plainly obvious that what has been happening is that worlds and minds have been fizzling into existence for a short amount of time and then disappearing again as things are destroyed. There is rise and fall in everything. Something is here and then it is not here. Conscious beings have probably been popping in and out of existence since infinity.
The big bang?
What was before that?
Some people say now that’s a process that’s been going on forever too. Some say there are multiple universes and multiple big bangs.
Ok….let’s come down to earth for a moment!
The reason I went into that realm of hurting your head with ideas is to show that once again, complexity and progression are only there when we see phenomena through a very narrow human perspective that doesn’t take everything else into account.
Nature, phenomena is NEUTRAL. WE come along and apply the meaning to it. We see it in terms of good and bad, better or worse, with our binary way of viewing everything.
Why is it important to know this?
For me, these conclusions are the antidote to a very hostile and arrogant point of view we hold about humans and human consciousness somehow being superior to the rest of nature.
From this self made vantage point, we make decisions that enhance the divide between us and our environment, whether that we the natural world we disrespect, or the community who we distance ourselves from in the pursuit of self made gains, bolstering our rights whilst simultaneously shedding our responsibilities.
The notion of ‘best’, closely aligned with the notion that we are the end of some linear progression of life forms, actually fortifies our sense of separateness, the very thing at the root of alienation and suffering on all levels. This is precisely what some religious or spiritual traditions are referring to when they talk about the illusion of self. It really is an illusion. It implies separation. I would say we are connected but just not in the ways you would think. Seeing ourselves as within nature is not a some anodyne, saccharine sweet notion of togetherness to generate smiles, it’s a cold hard interaction with reality on proper terms, a notion that brings us back down to earth not further away from it.
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