Dark Matter
The tangible, the recognisable corollary, the obvious, are easily seen, but there are aspects to life that for us mortals, can remain hidden, a mystery. I am told that in our universe the galaxies, stars, and planets that go to make the visible matter have insufficient mass to account for the gravitation force observed. The current thinking is that the majority of the mass of the universe is made up from Dark Matter: unseen, and unquantified but who's influence is so significant. This short next passage put me in mind of dark matter.
The Ethereal Spirit: Beauty and Passion
There is, form with in the metamorphosis that the Human Condition represents, an element of the intangible: aspect to our existence that defy an analysis of its origins. Abilities, that in some contorted way move the nature of our instincts in a direction not possible for other animals. Looking at the condition academically, one can get lost in the reasoned corollary of morality, and the technical functioning of language, abstract though, and beliefs, et al but there are things beyond that, that for me have no obviously discernible emanation (although I am sure they must have one).
What robbed us of just "being": of only living in the hear and now, gave us an expansion to the state of existence: of memories and expectation, of past and future. We see the past as something more than just events gone by but have the remembered emotions of given events: and, not only do we know the future has an element of predictability but that that predictability is to some degree at our control. A new universe has been opened up to us, the universe of the mind. The "here and now" is the world of those that can only live in the present, it is an existence of crisis and reaction. Man has the realms of the mind in which to roam, and escape to the vaults of his imagination, from which to create: his own stimulus his own plans and scheme of pro-action. Man can quantify: good, better, best, He feels. His emotions allow him to feel and live beyond the immediacy of the here and now, away from crisis, to order and construction. To quantify each as good or bad. To create: to compose and hear, and hearing appreciate the sound of a beautiful piece of music or gaze in awe at the majesty of a sunset over land scape and has skills to capture it in paint. And driven with strength and push every bit as powerful as the instinctual, he has passion, passion driven by the intellect of his mind, it's as if he has grown wing and taken flight and soared to the heights of heaven to find his ethereal spirit of beauty perceived and passions created.
Of all the elements of the human condition this one is probably the most mystical and deep and yet (or perhaps as proof of such) it is the one I can find lest talk about. It is the Dark matter of the human condition.
What robbed us of just "being": of only living in the hear and now, gave us an expansion to the state of existence: of memories and expectation, of past and future. We see the past as something more than just events gone by but have the remembered emotions of given events: and, not only do we know the future has an element of predictability but that that predictability is to some degree at our control. A new universe has been opened up to us, the universe of the mind. The "here and now" is the world of those that can only live in the present, it is an existence of crisis and reaction. Man has the realms of the mind in which to roam, and escape to the vaults of his imagination, from which to create: his own stimulus his own plans and scheme of pro-action. Man can quantify: good, better, best, He feels. His emotions allow him to feel and live beyond the immediacy of the here and now, away from crisis, to order and construction. To quantify each as good or bad. To create: to compose and hear, and hearing appreciate the sound of a beautiful piece of music or gaze in awe at the majesty of a sunset over land scape and has skills to capture it in paint. And driven with strength and push every bit as powerful as the instinctual, he has passion, passion driven by the intellect of his mind, it's as if he has grown wing and taken flight and soared to the heights of heaven to find his ethereal spirit of beauty perceived and passions created.
Of all the elements of the human condition this one is probably the most mystical and deep and yet (or perhaps as proof of such) it is the one I can find lest talk about. It is the Dark matter of the human condition.
Morality, Beliefs and The Future.
Introduction
I am not well read. I am not an academic, I have not been to university. I'm am telling you this because to some extent I'm a bit of an apologist for my writing, not having the tickets or credentials of academic authority to give weight to my voice, and consequently my insecurity on the matter makes me reticent at being too out spoken but on theses issues, that are the centre of my thinking I fell so impassioned that I will voice more of my opinion.
There are both advantages and disadvantages in ploughing ones own furrow: in finding the answers for oneself as opposed to studying the history of other peoples thoughts: Against, is the danger that one is just reinventing an already made wheel, but conversely, in not being well read, it dose allow one the freedom to not be encumbered with the preconceptions of other peoples thoughts.
However before writing this part of the human condition I did do a little research into what other philosophers have written on the subject of morality. I was bitterly disappointed with what I found. A plethora of semantics and procrastinations of bewildering proportions that to my mind completely misses the point. I feel that over the years people have felt compelled to add their two-pence worth, to make one very over egged pudding, for something that is in reality very simple, if a bit complicated to explain.
Morality and belief are the two topics that are central in my philosophy. and from with in their substance lies the out come to the future, but like love, Morality is "one of those words" whose meaning is often lost to assumption. so let me beginning by giving my meaning as I use it in this writing..
Sisideas
I am not well read. I am not an academic, I have not been to university. I'm am telling you this because to some extent I'm a bit of an apologist for my writing, not having the tickets or credentials of academic authority to give weight to my voice, and consequently my insecurity on the matter makes me reticent at being too out spoken but on theses issues, that are the centre of my thinking I fell so impassioned that I will voice more of my opinion.
There are both advantages and disadvantages in ploughing ones own furrow: in finding the answers for oneself as opposed to studying the history of other peoples thoughts: Against, is the danger that one is just reinventing an already made wheel, but conversely, in not being well read, it dose allow one the freedom to not be encumbered with the preconceptions of other peoples thoughts.
However before writing this part of the human condition I did do a little research into what other philosophers have written on the subject of morality. I was bitterly disappointed with what I found. A plethora of semantics and procrastinations of bewildering proportions that to my mind completely misses the point. I feel that over the years people have felt compelled to add their two-pence worth, to make one very over egged pudding, for something that is in reality very simple, if a bit complicated to explain.
Morality and belief are the two topics that are central in my philosophy. and from with in their substance lies the out come to the future, but like love, Morality is "one of those words" whose meaning is often lost to assumption. so let me beginning by giving my meaning as I use it in this writing..
Sisideas
Morality
Lets get "good" out of the way first
Morality is most certainly one of those words that we brandish about with great alacrity, assuming its meaning or more accurately that its "quantification" is obvious. Of its self, "morality" is just a word that is given to describes a concept of (usually) behaviour, as being either good or bad. The difficult part is "evaluating" that which is good or bad. The debate ends up being, in effect the, defining of a value for "good" as it relates to behaviour. The problem, if we carry on down this road, is that we need to set up and define contextual parameters (eg. all behaviour done on a Tuesday is good lol) in order to find a criteria that quantifies a value for good. I feel that this is where the more traditional explorations on this subject get lost in a morass of conjecture. However, I feel that an assumption has been made in regard to the pursuit of morality. Although I can see a logic in assuming that as we have this notion of morality: that to do "good" (what ever tit turned out to be) would or could be beneficial. But to presupposes that because we have a sense or notion of being able to do right or wrong in regard to behaviour, that this scene or notion is (only) there for the pursuit of moral behaviour, dose not necessarily follow. Just because we have a sense of morality dose not mean that that sense came about for the purpose of pursuing that ability: of being good, being moral. It could just as easily be there coincidently and its origins emanate from a more lateral perspective. I contend that the pursuit of evaluating good for the purposes of define morality in order to be moral is spurious and unnecessary. That is not to say that there is no value in defining or perusing that which we deem moral it is just that we can not presuppose that because we have a sense of it we should feel compelled to pursue it or at least not until we know what it is we pursue and why. .
A Sense from where?
By dint of the fact that man has a word that is for the quantification of his behaviour: morality, it would follow that one can say that man has a sense of being able to do either good or bad in regard to his behaviour and presumably that he feels he has a degree of control over which of these values he exercises. this must pose the question why dose man have this ability, where and how did he acquire it?
Clearly part of this sense of morality: must be a matter that is of my "human condition" that is to say unique to man. I do not believe that animals either can or do quantify their behaviour: well I might want to modify that by saying that clearly there must be a rudimentary quantification of good or bad in terms of surviving, for-instance how an animal responded to danger could potentially be a life or death decision or further-more a predator may well have to learn from unsuccessful hunts for food so to that extent would need to have some form of mechanism (all be-it Instinctual) with which to modify it's strategy. But I do not believe there to be an abstracted analysis in consideration of behaviour as such. However man, as I suggested in the passage of writing "laws of nature" would have acquired a much more sophisticated view of causality from an understanding of the laws of nature, particularly to his own actions. Consequently, applying a analytical examination to his behaviour would give him a sense of doing the right or wrong in regard to his actions, but this of course would or could only be with in the context of right or wrong from a survival point of view. So I would contend that in part a sense morality would have come from nothing more complicated than his new found understanding of the laws of nature which allowed him to see the consequentiality of his actions both in hind sight and for sight. I said this is partly contributed to his sense of morality, but morality has an aspect to it that is not reflected in this suggestion alone.
Morality: A Higher Flavour from outside the box.
In the previous paragraph I suggest that there is something missing from the simplistic animalistic view, where the value or criteria of good or bad is only dictated by the relative merits of an action being good or bad for survival. I feel there is a common perception of "morality" as having a higher, elevated sense of good. But from where and how would we perceive a criteria that would give us a higher elevated sense of good, if all our current motivation and "benchmark calibrating" is from the selfishness of our instincts. I contend that the only reason an animal dose anything is because of its instinct to survive and procreate. Outside of that I can see no motivating force that would direct us to believe other wise. To have any form of fundamental change to our perception on anything, surly we would have to step out side of the confines of our animal instincts and supplant a different criteria with which to find any kind of different (good or bad) analytical benchmark.
What else is there that could directs our existence to live. we can, as man's ego allows, dream up sophisticated constructions to distract and entertain and give ourselves the illusion of something more elevated and yes man can do "good" things but we can't recognise and quantify the motivations for such actions other than saying that they are in some way still part of our instinctual nature.
Once born all life is driven, motivated to survive and procreate. It is only with dire conditions or mental instability that we, man can break this drive and come to suicide. So is that it? or is there something with in the human condition that lest us find ......... what ? some elevated idealistic motivation, or indeed any other form of motivating criteria?
Philosophy is speculating. an extraordinary mix of guessing and hypothesizing. Of course guessing and hypothesizing are in effect the opposite ends to the same length of string, most hypotheses will have an element of imaginative guesswork and conversely most guesswork will contain a degree of rational. What I am about to consider is pure conjecture of this nature:
It's not that we see "good", it's that we see "bad".
As part of the aforementioned "explosion of realities" I suggested that man became aware of his own death, his mortality, and I considered that this must have had a profound affect on his psych. Lets take that thought one step further. Man the hunter gatherer has a successful hunt, long and arduous he tracks down his quarry. Finally the mammoth is cornered. the hunter can see the terror in the beast's eyes. He knows that terror. He has considers his own death. As he plunges the fatal spear deep into the helpless best, he watches the animals life fade away. Its eyes close in death. Did man for the first time feels the empathy with this creature. No other animal considers the death of prey, but man having considered his own death, can. He is full of conflicting emotions: extreme excitement at he hunt, relief at having a bounty of food for himself and his family .... and yet ... and yet he thinks, this animal has died ... died that he might live.
Why did he paint the images of those animals he hunted on the cave walls of his home? Was it out of a sense of reverence to the spirit of the animal that had given him life? Did he feel guilt? Was man's sense morality born of guilt, of feeling that the very nature of his existence had "forced" him to do something bad: at lest bad for the beats he kills? Did he see the walls to his box when he gimps the nature of his existence? That the nature of his existence was at the expense of other life.
And so like infant twins from Pandora's Box escaped the notions;
Good, Bad,
Cloaked in raiments
Of love and justice
Guilt and shame
To perplex the soul of man.
exert Tangled Constructions Sisideas
To make sense of the shadows in the darkness
Of its self, this awareness, that man has to kill to survive, is just that but I do feel that such an awareness must have had an effect on man. No it would not have given him a new motivational drive, but possible by showing him the nature to his existence, it may well have shown him that his existence had "confines" walls, parameters and all though he may not have been able to see what lay outside the walls of his existence it could have given him a sense of something beyond the scope his animal experience. That because he had a dependency on the animals he hunted there was a sense of his own "imperfection" of his own frailty. It may well be ironic that our scene of "moral good" was shown to us because of our imperfection , our bad.
From the "explosion of realities" man was able to ask questions that emanated from the prepositions who, what, why, where, how and if but for many of the questions he asked there was no answer forth coming: nothing to placate his curiosity or quell his fears, nothing to help him make sense of his new found reality. But then man has the tools with which too create realities: to make sense of that which is hidden from him, to invent a world beyond his own, of perfection, of heaven. His imagination can set beliefs to the existence beyond his own.
Morality is most certainly one of those words that we brandish about with great alacrity, assuming its meaning or more accurately that its "quantification" is obvious. Of its self, "morality" is just a word that is given to describes a concept of (usually) behaviour, as being either good or bad. The difficult part is "evaluating" that which is good or bad. The debate ends up being, in effect the, defining of a value for "good" as it relates to behaviour. The problem, if we carry on down this road, is that we need to set up and define contextual parameters (eg. all behaviour done on a Tuesday is good lol) in order to find a criteria that quantifies a value for good. I feel that this is where the more traditional explorations on this subject get lost in a morass of conjecture. However, I feel that an assumption has been made in regard to the pursuit of morality. Although I can see a logic in assuming that as we have this notion of morality: that to do "good" (what ever tit turned out to be) would or could be beneficial. But to presupposes that because we have a sense or notion of being able to do right or wrong in regard to behaviour, that this scene or notion is (only) there for the pursuit of moral behaviour, dose not necessarily follow. Just because we have a sense of morality dose not mean that that sense came about for the purpose of pursuing that ability: of being good, being moral. It could just as easily be there coincidently and its origins emanate from a more lateral perspective. I contend that the pursuit of evaluating good for the purposes of define morality in order to be moral is spurious and unnecessary. That is not to say that there is no value in defining or perusing that which we deem moral it is just that we can not presuppose that because we have a sense of it we should feel compelled to pursue it or at least not until we know what it is we pursue and why. .
A Sense from where?
By dint of the fact that man has a word that is for the quantification of his behaviour: morality, it would follow that one can say that man has a sense of being able to do either good or bad in regard to his behaviour and presumably that he feels he has a degree of control over which of these values he exercises. this must pose the question why dose man have this ability, where and how did he acquire it?
Clearly part of this sense of morality: must be a matter that is of my "human condition" that is to say unique to man. I do not believe that animals either can or do quantify their behaviour: well I might want to modify that by saying that clearly there must be a rudimentary quantification of good or bad in terms of surviving, for-instance how an animal responded to danger could potentially be a life or death decision or further-more a predator may well have to learn from unsuccessful hunts for food so to that extent would need to have some form of mechanism (all be-it Instinctual) with which to modify it's strategy. But I do not believe there to be an abstracted analysis in consideration of behaviour as such. However man, as I suggested in the passage of writing "laws of nature" would have acquired a much more sophisticated view of causality from an understanding of the laws of nature, particularly to his own actions. Consequently, applying a analytical examination to his behaviour would give him a sense of doing the right or wrong in regard to his actions, but this of course would or could only be with in the context of right or wrong from a survival point of view. So I would contend that in part a sense morality would have come from nothing more complicated than his new found understanding of the laws of nature which allowed him to see the consequentiality of his actions both in hind sight and for sight. I said this is partly contributed to his sense of morality, but morality has an aspect to it that is not reflected in this suggestion alone.
Morality: A Higher Flavour from outside the box.
In the previous paragraph I suggest that there is something missing from the simplistic animalistic view, where the value or criteria of good or bad is only dictated by the relative merits of an action being good or bad for survival. I feel there is a common perception of "morality" as having a higher, elevated sense of good. But from where and how would we perceive a criteria that would give us a higher elevated sense of good, if all our current motivation and "benchmark calibrating" is from the selfishness of our instincts. I contend that the only reason an animal dose anything is because of its instinct to survive and procreate. Outside of that I can see no motivating force that would direct us to believe other wise. To have any form of fundamental change to our perception on anything, surly we would have to step out side of the confines of our animal instincts and supplant a different criteria with which to find any kind of different (good or bad) analytical benchmark.
What else is there that could directs our existence to live. we can, as man's ego allows, dream up sophisticated constructions to distract and entertain and give ourselves the illusion of something more elevated and yes man can do "good" things but we can't recognise and quantify the motivations for such actions other than saying that they are in some way still part of our instinctual nature.
Once born all life is driven, motivated to survive and procreate. It is only with dire conditions or mental instability that we, man can break this drive and come to suicide. So is that it? or is there something with in the human condition that lest us find ......... what ? some elevated idealistic motivation, or indeed any other form of motivating criteria?
Philosophy is speculating. an extraordinary mix of guessing and hypothesizing. Of course guessing and hypothesizing are in effect the opposite ends to the same length of string, most hypotheses will have an element of imaginative guesswork and conversely most guesswork will contain a degree of rational. What I am about to consider is pure conjecture of this nature:
It's not that we see "good", it's that we see "bad".
As part of the aforementioned "explosion of realities" I suggested that man became aware of his own death, his mortality, and I considered that this must have had a profound affect on his psych. Lets take that thought one step further. Man the hunter gatherer has a successful hunt, long and arduous he tracks down his quarry. Finally the mammoth is cornered. the hunter can see the terror in the beast's eyes. He knows that terror. He has considers his own death. As he plunges the fatal spear deep into the helpless best, he watches the animals life fade away. Its eyes close in death. Did man for the first time feels the empathy with this creature. No other animal considers the death of prey, but man having considered his own death, can. He is full of conflicting emotions: extreme excitement at he hunt, relief at having a bounty of food for himself and his family .... and yet ... and yet he thinks, this animal has died ... died that he might live.
Why did he paint the images of those animals he hunted on the cave walls of his home? Was it out of a sense of reverence to the spirit of the animal that had given him life? Did he feel guilt? Was man's sense morality born of guilt, of feeling that the very nature of his existence had "forced" him to do something bad: at lest bad for the beats he kills? Did he see the walls to his box when he gimps the nature of his existence? That the nature of his existence was at the expense of other life.
And so like infant twins from Pandora's Box escaped the notions;
Good, Bad,
Cloaked in raiments
Of love and justice
Guilt and shame
To perplex the soul of man.
exert Tangled Constructions Sisideas
To make sense of the shadows in the darkness
Of its self, this awareness, that man has to kill to survive, is just that but I do feel that such an awareness must have had an effect on man. No it would not have given him a new motivational drive, but possible by showing him the nature to his existence, it may well have shown him that his existence had "confines" walls, parameters and all though he may not have been able to see what lay outside the walls of his existence it could have given him a sense of something beyond the scope his animal experience. That because he had a dependency on the animals he hunted there was a sense of his own "imperfection" of his own frailty. It may well be ironic that our scene of "moral good" was shown to us because of our imperfection , our bad.
From the "explosion of realities" man was able to ask questions that emanated from the prepositions who, what, why, where, how and if but for many of the questions he asked there was no answer forth coming: nothing to placate his curiosity or quell his fears, nothing to help him make sense of his new found reality. But then man has the tools with which too create realities: to make sense of that which is hidden from him, to invent a world beyond his own, of perfection, of heaven. His imagination can set beliefs to the existence beyond his own.
Belief
There is, I feel a sense, in today's society that makes a synonymous connection between beliefs and searching for a higher ideals with which to live our lives. I however am not convinced of this connection: I certainly feel that the origins of our having beliefs has a more human countenance than that. I am suggesting that we were just looking for answers to "the shadows in the dark" to the truly imponderable question that had arisen from acquiring an awareness of the nature of our existence.
If my conjecture is right: that man's recognition of his impotents (in regard to his birth and death) and that his life is dependant on the death of other life has had a profound psychological effect on him, it would not be that surprising for him to look for and or create an imaginative scenario that would encompass a "logical" understanding of such awarenesses.
The Creation of Gods
I don't know why man painted the animals he hunted but for reverence or not, It would be understandable for him to attribute a sense of reverence to those things around him that sustained him: at first those thing of immediate accessible like the animals he hunted the trees and fruits he gathered, but then in time it would include more of the mechanics that orchestrated his environment like the sun and moon fire and water.
The birth of a polytheistic culture was inevitable. Although it's inception may well have been as a consequence of reverence and looking for answers it fitted well with his psyche and perhaps helped with any sense of guilt but there was always going to be a development that would transform this relative banal relationship to that of a more the consequential one.
The Ironic Paradox: Create a creator to be it's creation!
There is certain "lunacy" to worshipping/reverencing an inanimate object but imbibe that object with a persona, a spirit of being, and one is no longer worshipping the inanimate: it has been transformed to a manifestation of the spirit that resides with in the object.
Gods are made by man and the nature of that creation: man's gods, reflects the nature of man himself, his alter ego perhaps. Man wants power and knowledge and so attributes his gods with that those qualities. Before long the gods of his creation are his creators, more powerful than man is and so it should be, that is, how his belief's will make sense of his existence. Beliefs work! They "work" where there is absolute belief in the substance of the belief. By work I mean that their conviction can set a motivation of action based on what he believes. He can accepts his frailty if he is "friends" with that which is the orchestrator of his existence. He can please his gods, with gifts and acts of valour and appease them with sacrifice. In turn his gods can coercively manipulate him with guilt and shame, he has a relationship with his alter ego.
Perverted Gods
What we now, can see as the ridiculous excesses of superstition was the hideous perversion of his dietial alter-ego relationship, where man's over-active sense of corollary (and guilt): made him responsible for the vagaries of his environment. Seeing the failure of a harvest or the ravages of disease as the displeasure of his gods.
Human sacrifices, witch hunts and wars to please the gods, To day we can look back at history and view the influence of religions and belief with disdain; at the atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of one religion or another. But then as I said at the beginning, belief and for that matter morality, although they may have an air of living to a higher ideal, they were not (in my opinion) conceived as that, but more just as part of the corollary to answering our imponderable questions. To assuage our sense of guilt and as a means of coming to terms with our impotence and all by creating the gods of our alter ego, to be the perfection that we perceived were not. Greek and Roman Gods, the Celtic druids the Nordic gods of Scandinavia the elaborate constructions of the pyramids by the Egyptian Pharaohs was only surpassed by the complexity of the spiritual religious construction: all are the creations of man to help him come to terms with his existence, of life and death.
But What of Today?
Belief is not a choice. It is not a search for a higher ideal per-say. It is a consequence of abstract thought. If one has the intellect to pose the questions like: What is the meaning of life? or what is my purpose?, no matter how nihilistic the answer is, it will be a belief, as the answers to such questions are improvable, they are forever the purview of philosophy.
So we all have a belief, like it or not. To hark back to the writing "Child to Adult Transition" this is the time our children begin to consider the imponderable questions of life. As to what or how they interpret their particular philosophical imponderables will to some extent depend as to what they have been exposed to in their formative years. For many of us, we perpetuate the understanding and faith of our family or culture, but with out such influences, children can be left to fill the void themselves. Our culture to day, particularly that of a decadent western culture, can leave our children to the vacuous banalities of a shallow materialistic world: social network gossiping and an immersion in a decadent party culture. Without contradicting my self they are left bereft of principles, of ideals with which to live there lives. That is not because they should look for higher ideals with which to live there lives, it is that they should be able to find "adequate" answers to their perplexing questions that give some form of resolution to who they are and what life is about.
They need to from a belief, as an answer to these questions, they will, (or may) just find ideals or principles coincidently. But I feel they should be helped to create their beliefs as a concious made construction. In short we all have a belief. we all need something to believe in. It would surely make sense that that belief was a fully consciously considered one.
If my conjecture is right: that man's recognition of his impotents (in regard to his birth and death) and that his life is dependant on the death of other life has had a profound psychological effect on him, it would not be that surprising for him to look for and or create an imaginative scenario that would encompass a "logical" understanding of such awarenesses.
The Creation of Gods
I don't know why man painted the animals he hunted but for reverence or not, It would be understandable for him to attribute a sense of reverence to those things around him that sustained him: at first those thing of immediate accessible like the animals he hunted the trees and fruits he gathered, but then in time it would include more of the mechanics that orchestrated his environment like the sun and moon fire and water.
The birth of a polytheistic culture was inevitable. Although it's inception may well have been as a consequence of reverence and looking for answers it fitted well with his psyche and perhaps helped with any sense of guilt but there was always going to be a development that would transform this relative banal relationship to that of a more the consequential one.
The Ironic Paradox: Create a creator to be it's creation!
There is certain "lunacy" to worshipping/reverencing an inanimate object but imbibe that object with a persona, a spirit of being, and one is no longer worshipping the inanimate: it has been transformed to a manifestation of the spirit that resides with in the object.
Gods are made by man and the nature of that creation: man's gods, reflects the nature of man himself, his alter ego perhaps. Man wants power and knowledge and so attributes his gods with that those qualities. Before long the gods of his creation are his creators, more powerful than man is and so it should be, that is, how his belief's will make sense of his existence. Beliefs work! They "work" where there is absolute belief in the substance of the belief. By work I mean that their conviction can set a motivation of action based on what he believes. He can accepts his frailty if he is "friends" with that which is the orchestrator of his existence. He can please his gods, with gifts and acts of valour and appease them with sacrifice. In turn his gods can coercively manipulate him with guilt and shame, he has a relationship with his alter ego.
Perverted Gods
What we now, can see as the ridiculous excesses of superstition was the hideous perversion of his dietial alter-ego relationship, where man's over-active sense of corollary (and guilt): made him responsible for the vagaries of his environment. Seeing the failure of a harvest or the ravages of disease as the displeasure of his gods.
Human sacrifices, witch hunts and wars to please the gods, To day we can look back at history and view the influence of religions and belief with disdain; at the atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of one religion or another. But then as I said at the beginning, belief and for that matter morality, although they may have an air of living to a higher ideal, they were not (in my opinion) conceived as that, but more just as part of the corollary to answering our imponderable questions. To assuage our sense of guilt and as a means of coming to terms with our impotence and all by creating the gods of our alter ego, to be the perfection that we perceived were not. Greek and Roman Gods, the Celtic druids the Nordic gods of Scandinavia the elaborate constructions of the pyramids by the Egyptian Pharaohs was only surpassed by the complexity of the spiritual religious construction: all are the creations of man to help him come to terms with his existence, of life and death.
But What of Today?
Belief is not a choice. It is not a search for a higher ideal per-say. It is a consequence of abstract thought. If one has the intellect to pose the questions like: What is the meaning of life? or what is my purpose?, no matter how nihilistic the answer is, it will be a belief, as the answers to such questions are improvable, they are forever the purview of philosophy.
So we all have a belief, like it or not. To hark back to the writing "Child to Adult Transition" this is the time our children begin to consider the imponderable questions of life. As to what or how they interpret their particular philosophical imponderables will to some extent depend as to what they have been exposed to in their formative years. For many of us, we perpetuate the understanding and faith of our family or culture, but with out such influences, children can be left to fill the void themselves. Our culture to day, particularly that of a decadent western culture, can leave our children to the vacuous banalities of a shallow materialistic world: social network gossiping and an immersion in a decadent party culture. Without contradicting my self they are left bereft of principles, of ideals with which to live there lives. That is not because they should look for higher ideals with which to live there lives, it is that they should be able to find "adequate" answers to their perplexing questions that give some form of resolution to who they are and what life is about.
They need to from a belief, as an answer to these questions, they will, (or may) just find ideals or principles coincidently. But I feel they should be helped to create their beliefs as a concious made construction. In short we all have a belief. we all need something to believe in. It would surely make sense that that belief was a fully consciously considered one.
The Future.
"It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light,
it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to heaven,
e were all going direction of the other way."
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens.
Not withstanding, that this quotation comes from a well-known piece of fiction, I find it fascinating that historical words can echo down through the ages and still be as relevant as the day of their inception. One might say that in one sense, "nothing changes" but then I am not sure if that is true? Nevertheless Dickens's opening, to his novel the Tale of Two Cities, seems to be very apt for today.
Pessimistic by Nature
It may well be man's pessimistic nature, to see the times we live in as being the worst there's been, but then maybe, at heart we are conservative by nature, a fear of change and things new. Innovations down the ages have always been prophesied, by someone as going to be "the death of us". Of course there have always been the doom's-day-ists, a la Nostradamus to prophesy the beginning of Armageddon and they might well quote Clint Eastwood in one of the Dirty Harry movies "a man falling from a 10 storey block was heard to say, (as he passed the windows on the way down,)
"so far so good".
I do not wish to be or be seen as a doomsdayist, if by that one means a prophet of inevitable disasters, however if our falling man is an accurate analogy of humanity's situation and we wish to avoid the consequences of falling from a 10 storey block, we should probably get a safety net out, sooner rather than later.
So How do You See the Future?
When events contrive to stir the emotions,
To be touched by personal trauma
Or deluged by media's diet of dramatized disasters,
Impinged, we are, to thought provoked;
To take a passing glance at those things
Beyond the immediate cascade of crises
That is our lives, for most of us.
To ponder on the future,
Our own, mankind's ... existence.
Usually short-lived,
Such thoughts curtailed to a fatalistic resignation
Of things beyond our control,
We hope for the best,...
But fear for the worst,
As the more immediate crisis of;
“What shall I cook for tea?!”
Return to absorb the mind.
But fear provoked, questions remain unanswered
Two gnaw on the bones of hope;
What is the future for my children?
Exert from: Our Rubicund by Sisideas
As individuals, our particular circumstances are going to be our immediate reference in determining our view of the future. But so much of our personal situations are now determined by national and international events, the influence over which the individual has very little control. But there has always been an extraordinary symbiotic relationship between the individual and the collective. For most of us, we are but pawns in the machinations of the collective: of society, but a few rare "cogs" get to wield power and influence beyond the norm. Never-the-less most of us see "the Future" as purview of governments, as being the guiding, decision making body and consequently employ a collective sense to the future: our future, mankind's.
From a perspective of the Human Condition, man sees the future in a different way from other animals. To have an understanding of time: as the "container" to endless stream of consequential events from the activities of subatomic particles to the birth and death of galaxies, this requires a mind capable of sophisticated abstract thought. What is, to other animals just the consequentiality of day following night, the future for man, can be perceived as a void of empty time stretching before him. This void can be filled with creations from his imagination He can plan and map out a future, or can he?
To explore an answer to this question I have broken it up to three more specific question on which to hang my thoughts:
Is man in control of his own destiny?
Dose he know what he wants?
Dose he know how to get it?
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light,
it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to heaven,
e were all going direction of the other way."
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens.
Not withstanding, that this quotation comes from a well-known piece of fiction, I find it fascinating that historical words can echo down through the ages and still be as relevant as the day of their inception. One might say that in one sense, "nothing changes" but then I am not sure if that is true? Nevertheless Dickens's opening, to his novel the Tale of Two Cities, seems to be very apt for today.
Pessimistic by Nature
It may well be man's pessimistic nature, to see the times we live in as being the worst there's been, but then maybe, at heart we are conservative by nature, a fear of change and things new. Innovations down the ages have always been prophesied, by someone as going to be "the death of us". Of course there have always been the doom's-day-ists, a la Nostradamus to prophesy the beginning of Armageddon and they might well quote Clint Eastwood in one of the Dirty Harry movies "a man falling from a 10 storey block was heard to say, (as he passed the windows on the way down,)
"so far so good".
I do not wish to be or be seen as a doomsdayist, if by that one means a prophet of inevitable disasters, however if our falling man is an accurate analogy of humanity's situation and we wish to avoid the consequences of falling from a 10 storey block, we should probably get a safety net out, sooner rather than later.
So How do You See the Future?
When events contrive to stir the emotions,
To be touched by personal trauma
Or deluged by media's diet of dramatized disasters,
Impinged, we are, to thought provoked;
To take a passing glance at those things
Beyond the immediate cascade of crises
That is our lives, for most of us.
To ponder on the future,
Our own, mankind's ... existence.
Usually short-lived,
Such thoughts curtailed to a fatalistic resignation
Of things beyond our control,
We hope for the best,...
But fear for the worst,
As the more immediate crisis of;
“What shall I cook for tea?!”
Return to absorb the mind.
But fear provoked, questions remain unanswered
Two gnaw on the bones of hope;
What is the future for my children?
Exert from: Our Rubicund by Sisideas
As individuals, our particular circumstances are going to be our immediate reference in determining our view of the future. But so much of our personal situations are now determined by national and international events, the influence over which the individual has very little control. But there has always been an extraordinary symbiotic relationship between the individual and the collective. For most of us, we are but pawns in the machinations of the collective: of society, but a few rare "cogs" get to wield power and influence beyond the norm. Never-the-less most of us see "the Future" as purview of governments, as being the guiding, decision making body and consequently employ a collective sense to the future: our future, mankind's.
From a perspective of the Human Condition, man sees the future in a different way from other animals. To have an understanding of time: as the "container" to endless stream of consequential events from the activities of subatomic particles to the birth and death of galaxies, this requires a mind capable of sophisticated abstract thought. What is, to other animals just the consequentiality of day following night, the future for man, can be perceived as a void of empty time stretching before him. This void can be filled with creations from his imagination He can plan and map out a future, or can he?
To explore an answer to this question I have broken it up to three more specific question on which to hang my thoughts:
Is man in control of his own destiny?
Dose he know what he wants?
Dose he know how to get it?
The Three Questions
Is Man in Control of His Own Destiny?
To be thoroughly pedantic for a moment, like so many questions asked, they set certain parameters with in its formation that renders yay or nay insufficient. Is - present tense, Man - the individual or mankind, control - absolute or relative, destiny - as in preordained or colloquial use. Even in "cutting to the chase" the answer would be yes and no. But perhaps a more obvious way to consider this question would be to look back at history and see if one can find any evidence for control in our past. this examination is quite lengthy so I have put it on a sub page: Civilised by Choice and Decision? (click to go to.)
To be thoroughly pedantic for a moment, like so many questions asked, they set certain parameters with in its formation that renders yay or nay insufficient. Is - present tense, Man - the individual or mankind, control - absolute or relative, destiny - as in preordained or colloquial use. Even in "cutting to the chase" the answer would be yes and no. But perhaps a more obvious way to consider this question would be to look back at history and see if one can find any evidence for control in our past. this examination is quite lengthy so I have put it on a sub page: Civilised by Choice and Decision? (click to go to.)
Assuming
Assuming you have read Civilised By Choice and Decision, but here is a quick recap:
Where Have I Got To?
I In this piece of writing I asked the question "did man become civilised by choice and decision".
I made the assumption that there was a perception that man did believe he had become civilised though time and was continuing in the same and that humanity was the orchestrator of the same.
I looked at the word civilised and focused on the moral behavioural aspect.
I went on to look at history as being in constant change, a continuous chain of events.
I posed the question if one could see/detect the nature of decision that brought about change.
I noted that for my purposes, only some changes would be apposite. and I focused on events that dealt with the behaviour: of how man treated his fellow man.
I recognised that man live in a hierarchy structure of haves and have nots. that some times the disparity between these two factions can get too great and led to conflict
I focused on revolutions as being a good source for looking at man behaviour to each other
I postulate that revolution is just the working out of our instinctual dominance a-kin to a sliver back- leader in a troop of gorillas.
I noted that there was a sense of morality to revolutions in that the protagonist cause often represented justice .
I pick out Martin Luther's theses as being very significant not just as a mark of The Reformation but as a statement of defiance against the church
that in many ways it signified the end of church dominance over free thinking.
I site Decarte to support this claim
I claim that the reformation can be see as a revolution
I asked if it can be seen as civilising change
I say that it was the beginning of many revolutions over the next 300 years and that collectively the out come can be seen as civilising in that it fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between the "haves and the have nots"
Leadership could no longer wielded its power with out consent and consideration.
I concluded that change was initiated by individuals.
That what was civilising happened out with both choice and decision.
that belief was so strong in terms of motivation and that it blind men from seeing the real agenda .
Where Have I Got To?
I In this piece of writing I asked the question "did man become civilised by choice and decision".
I made the assumption that there was a perception that man did believe he had become civilised though time and was continuing in the same and that humanity was the orchestrator of the same.
I looked at the word civilised and focused on the moral behavioural aspect.
I went on to look at history as being in constant change, a continuous chain of events.
I posed the question if one could see/detect the nature of decision that brought about change.
I noted that for my purposes, only some changes would be apposite. and I focused on events that dealt with the behaviour: of how man treated his fellow man.
I recognised that man live in a hierarchy structure of haves and have nots. that some times the disparity between these two factions can get too great and led to conflict
I focused on revolutions as being a good source for looking at man behaviour to each other
I postulate that revolution is just the working out of our instinctual dominance a-kin to a sliver back- leader in a troop of gorillas.
I noted that there was a sense of morality to revolutions in that the protagonist cause often represented justice .
I pick out Martin Luther's theses as being very significant not just as a mark of The Reformation but as a statement of defiance against the church
that in many ways it signified the end of church dominance over free thinking.
I site Decarte to support this claim
I claim that the reformation can be see as a revolution
I asked if it can be seen as civilising change
I say that it was the beginning of many revolutions over the next 300 years and that collectively the out come can be seen as civilising in that it fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between the "haves and the have nots"
Leadership could no longer wielded its power with out consent and consideration.
I concluded that change was initiated by individuals.
That what was civilising happened out with both choice and decision.
that belief was so strong in terms of motivation and that it blind men from seeing the real agenda .
Confusing Conclusion
From what I can see from history, the answer to my question "Did man become civilised buy choice and decision" the out come is a trifle confused: that we have become civilised is in my opinion valid but I find little or no evidence that would support man (as in man-kind) as being in "control" of his own destiny (destiny- a designed place to go to.) How ever, it is very apparent that inspired passionate individuals have sufficient influence on the collective to direct progress.
When I read this question I cant help but have an image in my mind of mankind sitting at the steering wheel of a car or may be a train on tracks. This vehicle is moving, perhaps on a slope: it is at the "mercy" of gravity. As to the various objects that appear in front of him, he tries to negotiate his way round them or drives through them.. a war here a famine there pollution, global warming, etc. So I suppose to some extent he is making decisions which gives him the feeling of being in control as he reacts to the issues that arise.
Dose he Know What He Wants?
Well, that, I suppose depends on whether he's has asked the question of himself in the terms that one means the question. As a reactive animal, the agenda of what man wants at anyone time, appears to be set by those things that arise: a satisfactory out come to the issues of the day. It is as I have said before more of a management by crisis with out suggesting pejorative, but as a description of it's nature.
On a more metaphysical out look, the question has already been spoken for in that it would appear that our existence ontologically speaking is one of survival. It is, to that extent something we cant help but do, and the make-up of all decisions whether we see them as such, at the time, is following that basic nature. Do we know that is what we want? consciously? The question doesn't really arise or is not apposite in that to consciously want, requires one to see a goal and be proactive in obtaining it, it is creative, proactive. It is not that man is incapable of being creative it is just that there is no evidence to suggest that he employs it in regard to the nature of his existence.
The good thing about the instinctual approach is that such an open instructive motivation, that of Survival is that it is a "prescription" for any event: it allows for absolute flexibility of application in any circumstance. Its down side is that by its nature tends to be reactive and not creative: it dose not have the suggestion of being proactive in its nature. it is a command of defence and not attack (metaphorically speaking). So hear we are in our vehicle, moving along at the behest of time (gravity to our car) and suffering the effects of our journey as we go, but we don't actually know where we are going? We are at the vagaries of our runaway car trying our best to avoid the pitfalls. surely in terms of being in control, we should know or at least acknowledge where we are going?
Dose he know how to get it?
Logically, it would stand to reason, that if we did not know what we wanted, we would be unlikely to know how to get it. It dose have to be said though, we are good at surviving, so it might be fair to assume that should we work out what we want, or in my car analogy, where we want to go, we could, by applying the same abilities that made us successful at surviving, to that goal: of where we want to be.
When I read this question I cant help but have an image in my mind of mankind sitting at the steering wheel of a car or may be a train on tracks. This vehicle is moving, perhaps on a slope: it is at the "mercy" of gravity. As to the various objects that appear in front of him, he tries to negotiate his way round them or drives through them.. a war here a famine there pollution, global warming, etc. So I suppose to some extent he is making decisions which gives him the feeling of being in control as he reacts to the issues that arise.
Dose he Know What He Wants?
Well, that, I suppose depends on whether he's has asked the question of himself in the terms that one means the question. As a reactive animal, the agenda of what man wants at anyone time, appears to be set by those things that arise: a satisfactory out come to the issues of the day. It is as I have said before more of a management by crisis with out suggesting pejorative, but as a description of it's nature.
On a more metaphysical out look, the question has already been spoken for in that it would appear that our existence ontologically speaking is one of survival. It is, to that extent something we cant help but do, and the make-up of all decisions whether we see them as such, at the time, is following that basic nature. Do we know that is what we want? consciously? The question doesn't really arise or is not apposite in that to consciously want, requires one to see a goal and be proactive in obtaining it, it is creative, proactive. It is not that man is incapable of being creative it is just that there is no evidence to suggest that he employs it in regard to the nature of his existence.
The good thing about the instinctual approach is that such an open instructive motivation, that of Survival is that it is a "prescription" for any event: it allows for absolute flexibility of application in any circumstance. Its down side is that by its nature tends to be reactive and not creative: it dose not have the suggestion of being proactive in its nature. it is a command of defence and not attack (metaphorically speaking). So hear we are in our vehicle, moving along at the behest of time (gravity to our car) and suffering the effects of our journey as we go, but we don't actually know where we are going? We are at the vagaries of our runaway car trying our best to avoid the pitfalls. surely in terms of being in control, we should know or at least acknowledge where we are going?
Dose he know how to get it?
Logically, it would stand to reason, that if we did not know what we wanted, we would be unlikely to know how to get it. It dose have to be said though, we are good at surviving, so it might be fair to assume that should we work out what we want, or in my car analogy, where we want to go, we could, by applying the same abilities that made us successful at surviving, to that goal: of where we want to be.
Conclusion to the Future
If one to ask a ten year-old child, "can he look after himself" he would probably answer "no" but if you were to say "do you believe that in eight years time you could" he and you would agree that he could or at least be very much more likely to be able to do so. We would, on the assumption, that during the intervening time he would have gained the abilities so to do. There is, I think a sense in which mankind is going through his "teenage angst" his years of, a collective coming aware of the nature of his/our existence. As to where we might be in that processes is hard to say but he attraction of this possibility is that change and growth is not only possible but inevitable, as to the nature of that change and growth..... well that must surely be dependent on what we see as the choices and what decisions we make to those choices.
Go to next: The Duality of Existence
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