Feeling , reflection and creation
Let us take another step into Gilad's notion of morality and the 'universal law'.
On the same paragraph in which Gilad describe his notion of temporality and revisionism , he goes on to say:
'The universal law is looked upon from the perspective of the future and past. Ethics and temporality can be seen as an endless dialogue between ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’. The present should be understood as a creative dynamic mode where past premeditates its future. But far more crucially, it is also where the imaginary future can re-write its past. I will try to elucidate this idea through a simple and hypothetical yet horrifying war scenario. We, for instance, can envisage an horrific situation in which an Israeli so-called ‘pre-emptive’ nuclear attack on Iran escalates into a disastrous nuclear war, in which tens of millions of people perish. I guess that amongst the survivors of such a nightmare scenario, some may be bold enough to argue that ‘Hitler might have been right after all...’ Atzmon, Gilad. The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics (p. 179).
What is the nature of this allusive 'imaginary future that re-writes it's past' ?
It is a moral conception that strive to relocate the judgment from oneself , to the collective , or rather the amorphous 'collectiveness'. In replacement of the religious image of the soul , giving account on her deeds and misdeeds in the after life ,to her creator ( or to her higher self ), the individual , or in this case , the people , should be thinking about the imaginary, future spectator, the casual spectator that may utter that 'hitler was right after all'. oh , the agony of being disapproved ! this should be the reasoning leading to moral judgments? replacing the anonymous 'judge' with a wise one doesn't change the matter. One can never really perform this act of looking through the eyes of a future spectator , for the simple reason that we indicated in the previous chapter – we make , by our moral decisions , a higher law , unpredictable , one that can only be pondered upon retrospectively . the only possibility for this higher law to become close to predictable , is if all the people will embrace a morality of the kind Gilad suggests. Than , when no more moral imaginations from the present 'here and now' will stream into people's actions, we will be able to really speak of humanity as a specie.
when we apply the kind of revisionism that Gilad suggest to nations ,the judge is the 'specie of humanity', which has proven to be self destructive.. therefore the moral impulse that should be adopted should be always what is conceived as 'pro survival' , in the reasoning limits of natural science.
this kind of revisionism is a tempting game to play, even if only to highlight it's absurdities :let's say i want to follow Gilad's example ; i will venture into imaginative scenario in which Israel is at war with Iran - doesn't matter who "started". since Israel is a tiny piece of land , narrower than average large city, with the Mediterranean on it's back , the war goes pretty bad for Israel. a rain of rockets fall on every spot in Israel ,from Lebanon's Hezbollah , Syrian Iranian troops and the Palestinian territories, targeting every city, town , and military base, with nowhere to escape. when confronting the risk of extermination, Israel unleash a decisive blow of nuclear attack , killing millions of people and bringing the war to an end.
one can than say , that the new nation of Israel , should have never give back the land it conquered in the battle against Egypt in the six days war. one of the argument for returning this vast lands ,except for the possibility of peace agreement , was that this land was not a part of the biblical , ancient Israel. if the new nation of Israel (new indeed when considering the term 'people' as immanent to their place of dwelling),would have been considering itself as a new entity, which have only the present considerations as the ground for it's actions, the hostility of the Arabs for the existence of Israel in the region , along with the strategic depth that this lands provide ,could have made a solid argument for staying in those territories, that would have help in case of a war.
but Israel apparently cared more for peace , and recognition from it's neighbors , and payed for this with the land it won fairly in battle , defending itself from the aggression of a much larger enemy surrounding it's borders .
try to imagine a dialogue between two people who share this method of moral conduction, but have totally different view on a certain contemporary issue of which they debate. their own method will draw them deeper and deeper into the past , for in each event in the past that one will use as the primal cause that led to the current event , the other will find an older, or balancing event, in which he will aim to show how it was some other cause that worked upon the first cause , and on that one the 'blame' should be ascribed. . without going too far they will reach, if they are lucky, to that era that one will regard as substantial and the other will regard as myth.
the revision that Gilad describe does not look to find anything about the entities ,the qualities that unfolds in time , that will enable moral imagination in the present , but observes through the eyes of a flock member , scrutinizing other members for their conformity, past and present , with what is conceived as promoting survival.
survival as the only morally valid inspiration is the outcome of Kant's universal morality , with it's inherent inability to reach into the depth of human essence ,
thus limiting it to what science feel secure in it's ability to fathom within the realm of life. but this is not the only thing that acts strongly into the moral impulses of contemporary humanity. the influence of reflective thinking, that uncreative ,dis-attached gaze that we already discussed , become more and more dominant in the realms of philosophy and morality , in the century that past since Steiner and Goethe reflected on this tendency in the human soul.
Gilad's 'imaginative future re write it's past' is the concealed slogan of moral desert , of conformity and double thinking ,with it's ambition to create moral balance between past and future.
in our days , while universal morality is the inspiration , reflective thinking is the tool , that instruct clearly what should be done in questions of morality. together it become the lighthouse , the atheist substitute for the church steeple , where morally barren people look
for directions. drawing to it's power millions of moral automatics from all nations across the world , leaning on its authority, too lazy to be able to engage in a morally fruitful discussion with themselves , let alone with other people. we came to such a dreadful situation , that anywhere today , in international politics , in the media , people and states, wave with 'international law' to support their claims , no matter how distorted or cynical . when this done by individuals , it could be understood on the ground of cultural influence of moral universalism , but when this is done by nations and international institutions , we can see in it the further embodiment of pragmatism ,into the moral impulses of humanity.
in this state of affairs , Israel , and the Israeli Palestinian conflict , could be a case study. the collision between two cultural entities which become polarities in many aspects , provide abundance of material for moral contemplations. . i will give an example of a situation from recent time , that will help us understand in real life the different altitudes of Steiner and Kant regarding moral conduction , as was elaborated mainly in the previous post.
the example i would like to present, is the complicated situation in which tens of thousands of Palestinians are gathered near the boarder line of the Gaza strip, with the declared intention to infiltrate the border. they are under severe blockade by Israel , that aim the prevent Hamas from bringing in arms ,(especially rockets, which they shoot regularly on Israeli villages before the blockade). the population , governed by Hamas for a decade , is extremely poor and miserable. most of the budget , much of it aid from other countries and organizations , went to mining tunnels for defensive purposes, mobilizing fighters underneath the city , as well as long ,cross border tunnels, aimed for attacks on Israeli villages near the border. no thought and means was taken to advance the civil infrastructure of the strip.
this mob , unable to direct it's frustration against Hamas , but more so unable to bear the humanitarian situation , was driven to the fence border, in what started as a civil initiative. Hamas quickly recognized the potential to ignite , and manipulate , global awareness to the situation in the Gaza strip.
against it stands the Israeli army , mostly with snipers. on their back , half a mile beyond , Israeli towns and Kibbutzim.
Hamas aim was to perk a hole in the fence , and kidnap soldiers , or run to the nearby Israeli town to execute a massacre.
there were posts in social media directing people to arms themselves with knifes and fence cutters, with maps directing to the nearest Israeli towns from the border. in addition , members of Hamas , and other military groups in the strip put explosives in the fence , throw Molotov's , and burned the fields on the Israeli side of the border with fire kites (primitive , but very efficient).
in this situation , not much wit , or imagination , is needed to draw the following situation : Israel does not take of the possibility to intimidate , by presenting a lethal cost to any bold attempt to cross the border. as a result , rioters are growing bolder and bolder in their attempts to cross, creating multiple near border events simultaneously.
at some point the fence is opened , and in one second , giving a mark , or by shouting , hundreds or even thousands of rioters start passing at the opening.
soldiers at this point have two options: run for their lives , maybe saving themselves , but abandoning the civilians at their back , or start a indiscriminate shooting at everything that moves , resulting in a true massacre.
this situation could be seen from another angle: Hamas consider one of two results as an achievement : a success in infiltrating the border , which will break a psychological barrier in the Israeli confidence of their ability to secure their borders, or a bloodshed , which will automatically raise a voice of alarm , and condemnation , in the international community ,presenting Israel as a murderous nation.
while the first option is a task that might be very hard to achieve , the second option seems to be easier to achieve. all is needed is to divert an already inflamed population , which is not allowed, or able, to resist against it's real oppressor (Hamas), toward the arch enemy (Israel) . with the glorification of martyrdom ( and the assured end of suffering) , along with easy methods of rioting the masses, the desired results are almost assured. Hamas knew very well that the qualitative aspects of what could be called a 'bloodbath' is not important , for the international mass media and the 'moral oscillators' of the international community are concerned with the arbitrary quantitative aspect , which will trigger their Pavlovian response.
for the ones who wished to examine it more thoroughly , the facts are right there:
on the deadliest day of the riots,( the opening of the U.S new embassy in Jerusalem) , there where 50-60 casualties, from around 40,000 rioters along the several miles border fences . couple of days after the events , Hamas spokesman admitted that most were Hamas militants. but what is really at the core of the matter is the question: does this facts support indiscriminately shooting? among the Israeli society , we know that every bullet that came from a sniper rifle , had been approved by a Major in the field. but it is enough to imagine the situation , (one can also look at the images) , to understand that a bloodbath is the last thing that could be asserted against the IDF , when one inspect the event qualitativly , and not
quantitatively
One can argue whether this turn of events could have go differently , or what other options were at hand, but two things should be crystal clear :
First , that the means to prevent, or contain , this kind of massive , organized riots, including the calculated risk of mass killings , are known to whoever is professional in this field ,which are military and national security forces. This was also one of the preconditions Steiner ascribed for moral action - expertise in all aspects of the event in question. This does not mean that questioning the decisions made by this professionals is not required and needed , but this could be done by whoever have sufficient knowhow and experience in the field of action , and a dialogue with those involved in the event.
Second , that this kind of complicated situation , could not possible comply to preconceived prescriptions of action, in the form that the UN laconically published,(as a negation , of course ), after a day or two : 'molotov throwing is not an excuse for live ammunition shooting.'
And a third could be added : as a far away bystander, with no access to the details, with no responsibility , with no life at risk , whether your own or the ones you try to protect, moral judgment is an empty vessel , mainly because it does not have the power to kindle , or enhance , moral imagination.
On the contrary , the capability for genuine , creative moral imagination from the followers of 'international law' decreases.
this is felt today by many who abhor the moral Pavlovic responses that many political and global entities feel the need to practice on a daily basis : at every event they are 'deeply troubled' ,'call for restraint from both sides' , condemn this and condemn that.
A major shift in philosophical and political thought took place in the decade that past since Steiner pointed out to the convictions and tendencies that followed the rise of Kantian and scientific outlook. But in the event , that through his both qualitative and quantitative aspects could be regard as a game changer in humanities path ,Steiner took part only partially. this event(s) are the two world wars.
The traumatic two world wars , and the devastating power of the atom , hacked by humanity and staged in world events ,casting on humanity a constant shadow of complete extermination, put us in a position radically different than anything we knew . We are facing the question of extermination by our own hand, in a concrete way , and will have to face it from now on on a regular basis on the political stage of world events.
The question arises: does not the attitude of regarding humanity as a specie ,a flock that have to be guarded from inside, have full justification? in order to progress , we have to live - life is the precondition to everything good that might come of humanity . doesn't the avoidance from war and conflict is the ultimate goal of humanity , when the threat of such a devastating weapons of war is at large?
Or , should there be another way , one that will not require of us to succumb to illusion , thinking of ourselves as free individuals while embracing the cognitive and moral behavior of a flock members?
Can we find in our experience of reality something that will kindle in us the impulse to look for a different way to decipher freedom , death , and life , than the one predominates today through the embodiment of Kantianism and scientific assumptions?
I would like to put forward two approaches to the catastrophes of the two world wars . each can teach us about the path into which it want to lid humanity.
The first approach infused into the subconscious that direct the altitude of many in regard to moral and political contemporary stances.
The other , almost absence from public eye ,presented and elaborated by Rudolf Steiner.
The first approach , linked the wars with the rising power of nationality in the 15th century , with it's subsequent 'ailments' of imperialism and colonialism. In this context, Relativism ,Post modernism , Multiculturalism , are all attempts to manipulate and dilute the national , or regard it as imagined , devoid of substantial meaning or essence.
in his book 'defending identity' , former refusnick and dissident Nathan Sheranski points out to the affinity between those branches of thought and that of Marxism. He try to defend any sense of identity that one could adopt , but set the focus on the main trigger (in his opinion) for a strong sense of identity - the sense of being part of a people. :
'The democratic world’s rejection of identity has a long history. The dream of transcending differences between people, of removing all borders, of eliminating all divisions that are largely seen as the basis of war and conflicts is an old one. But in modern history, this dream has emerged with new vitality and momentum. There have been two major ideological assaults on identity as the cause of hostility between peoples. The first is Marxism, which dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. The second assault comes from the various expressions of post-identity—postnationalism, post-modernism, multiculturalism—that arose in reaction to the world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. These two movements are different in many ways, to the point of seeming almost opposites. Marxism offers a universal absolutist approach and a specific goal of a classless society. Post-identity, in contrast, tends to be deeply relativist. Marxism is political; post-identity is cultural. Nevertheless, these two ostensibly different movements share a critical feature in common: They both deny and attack identity. They both also have a sliding scale of condemnation: some identities are much worse than others. In both movements, there are identities that play some positive role in advancing mankind to the desired destination, and there are identities that push this goal further away. Some identities are deemed progressive, others reactionary; colonial and anticolonial; historical and unhistorical—or as Engels put it, “peoples without history and nations without history.” So some identities are “bad” and others “good.”'
Sharansky, Natan. Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy
Reflective thinking has evolved one stage higher than what Goethe described in his 'Pandora'. now the intellect does not look to place past events side by side , and scrutinize them in their relations to each other , in the spirit of the scientific 'cause and effect' . It expands the time scale into the future , place the 'mirror' in the present , and enslave the present creative and moral action to the reflective power of the intellect. it is the same reasoning that can not penetrate , as we already seen , into the religious / spiritual history of humanity. therefore it's act of balancing strive to provide equivalent substance and meaning to what it conceives as the mythical aspects of human history , that still act into human moral imaginations.
Gilad's revisionism is the fundamental gesture of the moral conduction as seen in those thought system described by Sheransky : the face starring backward - toward the past. The moral act is planned, rationalized and justified , on a global scale , and act as a rigid , one dimensional movement in the direction that conceived to create balance between the past and the future. This paramount swing of balancing activity draw not only the conceived fallacies of more recent times - colonialism and imperialism. world religions and the spiritual history of western civilization should also be neutralized.
This could explain the amount of interest and emotions that the Israeli -Palestinian conflict , one of many others in the world, receives. It is the focal point of a concave mirror ,in which the struggle against the foundations of traditional western values and spiritual heritage become clear and pure.
With this in mind ,couple of things become clear regarding the altitude of the UN , and international institutes toward the state of Israel and the conflict with the Palestinians , :
The unites nations , as the terrestrial representation of the biblical 70 folk spirits ( each folk (people) has a folk spirit) that took part in the creation of the people of Israel (according to Steiner, and also according to Jewish esotericism), are responsible for the creation of the Palestinian people, by sustaining and nurturing, both judicially and materially, the offspring's of the original refugees (through separated aid funds and refugee camps in the neighboring countries to Israel). without going into the question of the actual way in which new people arise from the spiritual point of view (this will be discussed later on), and whether the Palestinian people are indeed a new people , the UN ascribe to itself , by it's dominant impulse of reflection , to balance the forming of the people of Israel ( through the events described in the bible), with the forming of the Palestinian people , through the new global 'kingdom of earth' which the UN sets itself to prepare the ground for.
Unlike any other refuges before , the Palestinians that flea from Israel in 1948 and 1967 received a permanent refugee status for their descendants , so that the longing for home coming will be supported by 'international law' throughout the generations. The people of Palestine , holding a refugee certificate from the UN , has reached more than 5 million people , although only a small fraction of this number actually flea from the wars with Israel ( they where mostly ordered to leave by Arab leaders , with the intention to come back once the Jews will be exterminated in the war). Although Arab nations denied the authority of the UN when refusing to accept the UN partition plan for Palestine (resolution 181) , and refused several times for Israel pleas to receive back the refugees , the UN will not hold back it's providence from it's 'chosen people'.
Not only this , the UN ,through it's dedicated institute for Palestinians - 'Unwra' , nurture and encourage the forming of a mythical past to the Palestinian people , based on 'the right of return' , or what the UN usually refer to as a 'just solution the the refugees' . For this reason , even Palestinians who received citizenship in one country or other in the world , still keep their refugee status in regard to Palestine.
intentionally or not , the similarities to the Jewish people that was scattered all over the world , is crystal clear. similar to the way that the Jewish people , by the mythical and religious aspects of their shared history , maintain it's yearning for the homeland for thousands of years , the UN created the conditions that will form the substitute , the balance , for that which belong to the spiritual development of western civilization.
this was done in two aspects :through the blood line , by distributing refugee rights to the off springs of the 'forefathers of the nation'- the original inhabitants of Palestine at the time of the emergence of Israel.
through the double citizenship - cosmopolitan - citizen of whatever country that he live in (unless in refugee camps in Arab countries, those people not always get full citizenship), and , citizen of the future Palestine , by the documented status of refugee.
A Google search of the phrase 'the right to return' will come up with abundance of images almost exclusively advocating the Palestinians descendants right to return (to a country most of them never lived in).
the image on the right was taken from a pinterest page called "1160 free Palestine images".
The place of national* sentiments , which those post-modern theories regard only as auxiliary to reach certain aims , is in the middle , between the individual , and the universal. Together they form a trinity. when the national sentiment is nullified , we are left with duality , and tension and rigidness is intensified between the poles - the individual and the universal. Much like the attempt to replace the capacity for moral imagination , that is realized in the present here and now , with the 'imaginative future rewrite it's past', we are dealing here with attempts to nullify the middle sphere . This attack upon the middle sphere is actually taking place in many 'middle spheres' of human activity on different levels
(see in this blog 'art and reality' and 'The Hebrew Aleph') .nullifying this middle sphere is not only the result of Kantianism and scientific materialism ,it is a method of control , precondition for gaining power and control over individuals , societies , and eventually humanity as a whole.
using nations as an auxilary, a subject to global paradigm , is a continuation to the subjucation of thought that we saw taking hold through pragmatism.
in its core assumptions , it denies the possibility that something genuine , unique and important to humanitis progression is aiming toward manifestation ithrough the nations , that is , the different people that populate our earth.
in this too we come across the opposite evaluation in the approach of Rudolf Steiner:
“It is not without reason that in our time we should also choose to speak quite candidly upon this subject which we are naming: ‘the mission of the several nation-souls (folk spirits)within mankind.’ As good a reason as there was for silence hitherto (on the part of occultists) about this mission, so good a reason is there to begin to speak about it now. It is important because the approaching destinies of mankind will, in far greater measure than was hitherto the case, bring human beings together into a mission common to all mankind. To this, the members of the different peoples will only be able to bring their free and proper contributions if in the first place they have an understanding for their nationality — if they appreciate what we may call: ‘self-knowledge of a people.’ For even as the saying ‘Know thyself’ played a great part in the Mysteries of Apollo in ancient Greece, so likewise in no distant future this will be spoken to the folk-souls or nation-souls: ‘Know yourselves as nation-souls!’”
along the chapters of this discussion , we will move and change our gaze and perspective from the global , to the individual , to the national and vice verse. we will try to see that each sphere is critical not only to our understanding of the world , but also to the human creative process in all levels - individual development , society and national development , and how those contribute to humanities development as a whole.
To sum up the first altitude that consolidated after the world wars: By hacking the destructive power of the atom , humanities potential for self destruction through weapon of war become tangible. in this situation , the grouping of humanity into ethnic and folk groups become a threat to the survival of humanity , and therefore the need the weaken this hidden threads of national and folk sentiments , and replace it by other inspirations . this inspirations come in the form of universal morality , that is a product of pure reasoning, permeated by the natural sciences ,and the picture of the world that approved by science , the only reliable vista for human beings into the world. According to this altitude , science ,and universal morality within the boundaries of natural science , are the two pillars that together should have sufficient power to win over the mythical , unreasonable , and dangerous impulses , remnants of "darker times" in human history . in the end of the proccess , it is crucial to embed universal values to the totality of humanity , in order to achieve the kind of global control that will secure a safe future. for this to happen , the strongest impulses of humanity , the ones that are projected globally , are the ones that should be confronted most vigorously and substituted. these are the core values of western civilization. (as principle , eastern civilizations don't project values westward in recent history). to implement this reasoning morality , the mythical ,religious remnants of western civilization must be neutralized, by creating political , academic and cultural counter force working in the opposite direction. In this effort , some nations ,religions and cultures are seen temporarily in a more positive way than others, therefore should be supported , at least for the time being, while others, that project a mightier counter force to this impulse of universal morality, should be 'disarmed' from within, mostly in the intellectual and cultural level, so they will be able to align themselves with the credo that seems essential for the survival of humanity.
the other approach as to the reasons for the world wars ,was elaborated by Rudolf Steiner in manifold ways in his teachings. During the first world war he was living in the middle of Europe , building with his followers the Goetheanum, in the country side near Basel, Switzerland. Steiner connected the catastrophe of the first world war with the inability of humanity to pull itself out of materialism , of the enchantment of humanity with scientific world view and it's conception of the human being. He describes our times as a pivotal , most important time in human evolution, in which humanities relationships with the spiritual world is going through a radical change: After centuries of silence , detachment from conscious contact with the spiritual world , we are ought to regain , in a higher level , the connections we once had with the spiritual world. with our enhanced intellect and egohood , we should inverse our role , and become the inspires of the cosmos , and not only the recipients of inspirations - exhale our being into to cosmos ,while until now we 'inhaled' the cosmos into ourselves. We are , in a cosmic scale , in this halt between inhaling and exhaling , with all the peculiarities of this inversion, that one can vaguely experience by focusing the attention on this experience of halting between inhaling and exhaling. Steiner unfold the development in time into 3 principles : Evolution , Involution , and what Steiner call 'creating out of nothing' , or 'relation'. we will later look into ways to understand this uniquely human trait of 'creating out of nothing' , or 'relation'. But we already talked about the grander scale that is a direct result of this 'creating out of nothing' - the creation of a new , unpredictable,higher moral law through human history. our unique times - a point in a cosmic movement of an ordained , spiritual evolution , that much like the Darwinian one , have necessities, inner logic and rules , stages and time frames, important events and challenges, that humanity and each one of us as individual are going through. this spiritual evolution is intertwined with the physical evolution – we will soon reflect on a way to bond conceptually the physical one to the spiritual one. The objectives of human evolution, is the development toward divinity , with a more relevant objective in our time derived from the very nature of human beings: To develop balance , through and by the ego , the 'I am", between one's sensual nature and the spiritual nature , both are spheres to which we belong . Every human being have the divine seed within , a higher self , unaffected by the terrestrial ego , which one should strive to reach and be filled by , through self knowledge , and knowledge of the world - the spiritual scientific , and the natural scientific. those are complementary to each other , like the spiritual and physical evolution of the world.. each of us went through many earthly lives , went astray and did wrong and did his share of good and worthy ,and have the freedom , as a result of long and complicated spiritual evolution, to reveal , develop , and project, the divinity that concealed within him/her. unlike to materialistic version of evolution, the initiator and principle of this evolution is not coincidence , or the survival of the fittest. It is the work of the spiritual world – the spiritual hierarchies and entities , intertwined with human thoughts , feelings and deeds. Steiner elaborated in a great detail , and from many sides , what he called the planetary evolution of our solar system , and the evolution of life on earth . in the smallest time frames , called cultural epoch , he describe the more recent history of humanity ,of which the greek-roman cultural epoch was the last before the current one. In this relatively recent history , the monotheistic religiouns were also described by Steiner from his spiritual scientific view. our developed individuality and intelligence , acquired through the detachment from the spirit and focusing on investigation and study of the material world , should become our vehicle , by which a new conscious relationships and connection will rise between man and spirit. Man have different position than he ever has before, in his capabilities for freedom. But Along with his mastery of the material world , he also plunged into the sub-natural forces , through our technological development, we are also subject to much more powerful adversaries , that aim to pull us down and obscure our source and connection with the spiritual world. To do battle with this forces , and to be able to further individual development in freedom, we should strive toward complete change of methodology in experiencing the world , and from this , also radical changes to the social structure. .This radical change is connected to each of us intimate relation to the world .
Steiner saw in the rise of natural science a critical step of this changing processes in the development of the cultural epoch in which we live , the consciousness soul epoch. but he argue that the prevailing phase of materialism should be overcome , lest it will conquer our civilization to the point of grave consequences for human evolution:
" In the course of the evolution of mankind moments must needs come when human beings are in a sense pulled down, brought below a certain level, in order that they may later by their own efforts
lift themselves up again. And it would really be of no help to mankind at all if by some divine decree or the like it could be protected from having to
undergo these low levels of existence. In order for human beings to attain to full use of their powers of freedom, it is absolutely necessary
that they descend to the low levels in their world conception as well as in their life. The danger does not lie in the fact that something like this appears at the proper time, and for theoretical materialism this was the middle of the nineteenth century. The danger consists in the fact that if something like this
has happened in the course of normal evolution, people then continue to adhere to it, so that an experience that was necessary for one particular
point in time is carried over into later times. If it is correct to say that in the middle of the nineteenth century materialism was in a certain sense a test
mankind had to undergo, it is equally correct to say that the persistent adherence to materialism is bound to work terrible harm now, and that all
the catastrophes befalling the world and humanity that we have to experience are due to the fact that a great majority of people still tries to cling to materialism.
Man has been explained as the confluence of these physical forces; his soul nature is declared to be merely something that is produced through the
workings of these physical forces. It is theoretical materialism, however, that initiated investigation of the physical nature of the human being, and it is
this, the extensive examination of man’s physical nature, that must remain. On the other hand, what the nineteenth century drew as a conclusion from
this physical research is something that must not be allowed to figure as more than a passing phenomenon in human evolution."
Since the time of Steiner, materialistic world views become the main inspiration, the engine behind the progression in politics ,academics , and cultural life, while technology reached deeper and deeper into the intimations of the individual and social life.
We have shifted from the Materialism as a philosophical conviction of past generations , to the implementation of it. instead of discussions , and contemplations , about why and how the world is the sum of it's material substance and phenomena, the conclusions of this credo become infused in the ordinations of life and culture , with technology taking the role of mediator , the main tool to know the world through.
symptomatology in the social as well as in the individual sense , in which one can experience the changes inflicted upon him through the use of technology, is almost a general practise for the the modern man , in a way that was not possible , both in promptness and broadness, even 20 years ago.
the question of the relation of scientism ,and technology , as a tool within a materialistic world view, to human freedom and individuality , as well as to the ability to work creatively into the future, is a question that lead to a path of experience , not less than that of contemplation.
there is deep consequences to the thought that man's soul-nature is a by- product of physical forces, because this soul nature is what directs the ambiance of feeling toward the world. we can rationalize our world view as much as we want , in its core, it is rooted in a feeling that one have toward the world , and this feeling is usually ,to begin with , the result of the time that we are living in ,with it's inherent convictions from past generations,hovering like a cloud , permeating every aspect of our cultural era.
One of those inherents that must be overcome is the erroneous tendency of humanity to fall into duality in its world conceptions , while every aspect of human life , down to our physical organisation , constituted in triads.
another problem , that together with the first direct our attitude toward the future , is the question of death. The convictions that lead to flock like morality , and that embrace technological progression as the path leading to Transhumanism , are that death is the termination of existence , and must be bypassed.
Duality in world conception , like in Kantianism , do not only fail to describe reality , it negate the possibility to be in reality as a full human being , because real being in reality is dependent upon the activity of the 'middle sphere'.
numbing of the middle sphere is also numbing of the individuality , that steiner described as the forth member , the spiritual core, the I-am of the human being , that works upon the other three members - the physical , etheric and astral bodies. in hebrew , the name is 'Neshama'.( the word 'soul' is more related to the astral part of the human being , that animals also have , called in hebrew 'Nefesh'.)
the word 'ego' ,in the spiritual sense, or individuality, as the authentic projection of the ego , is the terms we will use here to refer to this forth member of the human being.
From within the middle sphere ,appear initially in the form of vague feeling , we are called upon a totally different quest, to reassess the boundaries life seems to place around us. while the first , technological impulse , that deeply embedded in our civilization, is looking for material advancements to conquer human pain , ailments and ultimately death itself, the second impulse is an undercurrent stream , a path of modern initiation. It does not look to avoid technology altogether , or alienate itself from the discoveries of scientific investigation , but to redeem this discoveries from the abstract, soulless and spiritless universe in which science put it , and place it in the right context within human existence. it looks for the spiritual narratives , the story we all write and read , together and separately , as the destiny that we ourselves created in past times.
there could be no future moral creative impulse in humanity without people starting to reveal and tread this path ,by re-learn and re-activate the middle sphere in all aspect of inner life and in reality all around us.
the weight and importance of the inner middle sphere is dependent upon the way we treat the question of 'knowing' , because it is the middle sphere which is the soil from which this feeling of knowing arise. we can say that if the rays of the sun are the cognitive activity , and the nurturing minerals of the soil, and the water , are the sense impressions, 'knowing' is the plant that grows into the space and air. and every plant must start from a seed.
The seed is the epistemological question -
What can we actually know about the world , and more than this , what could be said about the act of "knowing"?
We already know from the previous discussion what kant had to say about human knowing . we will now briefly touch upon what Steiner had to say about the epistemological question , and about the scientific convictions of his contemporaries , convictions that gained stronger hold over the general thoughts of our civilization since than.
when thinking of trinity in human beings , the most cardinal division is that of body , soul and spirit , in which the soul is the middle sphere. if we link body with sense perceptions , and spirit with cognitive activity , than we see that the dispute over whether we can or cannot know the world in its true essence ,is essentially about the validity of the poles activity in determining the middle sphere, in which we essentially come to a feeling of the world as constituted this way or the other. What could be said about those poles - sense perceptions and cognition, will determine the weight and importance of the middle sphere, not only in terms of soul life , in a psychological manner , but in a much deeper sense, to the intimations of one's cultural and moral life, and over time , this becomes the cultural and moral inspirations of the many.
finding bridges between the cognitive and sensual realm , between the idea , and the observable phenomena , was one of Goethe's life tasks , reflected in his scientific writings and discoveries , mainly the Archetypal plant and the color theory.
Goethe did not thought much of bringing his own view on this matters into a systematic system of thought, he was led by an inner drive of curiosity and the urge to know , and also by the clear feeling that there is something in his way of thinking that put him in opposition to the general scientific thought and methods of his time. in his book 'Goethean science', Steiner did that work of elaborating the epistemological and methodological ground that nurtured Goethe's spirit. we will present here the quintessence of what is elaborated in this important book , starting with the cognitive pole :
"The multiplicity is only a form in which the unified world content expresses itself.
The senses, which are not in a position to grasp this unified content, hold fast to the multiplicity; they are born pluralists. Thinking, however, overcomes the multiplicity and thus, through a long labour, returns to the unified world principle. The manner, now, in which the concept (the idea) expresses itself within the sense world constitutes the differences among the realms of nature. If a sense-perceptibly real entity attains only a kind of existence in which it stands totally outside the concept and is only governed in its transformations by the concept as by a law, then we call this entity inorganic. Everything that occurs with such an entity is to be traced back to the influences of another entity; and how the two act upon each other can be explained by a law standing outside them. In this sphere we have to do with phenomena and laws which, if they are primary, can be called archetypal phenomena. In this case, therefore, the conceptual element that is to be perceived stands outside of a perceived manifoldness.
But a sense-perceptible unity itself, in fact, can point beyond itself; it can compel us, if we want to grasp it, to go on to further determining factors than to those perceptible to us. Then, what is conceptually graspable appears as a sense-perceptible unity. The two, concept and perception, are, indeed, not identical, but the concept does not appear outside the sense-perceptible manifoldness as a law, but rather within the manifoldness as a principle. The concept underlies the manifoldness as something that permeates it, as something that is no longer sense-perceptible, as something that we call typus. Organic natural science has to do with this. But here also the concept does not yet appear in the form particular to it as concept, but still only as typus. Where, now, the concept appears, not merely as typus, as permeating principle, but rather in its own conceptual form, there it appears as consciousness, there, there finally comes to manifestation that which is present at the lower stages only in essence. There the concept becomes a perception. We have to do with the self-conscious human being.
Rudolf Steiner. Goethean Science (Kindle Locations 3062-
3080). Mercury Press. "
It is not so easy to understand what this means , that the concept become a percept in human being , thus fully realizing itself in the material world. but all you have to do to grasp it is to think of the world of human beings , society , in which people bring their conceptual world , as self conscious individuals , into relation with the perceptual world. the world of human beings , human history , culture , politics, is the world of concept become percept.
This concept that becomes percepts through the activity peculiar to individual human beings ,that might appear as a whole as a highly detailed kaleidoscope , is also an evolving one. It is part of the evolution of the world , evolution of consciousness that we take a unique and important role in.
The evolution of human consciousness go hand in hand with what Darwin's law of evolution describe in the organic. but contemporary evolutionists believe that this evolution of consciousness is inferred from the biological one. they see the later as the cause , and the former as the effect.
what about the opposite pole , that of sense perceptions?
Rudolf Steiner addressed this subject in a time in which the scientific evidence already showed clearly that what our organism receives and transforms to sense perception could all be deducted to physical ,electric and chemical processes.
as we already saw , Kant established much of his philosophy upon the gap that those discoveries pierced between our senses and the phenomena of the world. Steiner followed the arguments made by scientists and philosophers of the time , that consider our sense perceptions to be subjective, and the phenomena that lead to this senses to be objective , and assert that this is based on unlawful thinking;
".. I finally found the reason for many of the errors of modern natural science to lie in the completely incorrect standing that science had assigned to the simple sense impression. Our science transfers all sense qualities (sound, colour, warmth, etc.) into the subject and is of the opinion that “outside” the subject there is nothing corresponding to these qualities except processes of motion of matter. These processes of motion, which are supposedly all that exists within the “realm of nature,” can of course no longer be perceived. They are inferred on the basis of subjective qualities.
Rudolf Steiner. Goethean Science (Kindle Locations 2736-2738). Mercury Press.
following his train of thought , which can be transformative to the way one thinks, will teach us also about the tendencies and implications of the scientific world view, which doomed sense perceptions as an 'subjective' ,'effect' of the processes that could be measured , calling those 'objective', the 'cause' that invokes this sense perceptions:
"Let us just examine the facts, quite objectively. Let us assume that a particular sensation appears within our consciousness. It appears at the same time in such a way that it directs us to some object or other from which it stems. When I have the sensation “red,” I generally associate with it, by virtue of the content of this mental picture, a particular place, i.e., a location in space, or the surface of a thing, to which I ascribe what this sensation expresses. This is not the case only where, through an external influence, the sense organ itself responds in its own characteristic way, as when I have a sensation of light from a blow to the eye. Let us disregard such cases in which, what is more, the sensations never arise with their usual definiteness. As exceptions, they cannot in fact teach us about the nature of things. If I have the sensation “red” along with a particular location, then I am at first directed to something or other in the outer world as the bearer of this sensation. I can very well ask myself now what spatial-temporal processes are taking place in this thing while it is appearing to me as though possessed of the color red. I shall then discover that mechanical, chemical, or other processes offer themselves as an answer to my question. I can go further now and investigate the processes that have occurred on the way from that thing to my sense organ to mediate the sensation of the color “red” for me. There again, in fact, nothing other than processes of motion or electrical currents or chemical changes can present themselves to me as such mediators. The result would be the same for me if I could investigate the further mediation from the sense organ to the center of the brain. What is mediated on this whole path is the perception “red” that we are discussing. How this perception manifests in a particular thing lying on the path from the stimulus to the perception depends solely upon the nature of this thing. The sensation is present at every point, from the stimulator to the brain, but not as such, not explicitly, but rather in a way corresponding to the nature of the object existing at each point.
A truth results from this, however, that is qualified to shed light upon the entire theoretical foundation of physics and physiology. What do I experience from the investigation of a thing caught up in a process that appears in my consciousness as sensation? I experience no more than the way that thing responds to the action which issues from the sensation, or, in other words the way a sensation expresses itself in some object or other of the spatial-temporal world. It is far from the truth to regard such a spatial-temporal process as the cause, as that which causes the sensation in me; something quite different is the correct view: The spatial-temporal process is the effect of the sensation within a thing that has extension in space and time. I could insert as many things as I wanted into the path from the stimulator to the organ of perception: only that will occur in each one of them that can occur in it by virtue of its nature. But it is still the sensation, therefore, that expresses itself in all these processes. "
Rudolf Steiner. Goethean Science 'the archetypal phenomena', Mercury Press.
The unit in which all the limited processes are integrated into a larger scenario that could be comprehended and acted upon in different degrees, is the living organism in which the processes become sensations. Therefore it is wrong to attribute cause to the part that actually does not act upon reality , but just follow the determiner ,'archetypal' laws of physics (as we explained above) . the ones that change reality through their sense perceptions , are the cause , and all the mediator processes between the objects and the 'units of perceptual change' are the effect.
"One should therefore regard the longitudinal vibrations of the air in the mediating of sound or the hypothetical oscillation of the ether in the mediating of light to be nothing other than the way the sensations in question can appear in a medium that, in accordance with its nature, is capable only of rarefaction and densification or of oscillating motion, as the case may be. I cannot find the sensation as such in this world, because it simply cannot be there. But in those processes I am absolutely not given what is objective about the processes of sensation, but rather a form of their manifestation."
The process is exactly the opposite then how scientific thinking conceive it :
The cause is the ultimate goal , the higher manifestation that find it's place in the human or animal sensual impressions. The effect, or effects , is everything that our sophisticated machinery receive and decipher ,( which also ultimately we receive and decipher through our senses), according to the nature of the mediator that it is going through.
Someone can argue that the cause and effect is simply a matter of chronology , that cause come before the effect , and therefore all this process are justified to be assigned the cause to sense perception. that view is correct for what was previously referred to as archetypal phenomena , that occur in the inorganic sphere .when the element of time is brought into relation with sensational creatures , that initiates 'effects' into the future from internal 'causes' , based on their sensual influx from the outside world , this chronology could not be justified.
Scientific thinking flipped this logical thinking on it's head, because of it's enchantment with what it conceived as the enhancement of objectivity - measurable outputs of technological instruments. this lead to a reductionist look at both human sense perceptions and world of ideas;
'Modern natural science, in accordance with its whole being, cannot believe in the ideal character of knowledge. For, it does not regard the idea as that which is primary, most original, and creative, but rather as the final product of material processes. But in doing so, it is not at all aware of the fact that these material processes belong only to the sense-perceptible, observable world that, however, grasped more deeply, dissolves completely into idea.'Rudolf Steiner. Goethean Science (Kindle Locations 2825-2828). Mercury Press.
The ideal power of idea takes it out of the observable world alone and bring it into human world of thoughts, into self knowledge. the ideal character of knowledge is self knowledge . when striped off it's ideal nature, knowledge become information and ideas are seen only in it's problem solving aspect. , leaving the 'inner observation' as something unattainable , or irrelevant.
When the ultimately human , of the nature of soul and spirit, are marginalized , and questions about the spiritual aspects of the world are cast off, a clear and comprehensive world view , based on the evolution of information , emerges.
In his bestseller 'the singularity is near' ,Ray Kurzweil , the famous inventor and futurist, , describe the evolution of the cosmos as made of epochs , each going through a process of acceleration and increased complexity ,that delivers the next stage , in which the principles that was perfected in the previous stage become the foundations for the new stage. In this process, Kurzweil conceive information as the all embracing ,archaic trait of the universe:
'We can trace our origins to a state that represents information in its basic structures: patterns of matter and energy. Recent theories of quantum gravity hold that time and space are broken down into discrete quanta, essentially fragments of information. There is controversy as to whether matter and energy are ultimately digital or analog in nature, but regardless of the resolution of this issue, we do know that atomic structures store and represent discrete information.'
Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near . Prelude Books. Kindle Edition.
according to Kurtzweil , the first epoch , following the big bang , is of the consolidating of the elements (physics) , and their interaction with each other (chemistry) . The second epoch started with organic life , in which 'units of information' were able to reproduce (unicellular organism ). in the third epoch organic life raised to a more interactive correspondence with it's environment ,by developing brains and nerve system. by this those 'units of information' of the organic realm could also receive information from their sense perceptions , and act accordingly , thus creating a dynamic interaction of organic life with itself and the surroundings:
'Epoch Three: Brains. Each epoch continues the evolution of information through a paradigm shift to a further level of “indirection.” (That is, evolution uses the results of one epoch to create the next.) For example, in the third epoch, DNA-guided evolution produced organisms that could detect information with their own sensory organs and process and store that information in their own brains and nervous systems. These were made possible by second-epoch mechanisms (DNA and epigenetic information of proteins and RNA fragments that control gene expression), which (indirectly) enabled and defined third-epoch information-processing mechanisms (the brains and nervous systems of organisms). The third epoch started with the ability of early animals to recognize patterns, which still accounts for the vast majority of the activity in our brains. Ultimately, our own species evolved the ability to create abstract mental models of the world we experience and to contemplate the rational implications of these models. We have the ability to redesign the world in our own minds and to put these ideas.
Combining the endowment of rational and abstract thought with our opposable thumb, our species ushered in the fourth epoch and the next level of indirection: the evolution of human-created technology. This started out with simple mechanisms and developed into elaborate automata (automated mechanical machines). Ultimately, with sophisticated computational and communication devices, technology is itself capable of sensing, storing, and evaluating elaborate patterns of information.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near . Prelude Books. Kindle Edition.
The fifth epoch , which will start in a mater of decades from our time, is the one Kurtzweil refer to as the 'singularity'. human and human created technology will merge into one , undistinguished , units of information , communication and action. technology will enhance our physical , mental , and computational abilities , which will allow us to thrive , learn more , execute more , and this will prepare the ground for the six epoch , which will be , according to Kurzweil , the projection of human intelligence , of everything we achieved through our own intelligence and by enhancing it with our technology, into the cosmos.
Ray's description of the evolution of the cosmos , based on the foundation stones of information , provide a consistent and comprehensive theory that derived on a purely scientific observations.
even someone who has different convictions about the nature and meaning of human existence will find it hard to disapprove the coherence and factuality of Kurzweil's concept of evolution. it also put man in a more appropriate position in the cosmos , and unlike other reductionists , manage to avoid the pessimistic gaze at man as mere advanced animal. through technology , Kurzweil found the way to put human existence on the top of the Olympus , the pinnacle of the cosmos ,as a key player in the future of the cosmos. after generations of reductionists that regarded man as coincidence of nature , maybe even a destructive coincidence , Kurzweil vision brings back the grandeur ,the glory and magnificent of human existence within the cosmos.
Kurzweil vision elevates scientific materialism from the prosaic , insignificant view of man that it adopted. From a creature that can not really know the world , or regard as valid the information received through his senses , to a creator of a new realm, that will help him to overcome the detachment of himself from the cosmos , or at least the feeling of detachment. and finally ,will project this new entity, his own self creation , into the cosmos.
we can see in Kurzweil's vision the unfolding of the seed , that was planted when Kant presented his philosophy to the world. it explain the motivation of scientific worldview the adopt the outlook they did regarding the secondary role of ideas and sense perceptions, subduing the poles of human nature on the service of human technology.
looking at our contemporary situation , it seems that what is left out of his description is not less important for human future than what he envisage.
on the previous chapter we discussed ' life within the limits of natural science' as one of the outcomes Kantian reasoning , a leading impulse in contemporary humanity.
we can equally find that what naturally follows is what Kurzweil envisage , of which we can give the title ' life within the limits of technology' ,
we can say that what had been widely accepted philosophically to justify 'life within the limits of natural science' , practically being used to justify 'life within the boundaries of technology', or 'life permeated by technology'.
coupling together form with content, as synonymous to life and technology ( technology as the 'forms' that to a larger and larger extent permeate our lives already), Kurzweil is occupied with the 'form'. without explicitly referring to it , one can infer that Kurzweil believe that the 'content' , that is , the 'content' of the future human being , his moral thoughts , his consciousness , the way he perceives himself , will be dependent on form (technology), that in ray's vision will penetrate almost every cell of one's body. Thus we will ultimately reach the externalization , the validation , if you will , of the 'matter over consciousness' paradigm of scientific materialism - matter will condition consciousness , the matter we ourselves created as technology will predefine and predominate our consciousness.
In our time we already experience technology's potential to get a hold of our being , to permeate our life to the extent that we are totally changed , dependent upon it , not necessarily in a way that serves our individual development or that of the world.
But if you think of human existence , you will see that what really occupy us , intellectually and emotionally ,except of our private lives within our core communities , are the products of our world of ideas ,not as a concrete 'problem solving mechanism' - more like an 'understanding mechanism'. to a large extent , trying to understand the world through the mirror of our inner world of ideas takes up a large extent of our intellectual , moral and emotional life.
It means that parallel to the technological advancements , which Kurzweil is a specialist in predicting it's future progression , the path of human morality , freedom , inspiration , and individuality should also find the appropriate 'enhancements' to move forward , parallel to the probably unavoidable progress in the realms of technology.
'Purpose' in the sense of Kurzweil is not a product of human freedom , it is born by necessity from the fourth epoch , and it subjugate human world of ideas and sense perception on the service of technology. implicitly , he suggest that the form and structure that technological progression create within our civilization will direct our content of ideas in the "right" direction , following what is necessary toward the fifth epoch, and will provide the proper inspirations toward the six epoch.
Accordingly , Kurtzweil see the increase of computational power and speed as an important goal for the progress of humanity, because he sees human progress expressed in the ever increased efficiency in the conduction of life within the the human made technological sphere.
while it is difficult to argue that humanity does not advance along the path that Kurzweil outlines, the inner state of our existence in those future times should concern us even more . everything that can not be visualized materially , as already have been presented in countless science fiction movies and books , everything that we can only know and feel by and through our own being in time , is what should concern us about this future. and for this we have not less reliable and definite accesses than to the learned vision of Kurzweil - through diving into our own , contemporary, human situation.
Kurzweil vision and world view spring forth from the two main imperatives of Scientism:
1) Matter is the enabler of consciousness
2) Instrumental knowledge of the world is the default choice toward human progression . that is , technological means to depict and decipher the world deliver a more relevant input for human progression than the attempt the study our own being through our senses , feelings and ideas..
this allude not only to sense perceptions , but also , the mindset that is required to become part of , and developer of this technological means. there are two consequences for the adoption of theoretical materialism and scientism as the default mindset of the western world:
From the side of our past , looking at the material world as the objective one , and our sensual , soul infused element as the by-product, is essential for the materialistically inclined version of evolution. according to this , material conditions are the initiators of sensual perception , which is tied together with soul , on which this perception print 'impressions'. one can not separate soul impression from sense perception , since the very act of receiving sense perception is tied together with soul impression ,in which the organism become aware of it.
Thus, when proclaiming the inorganic to be the cause , and the living the effect , one actually negate any possibility for the soul spiritual element to be existing as such , untied with matter. In the trinity body -soul - spirit , it makes the spirit obsolete, and the soul into something that appear , out of the blue , when material conditions allow it. it have to be known only for the purpose of not letting it 'get in the way' of sensual and cognitive abilities.
This problem of matter over consciousness, or vice verse, might be philosophically blind alley. but we can tackle it from the side of evolution ,where there is another blind alley to consider.
While Kurtzweil put the emphasis on information , and the world of ideas in the service of technology, different way to look on evolution, still through the filter of scientific knowledge, can lead to the notion of freedom , and the dominant role of the world of ideas in humanities future.
In A public lecture given in Winter 1967, Charles Kovacs (1907-2001) delineates the turnover in the scholars view about the question of purpose in nature:
'Almost all our conscious actions are intentional, serve a purpose; we perform them in order to realize something that lies in the future, which exists at first only as an intention in our mind. But there are also times when we are compelled by causes – as the man who slips on the banana skin and falls. I am hungry and the hunger is the cause of my eating; I feel unwell and I lie down, the illness is the cause of my lying in bed. You can see from these examples that in all these cases we are rather passive, something happens to us; a slip of the foot, hunger, illness – we act under a compulsion. But we feel that only actions with a purpose, actions that come from our own conscious intentions, are truly human, because in these purposive actions we are responsible. When we are compelled by a cause we are not, we are not responsible, because our own wishes and intentions play no part in it. Yet, in human life there are both kinds of actions, those done to a cause and those which serve a purpose and these two kinds are intertwined and mixed with one another. But what about nature? Are there in nature causes as well as purposes? The Greek philosophers, and after them people in the Middle Ages, thought so. They assumed that in nature there was both cause and purpose. Water is heated and turned into steam; the heat is the cause of the steam. But the goat has horns for the purpose of butting with them, so it was thought. And that would be an example of purpose in nature. For these thinkers before the time of the Renaissance it seemed obvious that lifeless, inorganic nature was ruled by causes, but that in living beings, in animals, nature showed purpose. It was only about 200 years ago that scientists began to doubt the existence of purpose in nature. The goat does not have horns for the purpose of butting, he has horns and therefore uses them to butt. The horns are the cause of the butting. The birds don’t have wings for the purpose of flying, they have wings and therefore they fly. The wings are the cause of the flying. To imagine that nature gave the goat horns for the purpose of butting would mean to attribute to nature a human mind and this is not scientific thinking; it would be ‘anthropomorphism’, which means explaining the world in terms that only apply to man. It was slowly recognized that purpose exists in the human mind, but that in nature there are only causes –and no purposes...
... What made Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ so acceptable for the scientists was that it eliminated the last lurking possibility of finding a purpose in evolution – as if evolution had the purpose of leading up to Man.
According to Darwin’s idea of evolution, there was no need to impute a purpose to the process of evolution. Man, like any other species, was the result of accidental, random changes and the law of the survival of the fittest. Here we come to the dead alley of evolution, and the open alley for human progression and understanding:
'In his standard work 'Evolution' and in numerous articles and essays, Julian Huxley, the Darwinist and atheist, presents a picture of the evolutionary progress, which emphasises the unique significance of Man in the whole of nature. To put it briefly, all the animal forms in existence are such highly specialised forms of life that this specialisation makes the arising of a new life form, capable of development in a new direction, impossible. “A horse or a lion is barred against progress by the very efficiency of their limbs and teeth and senses”. And so every living animal form – including the apes – is in the last analysis, a blind alley. By making each existing animal form supremely fitted for survival in its particular way, evolution has come at the same time to so and so many dead ends – or blind alleys. As Huxley put it: Evolution is a series of blind alleys. But there is one exception: Man. In Man evolution has opened up a new path, a new direction for development: mind, thought, consciousness. A blind process – the process of natural selection, the survival of the fittest – has led up to Man. And now the whole of evolution into the future hangs on this single thread: human consciousness. As Huxley put it: in Man evolution becomes self-conscious. But this means that the future of evolution will be determined by the intentions, by the purposes, that Man sets himself. In a world which has no purpose, but only blind causes, Man, the bearer of consciousness, has to act purposively, has to realise his purposes and the whole future of evolution depends on this, the only remaining open road for evolution. It is a remarkable picture at which a purely materialistic, mechanistic, and anti-spiritual science has arrived, but it is a picture based on facts and observation, a picture at which the science of evolution had to arrive with necessity.' Charles Kovacs , 'new view' magazine summer 2018
what we can draw from this is that the ideas that one have from a concept , in this case the concept of evolution , can lead him to a greatly different cognial position and feeling toward the world. regardless of the question whether matter is the precondition of consciousness , consciousness now took the lead from matter, consciousness will determine the path in which we will take the world into the future. we can learn that science does not necessarily lead to theoretical materialism, or to the concept of matter over consciousness.
we ourselves are responsible to forge from human experience the tools that we will be using in our Promethean journey of creation. to be sure , It will have a technological aspect to a larger and larger extent. but this is only the envelope. how much we will be confined in this envelope and defined by it , and what will be the other impulses that will inspire us , will depend largely upon the way we understand our own experiences in the world.