So this is what’s been in my head for the past few months. These three entries plus this one plus various history-related projects have all led me to the following, here stated efficiently because I’ve already done the rambling at those various linked entries:
The essence of the human cognitive advantage is the mental model of the world. This model is, at ground level, a hard-wired thing that evolved biologically. Above and after that, it’s a subconsciously learned thing that evolved culturally. Above and after that, it’s conscious knowledge, not evolved but rather acquired, evaluated, and revised intentionally.
The capacity to contain and employ the upper layer of this model – “conscious thought” – is part of the biological advantage, but the thought itself is not. Self-governing thought, in fact, has its own kind of power, an exponential capacity for capacities.
As I see it, the human species is in the midst of an accelerating crisis – accelerating much in the same way and for the same reasons that techological development is accelerating – wherein the conscious component of the model outstrips and discredits its own foundations, and thus itself. Like a fractal bent back on itself, sawing at its own thick roots with a bazillion infinitesimal teeth.
“Science” is a method for isolating the versatile, self-governing part of conscious thought from the roots that extend downward toward the underlying hard-wiring. It has allowed us to determine many things that are objectively true but would nonetheless have been rejected by our biologically inherited model of the world. This kind of conflict is possible because, of course, the evolutionary processes that led to our underlying model put no premium on truth, only on efficacy. Our mental foundation is just stuff that happens to work for monkeys.
That we now know this, know that we are born suckers, so to speak, is causing tremendous upheaval. Social movements form to deconstruct cultural models now known to be flawed, with no real hope of replacing them; backlash then warns that we’re tearing down our own humanity, which is absolutely true and very frightening – and nonetheless no defense of flaws, of suckerdom, because our need to be right is just as fundamental as our need to be a part of something. This process of self-discovery and informed deconstruction – and in its wake either fear and mourning or else replacement by loopy ineffective manmade crap – is now a constant feature of human life, applicable every two minutes and relevant to everything – politics, daily life, the core (“spiritual”) experience of human existence. And this leaves most of us feeling unhinged and desperate, which is bad news for everyone.
But regardless of what the pope or “conservatives” or whoever else says, there’s truly no turning back, nor was there ever a possibility of avoiding any of it; it was always inherent in conscious thought. Inevitable.
I know this is has probably been said many times before, and I know it sounds both simplistic and more than a little sci-fi when I actually put it in words. But I believe it.
Having arrived so carefully and meticulously at this despairing, biological-materialist endpoint, would it not be worthwhile to spend some time on serious theology? (I ask, maybe defensively, as someone who is trying to spend some time on serious theology.) You’ve served the ball; now wait for the return. At worse it will be unpersuasive.
I would be happy to spend some time on serious anything that offers thoughts about the problem here described. But as this is indeed how I sincerely see the problem, what I am now seeking is either advice for coping with this state of affairs, or a compelling argument that this is not in fact the state of affairs. I am under the impression, though I may be wrong, that religion can only very weakly attempt to offer either, being as it is part of the cultural skin we’ve begun so violently to shed. I will gladly take recommendations for reading or meditation. But as far as I can tell, in this day and age, philosophy has been reduced to every-man-for-himself.
My personal take on this, the big issue, is basically that we can’t deny what we’re made of, which is old-fashioned stuff, and our best bet is to try to just to know ourselves in all our biological-materialist arbitrariness and be okay with that. And then rise to the challenge of maintaining our own order based on that knowledge.
We all scoff at, for example, respelling “womyn,” not just because it’s pointless – ’cause maybe it’s not pointless – but because it’s so childish when compared with the expert hand of the long slow natural growth of language. It’s pointless only in light of how much the fix sucks. Man is just a baby at building his own house. But I think we’re going to need to start building our own house and not just crawl back into the burning one. The fact that we’re so terrible at it just means we’d better get good in a hurry. It’s that or freeze to death out here.
“Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.” Enrico Fermi
“And if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.” John Lennon
“Philosophy has been reduced to every-man-for-himself” — flaw here. In human history, greatness has been achieved when one, then a few, then many have performed just enough internecine compromising on details to be able to join forces and then make a teensy (or big) difference. (e.g. US Constitution.) The trick is, how not to smash your Mao picture in others’ faces, but influence nonetheless. In this day of “blogospheres and internets” (GWB!) and mass marketing expertise and large amounts of money in progressives’ hands, the trick is how to organize thoughts and then work very hard and then ever-so-slightly make a difference. (e.g. Gates Foundation)
OK, go get ’em. You’re not “by himself.” And sign me up, too.
Hi Andy – I so rarely read your blog and have never posted, which is why you get this one months late. I have thought about this “biological-materialist” endpoint a great deal, and I guess I don’t understand the despair inherent in it. I mean, I understand that people do feel despair, feel that modern life has taken something away from them, something they think they can see in old cathedrals or old art, and they want it back. And I agree that you can’t get it back – it’s too contradictory with what we know, requires too complete a suspension of disbelief. But I tend to think that people are inflicting this despair on themselves unnecessarily, and in service to outmoded concepts of what is meaningful. Why despair that we have biological components of our consciousness that act on their own? Or that we can no longer accept unconditionally the made-up theories of crackpot visionaries with gullible followers? (perhaps that’s a little harsh on Christianity et al…clearly I can never run for office now) I find that I revel in the uncertainty and freedom provided by the destruction of the old. The new…whatever…will no doubt have manifold flaws, but since it will be more openly man made and conditional, doesn’t that mean we can revise it more easily? Or even if life continues to forever be as messy and imperfect as it is now, why is that a cause for despair? I realize I can’t just tell the world to suck it up and enjoy what we have, but that’s how I feel. So dammit, world, get your act together!
What I meant to be saying in this entry was that the despair arises from our being built to believe certain kinds of things, regardless of what we have come to know intellectually. I believe that no amount of optimistic cultural self-reprogramming will ever help us really “grow up” and get our act together. Just as the need to believe that the ground is “really” “down” and the sky is “really” “up” is unshakable no matter how many globes we see, the rest of our basic beliefs about the world – which are all to one degree or another scientifically naive, as we now know – are non-negotiable. Even people who have convinced themselves there is no god must still contend with the instinct of superstition – at some level it is indeed biological. I’m saying that the tension we feel between the urge to wear our lucky socks and the knowledge that our lucky socks will actually do nothing for us is a tension of which we cannot be rid. The “destruction of the old” is actually impossible because part of the old is us, and we will continue to be around, no matter how wrong we are. All we can destroy is our own faith in ourselves. And philosophically, it’s not at all clear how to embrace that, no matter how eager we are to get with the program.
You say you revel in the freedom and opportunity of the new state of things, but I’m not talking about the intellectual side of it – the point of the problem is that the intellect has completely trumped the, shall we say, non-intellect, but there’s nothing for the non-intellect to revel in about change – its only tool for change is evolution, which takes for freakin’ ever and requires entire populations to die out. If we believe that our biological mind is outmoded, we have millions of years of self-loathing ahead of us. Yes? No?
I see your point about the inevitable conflict of old and new selves, but I guess I still feel my original thought holds true (for me at least). So what? So I both want to wear lucky socks and know they are irrelevant, or at least know their “luckiness” exists only in some unprovable, faith-defined world. I’m not sure why that can’t be embraced as an essential part of the human condition. My endpoint wouldn’t be “at last, we have arrived in a world in which rationality and intellect defines everything.” It would be more like “at last, we understand that the limits of both our faith and our reason are intrinsic to our very natures, and from henceforth we will be more humble and open to the varieties of experience in the world.” Except it would sound less absurdly New Age-y.
Because really, I also believe that there will never be some kind of utopian endstate, with humanity at last content with its place in the world. We will never get our act together – its probably another inbuilt flaw of our system. But I can still wish (oh, irrational hopeful side of me!) that people would see our cultural-biological-evolutionary side less as a reason for self-loathing or reprogramming and more as something like the fact we have arms. No one despairs about arms.
I have just reread my post. “from henceforth”?!?! I apologize profusely.