Thursday, August 14, 2008

Darwinism and Other Barriers to Human Evolution

So, time is the medium of both development and dissolution, growth and decay, synthesis and dispersal, metabolism and catabolism. On the one hand, evolution can result in the great organic synthesis of our beautiful Judeo-Christian civilization. On the other hand, it can result in the retrograde phenomenon of reductionistic Darwinism. Thus, in a sense, time can move both forward and backward, at least human time, which is measured in terms of evolution or development, not mere change or horizontal reshuffling.

Again, time is not mere change, but, like space, "conditions" the contents within it. Just as gravity is a property of curved space, there are many implications that flow from the nature of psychic space. We touched on some of those implications a couple of weeks ago, in the context of a discussion of the "symmetrical logic" of the unconscious mind. Once you appreciate the nature of the symmetrical space of the unconscious (and supraconscious) mind, you see how critical it is to human knowing and being. In reality, the human state (at least in health) is always a dialectical synthesis of symmetrical and asymmetrical modes of knowing. Even the most left-brained science is always rooted in a metaphysical dream that generally goes unacknowledged.

But note that for a strict Darwinist, there cannot even be any objective standard of human normality. In fact, this was one of the first things that intrigued me when I entered graduate school in the early 1980s. I was particularly interested in psychopathology, but not for its own sake. It was an odd situation, because this is just when the political correctness that now dominates academia had begun to strangle the intellect. Thus, it was possible to learn all about various kinds of psychopathology, but no one wanted to go out on a limb and risk defining normality, or the point of being human -- which is to say, the point of life. Because once you do that, you have condemned a large portion of humanity, including whole cultures.

As a result, you then end up reducing psychotherapy to the elimination of pain -- even if the pain is sending a vital message about a pathological way of living. Or you define health on an entirely subjective basis as "do your own thing," "follow your bliss," or some other such new age blather. Again, in such a situation ( which can be called metapsychopathology, to coin a term) there are no objective criteria of psychological health. This is catastrophic in so many ways, but one of them is that genuine maturity does not necessarily involve the elimination of emotional pain, but the tolerance of emotional pain.

I mean, this is something that every parent knows -- or at least should know. Children don't mature as a result of indulgence and the elimination of pain. In fact, one of the most painful aspects of good parenting is to be able to tolerate your child's pain, and not try to instantaneously make it go away! I would much prefer to be in pain than to see my son in pain, but often it is necessary. Truly, he is narcissistic enough without me adding fuel to the fire.

The problem is, when you're the center of the universe, you're in for a rude awakening one way or the other. And we all start out as the center of the universe. Only later do we gradually discover that we're at the periphery. And only with a mature spiritual practice do we regain the center, except at a higher level. Unless you are Deepak Chopra, in which case you revert to infantile omnipotence and call it enlightenment.

This is what happens to any field, including psychology, when it completely detaches itself from philosophy, theology, metaphysics, and other deeper (and more human) modes of analysis. As we were mentioning the other day, you will end up generating a pseudo-autonomous subdiscipline that cannot be integrated with everything else.

Now, no matter how loudly and crudely Darwinists protest to the contrary, humanness is an achievement; it is higher on the vertical scale, not merely one more horizontal arrangement of genetic material. Furthermore, some human beings are objectively better than others, which is to say they have achieved greater "humanness" -- which is not something you can say of any other animal. There are not objective degrees of sheepness or pigginess. True, Michael Moore is a perfect ass, but that is in a manner of speaking.

And once you admit of verticality, you must acknowledge that there is a hierarchical toppermost of of the poppermost that conditions the scale from top to bottom, so you have conceded that the Absolute exists. Which is why Darwinists don't want to concede an inch on this subject, even if it mires them in metaphysical incoherence and stupidity. They are fundamentally committed to intellectual devolution, or the elimination of Man as Such, come what may.

Another way of saying it is that the time of classical physics is reversible. But human time is irreversible, partly because it is developmental. The abstract reversible time of classical physics is like a film that can be run forward or back, or like a mathematical operation that is symmetrical. However, if a cup falls off your table and shatters onto the floor, that is an irreversible process.

The irreversibility of time is tied in with the concept of entropy, which is also irreversible. In the long run, the universe is said to be analogous to a.... to a mortal coil, or a spring that will one day be completely sprung.

But none of this applies to human reality, which is not primarily in the physical or biological realms. To be perfectly accurate, it is "in" those realms, but not entirely "of" them. Rather, a human being transcends but includes (as Ken Wilber would put it) biology and physics, but could never by any stretch of the imagination be reducible to them.

Now, the end result of a temporal series cannot be a member of the series. That is, time is simply a series of events with no "end" or telos. But most everything human beings do, both explicitly and implicitly, has a point, and that point is not equivalent to one more event in the series. For example, the purpose of your life is not just one of the events that constitutes it, ¿comprende? Nor is the theme of a great novel reducible to the plot. Rather, the plot represents the temporal unfolding of the theme.

It is just so for the Raccoon. Once one enters "Coon Time™," one begins to see the events of one's life cohere in the most astonishing, even "miraculous" way, as if they are being "coonditioned" from above; or, as if there is some hidden relationship between what are normally called "inside" and "outside." Soon enough, we discover that the bright line that scientism imposes between these two modes is not so bright after all. And why should it be? On what basis, save for metaphysical whimsy, can anyone say that matter is anterior to consciousness rather than vice versa?

Are we saying, like Deepak, that human consciousness creates reality? No, that is manifestly not what we are saying. Rather, what we are saying is that the human subject is a sort of projected mirror of the dialectical synthesis of subject and object that constitutes what we call "reality." We can try to draw a bright line between subject and object, but that line is entirely manmade. Nature doesn't know anything about it, which is why, for example, math can be lodged in matter, or brains can be lodged in higher consciousness. Once you start to look at the world in this way, you soon begin to realize where all the truth and beauty are coming from, and why we'll never run out of them unless Darwinists and other materialists succeed in their mad attempt to eliminate the goal of the human state.

Again, that goal cannot be part of the temporal series. Rather, it must be eternal and unchanging, not subject to change. Health is etymologically related to wholeness, and this is exquisitely true of human health. So the question becomes, what constitutes a "whole human?" Christianity provides its own archetype in the form of Jesus, who constitutes the "perfect unblended blend," so to speak, of humanness and divinity. Likewise the saints, who represent fixed stars of truth, virtue and beauty (for virtue is human beauty in action).

But what are the fixed stars of Darwinism? Well, first of all, it is an absurd question from "within" the narrow constraints of philosophical Darwinism. Again, no one will ever accuse a Darwinist of being intellectually consistent. But I suppose the fixed star is "survival," even though survival can have no ontological superiority over extinction. I mean, who really cares, except perhaps the one doing the surviving? And even then, natural selection cares only for the group, and is ruthless about weeding out the genes that don't benefit its survival.

Now, there is just no question that Hitler was animated by this metaphysic (as you can see in the sidebar, I'm currently reading a book about him; can't yet say whether I can recommend it). Is this to say that he was a Darwinist, or that Nazism was just some sort of logical extension of Darwinism? No, not at all. It is venturing on the impossible to even suggest that Hitler ever read Darwin in the original. Rather, he was familiar with his ideas -- of which he approved -- only through the popular literature.

But even then, Hitler never "reasoned up" from facts to ideology. Rather, he developed his sinister ideology by 1920 or so, and his only interest in books and ideas was to find things that confirmed his prejudices and preconceptions. Thus, he would have considered Darwinism through the lens of his ideology. Happily for him and tragically for the rest of humanity, he not only found nothing in Darwinism to oppose his ideology, but much to support it, for Darwinism has no intrinsic basis for opposing evil or promoting human evolution. Rather, that's our job.

45 comments:

Warren said...

"On the one hand, evolution can result in the great organic synthesis of Western Christian civilization. On the other hand, it can result in the retrograde phenomenon of reductionistic Darwinism."

Maybe we could say that Western Christian civilization represents evolution, while Darwinism represents entropy?

Warren said...

"one of the most painful aspects of good parenting is to be able to tolerate your child's pain, and not try to instantaneously make it go away!"

Imagine how God must feel.

walt said...

So glad that you trademarked "Coon-Time™"! For truly, that concept belongs here, in its natural setting.

I mean, what if some Darwinist or Anonytroll had thought of it first? The implications of that are just ugly . . .

julie said...

"Are we saying, like Deepak, that human consciousness creates reality?"

Ah ha! An opening for me to provide this link, which begins with the following heroic truth about Obama:

"Every now and then, Obama opens his eyes and the world springs into existence."

Okay, back to more serious discussion.

Anonymous said...

The rooster crows and makes the sun rise.

Rick said...

Actually, Petey, it was this guy. He "proved it."

Unknown said...

Very interesting and thought provoking post today Bob. You didn't seem to touch on this when you mentioned Hitler but would you also think that another result of "Darwinistic" thought was the rise of the Eugenics's movement? I find it fascinating that prior to WW2 the Americans and German were working together on the concept.

Ray Ingles said...

And once you admit of verticality, you must acknowledge that there is a hierarchical toppermost of of the poppermost that conditions the scale from top to bottom...

There is a lowest temperature. There is no "highest" temperature.

On what basis, save for metaphysical whimsy, can anyone say that matter is anterior to consciousness rather than vice versa?

Alzheimers. Lim(consciousness) as brain -> 0 = 0.

Van Harvey said...

"Now, no matter how loudly and crudely Darwinists protest to the contrary, humanness is an achievement; it is higher on the vertical scale, not merely one more horizontal arrangement of genetic material. Furthermore, some human beings are objectively better than others, which is to say they have achieved greater "humanness" "

Just wanted to see it again.

Anonymous said...

In the absence of humans, there's no temperature at all.

Anonymous said...

Bob wrote of the reductionistic Darwinists:

"They are fundamentally committed to intellectual devolution, or the elimination of Man as Such, come what may."

No so. There is a way to admit the vertical into the Darwinist system, and that is by couching the problem in different terminology. It has not been traversed yet, but the passageway exists.

The language that has grown up around computing can be harnessed for the task.

In this model God is converted into an environing and interpenetrating data field (think of electromagnetic fields such as radio, TV, WiFi, etc.)

Reclassify God as a data field of unknown class, poorly understood now but capable of being studied objectively with the right equipment.

Think of the human brain as the only extant "equipment" capable of recieving data from the God field.

Think of the difference among various humans (in their ability to recieve data from the God field) and attribute these differences to natural selection in the mid-process of selecting for this mental ability.

Extrapolate a future time when all man have developed a fully functioning God reciever type brain.

Speculate the God field may holographically contain all data sets--omnipotence and omniprescence then become acceptable/reasonable assumptions regarding God.

Envision practical applications for the God field-- i.e, how to achieve universal bliss, which can be the only acceptable and logical end point to all striving.

The Darwinist thus arrives at Ananda (think Sat-Chit-Ananda)worked out in materialist terms but arriving at the same endpoint as the Aurobindonian metaphysic.

So, a synthesis is available, but arduous.

Rick said...

I haven’t been convinced that memory/consciousness is stored or exists, so to speak, in the brain as its primary location. It is located separate from it and the body is needed to allow it expression in the world. With Alzheimers, I believe it is a conditon of failure of the health of the body but not of the consciousness.

Van Harvey said...

Lance said "...would you also think that another result of "Darwinistic" thought was the rise of the Eugenics's movement? I find it fascinating that prior to WW2 the Americans and German were working together on the concept."

Lance, check into the rise of the Progressive movement (the witches brew of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Pragmatism)... we gave the ideas to them.

(Well... Wundt and a couple others came close, but as a notion, it came from the Progressives, and from the same roots Gagdad is talking about - the elimination of "Quality", the Vertical, ensures there will be no moral error checking upon what is seen to be 'effective')

Van Harvey said...

Ray said ""

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous said "No so. There is a way to admit the vertical into the Darwinist system, and that is by couching the problem in different terminology."

Gagdad isn't talking about evolution, but reductionistic darweenies, who as an article of faith exclude any possibility of the vertical in any way shape or form.

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous said "It has not been traversed yet, but the passageway exists. The language that has grown up around computing can be harnessed for the task. In this model God is converted into an environing and interpenetrating data field (think of electromag..."

(I think all of us computer geeks with a philosophical bent have traversed that path... it'll be interesting to discuss with the tour guide at the end of the trail)

julie said...

Anonymous, couching it in terms of a "God field," sounds rather like Buddhism/ Eastern mysticism translated into computer-speak. It's a way of thinking about God without thinking of an interventionist or a big guy with a white beard, but however you dress it up it's still not actually materialism. Perhaps it's the kind of mental bridge the materialist needs to better begin to comprehend God. Like a puppet show or a masquerade, it could both demonstrate and veil an aspect of the truth, because the unveiled, unvarnished force of the Truth is too much for the materialist to bear or even comprehend.

Anonymous said...

There is a lowest temperature. There is no "highest" temperature.

Sounds like the tenets of a new theological movement;

Zero degree Calvinism

Anonymous said...

Yes, Julie, you have it precisely right. The bridge between the materialist and God must be designed so as not to frighten/perturb.

The mind-set of the materialist is built up the way it is for security purposes. The materialist must have consistency and observability in her world to hold back the fear of chaos/disintegration.

If you can get around this blinding fear, then God becomes visible/possible to her.

By understanding the defect, the metaphysician can prescribe the cure.

And one cure is to couch God in the comforting terminology and tenets of the computing field, the darling of the geeks.

Anonymous said...

But anon,

That blinding fear is a product of arrogance, the need to control and determine, the product of "non serviam" - "I will determine how and when God will be recognized. The criteria of truth are in my power."

They are not as innocent as you make them out to be.

These are not kids who got left behind at the supermarket.

If you are speaking about children, college students just starting to waken, rejecting false faith, then maybe so.

But I don't think that's the average materialist scientist.

julie said...

"And one cure is to couch God in the comforting terminology and tenets of the computing field, the darling of the geeks."

It's troubling, though - there's a difference between using mythology and analogy to transmit truth and presenting them as truth. Which of course leads directly to falsehood in all its myriad forms. In other words, one can think of O as a field for the purposes of first attempting to grasp how it is that I AM, so to speak. But one would be deeply mistaken in believing that the field is O, is in fact anything but a metaphor and personal mental container for that which can neither be fully expressed nor contained. Therein lies a recipe for disillusionment at best.

robinstarfish said...

in terms of coontime™
it is always O o'clock
alice in wonder

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Oh, there certainly is a highest temperature. But it could only exist in one place and at one time, because it would amount to all of the energy of the universe being in one place at one time. A material absolute if you will.

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "But one would be deeply mistaken in believing that the field is O, is in fact anything but a metaphor and personal mental container for that which can neither be fully expressed nor contained. "

Yes, you had it right earlier, it is a first step for the mind fixated upon material explanations. The problem soon appears, however, in the form of the defense the little old lady gave at the opening of the previous century "I know what you're trying to do sonny boy, but it won't work! It's Turtles all the way down!"

It solves nothing, only puts the question back a step from how did the consciousness become conscious in the body, to the even more difficult one of how did the conscious field become so, out loose in the universe at large?

Anonymous said...

Anon said:

By understanding the defect, the ________ can prescribe the cure.

And one cure is to couch God in the comforting terminology and tenets of the
________________.

Don't we already have this with Deepak & plenty of 'churches' already?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Anonymous said...
"Yes, Julie, you have it precisely right. The bridge between the materialist and God must be designed so as not to frighten/perturb."

That wouldn't be a bridge it would be a peninsular.

You can't spare people of their fear, or being uncomfortable, else they would never even see the true bridge, let alone have the will to cross it.

Anonymous said...

Already already?

*****************

OT, but I (already)want to play with my new linky-dinky toy(already), so here goes(already):

Everyone remember the Heil Obama salute?

Anyone else thunk it looked mighty familiar?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hurray Ximeze!
Welcome to the linky-dink club! :^)

And thanks for the links! Obviously, the Obots couldn't come up with any new ideas.

walt said...

Bob wrote,
"...what we are saying is that the human subject is a sort of projected mirror of the dialectical synthesis of subject and object that constitutes what we call "reality."

I have spent a lot of "time" throughout my life grasping at explanations, and trying to figure things out. As with wrestling with a koan, there comes a time when the mind just gets . . . well, tired of it.

Lately, I've been thinking more vertically, and when examining something, try to ask "What is this a reflection of?" This follows from the general idea of "as above, so below," with all its innuendoes and implications. And the results have been at least interesting, not unlike Bob's Unconscious in terms of unusual perspectives.

I tell you, it's that "unblended blend" of Raccoon Tea™ you serve here, a subtle stimulant that makes the user slightly mad . . . but in a good way, of course!

Good post, Bob!

julie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
julie said...

Ximeze, from your first link, did you catch the bit about how it's apparently a rude hand gesture in Germany? Dunno if it's true, but I can't help thinking it would have been kind of hilarious if they'd been trying to get people to do that while the Big O was there speaking.

Anonymous said...

If you want to see for yourself what the greatest barrier to Human Evolution on this planet is, you need look no further that George W Bush, his administration altogether, and all of his right-thinking "religious" supporters.

Plus John McCain too.

And everyone that is involved in exoteric religion too, whether liberal/"progressive" or conservative. Exoteric religion reduces everybody to the fear based mortal meat-body level of existence ONLY.

No profundity allowed, or rather ALL profundity is strictly TABOO.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't be so quick to rule out other reasons for your failure to evolve.

Anonymous said...

Julie:
About the rude hand gesture in Germany, don't doubt it. Plenty of our not-rude hand gestures mean rude things in other countries. Our OK (thumb to index-finger circle) is a no-no in lots of places.

Personal experience with this has made for some very embarrassing moments. Travelers beware - and read the damn travel-books (they can keep you from having the snot beaten out of yourself- since the natives will feel perfectly justified in doing so)

Anonymous said...

Van wrote in response to the process of making God intelligible to materialists using computer jargon.

"It solves nothing, only puts the question back a step from how did the consciousness become conscious in the body, to the even more difficult one of how did the conscious field become so, out loose in the universe at large?"

The answer is that the "God field" contains all data, incuding the answer to the question of its own existence. Access the field, and you find out how the field came to be.

Van Harvey said...

Ximeze! Well done!
And a perfect snorter for the first time out obamama star trek!

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse @6:42 said "...see for yourself what the greatest barrier to Hum..."

yawn.

NoMo said...

I forward a motion that Blogger protocol be revised to refer to "anonymous" by the more appropriate appelation of "complete idiot". All in favor?

Seriously, where do these "people" come from?

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous @9:26 said "The answer is that the "God field" contains all data, incuding the answer to the question of its own existence. Access the field, and you find out how the field came to be."

...yeah... but...'how the field came to be' is my point, it requires an explanation yet another step removed. I'm not trying to shoot it down, it sort of works as a schematic explanation of how the clockwork ticks, I just think at some point it still requires another turtle underneath - and we, I, end up saying I don't know, but I do gno that whatever is IS, and IS no matter my understanding how it is.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I was reminded that perhaps I should have been more clear on "idealism" and "realism" frames of reference.

What I was referring to was that in idealism the world is seen as a series of relationships with relationships.

In the realist view, it is relationships with entities -objects, people, etc.

Now, as for using the fielt theory model of God definition, we must understand that we can run into a vortex.

Example, (sticking with computers)..

Whats that? It is a CD.
Why is the CD that color, what is that?
It is silver.
What is silver?
It is an element that is that color (a bit circular -which is inevitible at some layer)
Whats an element?
Well it is an arrangement of particles.
What is a particle?
Well, we have atoms, protons, neutrons..

It goes on and on. layer after layer, with more scientific tools or theory to define what it is -but all we've done is extend our ability to detect more relationships. Polymers and large molecules aside, for the plastic.

So asking what a CD is -can end up down a trail of quantum physics, or simply a discussion of the function of a CD.

Moreover, it is difficult to break into the parallelism of the different simultaneous occurances of matter and energy that make up a CD "field" by using English. This is why we use mathematics in physics to "desribe' functions (unless you are Al Gore).

-Luke

Nomo, I 2nd the motion, unless someone else did while I was posting.. then I "n" it in concurrance.

If you were around in the 80s -that would be a post from cup.portal.com.

:)

Magnus Itland said...

My brother married the daughter of a particularly godly man, who had held on to and grown in his faith and love of God and all things good in a place that was crude and dark. I had the honor of learning to know this man, and I also had the honor of meeting him one last time after Alzheimer's had stripped away nearly all that was human in him - the psyche, if you will. He could no longer talk or recognize anyone by memories of the past. And with that veil rent, the love and wisdom that shone from his face was beyond anything I have seen before or since. As I met his eyes, I realized that he knew me far better than he had when he relied on memories. At that moment I knew what I had only grasped as a theory before: That it is possible for a human to become transformed in the very core of their being.

I am not saying that you're not "saved" if Alzheimer's reduces you to a whining toddler or worse (as it probably would with me if it happened right now). Rather I say that there is a transformation possible for the few who are so desperate that they are not satisfied with going to Heaven - they start pulling Heaven down here right away. And in that case at least, Heaven actually did answer the call. That man went to Heaven first and died later.

Rick said...

Magnus,
It sounds as if he pulled it down and out of you too, when your eyes met.

I wonder though if it was his core that was transformed and not the other way around? Maybe the body failed him and would no longer support the connection of his core to his memories/ego. His unconscious core dreamer was out in the day.

I watched my grandmother go through Alzheimer's and it seems it may be beginning with my father-in-law. What was apparent with her was an increasing frustration with her ability to express herself. On the better moments she would be speaking well enough but at times would spell-out with her hand in the air in front of her in large letters the words that she either thought were the important ones in the thought or just enjoyed them for what they “stood for.” My father-in-law is going through a similar frustration at times. A “blinking-out” for a bit but then back with us for most of the time. When they are “back” they are “the same” which to me indicates the core is somewhere else (maybe) but not changed.

Rick said...

Walt,
I’m using “core” maybe like you once used the word “jewel” in a post not long ago.

Ray Ingles said...

Ricky - Computer programs can "blink out" and "come back", too. So can waterfalls.

Brazentide said...

There is a lowest temperature. There is no "highest" temperature.

I had the same thoughts this past week~

Additionally, darkness has reached it's threshold when there is no light at all, but brightness is limitless. What we often think of as "opposites" are really just substance and the absence.

Realities like these are shadows that the vertical casts on the horizontal. They give us insight into the nature of the transcendent realities.

When you think about it, the vertical is a "V" that the extends infinitely upward and outward, but as you descend, it reaches a point where you can go no further.

From that perspective, its easy to see why falling to hell would be in-infinitely dark, miserable and constraining (in actuality, all souls are created a bit too large to reach the vertex of un-being and thus must persist as uncomfortably close to it as possible in the wedge), while ascending the "V" is a journey into ever increasing horizons of immeasurable splendor. It is perpetual movement towards the infinite Absolute.

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