No human nature
August 16th 2006 00:35
Probably, all you need to gain humility is to fastforward to a million years in the future. And if that doesn't do it for you, then try ten million, or a hundred million, or a million million.
From the perspective of millions of years, you don't know the myriad forms of life that might evolve, the rivulets into which humanity might divide. And, getting more sci-fi, you don't know the ways it might combine with or adapt to machines.
From the perspective of just a million, how insignificant are so many of the things we pride ourselves on -- things we think matter in some larger scheme. All the petty everyday rat race jealousies. All the pressures of opinions and status, conventions and moralities. All the atrocities and glories that society commemorates. All the differences between our cultures, and between the past and the present. It's as if an unimaginable giant lay sleeping, and our wars and dramas were flickerings across its unconsciousness. As if history's repetitions of events, images, symbols were its dreams and obsessions and language.
So Chomsky believes we can define human nature -- and can use that to ground a vision of utopia. And Fukuyama believes that in liberal democracy we have already reached an ideological endpoint.
But simply fastforward, and it will be obvious, that every definitional attempt is futile, and no constraint of the flow can stand.
Notes
-- Sunday 28 October 2007: Oliver Curry has been making some wild predictions about the course of human evolution. "The logical outcome would be two sub-species, 'gracile' and 'robust' humans similar to the Eloi and Morlocks foretold by HG Wells in his 1895 novel The Time Machine."
From the perspective of millions of years, you don't know the myriad forms of life that might evolve, the rivulets into which humanity might divide. And, getting more sci-fi, you don't know the ways it might combine with or adapt to machines.
From the perspective of just a million, how insignificant are so many of the things we pride ourselves on -- things we think matter in some larger scheme. All the petty everyday rat race jealousies. All the pressures of opinions and status, conventions and moralities. All the atrocities and glories that society commemorates. All the differences between our cultures, and between the past and the present. It's as if an unimaginable giant lay sleeping, and our wars and dramas were flickerings across its unconsciousness. As if history's repetitions of events, images, symbols were its dreams and obsessions and language.
So Chomsky believes we can define human nature -- and can use that to ground a vision of utopia. And Fukuyama believes that in liberal democracy we have already reached an ideological endpoint.
But simply fastforward, and it will be obvious, that every definitional attempt is futile, and no constraint of the flow can stand.
***
Notes
-- Sunday 28 October 2007: Oliver Curry has been making some wild predictions about the course of human evolution. "The logical outcome would be two sub-species, 'gracile' and 'robust' humans similar to the Eloi and Morlocks foretold by HG Wells in his 1895 novel The Time Machine."
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Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
You know I've always believed that if you want to define the future, you have to study the past ...
Lilla....
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
this should link back to where I was... old batty ladies like me are lost before they reach the kitchen in the morning you know, let alone wandering around orbleland.
now... what does this button do............wshooop.......!!!!!
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I guess I don't really mind attempts at predicting the future based on the past; it's common sense to do so, and we all of us do this every day. But I get a little itchy when people try to constrain the future based on the past...
You're right about Marx. Straight-down-the-line Marxism believed in historical inevitability. Fukuyama and Marx both take their cues from Hegel, you see. Modern Marxism, which doesn't have the justification of inevitability, is forced to try to justify its ideas on other grounds.
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
I managed to find my way in here again... don't trouble yourself about the confusion, I enjoy the unknown...
Yes Hegel, indeed, so true on both counts, the future must (in part) be free from historical components to become itself in different ways to the past... to quote a quote - again... some things change, some things never do...
Although his critics thought him bogged down to some degree in Platoistic ideas... I loved Hegel’s idealism. Particularly his conclusions on Philosophy itself –"…being its own time, raised to the level of thought.”
…exciting… inspiring….so;
A philosophical tale …
Of Hegel…
…his abstractions of weave…
Of inner and outer,
Objective and subjective…idealism
Pantheistic Monism…
Absolute spirit…and a
God’s eye view…
Existentialist, Marxist…
Or metaphysical, critical, dogmalian Kant…
All upon Hegel’s Phenomenology…
Did they rant…
Splitting to the left and right,
History, science, theology …
…like serpents…
On an eternal Caduceus,
…together entwined…
and firmly planted
...in eternal ground...
I'll drink to good health...
Now I’m lost again and have to make my way out of here….again...
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Good, bad and ugly
THE human race will one day spllt into separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, a top scientist claims.
In about 100,000, sexual selection could mean two distinct breeds of human will have developed.
The prediction comes from evolutionary London School of Economics theorist Dr Oliver Curry.
These humans will be between 183cm and 214cm tall and they will llve up to 120 years.
"Physical features will he driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates," the report says.
Dr Curry says men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises, while women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts.