Carl
Sagan writes in his book ‘The Demon-Haunted World’. ‘(Science) is more than a
body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking……..Avoidable human misery is more
often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our
ignorance about ourselves’.
He
again writes, ‘The scientific way of thinking is at once imaginative and
disciplined. This is central to its
success. Science invites us to let the
facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative
hypotheses in our heads and see which best fit the facts. It urges on us a delicate balance between
no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous
skeptical scrutiny of everything-new ideas and established wisdom. This kind of thinking is also an essential
tool for a democracy in an age of change’………….
‘One
of the great commandments of science is ‘Mistrust arguments from
authority’. (Scientists, being
primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always
follow this commandment). Too many such arguments have proved too painfully
wrong, Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else. This independence of science, its occasional
unwillingness to accept conventional wisdom, makes it dangerous to doctrines
less- self-critical, or with pretensions to certitude. ‘
Einstein
writes, ‘For whereas formerly it was
enough for a man to have freed himself to some extent from personal egotism to
make him a valuable member of society, today he must also be required to
overcome national and class egotism.
Only if he reaches those heights can he contribute toward improving the
lot of humanity’.
Again
he wrote, ‘Any social organism can become psychically distempered just as any
individual can, especially in times of difficulty. Nations usually survive these
distempers. I hope that healthy
conditions will soon supervene in Germany ………..’
When
Gandhi was asked to speak about European civilization, he said, ‘it is a good idea’.
America
exploded two atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and within seconds lacs of people
became ash. Today the US, the world leader
in science and technology, is the most dangerous war- mongering nation in the world. The Middle East is a destabilized region in to-day’s world.
Noam Chomsky says, ‘If some Extraterrestrial species were
compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into
two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NEW (the nuclear weapons era). NEW, of course, opened on August 6, 1945, the
first day of the countdown to what may be the inglorious end of this strange
species, which attained the intelligence to discover the effective means to
destroy it self, but- so the evidence suggests-not the moral and intellectual
capacity to control its worst instincts.’ (How Many Minutes to Midnight?).
In
the essay ‘Approaching Socialism’ (Analytical Monthly Review: July to
August-2005) Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff wrote ‘The variety of structure and
organization of past civilizations is truly striking. It was not so long ago- in the span of human
existence-that the native peoples in North and South America had a very
different consciousness than that imposed by the invasions and conquest of the
European armies and settlers. Thus
Christopher Columbus wrote after his
first voyage to the West: “Nor have I been able to learn whether they held personal
property, for it seemed to me that whatever one had, they all took shares of …
They are so free with all they have that no one would believe it who has not
seen it; of anything they possess, if it be asked of them , they never say no;
on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their
hearts went with it.”
The
missionary du Tertre writes from the Caribbean in the 1650s, ‘they are all
equal, without anyone recognizing any sort of superiority or any sort of
servitude…. Neither is richer or poorer than his companion and all unanimously
limit their desires to that which is useful and precisely necessary, and are
contemptuous of all other things, superfluous things, as not being worthy to be
possessed….” And Montaigne wrote of three Indians who were in France in the
late sixteenth century. They explained
to him about the common Indian custom of dividing the people into halves,
groups with special and separate duties for ritual or administrative reasons,
such as the summer and winter people of the various North American tribes. The Indians were struck by the two opposing
groups in France. “They had perceived
there were men amongst us full gorged with all sorts of commodities and others,
hunger-starved, and bare with need and poverties begged at their gates: and
found it strange these moieties so needy could endure such an injustice, and
they took not the others by the throat, or set fire on their house….”
‘We
have briefly referred above to societies in which economics was subservient to
social relations. That changed
dramatically in the evolution of capitalism as private property, money and
trade for gain came to the forefront.
Social relations became but reflections of the dominating force of
society’s capitalist economics instead of the reverse’.
(Approaching
Socialism)
Indigenous
communities teach us about the glory of human relations. The question that
haunts humanity is what lies wrong with modern civilization. Have we the will
and sufficient time to over come our psychic distempers? Here we can discuss the topic human
nature. Human nature has not been constant in
different countries and different ages.
Harry Magdoff & Fred Magdoff write, ‘…..the consciousness, behavior,
habits, and values of humans can be so variable and are influenced by the
history and culture that develops in a given society. Not only has so - called human nature
changed, the ideology surrounding the components of human nature has also changed
dramatically. The glorification of making money, the sanctioning of all the
actions necessary to do so, and the promotion of the needed human
traits-“unnatural” and repugnant to Aristotle- is now the norm of capitalist
societies. ’
What
lies wrong with Indigenous communities is their lack of scientific
outlook. They have their shamans who
believe in mysticism, miracles and in a number of deities who guide and guard
their lives. The Aztec society
sacrificed human beings to propitiate their great God.
The
tribe of pueblo Indians in Mexico has won the admiration and wonder of the
western thinkers. Einstein wrote:-
‘Under
the hardest living conditions, this tribe (pueblo Indians) has apparently
accomplished the difficult task of delivering its people from the scourge of
competitive spirit and of fostering in them a temperate, cooperative conduct of
life, free of external pressure and without any curtailment of happiness.’
Religion and
science: irreconcilable?
Pueblo
Indian society is mercifully free from sexual jealousy. Unfortunately this
society has become stagnant and lacks movement at the social and cultural
level.
Latin
America has produced some of the best theoreticians of socialism in the
world. Regarding the urban areas of
Latin America Kees Koonings and dirk
Kruijt write in their book ‘Fractured Cities’.
‘The
first issue and the starting point is the long-standing syndrome of urban
poverty, inequality and social exclusion.
Although this has been part and parcel of Latin American patterns of urbanization
over the past century or so, the new neo-liberal model that dominated the past
two decades has intensified this pattern to a considerable degree.’
‘A
second issue addressed throughout the book is the withdrawal (if not failure)
of the (local) state, especially of its public security functions. The widening of so-called governance voids
and the un-rule of law is now acknowledged as an important element in the
relationship between urban exclusion, insecurity and violence. In many cases, the police and the judiciary
are ineffective in dealing with crime and violence, or worse, are among the
active protagonists. This failure is
partial or selective, however, roughly following a class colour divide; hence
‘state abandonment’ might be a more appropriate term. As is clearly demonstrated by Elizabeth Leeds
for Rio de Janeiro (in Chapter-2), Wil Pansters and Hector Castillo Berthier
for Mexico City (in Chapter-3) and Roberto Briceno – Leon for Caracas (in
Chapter-6), local official security forces are often ineffective owing to
disorganization, lack of vision, political disputes or an overly militarized
approach to law enforcement and public security. In Rio de Janeiro and particularly in
Medellin, the police have even been part of a veritable urban war. As a result, in many Latin American cities,
the police are highly distrusted and often seen as a threat by inhabitants of
low-income neighborhoods.’ (Introduction:
the Duality of Latin American Cityscapes). Can Latin America become a truly
socialist country without a sea change in their urban areas? Socialist thinkers of Latin America are
proposing socialism based on protagonist democracy which is definitely an
improvement in the socialist theory; but it does not solve all the problems
that bedevil humanity.
In
India the vulnerable sections of the population, women, children and the aged
people are being harassed. This
harassment increases from year to year.
Society becomes more and more nuclearized as days pass. In the American
Society divorces are ruining families.
Children are becoming more and more anti –social from year to year. Pornography and war-mongering have become the
hall marks of American Society.
Scientists
have rightly discarded the theory of gene – determinism but the theory of
neural determinism (brain) can not be thrown away dismissively. When certain areas of the brain are damaged
due to accidents or otherwise, the personality changes completely. Scientists have made the discovery that
within the last twenty thousand years humans have lost 20% of their
brains. Prof. Robin Dunbar and his
colleagues discovered that social evolution always precedes the increase of
intelligence in the human brain.
Amydale
which is responsible for the violence in human nature is controlled by the
prefrontal cortex only in the human specie. Mirror neurons which are
responsible for empathy are not so many in other species. This
shows the direction in which evolution was moving. Nature wanted to produce a
species which would make its task of the survival of all the species easier.
Has human nature changed for the worse? Has
humanity abandoned the evolutionary path fixed for it by nature? The questions
need answers from scholars.
Scientists
who simulated nature with in computers to study evolution that took place with
in millions of years came to the conclusion that in evolution nature follows a
particular method and evolution has also a particular aim.
W. Daniel Hillis is a computer scientist; cofounder and
chief scientist of Thinking Machines; corporation editor of several scientific
journals.
He wrote ‘The engineering process doesn’t work very well
when it gets complicated. We’re
beginning to depend on computers that use a process very different from
engineering- process (evolutionary process of nature) that allows us to produce
things of much more complexity than we could with normal engineering’. “Close to the Singularity”
‘I said to the Computer “Computer, would you please make a
hundred million random sequences of instructions. Now, execute all those random sequences of
instructions, all those programs, and pick out the ones that come closest to
what I wanted.” In other words, I
defined what I wanted to accomplish, not how to accomplish it.’
Einstein wrote ‘For the scientists, there is only “being”,
but no wishing, no valuing, no good, no evil-in short, no goal’.
‘From this it might seem as if logical thinking were
irrelevant for ethics, scientific statements of facts and relations, indeed,
cannot produce ethical directives.’
Einstein’s question was
‘What
is the origin of such ethical axioms? Are they arbitrary? Are they based on
mere authority? Do they stem from experience of men and are they conditioned
indirectly by such experiences?’
The Law of Science and The Laws of Ethics (Sane voices for a
Disoriented Generation).
From what the leading computer scientists have discovered by
simulating evolution in side the computer, ethics does not seen to be an
arbitrary system of knowledge. It seems Nature has chosen for us a system of
ethics which we are violating at our peril. Scientist like Lynn Margulis, James
Love lock, Fritjof Capra, Andrew Glikson (Earth and Paleo-climate scientist) all
have tried to discover the ethical part of Nature’s command to humanity.
The questions and the problems raised by Einstein also
troubled J. Doyne Farmer who is a physicist, as well as a leading computer
scientist, an internal professor at the Santa Fe Instite, USA.
J. Doyne Farmer wrote, ‘In the last half of this century,
the view has emerged that life and consciousness are natural and inexorable
outgrowths of the emergent and self-organizing properties of the physical
world. This fundamental change in our view of consciousness and life gives us a
new way of looking at ourselves and our beliefs, and of understanding how we
fit into the universe.’
(The
Second Law of Organization)
‘It seemed really important to know why we were here, and to
understand the meaning of life. It was
upsetting to me that these question, which seemed to lie at the foundation of
everything, didn’t have any good answers.
The easy solutions just didn’t fit.
My brief preadolescent foray into religion left me with nothing but the
realization that people have a desperate need to understand these questions.
……….’
Regarding the
artificial world created in the computer, he said ‘It’s a
symbiotic system, in which everything co-operates to make the metabolism work
–the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If normal replication is like monogamous sex,
autocatalytic reproduction is like an orgy. We were interested in the logical
possibility for this to happen – in an artificial world, simulated inside a
computer, following chemical laws that were similar to those of the real world
but vastly simplified to make the simulation possible.’
The Second Law of Organization
‘The Paradox that immediately bothers everyone who learns
about the second law is this: If systems tend to become more disordered, why,
then, do we see so much order around us? Obviously there must be some thing
else going on. In particular, it seems to conflict with our “creation myth”: In the beginning, there was a big bang. Suddenly a huge amount of energy was created,
and the universe expanded to form particulars.
At first, things were totally chaotic, but somehow over the course of
time complex structures began to form.
More complicated molecules, clouds of gas, stars, galaxies, planets,
geological formations, oceans, autocatalytic metabolisms, life, intelligence,
societies….’
‘And it’s important to stress that no one is saying the
second law of thermodynamics is wrong, just that there is a contrapuntal process
organizing things at a higher level…….’
‘Social evolution is different from biological evolution:
it’s faster, it’s Lamarckian, and it makes even heavier use of altruism and
cooperation than biological evolution does.
None of this was well understand at the time (Darwin’s and Einstein’s
time)’
‘Many of us believe that self –organization is a general
property - certainly of the universe……..’
Scientists
became aware that the laws of the physical worlds are different from the laws
of the living world.
Fritjof
Capra was a physicist. He wrote in his book: - ‘The Web of Life’ ‘………..Physics
has now lost its role as the science providing the most fundamental description
of reality. However, this is still not
generally recognized today. Scientists
as well as non-scientists frequently retain the popular belief that ‘if you
really want to know the ultimate explanation; you have to ask a physicist’,
which is clearly a Cartesian fallacy.
Today, the paradigm shift in science, at its deepest level, implies a
shift from physics to the life sciences’.
Deep Ecology- A
New Paradigm.
Nobel
Laureate, Erwin Schrodinger, a physicist, wrote a science classic ‘What is
Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living
Cell with Mind and Matter.’ He wrote that the laws of Life Sciences are
different from the laws of classical physics. The material world is governed by
the second law of Thermo-Dynamics ‘the law of entropy’. Accordingly
every order changes into disorder, all the heat contained in matter
dissipates, all energy disappears leading to a dead world of matter. In the birth of life and its progress, anti-
entropy triumphs, disorder leads to
order, heat and energy go on increasing. He wrote ‘It is by avoiding the rapid
decay into the inert state of ‘equilibrium’ that an organism appears so
enigmatic…………..’ How does the living organism avoid decay? The obvious answer is, by eating, drinking,
breathing and (in the case of plants) assimilating. ………..’ (It feeds on
‘Negative Entropy’).
Christopher G. Langtion is a computer scientist; visiting
professor at the Santa Fe ‘Institute, director of the institute’s
artificial-life program; editor of the journal Artificial Life. He wrote:-
We don’t specify the selective criteria externally. Rather, we let all the “Organisms” interact
with one another, in the context of a dynamic environment, and the selective
criteria simply emerge naturally. To any
one of these organisms, “nature,” in the computer, is the collective dynamics
of the rest of the computerized organisms there. When we allow this kind of interaction among
the organisms- when we allow them to pose their own problems to one another –
we see the emergence of a Nature with a capital “N” inside the computer, whose
“nature” we can’t predict as it evolves through time.
‘If you look at the architecture of most of the complex
systems in nature- immune systems, economies, countries, corporations, living
cells- there’s no central controller in complete control of these systems. There may be things that play a slightly
centralized role, such as the nucleus in a cell, or a central government, but a
great deal of the dynamics goes on autonomously. In fact, many of the emergent properties that
such systems get caught up in would probably not be possible if every thing had
to be controlled by a centralized set of rules.
Nature has learned how to bring about organization without employing a
central organizer, and the resulting organizations seem much more robust,
adaptive, flexible, and innovative than those we build ourselves that rely on a
central controller.’
A
Dynamical Pattem
Stuart Kauffman is a biologist; professor of biochemistry at
the University of Pennsylvania and a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. This highly –talented Professor almost summarized the findings of
the computer scientists who simulated the process of evolution in the
computers
He wrote, ‘Although Darwin presented natural selection as an
external force, what we’re thinking of is organisms living in an environment
that consists mostly of other organisms.
That means that for the past four billion years, evolution has brought
forth organisms that successfully coevolved with one another. Undoubtedly natural selection is part of the
motor, but it’s also true that there is spontaneous order’.
Stuart Kauffman devised the phrase ‘ORDER FOR FREE’ to explain evolution.
To quote Kauffman, ‘But if there’s order for free then some
of the order you see in organisms is not due to selection. It is due to something somehow inherent n the
building blocks. If that’s right, it’s a
profound shift, in a variety of ways.’ Using his ideas, he hoped to devise
processes for making new genes. He said, ‘within five years, I hope we’ll be
able to make vaccines to treat almost any disease you want, and do it rapidly. We’re going to be able to make hundreds of
new drugs.'
All the computer scientists interested in evolution agree on
one point. Nature should be left free
to move in the direction it chooses.
Socialism is a natural product and will prevail if we do not interfere
in the work of nature. Matricentricism is nature’s choice. Matricentric values
constitute the core of evolutionary socialism. We can not have true socialism
if male-values dominate society. The
addition of a few needed patricentric values to the core matricentric values
leads to creativity (Ashis Nandy: Self-Images Identity & Nationality). This
is ideal for a development – oriented socialism.
AS Kauffman says freedom is the base on which evolution
stands. Freedom is another word for
non-violence. In a group no member can enjoy freedom if there is violence. Violence leads to domination and domination
leads to control. In the process of evolution order comes only if there is no
controller. Evolution is self-
organizing and spontaneously leads to order.
In the News paper Odisha Post (24.01.2012) there was an
article titled “Male Sex Drive, the root of all evils”. In that essay it is written, “The Institute
of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology claim that it is actually the male
warrior instinct which has helped men evolve to be aggressive to outsiders
(philosophical trans-actions of Royal Society ‘B’) ‘……. In contrast, women are
naturally equipped with a ‘tend and befriend’ attitude, meaning they work to
resolve conflicts peacefully in order to protect the children.’
We have interfered with the processes of nature. The evils haunting human society are only
because of our interference. Nature was using female brain as a motor of human
evolution. That led to a matricentric
society where aggression and hierarchy were absent. Aggression and hierarchy
are present in the male brain only, not the female brain. (The Male Brain by
Louann Bridzendine, MD). Males and females enjoy equal status in matricentric
societies.
In Frontier August 24-30/2014, Saral Sarkar writes in the
essay ‘PC’s Critique of ‘Socialism’.
“Paresh Chattopadday (PC) is right in almost all points
(Frontier, August 3-9, 2014). The
question that must now be asked is: Does it make any sense at all to still try
to create socialist society that Marx and Engels had envisioned?.......... Also, PC’s awe-inspiring scholarship is of
little use unless he presents his conclusion as to the question “What is to be
done today”.
‘Drawing our attention to the book LIMITS TO GROWTH (1972),
he calls for a paradigm shift in our thinking and activity.’
‘As for revolution, I would like to quote Walter
Benjamin. He wrote: “Marx says
revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is entirely
different. Revolutions are perhaps the
attempt of humanity travelling in a train to pull the emergency brake.”
If it was not true when Benjamin wrote this, it is true
today. In the same sense, another German
author, Carl Amery, wrote in the general sense: ‘Political activists have till
now tried to change the world in various ways.
The point however is to preserve it.’
What is to be done? Our task is to preserve the biosphere
and change the world’.
(FRONTIER August 24-30, 2014).
If it was not true
when Benjamin wrote this, it is true today.
In the same sense, another German author, Carl Amery, wrote in the
general sense: ‘Political activists have till now tried to change the world in
various ways. The point however is to
preserve it.’
What is to be done? Our task is to preserve the biosphere
and change the world’.
(PC’s Critique of ‘Socialism’: FRONTIER for the month of August
24-30, 2014).
Nature needs the
existence of all organisms to act spontaneously. Some may fade away without any interference
by other organisms because they fail to find the proper ecological niche for
their nourishment and existence.
Andrew Glikson is Earth and Paleo-climate scientist of
Australian National University. He wrote:-
‘A good death is often envisaged as a slipping away, in
advanced age, surrounded by family. In
such circumstances, society goes on undiminished. We can think of a good extinction in similar
terms. A species slowly flickers out,
surrounded by newer, better adapted species.
This is not the kind of extinction that is occurring at present. ..
These extinctions destabilize ecosystems in the way that such deaths
destabilize society.’
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropceine
Climate Event Horizon: Andrew Glikson.
“If the bee
disappeared of the face of the earth, man would be left four years to live”. Nobel winner Maurice Maeterlinck ‘the Life of
the Bee’ The Hindu young world 01.07.2014.
(To be continued in Evolutionary
(Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-IV)
Bhagwat Prasad Rath,
3rd
Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. –
Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002,
Odisha.
Phone No.
06856-235092
Cell
No.-08895860598
No comments:
Post a Comment