So this is an interesting idea, to question whether we have arrived at this particular point in time and space as a result of 'engineering' or as a result of mere 'accident'. 'Engineering' implies a type of conspiracy, an all seeing and all knowing premeditated 'design'. And it may feel this way at times, like when elite power seems to try and obfuscate its power from the masses. Not to say that it doesn't, but the question is, to what extent is such a move simply a means of self preservation, just as anyone would strive to protect their interests and try to preserve what they perceive to be their own reality or way of life. Does anyone really have an all knowing and all seeing perspective of the world? Maybe just God. Or are we all just behaving in the way that we've been raised to behave by our families and elders? Doesn't our behaviour seem rational, normative and justified to each of us for whatever reasons we believe?
Where we find ourselves today I think would be the result of constant struggle over time. Obviously some would have stronger and louder voices than others, and this would again vary over time. I guess the manner in which these voices are conveyed would also vary depending upon whether they were directly political or were more indirectly cultural. But I don't think there's any 'master plan', I think most of us simply carry out the motions of what we have become in the habit of doing. So really what's gotten us to this current point would be mostly a result of the will of the most powerful as they pursue their seemingly normative daily lives. Foucault proposes that the claim to truth is inextricably an act of power, a will to form humanity to our worldview, but not in any objective omniscient form.
I'm not sure where the distinction, if any, between the way that we think and our physical bodies actually occurs. How can a mind survive without a body and vice versa? Each must impact upon the other. How we think and what we believe effects our body shape, just as physical activity can release endorphins in our body. Charles Darwin wrote about the 'survival of the fittest' with regards to the animal kingdom and in terms of genetics. Genetics seems essentially to imply something physical, but I'm not sure that our beliefs and thoughts can't change our physical chemistry or genetic structure over time. What about if we feel depressed and ingest medication to make us feel happier? If a large portion of the population did this over generations and ignored the reasons why we felt unhappy to begin with, couldn't these chemicals gradually change our genetic structure? Could the chemicals be passed on physically through birth? Could even cultural adaption to this new chemically happy world possibly change emotional mechanisms in our brain structure?
Notwithstanding, I'm not sure either how the idea of the 'fittest' applies to human societies. Societies around the world today are governed and civilised in some way. I can imagine weak or sick animals as being killed and eaten by stronger predators while operating essentially under an instinct for survival, but human beings don't often overtly behave in this way, or do we? We exist within a dialectic of survival and civility, given both are a form of survival, but what enables human civility is our protection of the weak. We look after those who aren't strong. But then you wonder if human beings evolved from apes, perhaps our evolution was Darwinian-like to begin with, but what led to the change in our behavior from culling the weak to protecting the weak? This aspect of our behaviour seems to have evolved the human race, but what is that aspect? It somehow seems to have made our race strong and resilient over time. It seems that while we are free of Darwin's 'fittest', we are also in some other way subject to it at the same time. Perhaps animals are at nature's mercy while humans have managed to use nature to their advantage. Does this human utilisation of nature and tendency toward civility relate to some sort of evolved knowledge about strength in gene diversification? Do we maintain the weak to expand our breeding pool? How could we know about this though without having been subject already to some sort of inbreeding? It can only logically have been theorised, imagined, it couldn't be empirical. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates??? Could inbreeding have been detected and some sort of reversal quickly adapted? Alternatively, some type of random physical genetic switch may have been triggered as a result of changing environmental factors? Do our emotions involving compassion for the weak derive from this need?
It seems in the animal world of survival that culling the weak results in strength, that is, strong plus strong equals strong. Are the weak the inbred, or do animals innately know how to avoid inbreeding already? If knowledge about inbreeding is innate among animals and humans then how do we know such a phenomena even actually exists if we have already been programmed to avoid it? Is the notion of inbreeding a myth? Lets assume for a moment that it exists but isn't an innate concept, why is it then within the human and civilised dialectic that strength is found in protecting the weak? Or are animals both compassionate and caring of their weak just like us but we don't read it in this way? Or are both animals and humans both within a dialectic but animals are closer to the survival end of the spectrum and humans closer to the civilised side? Or is compassion just innate?
Too many questions, too many unknowns! How would it be possible for all of this complexity to fit into a plan and to have had this time and space today conceived of as a goal? The universe is too complex for anyone to control it in this way. What is outside of civility is not considered to be human, but it doesn't mean that this aspect of humanity doesn't exist. Perhaps it is this very aspect of humanity that enables us to be civilised. Or is it the negation of this aspect that enables civility? Yet I'd still like a better explanation of what distinguishes us as human and how we came to be as we are. Is it even possible to know this or are we as we are as a result of some minor and insignificant thing or event? Or do we want to change the definition and delineation of what it means to be human or what it means to be civilised?
Anthropologist, Napoleon Chagnon, engaged in research with the Yanomamo tribe in the Amazon during the 1970's and 1980's. What he found was that when the tribe warred amongst themselves (instigated essentially by external interference) they formed two groups and those that sided together were found to be most closely aligned in terms of genetics. Those who were related somehow sided together. Of course the whole tribe were related in some way, but the members who were most closely related formed alliances or gravitated toward each other at times of crisis. Over time, this segregation would lead to a weakening of the gene pool. Is this how we behave when we feel threatened and must fight for our survival? Yet logically, this is not how this tribe had always behaved as a result of the fact that it had survived all this time and had previously remained strong. Did the Yanamamo know to 'mate' with their most distant gene-type within the group in times of peace and to only align with their closest relatives in times of war? Do we look for genetic 'distance' for the purpose of mating and genetic 'proximity' in times of war? The former seems to promote the continuation of our group and the latter seems to promote long term demise. Is it essentially the 'addition' of the former aspect which distinguishes us as human beings??
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