That conjures up old disagreements about the evolution of living species, but this is not the main issue here. I am talking about the ever-changing and evolving world we live in, in all respects - physical and social.
A starting point is the slogan "Panta Rhei" of the very ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. This means "everything is in a state of flux". It implies that it's not a good idea to make the assumption that "things will continue to go on as before" - however much we might like that to be the case. Both individuals and groups have to address the situations they find themselves in, the resources available, their own capability - and be prepared for things changing.
One possible metaphor for living in this world is that we are carried along in the 'ever rolling stream' of time. Another metaphor which may resound for some modern adults is life on a cruise ship; it may be sailing in stormy and uncertain waters (not to mention an epidemic!). Some talk about life for humans being like an ant colony - most of us certainly rush around feverishly! Another metaphor, the 'global village' focuses on the fact that we no longer live in a set of isolated communities, and we can seek and find information from almost anywhere on the planet.
However, for a long time in recorded history, say (in Europe) between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Reformation, not very much seemed to change, both in western and eastern countries. It seemed like the slogan was "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be".
But the term 'steady state', together with the concept of eternity, applies more to machines than to modern society. Geologists now accept that the continents on our planet have drifted around the globe as well as having been eroded, uplifted and otherwise altered. Our planet keeps on rotating and orbiting but the day is very slowly getting longer. Even apparent star positions aren't quite the same as in the middle ages. Astrology hasn't always moved to accommodate that.
In the 19th century a new theme arrived in philosophy with Hegel's 'dialectic'. This says that there is one idea being advanced or maintained, and an alternative brought up to oppose it. A synthesis then resolves matters into an improved situation - passing of some time being implied. Marx and Engels applied this pattern to production, labour and social class. Both Hegel and Marx used the pattern to claim historical inevitability for their chosen utopia. For Hegel that was the Prussian state, for Marx it was Communism. But like many changes which are claimed as progress, these utopias didn't didn't survive as envisaged - maybe because they didn't qualify on all of the 5 dimensions in the value pentagon (see PLOVER Value).
Over time, all things are subject to change and decay - including empires, political systems, philosphical systems. Even Newton's Laws of Motion were superseded by Einstein. Commercial companies are especially transitory things - a company may grow steadily for a while, but is eventually likely to suffer takeover, merger, monopoly, de-merger, nationalisation or bankruptcy. For a living species the direction is evolution or extinction - and there is plenty of evidence for extinctions.
In general terms, it can be said that the overall direction of things in the world is 'increasing complexity'. This seems to apply to the evolution of species. It certainly applies to human memes, and in consequence to the material products invented by humans - including complex chemical substances. Teilhard de Chardin saw life as arising from increasingly complex rope-like molecules, and DNA seems to confirm this. Likewise human society and technology is also on the path of increasing complexity - hopefully for 'the better' for all stakeholders in the future of the earth.
Many things, both physical and conceptual have 'life cycles'. There is a time when they come into being (either physical existence or apparent to human minds); they may go through a number of stages, some of which may be widely useful to humans; they may then become obsolete. Physical things may be consumed (e.g. burnt or eaten), dissassembled (i.e. broken up into recyclable parts) or otherwise destroyed. Conceptual things may go out of fashion or superseded.
If things prove to be useful, we want to sustain them as long as they are of value; this means we should give some priority to maintenance. It is not just things made by humans that need maintenance. It is also needed for natural systems, and our human relations.
One of the dimensions in the Pentagon of value is Resources. Since we live on a finite planet, we need to recycle materials that would otherwise be locked away in obsolete machines and instruments.In the environment there is a lot of natural recycling going on; the results of decay of living things is naturally re-processed.
The planet's economic systems at the present time seem dependent on there being continued growth. But this means that long-term sustainability is an issue. Humankind may run out of certain resources, and thence of opportunity for growth.
As change is inevitable in the order of things, we humans ought to be skilful in managing change that affects both us personally and the people around us.
Many authors have written about managing change, both for individual people and for organizations. I don't profess to be an expert, but in a long lifetime I have certainly seen several interesting change projects at first hand. I have assembled a separate page showing the factors involved that have made most of an impression on me.
The now widely-held view (of those that think about it!) is that our natural thinking in terms of ''Cause and Effect'' or ''Causality'' is largely an illusion. It's a meme, a metaphor for what we observe and rationalise. Thing A is happening or has happened, and now thing B has happened. So, if it suits the way we are thinking, maybe A caused B. David Hume grasped the problem back in the 18th century. For those who would like to read a modern view, a good paper appeared in 'Frontiers in Psychology' in July 2015.
Many claims of cause and effect are simply myths, like "hair of the dog cures a hangover" - this dates from 1546! Similar myths are sadly common today in pesudo-medecine and pseudo-science - a placebo effect is all one can truly hope for from most pseudo-medecine. People are today still arguing about the cause of climate change, usually from an already held point of view, and without understanding of the whole picture.
I think a key issue in all cause and effect arguments is our level of understanding of the mechanism. This will help us see that there are probably many factors contributing to the effect, as well as many side effects, feedback loops and time delays - see this diagram which is also in the PLOVER slide show.
The exception I must make to my disdain for cause and effect arguments is the field of human-made machines and structures. In these cases we do largely know the mechanism; the gizmo has been designed to do a specific job. Japanese quality standards have led the way here, Prof Ishikawa having designed the so-called 'fishbone' diagram - see this article from 'Reliable Plant' by Jonathan Trout (ideal name!). This highlights 6 areas of cause for machines not to work as planned, and indicates where quality effort needs to be applied. The 6 ''M''s are: Manpower, Method, Machine, Material, Mother Nature and Measurement.
Do we as individuals have a direction? Heidegger would say it's 'towards death'. We need direction, but not a prescribed utopia. We ought to be careful about adopting a cross-the-board philosophical system; it may be better to find a blend of several systems that suits our personality and upbringing.We have to accept that the future is uncertain, although we may not like this very much. But those who can manage it will do better.
Even though we cannot plan with certainty, our goal should always be to make improvement. What constitutes improvement is better value, based on a combination of the 5 dimensions of value.
Some of us welcome change and are keen to make it work, but others are averse to change, We all need some balance between 'moving on' and foot-dragging conservatism. However experience suggests that a reactionary return to 'how things used to be' is rarely going to be a good option.
Our relationships with the other humans around us are very important and need to be developed and maintained over time.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French priest who was also an archaeologist, proposed in his book 'The Phenomenon of Man' (see my highlights) a destiny in which humanity would converge to a single united mind. He extended evolution of species into evolution of what he calls the 'no-osphere' meaning the collection of all human memes. Some might object by saying that surely the future of living bodies and substances must be included in any view of 'where the world is going'.
In Loyal Rue's 'Religion is not about God', chapter 2 follows a similar evolutionary story (see also my slide show), but when he gets to the human mind he gives more priority to how people actually behave than to any convergence of minds. He follows a similar approach to that discussed in the early chapters of Bernard Guerin's 'Social Strategies', i.e. that there are resources and populations competing for them. He recognises that the central myths of religion are becoming harder to believe. He postulates that there will be a crisis of resources and severe environmental damage to the planet. He sees the response as bringing in a religion more concerned with addressing this apocalypse. It appears that some of the world's zealots are already taking this stance. Rue does not seem to suggest any end-point to which all things and minds converge.
I have also created a link (see below) of a paper by D. Du of the University of Chongqing, China; this offers a mainland Chinese view of the future, but one opposed to a Buddhist view and also Falun Gong.
A central myth in many religions is that there is life after death. This is not something that one can prove or disprove. However it is a myth that seems to be believed by fewer people as the years pass. The question is, should belief or unbelief in 'life after death' make any difference to how one behaves in this world? Some may believe that qualifiation for a good next life lies in following the rules set by an age-old self-perpetuating oligarchy. Others may say that it is intrinsically best to make the best of our time in this life - it may be all we have. If one's next life is simply the legacy (posthumous reputation, writing or recordings) of what one did in this life, that would almost always be subject to decay over time.
It seems natural that humans generally do better by cooperating. Plenty of other species do it, e.g. packs of dogs or ants in a colony. Sometimes even two different living species develop a symbiotic relationship and help each other. Some claim that there is a cooperative gene as well as a selfish gene. It has also been claimed that some species evolve altruism.
The links below lead to the other components of PLOVER
| Philosophy | Language | Ontology | Value | Evolution | Religion |
Links to other parts of this website
| Back to Evolution A | Back to PLOVER index page | Back to Roger's home page | Back to tagg.org website |
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 4
