| On
Anthropocentrism It is perhaps in the arts that Man reaches the highest expression of his potentials and perhaps in music that this expression attains its most acute and profound reflection of an underlying reality - a reality that in its mental impact on the perceiver is enriched by the artistic dimension and attitude. I have had a deep involvement with music and artistic endeavour all my life, it is therefore not within the ambit of my predilection to underestimate the relevance, profundity and beauty of the arts. I feel deeply committed to any and all human artistic expression and pursuit. It is in fact not only in these artistic pursuits that H. Sapiens (I would prefer H. Speculans) shines in inventiveness, deep sensitivity and sophistication. With our rather large cerebral equipment, extended and amplified by technology and instrumentation, we have begun to understand the structure of both the micro- and macroscopic cosmos. Quantum chromodynamics, and on the other hand Astrophysics, have given us a view of the human environment that extends to both polar extremes of the scale of composition and structure of our reality. Here I will not omit to mention the rich patterns of group, and individual mental constructs with regard to philosophical, psychological, religious and ethical views, understanding, striving and behaviour; albeit without delving deeply into the subjective hornet's nest of comparing such constructs as they might occur in different social groupings at different historical phases of development. All human enterprise and activity is in the first
place important to Humans. Anthropocentricity reaches a
climactic zenith in Western philosophical thought
compared to religious philosophies such as Tao and
Mahayana Buddhism. There exist clear parallels and
analogous evolution in the development of scientific and
humanistic thought. Modern science in the aspect of quantum physics and the Bootstrap theory forms the final rejection of such a mechanistic universe where reality is constructed from basic entities with specific attributes created by God and therefore not amenable to further analysis. Even Einstein whose relativity theory brings about one of the greatest broadenings of cosmological horizons ever achieved in one leap, introduced the so-called "Cosmological Constant" early in the theory under the influence of preceding conventionalism, to counteract the dynamic (expanding or contracting) universe implicitly discovered, turning it into a static model. Later, when Edwin Hubble discovered the active expansion of the Universe, Einstein was to refer to his spurious introduction of the artificial constant as "The biggest mistake of my life". Bootstrap theory states unambiguously that the real world cannot be understood as an assemblage of entities which reaches a finite horizon beyond which analysis is no longer possible. The present scientific perspective is of a universe
that is a dynamically interwoven web of events where no
single subject property or aspect of this web is
fundamental - that is, not a single item of reality is
more fundamental than any other item. It is in their
overall mutual interrelatedness, that the properties of
any aspect are determined by the properties of all other
aspects and in their cumulative consistency determine the
nature of the weaving, and the web. This view of nature,
following the developmental path through Newtonian
physics, quantum theory in its aspects of Electrodynamics
and Chromodynamics, relativistics and s-matrix theory is
now in resonance with Eastern thought, both in the
specifics of the nature of matter and in general
philosophical outlook. From the Tao Te Ching:
follows the Taoist view that all phenomena in nature are part of the Cosmic Way or Tao and that these laws are not laid down by any divine lawgiver but are intrinsic to its nature. In Eastern mysticism the universal interweaving of all subjectifiable events and entities always includes the human observer, as now well accepted in modern atomic physics and formalised in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Theorem. All processes of measurement and interpretation finally impact on human consciousness. Heisenberg implies that natural science does not simply form a descriptive and explanatory mechanism but that it reflects the interplay of cosmic reality and human consciousness. This view again stresses the consistent interdependence of all things. Niels Bohr maintained that isolated material particles were abstractions and that their properties could only be explained in terms of their interaction with other systems. Fred Hoyle, the famous astronomer, asserts that local conditions in a universe cannot be seen as independent from conditions in distant parts of the cosmos: "all our ideas of space and geometry would become entirely invalid" In oriental philosophy Universal reality is seen as a
continuously creative and destructive process, as
illustrated in the "dance of Shiva" where the
divine aspect is dynamically integrated and intrinsic to
all existence, including consciousness. In contrast to
this is the view of a separated creation and its creator,
where the divine principle is reflected in cosmic
organisation but is a juxtaposite, not integral aspect of
it. There is a marked resurgence of thought in modern
thinking to reunify the creative principle with its
creation, to see the divine as an intrinsic aspect of
matter and energy and its continual reorganization. It is the anthropocentric view that Man is the most important being in the animalian "hierarchy" and in fact the very concept of an hierarchical arrangement of attributes is anthropocentric. One extreme attitude is that man is not even an animal - pointing out some salient anatomical and evolutionary-atavistic correspondences shall remain beyond the scope of this writing. That Man is beyond animal is as true as that Animal is beyond man. It is such anthropocentricity that we have begun to outgrow in the realisation that it is necessary to ensure secure biodiversity on our planet and that we are a link in the chain of responsibility, definitely not its only agent. We are as much effected, modulated and acted upon by all other organic entities in this reality as we effect, modulate and act upon. That does not imply in the least that we must give Pneumococcus or the Tuberculosis bacillus free reign - choice, and rational choice is a concomitant symptom of consciousness. The error of thinking lies in the simple fact that H. Sapiens ignores its instinctive component and denies consciousness in all other forms of life, conversely accentuates the "solely instinctual" mode of organic entities and attributes the realm of consciousness purely to human existence. Even the hierarchical organisation of reality into living and non-living entities implies a scheme of anthropocentric "organicity" that operates well at school level and appears to present a hard demarcation boundary but a boundary that is largely an artificial compromise and abstraction. There has been a steady centripetal evolution in the centricity paradigm in the way that man looks at his reality. In the second century a.d. the Ptolemaic Geocentric system regarded the Earth as the centre of the universe. The Copernican Heliocentric system robs the Earth of this divine location and drags protestors into the sixteenth century screaming "heresy!" stuck in a five-thousand year old paradigm bequeathed by Mesopotamian proto-cosmology. Further decentripisation takes place in the realisation that the Sun is but a very ordinary dwarf star in the local galaxy, the Milky Way, containing some million million stars and that it takes about 200 million years to complete an orbit around the galactic centre. Our galaxy is but one member of the "Local Group" of galaxies, also containing the Andromeda galaxy - the Local Group itself being a member of the Virgo Group of galaxies. New units of measurement had to be invented to cope
with the prodigious distances involved: the Light Year,
Parsec (3,26 Light Years) and the useful multiples
kiloparsec (kpc) and megaparsec (Mpc). Decentripisation is however not the sole prerogative of technological society - the concepts of infinity, cosmic democracy and relativism can be found in less technologically exposed world views, cosmologies and mythologies. It is not amazing of course that there is still so much traction and unreserved protest going on at present, this time dragging the "centrists" into the new Millennium. That topic is worthy of a thesis with the provisional title of "Innate Retardative Centricism in Homo Sap." What then about all our incredible human achievements, culture and arts? Are they to be dismissed as of no relevance? As much as I love and play the d-minor chaconne by Bach, adore poetry by Goethe or paintings by Rembrandt they are of human relevance and have little import or very indirect effect on active geophysics or the evolution of Drosophila Melanogaster. Again this does not imply that "things human" should take on lesser relevance to humans - but in the same way that no item of reality is more fundamental than any other, such fundamentality is synonymous with importance when seen in the larger view. But then, how can we, as humans not filter reality through our humanness, not see everything in existence in human terms? I believe that answer lies in a quantum leap of expanded consciousness which will realise as strong inner conviction that there exists a true universal equality, a cosmic democracy of any and all subjectifiable and identifiable units of reality, however qualified or attributed. Perhaps this is summed up in the dictum: "Be like an empty bamboo, and let the universe turn you into a flute and play beautiful music on you". Anthropocentricity either blocks the bamboo to varying degrees, or distorts the resulting instrument into an a-musical parody, irrespective of whether the subject is a diesel mechanic or a Nobel Prize winning author. It may well be seen as a paradox that ostensibly well
meant attitudes and actions towards non-human subjects of
our environment are often performed with the implicit
focus on their human relevance. One oft quoted reason for
the preservation of biodiversity is "so that our
grandchildren and their descendants can see what an
"X" looks like". In that case the other
side of the coin in Ayn Rand's "Virtue of
Selfishness" could well be the "Vice of
Altruism". It is in reduction of Other that Self is reduced, conversely, in the relevance of Other, Self becomes relevant. Perhaps it is only in Non-Self that True Self is recognised. Copyright (c) FV 1998 - 2004 Frank Valentyn
Note: Not all poems referred to
will be available on this site, however, all my work is
visible at My Poetry and Essay pages link given in "Favourite
Links".
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| copyright © FVO 1998 |