Principles-p

The following are the words of Diogenes of Apollonia, a 5th century B.C. Greek thinker, according to his namesake, Diogenes Laertius, a 3rd century A.D. writer (my translation):
'This is the beginning of his book: "It is my opinion that an author, at the beginning of any account, should make his principle/starting point (αρχή) unambiguous and clear and his explanation simple and pure."'”

WARNING

Whoever does not believe that: Humanity is and must be and cannot not be for us Humans our Hyper-Value and the Supreme-Being and that our special Sciences are and must be our sole source of valid information and real knowledge and that: we Humans of today must clear the ground from all nonscientific misconceptions and prejudices and religions and Myths and Magics and do anything possible to help and enhance the survival of our descendants, so that they can decide unhindered about the future, should abstain reading any further as it could upset them.
As I had complaints from readers that they could not understand some points of my text & especially their possible interdependence and derivations from one principle, I advise the persistent and conscientious reader to first read the main text and if further interested to re-read it with the notes.

CONTENTS

I - Anthropocentrism.

II - Survivalism.

III - The-Supreme-Good.

IV - Scientificism.

V - Our essence.

VI - Our Limits.

VII - Our Big Bang.

VIII – Our Brains.

IX – Our Duty.

X – Conclusions.

I submit for consideration and deliberation the following ideas, principles, sup-positions, hypotheses, terms, theories e.a., the approach, examination, reply and consequent reaction to which I consider urgent for our survival and well being.

I - Anthropocentrism.

That:
“Anthropos” and anthropocentrism and the concepts “Human” and “philanthropy” (in all of its senses) and the terms and instances and realities and beings they designate, are and must be, for us Humans, logically and emotionally and in many other ways:
The most important and venerated concepts, principles and Beings to be looked after and taken care of, by far surpassing all others;
Humanity becoming thus the equivalent of the old "Supreme-Being".

Notes:
1-Because of Athropocentrism (and perhaps not only because of it): Our Human essence and dignity and compassion and liberty (the little that we have) become the most Human and humane and humanly acceptable, authoritative, social, moral and legal principles.

2- The urge that drives many animals (provided that some negative, inimical signs are not present) to consider as harmless, safe, acceptable (to the horde or tribe?) and friendly, all resembling to them animals, is perhaps the bio-logical roots of Anthropocentrism.

3- The fact that we humans are the only known to us being that manages to invent, create and use elaborate languages, writings and other ways of communication and collaboration and knowledge and sciences and civilized societies and concepts and creeds and philosophies and tools and weapons and techniques and technology and have managed to dominate our physical environment and all other living and not beings in our vicinity, is probably the logical reason - and justification – for anthropocentrism.

4- The roots, prehistory and history of Anthropocentrism – the placing of Humans and Humanity by Humans at the top of human values – are many, deep and eventful. Up to a point, they coincide with the ones of human kind, of Anthropos or Homo and then they separate.
Unfortunately, there is not yet a valid account of this peregrination. Here, I will attempt to give a few of its most important moments, highlights and stopovers (benchmarks).
During the Magical, prehistoric times of humanity, the discovery and use of tools, fire and weapons, language, coordination and their successes in their fights with other animals, larger and stronger than themselves, probably fed humans with optimism.
It persuaded them that it suffices to an individual or group, to know how the way, the method, the proper magical technique or incantation in order to achieve everything they desired.
And this is the magic of Magic.
However, general concepts and the concept of Human and Humanity did not yet exist at the time, so Anthropocentrism could not yet appear.
During the Mythical times, of the great land Middle Eastern agricultural empires, the pyramidal horizontal stratification was such that the concept of Human and Humanity was unthinkable. A sacred animal (cat, crocodile, cow, snake) was worth many lower humans and their lives and belonged to the same social class as high palace dignitaries.
But in the saga of Gilgamesh and Enkidu and other primeval mytho – logical texts, we could probably find, if looking carefully, Anthropocentric traces.
Ancient Greece is the real motherland of many universal, capital concepts and of the ones of Human and Humanity and of Anthropocentrism.
Starting with Homer (the Odyssey begins with the word “Ανδρα» and describes a man’s Ulysses’ peripecies) and continuing with Xenophanes, Heraclitus and more so with the Great Parmenides, the stage was set for the appearance of the sophist Protagoras.
Protagoras (5ht century BC) is the real father and founder of conscient, consequent, orthodox Anthropocentrism and its most brilliant exponent.
With him, Anthropocentrism was really born and followed its proper course. Protagoras, boldly stated (my rendering) that: we humans, are the measure and the judges of everything. And that as for the gods we have no idea whether they are, nor how they are, not does it matter to us humans as our life is too short to be spent in this kind of complicated, imaginary useless speculation”.
Protagoras was therefore, prosecuted by the religious majority of Athens and his books burned. He also had to escape to save his life from the wrath of the “liberal, tolerant Athenian Democracy”.
Plato, probably because of Protagoras’ troubles, and Socrates’ execution, avoided the subject of the position of Human kind in the scale of values and their relation relative to the gods.
Aristotle, who believed that the middle position (ground) is the best, as the ends and the extremes are dangerous exaggerations and often get destroyed, placed Humans in the middle between the superior gods and semi gods and the inferior to them, animals without carefully commenting any further. The power of religion was still considerable.
The long dark Middle Ages with their almighty clergy were a considerable drawback to the Greek and Roman Anthropocentrism. They placed the unique God very high, up in the Heavens (not in a reachable mountain like Olympus) and separated Him conclusively from the miserable human sinners, who were condemned the very day they were born, by the “ancestral sin”. They consequently combated the Greek pagan Anthropos and stipulated a sin even to look at ones own human naked body.
It was during the Renaissance, that Humans recovered some dignity and more so later with Humanism. Nietzsche and Marx, finally gave Anthropocentrism its most aggressive anticlerical, anthoropovenerating, poetico-scientific expression.

II - Survivalism.

As a consequence of the above First Principle and independently of it:

That:
The survival and the well-being (as long as it does not hinder our survival) of us humans and our descendants and many other, beloved by us and necessary for our existence beings, is and must be above any other: Our Supreme Aim, the attainment of which is a precondition to our being and Being and to any other form or way of existence and survival.

Notes:
1- With the above tautology, it is useful to remember that in consequent thinking identity and tautology are logically and philosophically and metaphysically and stochastically and really and truly, the only real security that we, humans, can have about truthfulness and reality and validity of a statement.
Only thus, are we really sure of something.
Confirmation of the demonstrative value and importance and validity and power of identity and tautology is given to us by the Great Parmenides, the founder of logical Philosophy and philosophical Logic (Plato and Aristotle followed his principles for the building of their theories) with his dictum: (DK5) “… ξυνόν δε μοι εστίν οπόθεν άρξομαι τόθι γαρ πάλιν ίξομαι αύθις». “It is immaterial to me where I start – the Principle from which I start – my syllogism (deductive reasoning) as here (in the main premise) I will have to revert soon”.
With this statement, Parmenides shows us the inescapable circularity of any philosophical, logical, meta-physical, mathematical, human, (because the gods then existed) syllogisms and reasoning. This circularity shows us one of the reasons -the main?- for the inability of Philosophy to think, speculate and progress the way and in the sense that special sciences do.
Whoever starts and works with -General- Supreme-Principles (main premises), God, Nature, Humanity, All-ONE, Being e.a., has, after some "travelling" (logical speculations) as Parmenides implied, to end up with the same Supreme Principle he posited in the beginning, often with a, more or less, different name.
We must not forget that Supreme Principles, in order to remain supreme, have, to reject the presence, or annihilate, or enslave, any other principle that pretends to supremacy.
Of course here it must be noted and underlined that any progress is progress when it is directed to some initial or final principle or Supreme Aim and here in the case of our special sciences of today the supreme aim or goal is our survival, well being and predominance.

2- Survivalism implies, fosters, promotes and projects a pyramidal scale of values, at the top of which (like Plato’s Idea and/or Ideal of Good) dominates and commands everything else the omnipotent and supreme: “Long Term Survival Of Human Kind”
Under which comes all other aims, duties, moral or immoral, legal or not, obligations, values and virtues of us humans.
These are arranged in consecutive, parallel, horizontal layers (strata) from top to bottom, according to their importance, value and usefulness for our long-term survival.
We can thus acquire a solid criterion and moral Bio-Logical evaluation scale by which we can measure and evaluate all human behaviour.
Anthropocentrism and Survivalism can therefore be considered as two complementary faces of the same coin.

III - The-Supreme-Good.

That:
As far and as long as the above principles remain valid, that which helps, enhances and promotes our survival is good - the supreme good – to be desired and pursued and sought and practised, and that which combats or hinders or endangers our survival is bad, to be avoided and fought against and despised.

And thus, the ancient faith, belief, creed, philosophy, stochasm, which acclaims the war of good against bad re-emerges almighty, on our logical and emotional horizon, to its original predominance. And Zarathustra, or Zoroaster (to the Greeks) and Ahura-Masda, regain their brilliant intellectual (and not only) throne.

And we acquire one more clue and take one more step to approach the (perhaps contemporary to Zoroaster) 6th century B.C. Greek stochast Heraclitus, and his famous: Polemos Pater Pandon: War Father of All.

Notes:
This brings to our notice and to the one of “moralists” that: there are no beings, or things good or bad in principle or “by definition” or “as such” (except perhaps the concept of good and bad and some other related concepts) and that all such evaluations depend on circumstances, the time, the space and other factors.
So every democracy is not always good nor every war always bad. There are bad and cruel and unjust and foolish and unnecessary wars and conflicts but also some not-bad ones or good ones or necessary ones, like the war against so many other humans for the preservation of our planet and species.

We must not forget that agressivity or belligerence is one of our fundamental reptilian characteristics that sometimes destroy us and many times helps us survive.

IV - Scientificism.

That:
Our memory and knowledge, conscious or unconscious, was and is the main weapon for our war for survival, well being and predominance.
And that:
Our human (and there are no other) sciences are and should be: the sole source of our every time a little (or more) different information and knowledge.
The one that creates our - every time a little (or more) different - reality, to the exclusion of any other “ knowledge" or source of it, e.g. religion, philosophy, inspiration, divinations, revelations e.a.
Scientificism, being closely related to technics and technicity (and not “technology” that is the deliberation about them), combines with them to create what we call: “our human scientifico-technic progress”.
A term that denotes:
Approaching to the ultimate aim, target, End of us humans i.e survival and predominance.

V - Our essence.

That:
We humans, when we think or speak of or write about “ humans” or “humanity” or “ Anthropos “ etc, what we really do is that: we refer, with the function of our human brains, to the function of our human brains and their achievements.

Scientifically, our most human characteristic characteristic, of us humans, that distinguishes us from all other living (or not) beings, is the structure and function of our human brains, perceived by our human (neocortical) brains and their function.
To the point that:
We are justified when we alternate “human – mind” with “human – kind” and or “human – being” and consider our essence to be the function of our human brain and its structure.

VI - Our Limitations.

That:
The limits of our human reality, knowledge, being and of many other, important for us things, the two poles, the two ends, the two concepts, outside which nothing can mentally exist, or logically and existentially or physically, or in any other way, really exist, be, be known, or escape are: our human brains - and their functions - and our Big Bang.
“Real-existence” being the scientifically (and experimentally) attested existence, as opposed to conceptual and/or imaginary or mythical existence and/or “being”.

And that:
What we call our "Universe" is the heir of EN, the EN PAN, the One, the “Cosmos”, the World i.e., an old all-encompassing concept created by the functioning of our brains and imagination and their adding-all capacity. (Perhaps for the first time in Ancient Egypt).
While the "Big Bang" (BB), is the experimentally sensed and measured, with our technical sensors, scientific reality which emerged in Europe in the last century.

And that:
Although we know some (many?) things scientifically and positively about our Big Bang and our brains and their functions, we know very little –almost nothing positively- about our imaginary Universe, about which, in the absence of experimentally sensed and measured data, we are free to speculate at will.

And that:
Our Big-Bang and our human brains and their functions – the limits of our reality – require and deserve our greatest attention.

Notes:
1- In spite of the above, many authors often use wrongly the term “Universe” instead of the correct “Big Bang”.

2- The ancients thought that our Universe (or nature) is harmonious and purposeful and continuous, “Natura non facit saltum” (nature does not make jumps), while we know that our BB is blind and aimless and make all sorts of jumps.

VII - Our Big Bang.

That:
Our Big Bang, as we scientifically know it today, with its energy-matter and its movements and changes and forces (or its initial, unique, subdivided or scattered Force) and its laws (or Law that should be equated perhaps with the same unique Force) and its two, or many dimensions, is the ultimate and primary reason for our existence.
And that, therefore, it can be considered and named our “creator” or “father” (or mother-nature), and this in spite of the strong probability that it did not aim at our creation, nor that it cares for us humans, nor for any other of its Big Bang Beings (BBB) or itself.
This same Big Bang, “Our creator” as we again scientifically know it, will certainly – in the future – destroy us, before it destroys completely itself (in order to re-emerge?).
It therefore can be considered, for all practical – and survival – purposes, and termed: our Greatest Enemy.

Notes:
1- The above is one more (the main?) reason for trying to study our BB: “Know thy enemy”. Only thus can we effectively combat it, or adapt to its demands if we cannot, as our BB exists inside our scientifically attested reality and its dimensions, while our universe exists solely in our extra-dimensional, unlimited imagination.

2- While our universe is by definition one and the only one, we could and perhaps should reasonably and scientifically envisage the possibility of many BBs or a repetition or reoccurrence of the present one.

VIII – Our Brains.

That:
As we scientifically know, our human organism and central nervous system and our brains and their functions are the result of our heredity and the evolutionary selection of all living or having lived beings, a process that started many millions of years ago and is continuing.

They, therefore, contain, visibly or invisibly, sometimes more and sometimes less, all the stages of evolution of living beings on earth, starting from the first and simplest living organisms and ending, for the time being, with us, the elaborate and complicated Humans.

It has been established, also by examining our DNA, that all living beings that live on earth are the result of the evolution of one initial type of organism.
In our human brains therefore, as in our entire organism, we can distinguish, more or less clearly, anatomically and functionally, three main structures and functions corresponding to three main stages of our evolution from the first living beings, i.e. the reptilian, the mammalian and the neocortex.

Notes:
1- A neurosurgeon friend of mine told me that theoretically he could, by cutting some connection of our human brain, reduce a normal human being to a mammalian animal, with all its main normal mammalian functions, and further to a reptile.
The “theoretically” he added because he said it would have been a very complicated and dangerous and immoral experiment.

2- It is a pity that Freud did not foresee more clearly and anatomically the triple division of the superimposed layers of our human brains. He would have been much more accurate and scientifically persuasive. Reality is often simpler than imagination and theory.

3- Our reptilian brain or our reptilian system or our initial brain is located near our spinal cord at the basis of our skull.
So, our reptilian reactions and urges and actions are –fortunately? – the first to appear and the swiftest, especially in moments of sudden stress (the abrupt appearance of danger).
It is no wonder, that later on, “neocortically” we often regret our “first impulses”.
Reptiles have no logic, nor proper instincts. They have crude reactions and urges. They act and react in the simplest, crudest, more “savage” more primitive way.
They are governed by hunger, thirst, panic, aggressivity, wild sex urges, and that is almost all.
On top of our reptilian brain, at a later stage of our evolution, came our mammalian brain. This is mainly characterized by the care and, if need be, self-sacrifice of the parents for the preservation of their offprings and their upbringing.
Abnegation, tenderness, the persistent attachment to some with special characteristic individuals, jealousy, the mother and/or father instincts are considered to be our most obvious mammalian instincts, the ones that made possible the preservation of us mammals on earth.

On top of our mammalian brain, like a covering envelope, at an even later stage of our evolution came our neocortical brain, the brain that characterizes us as humans (and perhaps very few other upper mammalians) with its elaborate neocortical functions.
It is the part of our brain that made us, not only survive but also dominate our environment and most other beings.
It is the seat and source of our logic and abstracting and conceptualizing and calculating and planning capacity.
Fortunately, some times, our three brains, in spite of their (partly) independent structure and function, becauase they developed some connecting links, combine. And impulses and urges and instincts and calculations collaborate harmoniously.
This is the case of a happy marriage, with good sex, proper care for the children, and a successful social and economic life.
Unfortunately, sometimes (more often?) our three brains and their functions do not combine well, and even fight each other with devastating, for the individuals, the groups and our species, results, e.g. unhappy marriages, illogical and unnecessary wars and other stupid behaviours.

4- Perhaps, here it is useful to remember that our general survival, in the long run, and our well being and our predominance, often requires the subjugation of the two other brains and their functions, to our neocortical brain and its logic.

5- From the above it becomes obvious that: neither our organism (since selection and heredity and mutations continue and we live only a few decades often miserably with diseases and pain) nor our nervous system and brains are perfect or complete or completed. Nor are they any longer sufficient or appropriate for our survival. And that, they could do with some, or many, alterations or improvements.

IX – Our Duty.

That:
Gradually, or even suddenly, it becomes obvious that we Humans have to and must, if we want to be and Be and remain Human, try to consciously overcome our, according to us, limits and limitations.

And that this is and has to be and must be our main –or our prime- Duty.

That is to say that we have to aim at combating consciously and after considerable conscious thinking and organizing and planning, our unconscious and aimless, auto-cata-strophic Big Bang and our imperfect and even defective auto-cata-strophic organism and central nervous system and our inadequate for our survival brain structure and functions.
That is to say that we have to try and accomplish our main aim and try to interfere with and change, when possible, the so called “Laws of Nature”.
And interfere with and change and correct and improve, now that we can, after considerable thinking and deliberating and organizing and planning, our DNA and our heredity and the laws of “natural selection” and naturally, previous to all these, change our thinking and our way of thinking.

X – Conclusions.

Many and various are, I believe, the conclusions forced upon us by the acceptance of even a few of the above Principles and Ideas. I therefore pray the readers to contribute as many as they think appropriate, together with their commentaries.
This I hope will help our thinking and planning for our future.
Meanwhile I will here mention what I think to be more –urgently- helpful for this purpose:
That:
Given the present state of our knowledge science and technicity, it belongs to the generations to come – if they come- considering the then prevailing conditions to decide, whether they want to continue existing and living and surviving and struggling and fighting and how and for how long.
Or whether they prefer the non-existence, from where we –all beings- came.
Their future (and our past?) belongs to them.
They have the duty to- decide about it.
What we, the old generations, can and must do, is to help them as much as we can to make their choices by clearing the way and prepare the ground for them to best decide.
For this we must give them all the knowledge we possess without hiding anything. And strengthen them with our experience, especially if they (as is most probable for the near future) decide to continue living and fighting for their existence –and our memory and Principles and theirs.

Notes:
1- In order to prepare the way and save time and thinking and efforts, for our descendants, we have to warn them.
That:
They will, very probably have to set aside urgently most if not all our up-to-now accepted prejudices and creeds and misconceptions, e.g. religions (except anthropo-veneration), philosophies (except Anthropocentrism) legends, myths etc.
Also to create or accept new ones based on the above -Anthropocentric- Principles.
And all this because saving time is capital to the battle for survival.
The old prejudices divert thinking and energy and resources from our main Aim and new realities are needed to guide our descendants.
This does not mean that Magic, Myths, religions, and fairy-tales do not retain their historical, philological, sentimental and other value and usefulness.

2- Our descendants must also keep in mind
That:
Surviving will probably demand from them (and demands from us) an urgent and complete change of our current way of thinking and accepted values.
Also a change of the structure (the tripartite division and not only) and functions of our -their- brains, heredity and DNA etc.

As, as things are now, it looks like we are heading, head-first to our total destruction (one moment earlier than imposed on us by our B.B.) by our foolish and auto-catastrophic unwise behaviour.
What part our computers will play in this changes is not yet clear but probably it will be great.

3- Our immediate descendants do not have to fear that they will commit a moral crime by changing our present organism and heredity and DNA and the structure and function of our brains.
We are doing this every day and night unconsciously, without thinking and planning, with our medicines and chemicals and the changes we inflict to our environment and organisms.
What is demanded by them is to start the soonest seriously thinking and planning and organising and preparing for all these essential, for our -their- long-time survival, changes, free from prejudice, preconceptions, the socio-politically correct and conventional wisdom.

What matters most is that these changes take place after careful planning and are not left to the blind forces and changes of our B.B. in its local manifestations.


Pandias Peter Scaramanga
Place Charles Graux 15, Bruxelles 1050, Belgium.