Part 1.5 The integrative meaning of existence, and how we humans became fully conscious when other species haven’t
Having now explained how we humans acquired our cooperative, selfless and loving moral instincts, the second of the two instinct and intellect features of our lives that needs to be explained for the human condition to be understood and resolved is how we humans became fully conscious when other species haven’t.
In chapter 7 of FREEDOM (and in shorter form in Freedom Essay 24), I explain that the emergence of our fully conscious mind was made possible by us having become cooperatively, selflessly and lovingly behaved (as a result of nurturing), and thus able to think in an Integrative-Meaning-compliant, truthful, effective, meaningful, ‘conscious’ way.
In order to elaborate on this explanation for the emergence of our fully conscious mind, I need to explain what ‘Integrative Meaning’ in the term ‘Integrative-Meaning-compliant’ means. As is explained in chapter 4 of FREEDOM, and summarised in Freedom Essay 23, while we couldn’t explain our divisive, seemingly disintegrative competitive, selfish and aggressive behaviour, the truth of the integrative nature or theme or meaning of our world and of our existence had to be denied. But like the truth about how nurturing created our cooperative, selfless and loving moral instinctive self, this too can now be safely admitted under the umbrella of the about-to-be-presented redeeming explanation for the human condition.
Everywhere we look we see hierarchies of ordered matter: ‘There is a tree that is composed of parts (leaves, branches, a trunk and roots) and in turn those parts are composed of parts (fibres, cells, etc).’ Our world is clearly composed of a hierarchy of ordered matter: atoms have come together or integrated to form compounds, which in turn have come together or integrated to form virus-like organisms, which in turn came together or integrated to form single-celled organisms that then integrated to form multicellular organisms, which in turn integrated to form societies of single species that continue to integrate to form stable, ordered arrangements of different species. Clearly, what is happening on Earth is that matter is integrating into larger and more stable wholes. And this development of order is not only occurring here, it is also happening out in the universe where, over the eons, a chaotic cosmos continues to organise itself into stars, planets and galaxies. As two of the world’s greatest physicists, Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, have said, respectively, ‘The overwhelming impression is of order…[in] the universe’ (Gregory Benford, ‘The time of his life’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Apr. 2002; see www.wtmsources.com/170), and ‘behind everything is an order’ (Einstein Revealed, PBS, 1997).
The law of physics that accounts for this integration of matter is known as the ‘Second Path of the Second Law of Thermodynamics’, or ‘Negative Entropy’, which states that in an open system, where energy can come into the system from outside it (in Earth’s case, from the sun, and, in the case of the universe, from the original ‘big bang’ explosion that created it), matter integrates; it develops order. Thus, subject to the influence of Negative Entropy, the 94 elements from which our world is built develop ever larger and more stable wholes.
Chart showing the ordered integration of matter on Earth
(a similar chart appears in Arthur Koestler’s book Janus: A Summing Up).
Significantly, the behaviour required for these ordered arrangements of matter or wholes to stay together is selflessness—because selflessness means being considerate of the welfare of the larger whole, it means being integrative, while selfishness is divisive or disintegrative. Selflessness is in fact the theme of existence, the glue that holds wholes together. It is also what we mean by the word ‘love’, with the old Christian word for love being ‘caritas’, meaning charity or giving or selflessness (see Col. 3:14, 1 Cor. 13:1-13, 10:24 & John 15:13). So ‘love’ is cooperative selflessness—and not just selflessness but unconditional selflessness, the capacity, if called upon, to make a full, self-sacrificing commitment to the maintenance of the larger whole.
But, as pointed out, in light of our divisive competitive, selfish and aggressive behaviour, we have found this truth of the selflessness-dependent, integrative, cooperative, selfless and loving theme or meaning or nature of existence unbearably condemning. And being so unbearably condemning, the ways we coped with the truth of Integrative Meaning were firstly to deify it, make it ‘God’—an ethereal concept we revered but claimed had no material relationship to us; and secondly, in the case of human-condition-avoiding Reductionist, Mechanistic science, to simply deny its existence by maintaining that there is no direction or purpose or meaning to existence, and that change is random.
Yes, since the terms ‘Holism’ and ‘Teleology’ recognise this truth of Integrative Meaning—‘Holism’ being defined as ‘the tendency in nature to form wholes’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 5th edn, 1964), and ‘Teleology’ being defined as ‘the belief that purpose and design are a part of nature’ (Macquarie Dictionary, 3rd edn, 1998)—human-condition-avoiding Reductionist, Mechanistic scientists have been deniers of the truth of Holism and Teleology.
So the Integrative Meaning of life requires selfless consideration for the maintenance of larger wholes. Therefore, as initially stated, to be thinking in an Integrative-Meaning-compliant, truthful, effective, meaningful, ‘conscious’ way depended on being able to behave selflessly. Outside of the nurturing process that, as was just explained, allowed our ancestors to become selflessly behaved, selfless behaviour is blocked from developing in other animals because they have to selfishly ensure their genes are passed on, so as soon as they begin to think truthfully in an Integrative-Meaning-compliant way and so behave selflessly, natural selection blocks that truthful, effective, conscious thinking from developing. Other species that are competitively, selfishly and aggressively behaved and not cooperatively, selflessly and lovingly behaved, have minds that are blocked from thinking truthfully, effectively and consciously—just as we human-condition-avoiding humans, who have been unable to admit the truth of the Integrative Meaning of existence, and the truth of the integrative, cooperative, selfless and loving behaviour of our distant ancestors, have minds that are blocked from being able to think truthfully and effectively, and, for example, can’t find all the insights that are being provided in this human-condition-confronting truthful presentation. Alienation blocks truthful thinking, it is a form of unconsciousness. So the reason the bonobos mentioned earlier in the quote in paragraph 43 exhibit a degree of consciousness is because they are becoming cooperatively behaved. Since this is an extremely brief description of how we became fully conscious when other species haven’t, it will likely be necessary to read chapter 7 of FREEDOM or Freedom Essay 24 to fully understand, evaluate and appreciate the explanation.
Again, I should emphasise that the reason you haven’t heard of the truth of Integrative Meaning, and also of this explanation for the origin of our conscious mind, is because their acknowledgment depended on being able to explain why, in the case of Integrative Meaning, we humans have not been cooperatively behaved, and, in the case of being able to explain how we became conscious, admit that our distant ape ancestors were cooperative and loving, which are both truths we couldn’t admit while we couldn’t explain our psychologically distressed, upset, angry, egocentric and alienated human condition—which is the explanation that is going to be presented. So many insights into the nature of our world and our place in it depend on being able to explain the human condition—which is why so many new concepts are having to be introduced in this book.
To be able to ‘open the door’ to understanding ourselves we first had to solve the human condition. Without the explanation of the human condition, all that human-condition-avoiding Reductionist Mechanistic Scientists have been able to come up with to supposedly ‘explain’ human behaviour are an endless stream of lies—such as that our ancestors were brutal savages, which was mentioned earlier, or the just-mentioned lie that there has been no meaning or direction in our lives and that change is random, and, as we will see, the lies go on and on.
Indeed, if we imagine an enormous building with lots of hallways and doorways, and any doorway that when opened revealed a truth that reminded us of the, soon to be explained, suicidally depressing truth that we had seemingly committed the most obscene crime of destroying our original all-harmonious, all-loving and all-sensitive, innocent, instinctive self or soul’s world, which, as we will see, is basically any condemning, guilt-implying criticising truth, we would slam that door shut and never go into that room and turn its light on. The result is a huge building with only a very few rooms that have been opened and their lights turned on—because there are almost no truths about us humans that, up until now, haven’t brought the unbearably depressing issue of our soul-corrupted human condition into focus. So what we metaphorically have is a huge building—basically the whole world—that is in almost total darkness! Such has been the darkness, the lack of understanding, in our world while we couldn’t explain the human condition—and such is the light-filled brightness of relief and happiness that comes to the human race now that we can turn all those lights on, as is going to be done! I should mention that later in paragraphs 155-159 I include a very similar metaphor given by Plato of our denial of the human condition being like living in darkness; in Plato’s case he used the analogy of the human race being imprisoned in a dark cave.
As will now be explained, we humans have had to suffer from the agony and horror of the human condition—live imprisoned in Plato’s dark cave—for some 2 million years, which is when the development of a fully conscious mind in our forebears occurred.
