A PROCESS EXPLANATION OF THE WORLD
Copyright,
Dr Anthony B. Kelly,
Nicolai
Hartmann’s Value Platonism provides one key to understanding the unique role of
humans in the process of the cosmos. This process has a purpose, which only
mankind can realise. As Hartmann perceived, the creation of the world is not
completed so long as man has not fulfilled his creative function in it.
There is a
fundamental principle that underlies all attempts at explanation - The
Principle of Sufficient Reason. Leibniz first stated this principle. It can be
expressed as: “Nothing is without reason for its being,
and for being as it is” or “Every being must have the sufficient reason for its
existence somewhere in being, either in itself or in some other being or set of
beings”. Schopenhauer characterised the principle of sufficient reason as that
which “authorises us everywhere to search for the why”. Philosophy asks why?
Science also depends upon the principle, but it mainly seeks how and what,
rather than why.
Leibniz applied the
principle that “nothing is without reason for its being, and for being as it
is”, to the world. He argued that there would be no world had God not chosen to
create it. As with every choice, there had to be a sufficient reason for that
choice. Leibniz reasoned that as God was all-powerful, and morally perfect, God
would only choose to create the best possible world. He concluded, despite
appearances, that this is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire lampooned
the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds, in his “Candide”. Voltaire had assumed –incorrectly - that Leibniz
was proposing a false view of the way the world appeared to be. Leibniz was
giving due weight to the evidence provided by reason.
Explanation requires
attention to both empirical and reasoned evidence. Understanding also requires
the exercise of the imagination. Sometimes philosophers fail to exercise their
imagination. Thomas Kuhn, in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”,
expresses surprise at the fact that Francis Bacon, the early Empiricist
Philosopher, had maintained that slightly warm water froze more readily than
cold water. Kuhn failed to understand Bacon, but Bacon’s conclusion was
entirely reasonable. How can we explain Kuhn’s failure to understand Bacon? I
would be surprised if anyone, including Kuhn, was not aware of the facts that
show that Bacon’s assumption was reasonable. The problem might be that some
philosophers are not used to looking at facts as clues, as a criminal
investigator does. They deal solely with concepts, rather than also engaging
their knowledge of reality and their imagination.
Bacon’s conclusion
that warm water freezes more readily than cold water was reasonable in his
circumstances. Bacon had no instruments. He could only observe. He would have
observed that in warm weather the surface of a pond is warmer than the water at
depth. He would also have observed that in winter ice formed first on the
surface of the pond. His conclusion that warm water froze more quickly than
cold was eminently reasonable, even if wrong.
Explanation clearly requires both imagination and experience of the
world. Kuhn would have known the same facts that Bacon knew, but he failed to
imagine himself into Bacon’s late 16th Century shoes. Kuhn seems to
have focussed on concepts rather than realities. When I worked as a criminal
investigator I had to take the empirical facts into account, as far as they
were known, and arrive at explanations and arguments that would hold up in
Court. I brought this approach to my investigation of the process of the
cosmos.
Any process is a
series of changes with some unifying principle. A random series of changes does
not constitute a process. A random series of changes will not appear to be
coordinated, or related in any way. The existence of a unifying principle
differentiates a process from a random series of changes. A series of changes,
continuing over an extended period and which are obviously related to one
another, indicates the operation of a process. This is the case even if the
nature of the unifying principle is not immediately obvious.
A random series of changes is not purposeful,
but any process is. The purpose of a process is the telos
of the process. Every process has a telos, an end
towards which it moves. The telos of a process
provides the unifying principle that constitutes the process. The telos of a process is not necessarily achieved. Not every
University student will achieve the student’s telos
of a Degree. However the telos of a Degree provides
the unifying principle of the student’s activity as a student.
I am a process
philosopher. That does not make me a follower of Whitehead.
If you type “Process” into your search engine, Whitehead
will come out. Hegel seldom gets a mention, but in my view he is much more
important. Hegel was the first Philosopher to provide an explanation of
the world as a process, as a coherent series of changes with a unifying
principle. Hegel’s unifying principle
was Spirit.
E.J. Craig once
asked: “What does philosophy mean to someone unhindered by a philosophy
degree?” His answer was: “philosophy is the study which reveals to us the
meaning of existence, the nature of reality and our place in it.” (1983,189) Craig admits that contemporary university philosophy
does not measure up to this conception. I consider that Philosophy needs to be
concerned with metaphysical questions, such as the meaning of life. Philosophy
begins with the application of our available knowledge of reality and the
exercise of our imagination, in order to understand what is there to be
understood. Nicolai Hartmann claims “philosophy
begins by discovering the uncomprehended and enigmatic in the self-evident.” (1953,29)
The discovery of the self-evident fact, that human cultures are processes of
human self-creation, provides an instance of something obvious that was not
previously comprehended. People make cultures and cultures make people. Kroeber & Kluckhohn (1960)
provide evidence of a wide range of earlier views about the nature of culture.
Philosophy began as
an attempt to explain the world objectively. Mythical explanations of the
world, which had prevailed for thousands of years, no longer satisfied the
Greeks. The people who believed the myths did not think the way we do now.
People change and cultures change. The rate of change is necessarily related to
the culture of the people, particularly to the openness of the culture to
changes. Rigidly hierarchic cultures are resistant to change.
The human capacity
for abstract thought, and the capacity for critical thought, is capable of
development over time. This is also the case with moral awareness and with
related value-perceptions. Developments in these mental capacities vary greatly
from culture to culture. People in the distant past thought quite differently
from the way that people in the West do now. In “Before Philosophy” the Frankforts note that in the written records of the ancient
civilizations of Mesopotamia and
The view of reality
accepted in the remote past was totally different from our present-day
concepts. Mythical explanations were readily accepted. Ancient civilizations
were also very stable. Development towards more critical thinking is a fairly
recent phenomenon. It began to become evident well within the last 4,000 years.
The Flynn Effect
throws some light on the way the human capacity to think can change. Flynn’s
work shows that in industrial countries, general IQ has increased by about 3
points every ten years since the beginning of the 1900’s. The gains range from
9 to 20 points per generation. Since 1950, IQ tests in some countries have also
shown a new pattern. Increases in IQ are now greater in problem solving rather
than in school-taught skills. (Kelly 2002) This rise in IQ appears to be a
social as well as an individual phenomenon. The IQ increase may be genetic, it
may be a form of Lamarckian evolution or it may even be the operation of the morphic fields proposed by Sheldrake. The Flynn effect
raises the problem of how this recent rapid development in I.Q. is to be
explained.
If we were to assume
that this rapid development in intelligence is normal, rather than being a
recent development, and we were to apply the present rate of increase in IQ
back to earlier times, most of our ancestors would appear to have been morons.
The alternative, and more acceptable possibility, is that the rate of IQ
increase is primarily a recent phenomenon. Perhaps when people live in a stable
world, one that presents only routine challenges, there is little or no IQ
change.
Cultural stability
over an extended time could hinder mental development. Cultures tend to remain
stable as long as the belief system of the culture satisfies the people of that
culture. When people have to face up to new challenges and to social
instability, their intelligence develop more rapidly,
particularly when their underlying belief-system is challenged. Dissent may be
necessary to provoke productive thought. We may think best
when we have to think more.
Historically, there
were two notable departures from the ancient, mythopoeic way of thinking. The
first became evident during the formation of
The next departure
from mythical thinking became evident with the pre-Socratics. Critical
thinking, as such, began primarily with the Greeks. We take for granted the
application of critical thought to problems, but we need to recognise that this
approach is still anything but universal.
Metaphysics requires
critical thinking. It is the philosophical investigation of the nature,
constitution, and structure of reality. The Positivist
After some 30 years
it was recognised that the foundational proposition of Positivism, which held
that “for a proposition to meaningful it had to be empirically verified”, could
not itself be empirically verified. Exit Positivism
and re-enter Metaphysics? Not really. Just quietly bury the verificationist
principle. Metaphysics stayed off the agenda.
Aristotle was the
first of many philosophers who sought to provide a complete metaphysical
explanation of the world. It has proven difficult to provide such an
explanation. This difficulty is not the result of a lack of intellect or
understanding, but primarily of two other causes. The first is the lack of
factual evidence. Until recently there was a lack of knowledge of the
developmental process of the Cosmos. Cosmology only became a science in the
latter part of the 20th Century. Knowledge of the process of
evolution is also comparatively recent.
The other cause of
failure is more important than the lack of evidence. This is the nature of the
categories of the understanding that were applied to the world – the way
earlier people and philosophers looked at the world. Aristotle’s picture of the
world, for example, was based on biological categories, as they were understood
at that time. Subsequently, deterministic material categories tended to be
applied to everything. Our more recent biological categories are Darwinian. The
theory of evolution first brought to most people’s attention the fact that
radical change can occur in the world. The Darwinian categories of change
provided an introduction to the categories of process. Process categories deal
with change and development over time. They provide a better reflection of
reality than do other more static categories.
With the categories
of process now available, and the evidence of the development of the cosmos
that has been provided by Cosmology, we should now be in a better position than
ever to tackle questions that have to do with the fundamental nature of the
world. Understanding the cosmos as a process enables us to apply to the world a
new set of categories of the understanding. It gives us a new way of looking at
the world. I argue that the cosmos has to be understood as a process.
The perception that
the cosmos is a process provides a new perspective on the world, one that has
the potential to cause a paradigm change. However, there is always a cultural
lag in philosophy. New ideas are not readily accepted. The question I had to
address was whether, taking into account all the available evidence, a
credible, coherent and consistent process explanation of the cosmos was
possible. Could a case be made such as would stand up in Court?
We live in a
human-friendly Universe. The existence of a human-friendly Universe has two
main competing explanations. One is that God created it. The alternative is the
“multiple universes” explanation. This argues that this universe is but one of
an infinite number of possible universes.
It is proposed that
these possible universes all vary in their fundamental laws, the set of laws in
any universe being a matter of chance. We just happen to have the
human-friendly set. This argument appears to have been proposed in order to
avoid the “divine design” implications of the Anthropic
Principle. The Anthropic Principle focuses on the
fact that the laws of nature that operate in the known universe appear to
favour the development of life, and of beings such as humans. In his forward to
Barrow and Tipler’s “The Anthropic
Cosmological Principle” John A. Wheeler states: “It is not only that man is
adapted to the universe. The universe is adapted to man. Imagine a universe in
which one or another of the fundamental dimensionless constants of physics is
altered by a few percent one way or the other? Man could never come into being
in such a universe. That is the central point of the anthropic
principle” (1986,vii)
The postulate that
there are multiple possible universes with different laws, of which this is the
only one that is human-friendly, relies on an ambiguity in the term “possible”.
To understand this ambiguity it is necessary to distinguish a logical
possibility from what I term an ontological possibility. Logical possibilities
are conceptual possibilities. Ontological possibilities are real possibilities.
A logical possibility may or may not be an ontological possibility. Any concept
that is not self-contradictory is logically possible. To say that something is
logically possible is to say nothing about its real,
or ontological possibility. An entity is really possible only when all the
conditions of the realisation of its possibility are fulfilled. As long as one
such condition is missing the entity is not ontologically possible. When that
condition is fulfilled the entity exists. I may have a fertile dog and a
fertile bitch. A litter is a logical possibility, but the realisation of a
litter, the ontological possibility, depends on a successful mating. A Unicorn
is also logically possible. There is no contradiction in the idea of a horse
with a horn on its head – but Unicorns are not real. They are a mere concept.
They are not ontological possibilities. Possible universes are only logical
possibilities. They are not real, ontological possibilities. They do not
explain the human-friendly universe.
A self-existent
entity, a God, appears to be the Best Explanation of the existence of
the contingent, human-friendly, Universe. The argument to the Best Explanation
maintains that it is reasonable to accept the best of the competing
explanations of a situation or event. A self-existent entity, a God, is one
that has its sufficient reason for existence in itself. A contingent entity, on
the other hand, is one that has its sufficient reason for existence in some
other entity or entities.
The existence of a
contingent human-friendly Universe, dependent upon God for its existence,
raises the question of God’s motive for the creation of the universe. Patrick
Madigan published a monograph that touched on this question in 1988. He traced
the argument about the motive for creation from Parmenides to Aristotle and Plotinus and then to Aquinas, the Scholastics, and beyond.
These arguments generally indicated that if God acted it would only be to
produce an entity that was not significantly different from God. The problem
that this brought into focus for me was that the created universe, as we know
it, does not appear to have similar characteristics to those normally
attributed to the nature of God.
Other Philosophers,
whose work influenced mine, included Samuel Alexander and Nicolai
Hartmann. Samuel Alexander published his “Space, Time and Deity” in 1920. He saw the cosmos as a process that developed
from Space-time towards Deity through a series of Emergents.
He left the term Deity vague, except to say that each emergent stage in the
process of Emergent Evolution was Deity in its relation to the previous stage.
Both he and Hartmann understood the world as a system of emergent levels or
strata.
Nicolai Hartmann was a
German Philosopher. His “Ethics” was published in English in 1932 and his “
W. H. Werkmeister sums up Hartmann’s value Platonism in his
introduction to Cadwallader’s “Searchlight on
Values”. In his discussion of the
cognition of ideal objects, he states that the crux of Hartmann’s argument is
that “cognition is the apprehension of something . . . which is and remains
independent of the act of apprehension. In this respect ideal objects
are just as much something in themselves as are real things,
although their mode of being is radically different. For one thing, ideal
objects lack temporality and are never particulars here and now, and they can
be apprehended a priori. Such objects are well known in mathematics.
Knowledge of them is important in all sciences and is crucial whenever we deal
with values in concrete experiential situations.” Values occupy a special place
within the realm of ideal objects because they have a unique mode of being. This
is that of “an ideal being-in-itself”. They have something in common with
categories but “they do not determine anything directly (as categories do).
Their realisation in the world of things is mediated through human volition. In
themselves they are independent of whether or not reality conforms to them”
(1984, xi-xii)
Werkmeister comments: “The
proposition that values have an ideal in-itself-ness and that in themselves
they constitute an ideal realm is fundamental to Hartmann’s theory of ethics”.
These values contain an ideal, unconditional ought-to-be, but they are
powerless in themselves. They depend for their realisation on human action,
which can transform the value’s “ought-to-be” into an “ought-to-do”. This
“ought-to-do” becomes a categorical imperative for mankind. (1984,xv-xvi) The realisation of this categorical imperative adds
value to the world.
Hartmann was an
atheist, but he insisted on the spiritual nature of humans. He says of man: “It
is his knowledge of good and evil which puts him on a level with divinity; it
is his ability and authority to help in determining the course of events, to
co-operate in the workshop of reality. It is his training in his
world-vocation, the demand on him to be a colleague of the demiurge in the
creation of the world. For the creation of the world is not
completed so long as he has not fulfilled his creative function in it.
But he procrastinates. For he is not ready, he is not standing on the summit of
his humanity. Humanity must first be fulfilled in him. The creative work which
is incumbent upon him in the world terminates in his self-creation, in the
fulfilment of his ethos” (1932, vol. 1, 31)
Hartmann also
initiated a new ontology. He was dissatisfied with the old ontology, which was
derived from Aristotle, particularly with its concept of spirit. He
distinguished four strata of Being, the physical or
material stratum, the biological or living stratum, the conscious or psychic
stratum and the spiritual or moral stratum. He showed that each stratum is
built on the previous stratum and is subject to some extent to the laws that
operate at the lower stratum. Each higher stratum also has its own laws, and
has some freedom in relation to the laws of the lower stratum. Each higher
stratum is thus dependent upon the lower stratum for its existence, but is not
determined by it. The moral or spiritual stratum is completely free in relation
to the law of the spiritual stratum, the moral law.
Hartmann recognised
the importance of the increase in freedom from stratum to stratum. The laws of
the physical stratum are deterministic. The biological stratum functions with a
degree of freedom, relative to the physical level. The conscious stratum has
more freedom than the biological stratum, and the spiritual or moral stratum
enjoys total freedom. In Hartmann’s words: “The moral law
commands, but it cannot compel”. I adopt Hartmann’s ontology.
Hartmann’s insights
contributed significantly to the conclusions I arrived at in my thesis. We have
already considered Kuhn’s failure to understand Francis Bacon’s conclusion that
slightly warm water froze more readily than cold water. It is more difficult to
understand Hartmann’s failure to develop his insights into a metaphysical
system that would provide an explanation of the world. He was possibly
influenced by the rejection of the legitimacy of metaphysics.
While I was
researching my thesis, the science of Cosmology was developing. The dominant
“Big Bang” theory indicated that both matter and time were initiated in the Big
Bang, some 12-15 billion years ago. The first elements produced were Hydrogen
and Helium. Stars formed, producing the heavier elements, giving rise some 4.5
billion years ago to our solar system and planet Earth. All of the changes that
occurred from the Big Bang to the development of planet Earth were changes
consistent with the deterministic natural laws of Physics and Chemistry. Those
laws of nature provided the unifying principle of that series of changes. Given
the laws of nature and an unlimited time, a planet capable of supporting life
would probably develop at some time, in some part of the Cosmos. That
development would be the result of a process involving the self-organization of
matter, in accordance with the laws of nature.
Soon after the
development of Earth, life began on the planet. Just as matter had begun in its
simplest form, and had become more complex, life began simply and developed in
complexity, through vegetative, instinctive and conscious stages, eventually
producing Homo sapiens. The development of life, and even of a life-friendly
planet in an appropriate solar system, would seem to be a rare event. The
Physicist, Stuart Ross Taylor, in his “Solar System Evolution” (1992) argues
that Earth is a unique planet in a unique solar system, the product of a series
of events that are not likely to be repeated. These events are summarised in
his Chapter 7. In his Epilogue he concludes from the evidence that Homo sapiens
is likely to be alone in the Universe.
Homo sapiens, and
other Homo species, develop cultures. Human cultures are self-creating
processes. Humans make cultures and cultures, to a significant extent, make the
humans of those cultures. Cultures generally develop in complexity over time,
although they can also have a tendency to settle into a stable pattern, with
little ongoing development. Cultures are free to develop in various ways. They
are influenced primarily by the belief-system that underlies the culture, and
by the way in which that belief-system might develop.
The essential aspect
of any culture is its belief-system. As Dix’s analysis shows: “The roots of the
‘civilised’ cultures are in ideas – a few quite basic ideas – which the
men of any given culture hold in common, or perhaps rather assume in
common, about the ultimate purpose and meaning of human life as a whole. The
differences between cultures, all-embracing as they seem to be on first
examination, are always reducible to the differences between the things
different cultures take for granted about human life. From these root
ideas grows the common ‘pattern of life’ of that particular culture, covering
every aspect of human living with consistent conventions and convictions. At
bottom, these groups of ideas which the men of the culture take for granted in
common are always more or less theological in content, though they may
not be theologically expressed, and have their applications in every possible
field of human behaviour. It is because theological ideas mould culture
irresistibly, and men, large masses of men, can and sometimes do change their
theological ideas, that human history can never settle down into a biological
or economic or even geographical determinism.” (1953,7-8)
I would extend this analysis to primitive, as well as civilised cultures.
Primitive, pre-moral
people and cultures had their own belief systems. These beliefs supported and
incorporated the tribal mores or law. It is necessary to distinguish morality
from cultural mores, or rules. Cultural mores can be totally immoral. With the
gradual development of human moral awareness, cultures began to be modified to
produce moral cultures. Existing mores were challenged when they were perceived
as being less than moral. This process first becomes apparent about 1250 BC,
with the formation of
The gradual
development towards morality can also be observed in Greek literature. We can
follow the development from Homer’s understanding of goodness as successful
action, regardless of morality, through Hesiod’s
rationalisation of the stories of the Olympian Gods, without concern for their
immorality, to Xenophanes’ ultimate rejection of the
divinity of the Olympian Gods, on the grounds of their immorality.
Human morality is a
comparatively recent development, and one that is still in the process of
developing. Variable attitudes over time towards slavery are an indication of
this. Principled morality – which is the only morality per se - is a very under-developed
phenomenon. Research by Lawrence Kohlberg and others indicates that only a very
small proportion of people are able to make principled moral decisions. Most
people’s “moral” decisions are not based directly on moral principles - the
perception of the Platonic ought-to-be - but on the acceptance of such “moral”
standards as are generally accepted in a particular community.
Kohlberg
distinguishes three levels of individual perspective in relation to morality.
As individuals develop they can move through these levels, just as they can
move through the cognitive levels identified by Piaget. The first, pre-conventional,
level is essentially pre-moral. It responds essentially to externally imposed
rules. This level is typical of children up to 9 years of age. Some
individuals, including many criminals, do not progress beyond this level. The
second, conventional, level is concerned primarily with social approval,
responding basically to social norms. The great majority of people do not
progress past this level. The third, post-conventional, level applies
moral principles even when these are contrary to the prevailing social norms.
Moral judgements at this level are judgements of value, not of fact. They are
social judgements in that they involve people. They are also prescriptive or
normative judgements, “judgements of ought, of rights and responsibilities,
rather than value judgements of liking and preference.” (Colby & Kohlberg
1987,10)
The development of
mankind’s mental capacity is obviously a pre-requisite to the development of
the moral capacity. The capacity for abstract and critical thought has to
precede any useful perception of the “ought-to-be”. The translation of the
“ought-to-be” into an “ought-to-do” requires a well-developed mental capacity.
This development varies from culture to culture.
The development of
some individuals to the post-conventional level can ultimately lead to
the formation of moral cultures, of varying moral standards. These standards
are dependent on the value perceptions of post-conventional moral individuals,
and on the degree of their influence on their society. As Werkmeister
noted, these values are powerless in themselves. They depend for their
realisation on human action, which can transform the value’s “ought-to-be” into
an “ought-to-do”. Any moral culture is a process of human self-creation, in the
same way that any pre-moral culture is. However it has a greater propensity to
develop than do pre-moral cultures. Moral people are seldom satisfied with the
status quo. They always want the world to be a better place.
The sequence of
developments that occur throughout the various strata of the Cosmos appears to
constitute an overall process. There are subsidiary processes occurring within
the material, biological, psychic and moral-spiritual strata. Each stratum
eventually produces some entity that provides an appropriate platform for the
development of the following stratum. The material stratum produces a
life-friendly planet, Earth. The biological stratum produces Homo sapiens. The
psychic stratum produces rational cultures. The spiritual stratum develops
moral cultures. This series of developments has the appearance of an overall
process, rather than of a random series of changes.
There is a movement
within each stage of the process from an initial relative simplicity towards a
higher degree of complexity, both from stratum to stratum and within each
stratum. However this development is anything but direct. It is characterised
by increasing freedom. It does not occur in a way that might be expected of an
orchestrated or pre-determined process. At each stratum there appear to be
freely developing processes, following their own paths in an undirected or
opportunistic fashion, rather than in a direct or pre-determined way. Each
stage in the process has a greater degree of freedom to develop than did the
previous stage. The movement towards greater complexity appears to be a matter
of self-organization, or self-creation, at each stratum.
Self-organization
appears to operate at the physical or material stratum. The laws at this
stratum are deterministic, but they interact, producing contingency. Stars
form, producing heavier elements, and solar systems form with planets. Some 10
Billion years after the Big Bang, Earth, a planet capable of bearing life, is
formed. While there could be other planets capable of bearing life, Earth
appears likely to be the only one. It is certainly the only one we know. The
development of our solar system and of planet Earth appears to be a product of
the self-organization of matter. This development occurs within a particular
set of circumstances, but in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry.
The laws of life do
not appear to be as deterministic as the laws of matter. We are just starting
to discover some of life’s genomic laws. Life appears to evolve new forms with
a greater degree of freedom than matter ever had to develop. Life appears to be
opportunistic, rather than deterministic in its development. It mutates
regularly and fills available environmental niches.
In the evolutionary
process Darwinian theory places the major emphasis on
natural selection. This is despite the fact that selection can only operate on
that which is presented for selection by mutation. Mutations are caused by the
synthesis of existing elements in the genetic code. Darwinians have tended to
regard whatever is presented for selection as the product of chance. A problem
with this approach is that chance is nothing but an epistemological concept. A
concept need reflect no reality. We can have a concept of a Unicorn but there
still is no real Unicorn. Neither is there a reality to chance. Ontologically,
in the sense of in reality, there is no such thing as chance. Chance is a label
that is applied to circumstances due to a lack of knowledge about the chain of
cause and effect that gave rise to a phenomenon. Both neo-Darwinism and the
“multiple possible universes” theory rely on chance as an explanation. Chance,
as an explanation, is really the avoidance of any explanation. The principle of
sufficient reason affirms that nothing occurs in the world that does not have
its origin in something else. As Hartmann states: “nothing in
the world exists by chance in the ontic sense.
Everything depends on conditions and occurs only where these are fulfilled. If,
however, all conditions are fulfilled, they form a sufficient reason, and the
event is bound to occur”. (1953,68)
A beneficial mutation
is not a matter of “chance”. It involves the initiation of more complex novelty
by the synthesis of existing elements. Beneficial mutations appear to occur in
a regular pattern, enabling Biologists to calculate when particular divergences
occurred within the tree of life. Beneficial mutations require a
“reprogramming” of DNA at the genomic level, a matter of self-organization or
self-creation. The growth of complexity in biological evolution relies on this
synthesis. The part played by selection in evolution is not only the
elimination of mutations resulting from a reprogramming that does not produce a
beneficial result, but may also be the elimination of more highly evolved
mutations, which do not happen to fit the environment in which they occur.
In the search for a
rational explanation of the Cosmos we have considered the available evidence,
both empirical evidence and the evidence from reason. The empirical evidence is
that the Cosmos has the form of a process, rather than of a random series of
changes. Each stage or stratum of the process develops in complexity over time.
The process involves both self-organization and self-creation. Each stratum
also provides the base for the development of the following stratum or stage.
The most recent stage of the process clearly involves human moral-cultural
self-creation.
The evidence from
reason includes Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient reason. This principle,
together with the argument to the Best Evidence, favours the view that a
self-existent entity, a God, initiated the Cosmos. The evidence also includes
Hartmann’s Value Platonism, which shows the important role of humans in the
world. Humans are the only beings capable of realising, in the sense of making
real, ideal values. Only humans perceive the Platonic “ought-to-be” and
transform it into an “ought-to-do”. This “ought-to-do” becomes a categorical
imperative that has the potential to add real value to the world. The evidence
also shows that each stratum of the world enjoys greater freedom than the
previous stratum, with the human moral-spiritual stratum enjoying total freedom
in relation to the law of that stratum, the moral law.
The evidence from
reason also provides two potentially disturbing conclusions. The first is that
the principle of sufficient reason indicates that, contrary to appearances,
this is the best of all possible worlds. The second is the consensus of a wide
range of philosophers and theologians that the self-existent God would only act
to produce an entity similar to God. If we rely only on appearances this does
not seem to be the case. Both of these conclusions from reason appear to be
contradicted by the empirical evidence as to the imperfection of the world.
The question then is
how to bring together the empirical evidence, and the evidence from reason, to
provide a rational, consistent and coherent picture of the world? How do we
deal with some of the empirical evidence, which appears to contradict evidence
from reason? We have to take into account both the empirical facts, and
everything that reason tells us. We then have to arrive at a satisfactory
explanation of all the evidence. We will need to apply both our imagination and
our experience of the world to produce a successful explanation.
If we accept the view
that God would only act to produce an entity that is similar to God, and we
adopt Hegel’s dictum that the real is rational and that the rational is real,
we can consider God’s possible actions from a reasoned perspective. We can
assume that God can do anything that is logically possible, but cannot do
anything that involves a logical contradiction.
This brings us
immediately to what appears to be the nub of the problem. Any direct creation
by God of an entity that is similar to God, does involve a logical
contradiction. God is self-existent, while any entity directly created by God
is wholly dependent on God for its existence. Any created entity is
non-self-existent, the opposite of the self-existent God. Any created entity is
not an entity that is similar to God. They differ fundamentally in their mode
of existence. Clearly God cannot create an entity that is similar to
God. Can this logical contradiction be overcome?
The only course open
would appear to be for God to initiate a process that involves both
self-organization and, more importantly, self-creation. A communal process
involving self-creation, such as a culture, could open the possibility of the
eventual development of a communal entity that is self-created in those
characteristics that are similar to characteristics of the self-existent God,
including both creativity and goodness.
No entity can be
wholly self-created, but given a suitable base to begin with an entity could be
self-created in significant respects. A communal entity that continually
renewed itself could, over generations and time, remake itself in aspects of
its being that are similar to some aspects of God. Such a partially
self-created entity would also be similar to God in its mode of existence,
being self-created in those characteristics that make it similar to the
self-existent God. The emergence of such a communal entity would appear to
constitute the realisation of the telos of the Cosmos
– the production of a communal entity that is similar to God.
If we consider the
process of the cosmos from the Big Bang to the present, it begins with the
creation of matter and time, and the initiation of those deterministic physical
laws that will enable the development, given unlimited time, of a planet that
is capable of supporting life. At least one such planet develops, which we know
as Earth. Life then begins on Earth. The beginning of life appears to require
the addition of information to matter, in the form of a code that is capable of
self-organising development. Life evolves, eventually producing Homo species,
including Homo sapiens. This evolutionary development occurs with a greater
degree of freedom than did the development of inert matter.
Homo sapiens form
cultures, which are ongoing processes of human self-creation. Humans develop
their capacity for rational thought and eventually develop the capacity to
think critically and to perceive the ideal world of value. They continue the
process of self-creation in the moral-cultural sphere. Humans are completely
free in their moral development. They perceive the moral “ought to do” but they
are totally free to do, or not do, as they ought. Throughout the process the
movement is always towards greater freedom, from the initial self-organization
of inert matter, which is subject to deterministic laws, to the total freedom
of humans in relation to the moral law. This process could freely produce a
communal entity that is similar to God.
This is the best of
all possible worlds, in that it is the only world that could produce an entity
that is similar to God. All humans are, and have been, involved in that process
of production. Whenever a human realises, in the sense of
making real, the Platonic “ought-to-be” he adds value to the world and moves
the world towards its completion. As Hartmann perceived, the creation of
the world is not completed so long as man has not fulfilled his creative
function in it.
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