HUMANS
IN THE WORLD: INTRODUCTION
TO RADICAL PERSPECTIVISM
HUMANS
IN THE WORLD: INTRODUCTION
TO RADICAL PERSPECTIVISM
Other Chapters:
Alexander Makedon
Chicago State University
Copyright © 1992
HUMANS AND THE WORLD Posted Feb. 3, 2001
World-Human |
Humans and the world are in a relationship where if one drops out, the other either is not, or is different. This is so because without the world, humans cease to exist; while a world without humans becomes de-humanized. Humans need a world to think about, so they can emerge more fully as thinking beings, and therefore as more fully "human;" while the world depends on humans for understanding itself through their interpretations of the world. It follows that humans and the world don't depend on each other in a casual way, but more lastingly as interpreter and interpretable: humans as interpreters of the world; and world as interpretable by humans.
Humans are the world's solution to its existence as world-human, that is, a thinking world whose future is tied to the human ability to interpret it. As interpreters of the world's possibilities, men and women act as a catalyst to its future. By allowing humans to think, that is, to rise as human, the world-human knows it "exists" through their interpretations. To paraphrase Descartes, the world exists because it can think through humans.
Like a game with unpredictable results, so is the cosmos unpredictable. Its unpredictability is unabashedly revealed to humans through a variety of known phenomena, from Heisenberg's unpredictability principle in physics, to the unpredictable anthropology of human innovation, to the natural unpredictability of life forms. All that humans can do to lend the cosmos an air of predictability is to posit it as an event that follows certain human-made rules. Inevitably, the more human-centered such rules are, the less cosmic they really are, and therefore the less they represent the cosmos as a whole. At best, such rules represent the world's way of interpreting itself through human-centeredness. The cosmos is so unpredictable that even characterizing it as finite or infinite depends on our choice of rules of interpretation. Since humans are part of the cosmos which they attempt to understand, they are cosmos' unpredictability in microcosm.
The cosmos is "possible." In fact, the cosmos exists because it is possible. To paraphrase Kierkegaard, possibility precedes existence. If we could deny the world of its possibilities, we could deny the world. By "possible" here we mean that the cosmos is its possibilities. By "possibilities" here we mean the varieties of things the cosmos can become, becomes, or has been. Witness the incredible variety of plants and animals that coexist in nature, to mention but a minuscule few of its possibilities. Seen from the perspective of the cosmos, "evolution" is not necessarily linear, cumulative, or progressive, but simply the realization of its possibilities (one of which may be the opposite of evolution, such as, regression).
One of the underlying assumptions of Darwinian theory, or, more broadly, of modern theories of evolution, is the concept of survival. As a result of their struggle for survival, life forms adapt to their environment. Yet such survivalist-centered interpretation may be imposing on the world a human view about survival which other world-parts may not share. Seen from a non-human perspective, there is nothing compelling about "survival," if by survival is meant the survival of the individual in more or less its present form. A human-centered interpretation of survival doesn't take into account non-human cosmic possibilities for survival. Such possibilities may so expand the definition of "survival,' as to include any number of cosmic survival possibilities which humans may fail to notice because of their more immediate concern with their own survival, or the survival of their immediate surroundings that support their existence. Non-human world parts may have a much broader approach to survival which is not limited to individual-bound, reality-bound, or present-bound interpretations. Theirs may be seen as a "struggle for survival" of the potential for their re-emergence in any number of seemingly unrecognizable forms. Their survival-strategies may include intermittent existence, regression, metamorphosis, re-combination, re-creation, or resurrection. Some of these non-human survival strategies are already known to humans, mostly in their derivative, rudimentary forms, such as, parasitism, synthesis, metamorphosis, hibernation, and mitosis. Such "survival" expands our common understanding of survival to include survival-types which today go unrecognized. For example, if we apply such survival strategies to humans, then we may imagine that humans could survive in potential form, as a universal potentiality; in combination with another world part, as in "combined human;" or as a future half-human that has learned to do without certain of its as parts, as in "divided human."
Humans remain too tied to their human-centered assumptions to see other life-possibilities as equally possible, and therefore just as worldly. If one were to imagine a different perspective on life, then his view of time, space, and value may change radically, while his view of himself may extend beyond even the most liberal theories of evolution. This is so because as humans re-examine the world from non-human perspectives, they may begin to appreciate their ability to imagine even "unreal" possibilities, which are also the world's, and therefore evolve, or help other world-parts evolve, even beyond what might be considered in modern thought as "environmentally possible."
The world is not home only to humans, but to some extent, it's humans themselves. By this we mean that humans don't stand apart from the world as casual observers, but are themselves of the world. Ironically, their ability to think, or examine something from a distance, has frequently led them to think wrongly about their own place in the universe. Seeing that they can examine the world from a distance, that is, think about it, they conclude that they are not part of this world (as did, for example, Plato). As a result, they develop other-worldly social and religious ideologies in which humans are either separate from the world, as in the form of a Christian soul, or must constantly struggle against it to "overcome" it. That humans are also "world" may be shown from the fact that they can't exist without it. Humans can't possibly interpret the world, change it, or destroy it without interpreting, changing, or destroying themselves.
If humans attempt to dispense with the world, or, worse, destroy world possibilities (such as, other species), they are inescapably destroying themselves. This is so because they are not only world-dependent, but also world-integrated and interdependent. Humans need the world to survive. By "destruction" here is meant not a mere food or life cycle that involves some form of destruction, but nevertheless leaves the species intact, but the annihilation of the possibilities of a world part for its continued survival. Ultimately, the destruction of an actualized possibility influences even its possible survival as a potentiality, since its returning to what scientists commonly refer to as "empirical reality" depends partly on the survival of those actualized world parts which collectively make its return possible. It is in this sense that the cosmos as a whole depends partly on humans for its continued survival: as humans destroy world-parts, they are chipping away at the cosmos' ability to reproduce itself even as a cosmos-without-humans. Of course humans can't cause the cosmos too much harm before they fall victim to their own destructiveness, nor is it likely that they ever will.
While the world can exist without humans, humans cannot exist without the world. The more humans try to dispense with the world, the more dispensable they become themselves. There are numerous examples of humans' destruction of world possibilities. Witness the destruction of the ozone layer that protects humans from the sun's radioactivity; depletion of the rain forest that holds numerous possibilities for humans' physical survival (such as, the provision of oxygen, medical research, and indigenous cultural paradigms); and outright conquest or destruction of other cultures that could help re-introduce new, possibly more fulfilling, if not survival-necessary, lifestyles.
By contrast to the destructive human, the radical perspectivist is cooperative, facilitative, and universalistic. He sees himself as part world (as in "human-world"), and begins to reverse the destructive policies of past and present generations. Educated to identify with the whole world, he sees his own fate as tied to the world's. Once humans learn how to extend their sense of ego to include the world, then there is no going back to the self-centered view of "I" that conquers, destroys, or separates.
To the extent that humans refrain from destroying themselves, they should refrain from destroying the world. This is so because humans are the world, and therefore so are the destroyed world-parts. A universally-thinking and feeling human, which is the type of human called for by radical perspectivism, has too broad a vision of himself to be blind to himself-as-the-world. Such human perceives the world to be an extension of who he is, and therefore identical with him-self. To paraphrase the saying that the world has become a village, he knows that the world has always been a village, except human actions have never been consistently universal. In this universal village, every culture is inevitably part of another. This is so because from the perspective of the world, past, present, and future are not limited to human-bound time, nor are conceptions of space or geography. Furthermore, all humans are inextricably and reflexively tied to their animate and inanimate environment. Humans have gradually come to realize this through their bare biological and medicinal dependence on their environment. Seen from a world perspective, we are all "connected," including all animate and inanimate world-parts. However different our outward form, culture, or activities may be, they are commonly the world's, and therefore collectively the playing-out of its possibilities. It is for this reason that under an expanded or universal sense of "human," human institutions (law courts, legislative bodies, business centers) should be no less universal. By "universal" here we mean that they should help not only humans survive, but the world as a whole.
As social institutions help the world to thrive, for example, through legislation that protects the environment, or the development of a popular culture that respects nature, inevitably also help humans. Alternatively, as they encourage humans to "master," ignore, control, or destroy the world, they encourage them to ignore, control, or destroy themselves.
The radical perspectivist settles down within a universal network of interdependent parts. The world-part which we commonly know as human happens to have developed a characteristically human-type consciousness. As philosophers and psychologists are quick to point out, consciousness can take many forms, from "unconscious" type intuition, to pre-reflective, highly abstract, reflective, and reflexive. In its reflective form, human consciousness can help humans reflect on the world; by "reflexive" we mean a consciousness that does not only reflect on the world, but also on itself. When humans use this capacity for self-reflection, to reflect on themselves from a variety of other human and non-human perspectives, they become selflessly perspectival.It is only as humans learn to world their consciousness, that they become conscious of the world. By "worlding" their consciousness we mean becoming conscious of universal perspectives. When humans reflect universally, they allow the world to reflect on itself. They can do this through role-play, as in role-playing non-human world parts. They gradually become conscious of themselves as humans-in-the-world, that is, as thinking world-parts whose role is to help the world interpret itself.
Under radical perspectivism, freedom for us humans is achieved not by breaking away from universal determinism, as wrote Sartre, but because we can universalize our imagination to include non-human perspectives. Our freedom is not that of a world-denying ascetic, but of a world-embracing human who is larger-than-life. By embracing the world, we "world" our freedom, thus expanding it to include the world. For example, by role-playing the world's possibilities, we are free as-the-other. When thus universalized, we experience how it feels to be "possible," meaning, not to be strictly this or that, but any-thing. As radical perspectivists, we become free on a grand scale.
We are free because they live in a "free" world. It is through the world's possibleness that we can become free. Without a possible world, we couldn't be free. It follows that it is "impossible" for us to live freely outside the world, since freedom itself is the result of the world's numerous possibilities. Ironically, the more we strive to live "freely" outside the world, as in asceticism, the further immersed we become intellectually in the world, since we make it the focus of our thoughts, efforts, and anti-world feelings.
As a possible world, the world lends itself to thoughtful choices by humans. It is for this reason that we are free to "make" ourselves, meaning, to choose one human possibility over another. We are responsible for what happens to us as a result of our choices, and to the world as a result of using our human-like skills.
Cosmic justice dictates that humans are present-dispensable. By "present-dispensable" we mean the possibility that something exists not presently, for example, in psycho-physical form, but only as a possibility. Humans, too, can become present-dispensable the more they dispense with their "present." In fact, humans are no less present-dispensable than other world parts. This is so because anything in the world is possible, except what is "impossible," that is, causes the world's possibilities to be destroyed.
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