138
Even the most fundamental alleged Law of Nature, gravity, knows no eternity; is
compromised to the extent that it is exploited by every movement of every object,
organic or inorganic. This leaves our histories and futures not only checkered, but
also lacking all guidance other than those incremental convictions we might muster
during our ephemeral stays in this human form. And to what end is more a matter of
ethics than quantum mechanics or calculus.
15.2 On a Tightrope Between Innocence and Experience
Ethics in human context does not easily admit to innocence, and is naturally frustrated by the physics of incrementality. Rather, it literally gravitates toward strategy.
Evolution is instructive in this matter. Our dispositions are ecological to the core,
no matter what we say or do. They function according to the logic of honeycombs,
the language of the dance, a proboscis and energy balance, the discrimination of
odors, and the so-called “constancy” in flowering plants. Our memory, polarization filters, ability to recognize patterns, crowd paths, temperature regulation, and
sexual attractants are no different than the evolution of a stamen: it is us by so many
labyrinthine twists.
15
As Arthur E. Murphy has reflected, in discussion of John Dewey’s Experience
and Nature,
16
Dewey frequently described how “the pervasive traits of human experience are traits of nature itself and can be used in metaphysics as a guide to its
character.” Indeed, Dewey wrote, “Man fears because he exists in a fearful, an awful
world. The world is precarious and perilous.”
17
We speak constantly of that gap between innocence and experience; between
naivety and strategy. If our bee-like industry is our downfall, which is a correct
deduction by all indications (we do not so much pollinate as de-pollinate at industrial scale), then the chasm separating us from all others is wholly inexplicable.
Unnatural selection, as Lois Wingerson has written of it,
18
defines our profound
dilemma. All the beauty by which we describe our predicaments and hopes fail to
arrest the ineluctable turning points of our brief span.
At the same time, the totality of our cognition horizons inculcates a reasoning
faculty that, despite all malevolence to the contrary, situates the notion of solutions
at the level of applied ethics; stops at nothing to embrace millions of like-minded
15 ibid, Selected from Barth’s Index, as an example of the comprehensive intimations of what, in
humans is co-evolved as a result of such primal relations as those between insects and plants.
16 Dover Publications, New York, 1958.
17 “Dewey’s Epistemology And Metaphysics,” in The Philosophy of John Dewey, The Library of
Living Philosophers, Edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp and Lewis Edwin Hahn, Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale, 3rd Edition, 1989, p. 219.
18 Unnatural Selection – The Promise And The Power Of Human Gene Research, Bantam Books,
New York, 1998.
15 The Evolution of Innocence and Strategy
Even the most fundamental alleged Law of Nature, gravity, knows no eternity; is
compromised to the extent that it is exploited by every movement of every object,
organic or inorganic. This leaves our histories and futures not only checkered, but
also lacking all guidance other than those incremental convictions we might muster
during our ephemeral stays in this human form. And to what end is more a matter of
ethics than quantum mechanics or calculus.
15.2 On a Tightrope Between Innocence and Experience
Ethics in human context does not easily admit to innocence, and is naturally frustrated by the physics of incrementality. Rather, it literally gravitates toward strategy.
Evolution is instructive in this matter. Our dispositions are ecological to the core,
no matter what we say or do. They function according to the logic of honeycombs,
the language of the dance, a proboscis and energy balance, the discrimination of
odors, and the so-called “constancy” in flowering plants. Our memory, polarization filters, ability to recognize patterns, crowd paths, temperature regulation, and
sexual attractants are no different than the evolution of a stamen: it is us by so many
labyrinthine twists.
15
As Arthur E. Murphy has reflected, in discussion of John Dewey’s Experience
and Nature,
16
Dewey frequently described how “the pervasive traits of human experience are traits of nature itself and can be used in metaphysics as a guide to its
character.” Indeed, Dewey wrote, “Man fears because he exists in a fearful, an awful
world. The world is precarious and perilous.”
17
We speak constantly of that gap between innocence and experience; between
naivety and strategy. If our bee-like industry is our downfall, which is a correct
deduction by all indications (we do not so much pollinate as de-pollinate at industrial scale), then the chasm separating us from all others is wholly inexplicable.
Unnatural selection, as Lois Wingerson has written of it,
18
defines our profound
dilemma. All the beauty by which we describe our predicaments and hopes fail to
arrest the ineluctable turning points of our brief span.
At the same time, the totality of our cognition horizons inculcates a reasoning
faculty that, despite all malevolence to the contrary, situates the notion of solutions
at the level of applied ethics; stops at nothing to embrace millions of like-minded
15 ibid, Selected from Barth’s Index, as an example of the comprehensive intimations of what, in
humans is co-evolved as a result of such primal relations as those between insects and plants.
16 Dover Publications, New York, 1958.
17 “Dewey’s Epistemology And Metaphysics,” in The Philosophy of John Dewey, The Library of
Living Philosophers, Edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp and Lewis Edwin Hahn, Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale, 3rd Edition, 1989, p. 219.
18 Unnatural Selection – The Promise And The Power Of Human Gene Research, Bantam Books,
New York, 1998.
15 The Evolution of Innocence and Strategy