The idea that there is
somewhere to get to which is better than here is only an idea. We are hamsters on a treadmill trying to convince ourselves that being on a treadmill is progress. Stepping off is psychologically hard for us to view as progress even though we know that destruction (destroying the treadmill?) can also lead to progress. Our notion of progress is always measured relative to some previous or "poorer" state, but since we cannot guarantee that our current ("progressive") trajectory is leading us in the right direction (as any student of greedy algorithms can attest), there is no guarantee that serious regress is not in our future --- a regress caused by our path.
Historian J. Bury, 1920:
"To the minds of most people the desirable outcome of human development would be a condition of society in which all the inhabitants of the planet would enjoy a perfectly happy existence....It cannot be proved that the unknown destination towards which man is advancing is desirable. The movement may be Progress, or it may be in an undesirable direction and therefore not Progress..... The Progress of humanity belongs to the same order of ideas as Providence or personal immortality. It is true or it is false, and like them it cannot be proved either true or false. Belief in it is an act of faith."
I don't see that as nihilism. Once the mind is not completely obsessed by the future, thereby depriving us of the experience of the present --- and by this I mean genuine experience of living, free from our usual, comfort-seeking distracted state of being, we have a chance of recognizing that the mind misleads as well as it leads, and thus thinking is not equal to intelligence.
That may be why Einstein said "intuition is the most important thing", instead of saying "make sure you spend a lot of time thinking, or else the chimpanzees will catch up."
Incidentally .... the chimpanzees may have caught up. They are now in positions of administration everywhere you turn. .... education, government, defense ....
:) |
