Starting with a critical mind
So you cannot be sure about the validity of my thoughts and want to question everything before believing it. Then I will have to go through all the obstacles that I come to think about and explain how to handle those questions: (This is a difficult thing for me to do, since I do not knwo which points cause you confusion, so PLEASE e-mail me your questions, even if you just feel confused - maybe I can make things clearer.)
OK. A healthy individual functions better than a broken one but can one apply this truth to the large scale?
Redefine health so that you can apply the concept to everything, to even the world full of artificialities: "healthy" means "a fully functioning optimised system". The systems of nature have been optimised by the evolution: the non-functioning and poorly functioning arrangements dropped away and the well functioning arrangements gained a better position each generation. That resulted after many many generations in an as gpood survival ability as possible. In it all the sides of the functioning of an individual support survival as well as possible. Thinking, feelings and instincts support the individual in finding the best survival strategy in the long run for its genes. So what thinking fails to notice, the instincts and feelings care about, and vice versa. (This applies also to factors which connect to the larger environment's effect on the survival.) So also emotional truths like the value of a paradise can be objective in the tough sense of survival of the fittest.
If you aim at choosing the best alternative in the sense of efficiency, it is clearly the fully functioning optimised system. So how to optimise a system consisting of both natural and artificial parts?
The existence of the artificialities does not change the nature of the biological parts, does not change their principkes of functioning, not even in what comes to their conmnection with the large environment. They jsut do differenmt things in the world full of artificialities, they do not need different things.
So in optimising a huge system like the whole Earth you need to optimise it as a whole. To a lerge part that means also optimising the subsystems and individual beings in it. Biologicak wholes get optimised in the old way via health because their principle of functioning has not changed. Artificial things can be optimised by the help of the sciences. The whole is a sum of these two types of components. Here at some points you have to think about for wehat are you going to optimise the system - is it survival of the humans, the well being of the living beings, defence against enemies or some kind of competition ability - but in many things there are the same factorts to take into acvcount in any case: in order to build thge best system for any purpose you must treat each part according to what it is like, so true objectivity, justice and honesty in important matters keep their value in any case, are musts for the motivated optimiser of the system. Also in order to be able to use the building parts of the system for optimising at all, you must take care that they do nmot get badly broken, or not broken at all on the sides that you can use well for the optimising. Like the survival ability of living beings can be used for protyection and for taking the needs of the huge system into account. The most short-sighted strategy idsn't the wisest, isn't worth counting on if one can choose also long term survival - which wuill bring a better motivation and true holistic objectivity which are essential also for short term victory. The optimising demands the use of a holistic view and the lasdt observation leads tpo human values. Gaining the strongest force means counting on the whole force, on all that create it and safeguarding that force for future purposes too: in other words human values ofr all - fairly since there ius the demand for justice too - safeguarding that is what is meant by carrying responsibility of the fates of us all. The evolution has thus made a miracle: what is best for us, is beat for the large systems too, whatever their goals, as long as that goals is connected to some kind of survival.
So far OK: this proves that our some needs get to answered if the system is optimised, but what guarantees that exactly all needs need to be answered in order to get the optimised result? In other words: do we have proportions right in this picture?
The human functioning forms an interconnected whole. This is my basic claim and supported among other things by the findings of the modern brain science: we use just about all the brain areas in every task. But my main grounds for that is that like it is beneficial for individuals to ally in ordert o form a pack, and for cells to "ally" to form an individual, likewise it is beneficial for the different sides of the individualk to support each other. In my experience the ability to abstract thinking is among other things supported by our sense of sight, life in a nature environment and our sense of atmospheres. See my texts about it at /increasingintelligence.html etc. So even functions that seem far from each other can be closely intertwined. So taking one function away by refusing to answer its needs lessens the other functions too. In optimising we reach fgor the very best performance since that is our own advantage in competition. So in competition we need to use all our sides, the system to answer all our needs. This is what my main theory is about. See the page /interconnectedness.html and /diagram1.jpg)
My two books, Work Efficiency and Likings about the rationality of feelings and Power Politics Leads To Excellent Moral about rational moral (some calculations about beneficiality), might solve some of the problems that you maybe are having with my thoughts. You can download them at stores.lulu.com/khtervola for free.
Why do I claim that the healthy natural world is the winning option - isn't some combination of health and artificialities the likeliest winner? Yes: I talk of health of the biological parts and of the ways of living, not of a world without artificialities. And the paradise is just a direction of development when the systems try to optimise the biological parts of the systems, like they are nowadays already trying to do up to some extend and like they will do more and more as the time passes and the technology gets adabted to the needs of human workers. The winning option should be the healthy natural world TOGETHER with the technology. So there would be two directions of development: the development of technology and the development of ways of living toward more healthy and natural. The latter direction I call Gaia paradise because it emphasises the interconnectedness of human functioning and the sense in natural healthy human goals in life.
My Favorite Things About Angelfire
My Favorite Web sites
Rationally grounded moral - going through all the crimes
The existence of the artificialities does not change things
The rationality in following feelings
Intelligence, nature and atmospheres
Thinking
The interconnectedness of human functioning
A picture of the interconnectedness
Email: KaisaHanneleTervola@webinfo.fi
