Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Mon, 23 Mar 1998 17:59:55 +0100
clark wrote:
> Which is more moral? Do
> we apply human intellect or do we allow Gaia intellect to operate? What
> would be the answer of Plato and Aristotle who had none of these problems
> in their time? What makes them apples do like that? Ken Clark
>
To me, Gaia appears to be a new-forming planet-wide biological organism.
The Gaia concept (biology recreating its world in its own needs) is a huge
example of biological mediation of the inorganic world. And according to
Lovelock (from what I remember) there was a fundamental, planet-wide change.
EVERYTHING is different because of this change.
Agriculture is an example of social mediation of the inorganic world that is
noticeable on a planet-wide scale. This is a living, growing change, similar
to the change that the biological world has produced...BUT I don't think the
changes come even close to being as all-encompassing as the atmospheric shift
that characterized Gaia. And I don't think Gaia operates in the social
world. It supports it, but doesn't have an information connection.
Intellect's effect on the inorganic world, off the top of my head, seem to be
unhappy results, such as depletion of ozone & fossil fuels, deforestation and
other pollution. (Somehow this is similar to to the Nazi example that Kevin
brought up, in which violence is done to the lower level structures.) Gaia and
intellect are definitely disconnected. They may be enemies. Intellect has
done little more than violence to Gaia. And Gaia is no friend to intellect,
either, I think.
I, too, have felt the appeal of the Gaia concept. (In fact, the only part of
my web page that people respond to on any regular basis is an old "novelette"
that tinkers with the appealing qualities of the concept.) But I think it's
important to realize that Gaia, though huge, when seen as an entity is
relatively primitive, an entity that functions in the biological/inorganic
realm of struggle.
Gaia seems to be a low-level biological organism that includes as part of its
self some individual biological units that are able to be a part of the
intellectual level--humans. It also encompasses social units that have been
mediated by the intellectual level--human societies. [For the most part, these
societies do NOT participate, as entities, in the intellectual level, although
that may be beginning to change, and this change may be the source of our
search for a "new level".] Still, Gaia is not a social entity or an
intellectual entity. When seen as an organism, it is a biological unit.
In my half-formed image of MoQ reality as the banyan tree (in which structures
grow from their bases toward DQ and then remake themselves, by higher patterns
reforming lower and even putting down new roots), Gaia is a potential new
rootspace, a huge organizational structure that may, in time, become the base
of an even greater structure than the one that currently supports the human
mind. But at this time, the individual human mind is the only entity that can
participate in the uppermost, intellectual level. Gaia (as a whole, complete
entity) isn't even close.
So, your question of morality is still there. Which takes moral precdence, the
entity with the highest-quality attainment, or the one with the greatest
potential?
Or the one that is evaluatively connected at more evolutionary levels?
I'm reminded of a Carl Sagan conversation that I can't remember. Something
about sperm, and the biblical image of sowing your seed in the belly of the
whore being more moral than casting it on the ground. Or not.
Enough of this. It's more than a little crazy. Good night. ;-)
Maggie
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