The human purpose and its finitude
24
Sep
Unlike the machine that has the environment as its purpose
(see previous post), the human purpose is to reaffirm existence through the perpetuation of life, and also everything that is alive can and should defend this existence, as explained by Edgar Morin:
“The impositions that inhibit enzymes, genes, and even cells, do not diminish a freedom that does not exist at this level, as freedom only emerges at a level of individual complexity where there are possibilities of choice; they inhibit qualities, possibilities of action or expression” (MORIN, 1977, 110), machines are not without purpose, but whatever they are, they are means.
But this freedom when it is at the human level, and it is “only at the level of individuals who have possibilities of choice, decision and complex development that impositions can be destructive of freedom, that is, become oppressive” (idem) .
It is the development of human culture that can develop these potentialities, as Morin says: “It is certainly culture that allows the development of the potentials of the human spirit” (ibid.), it depends, therefore, on the development of a culture of peace, solidarity and of preserving life within the human spirit.
Morin will say in the chapter of his conclusion on the “complexity of Nature”, that in the so-called “animistic” universe, or mythological in the case of the Greeks, “human beings were conceived in a cosmomorphic way, that is, made of the same fabric as the universe.” (MORIN, 1977, p. 333).
This presence of what Morin calls “generativity”, the animated and animating beings, all existing within the universe, implied a communication between the spheres: the physis, life and anthroposocial, if we extend these concepts to Sloterdijk’s spherology: anthropotechnic.
But as we reasoned a few posts ago, the separation of physis into nature (animate) and physics (inanimate) not only “disenchanted the universe, but also desolated it.”
He completes his reasoning with a sentence that shows our multiple crises and nights: “There are no more geniuses, nor spirits, nor souls, nor soul; there are no more gods; there is a God, strictly speaking, but elsewhere (the emphasis is on the author); there are no longer existing beings, with the exception of living beings, which certainly inhabit the physical universe, but come from another” (idem).
Thus he concludes that nature was returned to poets and physis to the Greeks, and so the universe of techniques (which are means) dominated life (which is purpose) and so “science and technique generate and manage, like gods, a world of objects” (MORIN, 1977, p. 334).
It does not let finalism (or fatalism) be the last word: “it is from the crisis of this science that new data and notions that allow us to reconstruct a new universe come out” (idem), quantum physics, from the third included (the quantum between two quanta) and entropy/neguentropy are renewed.
Every universe is “anima”, the theologian Teilhard Chardin also agrees with this thesis, and also that life is the complexification of the universe, in which the human phenomenon is its apex.
In addition to the animist or mythological interpretation for these purposes of life, which is death and life in life in death, a Heraclitian principle also cited by Morin, the Christian reflection on the passages already cited above about who Jesus is (Mk 8,27 and Mc 9,31), and He must suffer greatly.
It is complemented by the question about abandoning what is the transitory purpose of life (therefore only means) and if it is not useful for the ultimate purpose (and therefore, they are only means and should be relativized) if your hand, your foot or your eye leads you to sin (forget the ultimate end of human life which is the eternity of life) it is better to lose them to have the living purpose.
But his last word is to accept those who see this reality differently, if they are not against us, it is in our favor (Mk 8, 40) and (Mk 8,41) and “whoever gives you a drink of water , because ye are of Christ, he will not remain without receiving his reward”, so many can cooperate with the growth of the human anima, with the life and living Nature on which we all depend.
MORIN, E. (1977) The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA.
