Posts Tagged ‘Natureza’
Regenerate humanism
16
Mar
In his 100th birthday celebrations, which Edgar Morin did last year,
and is in his memoirs “Leçons d’un siêcle de vie” (lessons from a century of life), long before the current war he was talking about resisting domination, cruelty and barbarism, and called for a new humanism, which was always present in his literature.
Recovering the awareness of human complexity, and including it on a new level that would overcome anthropocentrism, this was humanism taken up in the Renaissance, and above all, create a world where world citizenship was possible with respect for cultural diversities.
He who fought in the resistance to Nazi-Fascism, did not fail to show his regret for the period of Stalinism, he knew that we were at an impasse between these two thoughts that could lead us to barbarism, prophetic in relation to the current escalation of the war.
It is not an isolated development, since in other works of his such as O Praíso Perdio and the Method, his key notions of concepts such as autonomy, uberdade, love, individual and subject were developed, saving values that are inherent to them, as well as maintaining a dignity potentially threatened, I would now say, the civilizing process as a whole.
In Method II he does not hesitate to denounce the illusions of traditional humanism (right or left) and seeks to revitalize its ethical and anthropological sense: “It is not a matter of refusing humanism. It is necessary, as we will see, to hominize humanism, and therefore enrich it, based on the reality of the Homo complex” (Morin, Method II, p. 398).
The election of man as the center of the world, and the rejection of both God (or some superior division to which we submit) and the respect for nature which science thought it dominated, is a fundamental step towards regenerating humanism or we walk in the logic of domination.
Everything happens as if history began at the height of 18th century capitalism or early 20th century communism, the few references to true culture both Greek and Judeo-Christian, directly or indirectly condemned, is the cutting of this humanism root.
It is not enough to say that it is superseded, without any historical reference, for example, to Socrates and Heraclitus, where there is a deepening of the education and interiority of consciousness.
It is not enough to say that it is superseded, without any historical reference, for example, to Socrates and Heraclitus, where there is a deepening of the education and interiority of consciousness.
The question of the emergence of Being is linked to another indissolubly linked to that of freedom, the man annulling his autonomy (they say in favor of a certain anthropocentric “humanism”) is a victim of fatalism, of the absence of horizons that are not the domination of the Other , that culture or order that is different from the other and that must also be respected.
Nicolau de Cusa, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, explored this perspective, in Ficino, for example: providence (which governs a spiritual order), fate (which directs animated beings) and nature (which allows the Being to remain in the world as a living body to which beings submit), although it needs to be updated in terms of language, it is not anthropocentric.
Morin, E. The Method vol. II, Europe-America, Lisbon, Ed. French: Paris, 1997 (portuguese edition).
Volcanoes and Possibilities of Earthquakes
24
Nov
In addition to the civilizing crisis, the forces of nature 
seem to be more awake than usual, the volcano on the islands of La Palma, in the Canary Islands, a territory of Spain, arouses great interest in the volume of lava that I expect to arrive close in two months and without give signs of truce.
The earthquakes, the number of mouths opened by the volcano (there are now 5), the seriousness of the situation on the island which, despite being confined, has not been carried out any large-volume evacuation, have sparked debates even in the scientific world, the last one is about an earthquake of depth 3.4 or 34 km that happened these days, because the smaller depth would indicate new lava mouths and a greater risk for some abrupt change in the structure of the island which is composed of faults in its interior and large cliffs. depressions towards the sea.
There are several active earthquakes, some are of the Strambolian type, they are volcanoes with explosive eruptions such as emission of essentially effusive lava, and ejection of ash and gases such as sulfur, in incandescent lavas, also launching volcanic rock bombs that are launched from tens to hundreds of meters high, the Cumbre Vieja de La Palma volcano is of this type, in addition to attracting more attention, it is actually more dangerous, due to the terrain where lava can reach, the gases and, in some cases, the deformation of the terrain.
They are linked to the earthquakes that are a result of the Earth’s plate movements, and the biggest concern is not this island located in the Atlantic Ocean, but because it may be a small-scale representation of what can happen on a larger scale in the Pacific Ocean where there is a great circle of fire, name given to a large planetary junction of regions of volcanoes and quite frequent earthquakes and where the possibility of a Big One, a large earthquake from the San Andres fault on the American plate, is speculated.
The real possibility in La Palma is a small tsunami near the island, the consequences would no doubt be devastating, would it be large earthquakes in the circle of fire, or the eruption of large volcanoes like the Yellowstone Volcanic Chair, the Hawaiian Kilauea volcano on which they exist. just sensational speculations.
The consequences in La Palma are still unknown, but the volcano is still active and rather than calming down, these days were one of big explosions and strong earthquakes.
Nature, man and the divine
29
Oct
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” (Morin, 1977, p. 110), it depends, therefore, on the development of a culture of peace, solidarity and of preserving life within the human spirit.
We are part of nature and the anthropocentric concept needs to be modified, but 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” (ibid.), but this depends on the development of culture, or on the sphere of thought (Teilhard Chardin’s Noosphere) Morin will say: “It is certainly culture that allows the development of the potential of the human spirit” (idem ), depends, therefore, on the development of a culture of peace, solidarity and preservation of life that cannot exclude Nature.
Morin will say in the chapter of his conclusion about 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), and at this point Teilhard Chardin develops the concept of a deified universe, or said within Christian cosmology: “Christocentric”, which is why he was for some time accused of pantheism (many gods).
Science penetrates more and more into a universe full of surprises, from the Higgs boson to the Hubble constant that establishes both the size and the age of the universe, but is this the consolidation of the unity of physics, called today as standard Theory of Physics , but this constant has already been modified.
In astronomical terms there is the measure megaparsec, which is equivalent to 3.26 million light years away, Hubble first time measured 500 km per second per megaparsec (km/s/Mpc) earth´s diameter, but this measurement now varies between 67 and 74 km /s/Mpc.
The nature of the interior of the planet also varies and there are many uncertainties, due to the exposure of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands, many serious scientists and researchers, there are many fake News on the subject, it is clear that there are still no clear theories about nature of these planetary organisms, always present in the stories.
The dialogue between different worldviews, far from simplifying or reducing the thinking of their culture, broadens and helps to develop the others, but it is necessary to be clear that each one has a contribution to make, and each one can remain in their cultural identities, for the most part of them there is always a precedence of the divine over human love.
For many worldviews the divine means to be able to dialogue with the human penetrates the mysteries of the universe and thought (the noosphere), in the Christian worldview this is explained in two steps: Love God and love your neighbor, so says the biblical passage (Mc 12, 29-31) on Pharisaism’s questioning of Jesus about what the commandments were: “Jesus replied: “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength! The second commandment is: You shall love your neighbor as yourself! There is no commandment greater than these”.
Thus, Pharisaism will relativize the first “commandment” to prioritize the second, only love of neighbor matters and defines the Christian, in general they reduce to their group and do not dialogue with other cultures, the second (love God above all things) , denies the inclusion of the second commandment and moves towards fundamentalism and the denial of science as a culture, in addition to also denying other non-Christian worldviews.
The dialogue between different worldviews, far from simplifying or reducing the thinking of their culture, broadens and helps us to develop the others, but it is necessary to be clear that each one has a contribution to make, and each one can remain in their cultural identities.
CHARDIN, T. (1997) Man’s place in nature, trans. Armando Pereira da Silva, Ed. Instituto Piaget, Lisbon.
MORIN, E. (1977) The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA., 1977.
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.
The finality of beings and machines
23
Sep
Edgar Morin says that “we are therefore in the prehistory
of finality”, using the Hegelian discourse he will say “the whole ‘itself’ becomes almost a for-itself” (Morin, 1977, p. 242), and so the machine living (to differentiate from artificial ones) from soft cells to the most complex living organisms “are almost specialized in function of quasi-programmed tasks that aim to achieve ends, and all these ends are united in the global end: to live” (idem).
It can be said then, in the author’s expression, that “this living being that self-finalizes is the product is the finished product of the reproductive act that originated it” (ibid.), and “retracing” this to the origin of life, the question remains “how is the purpose born of the non-purpose?” (MORIN, 1977, P. 243).
You will then ask what kind of “information” is capable of reproducing and controlling proteins with which they were not yet associated? The idea of information, and therefore of program, and therefore of purpose, cannot be prior to the constitution of a first protocellular ring” (idem), it will conclude from there that “the idea of a final process before the appearance of the life”, perhaps here we separate artificial machines from living beings, its beginning.
He will say in a categorical and essential way that “the biological, and evidently anthropo-sociological, purpose is immersed in a recurrent process of self-generation of which it is a part. It is the immersed and informational face of this generation-of-itself” (ibidem), for those who believe, I say that this is what I think is “God’s image and likeness”, being in an original vital process.
Living and artificial machines will have in common, according to the author, “purposes of the origins of life have repercussions and are reflected in the global purposes of living machines, and even of artificial machines” (MORIN, 1977, p. 243).
It will further differentiate the artificial machine from the live, quoting Paul Valéry: “Artificial means that it tends towards a defined end and, therefore, it opposes live”, for example, the purpose “of a manufacturing is to manufacture cars, whose purpose it is displacement, which serves for constructive activities of the individual’s life in society and of society in the individual” (Morin, 1977, p. 244).
So while the machine has an extrinsic purpose of life, and this purpose should have the intrinsic purpose of biological life, these “complementary purposes can become concurrent and antagonistic, as happens with the purposes of individual existence and reproduction…” (Morin , 1977, p. 245), if they become antagonistic, they can lead to the exclusion of one purpose for the other.
And so, concludes this topic Edgar Morin> “in Homo sapiens, gastronomic pleasures and erotic enjoyments become ends to the detriment of feeding and reproductive purposes; knowledge, a means of surviving in an environment, becomes, in the thinker turned thinker, to which his own existence subordinates” (MORIN, 1977, pp. 245-246).
Thus ends shift, degenerate and become uncertain, like the future of civilization.
MORIN, E. (1977). A natureza da NATUREZA. Lisboa PUBLICAÇÕES EUROPA-AMÉRICA, LDA.
Reification, objects and subjects
22
Sep
If on the one hand it is true that there is in the dominant
idealist/enlightenment mentality a complete reification of life (the life that projects itself on the thing, res-thing), on the other hand the separation of subject and objects creates a dualism in which nature and objects that are part of life are ignored.
The so-called subject-object dualism is explained by Edgar Morin as follows: “the concept of system can only be constructed in the object/subject transaction and not in the elimination of one by the other.” (MORIN, 1977, p. 136).
Morin will explain that both “naive realism” and “naive nominalism” (antagonistic currents since the medieval period) eliminate the subject, in nominalism the ideal system is one that does not have the subject, and in realism the ideal object is the system .
But the object “whether ‘real’ or ideal, is also an object that depends on a subject” (Morin, idem), and through the systemic way “the observer, excluded from classical science, the subject, stripped and thrown into the cans of garbage of metaphysics, they return to the fulcrum of the physis” (MORIN, ibidem).
Morin observes that the observer and the physis (Nature, with N) are confined in terms of a system, and proposes a new systemic totality “is constituted by associating the observer-system and the observer-system can, from there, become a metasystem in relation to one and the other, if it is possible to find the metapoint of view, which allows the observation of the whole constituted by the observer and his observation” (MORIN, 1977, p. 137).
He explains that one can, in a maximal simplifying view, reduce both the importance of the observer and the physis, “creating a supersystem, whose theory reveals the autonomous phenomenal systems”, it is good to clarify here that it is not a question of phenomenology but of a ” suprasystem” which has the characteristic of an autonomous phenomenon, is not the eidetic reduction.
The second meaning of the metapoint of view, “the ideological, cultural and social character of the theoretical system (the theory of systems) in which the conception of a physical system is inscribed” is emphasized (idem).
We cannot escape from this elaboration of the key epistemological problem: “the systemic articulation established between the anthroposocial universe and the physical universe, via the concept of system, suggests to us that an organizational character is fundamentally common to all systems” (MORIN, 1977 , p. 137).
Although there is talk of life linked to objects, in philosophy of the reification (or reification) of life, the dualistic mentality of separation between subjects and objects crystallizes and enlivens this in everyday life.
MORIN, E. (1977) The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA.
The complexity and its genesis
21
Sep
As we penetrate into the increasingly studied man-machine
relationship, it is necessary to understand what has been theorized about nature so far, which means forming a model for nature, and in turn, making human and non-human collectives and individuals, composed in a culture, or in a tradition, or in a more general scope, what is articulated and what is only configured.
That is, the model may be subject to error or failure according to the areas implemented and can be determined by them, but by re-articulated it within its own history of creation, not naturalization but the culturalization of concepts, we understand the model that we have a priri, and that it is not always nature itself.
The one who penetrated deeper into this idea was Edgar Morin and from there conceived his method and developed complexity, conceiving nature requires ultimately preserving the network from which he conceptually emerged and correcting where the concepts were separated, identifying a network.
So it’s about identifying the culture that developed around nature, Morin puts it in lowercase to differentiate it from Nature itself in capital letters which is all that was said here and so the complex develops, which means what was “fabric together”.
What we then say about nature is the culture that developed around the idea that we could dominate it, but one of Francis Bacon’s maxims is that “we can’t dominate it if we don’t understand”, modern quantum physics, Modern astrophysics have shown how naive the models of Newton, Galileo and Copernicus were, but they were woven together to arrive at the new models proposed today.
Edgar Morin explains the “disorder of order” starting with two quotes to say that the order: “simplified laws invented by the wise” (Brillouin, 1959, p. 190), abstractions taken by the concrete (Whitehead, 1926)” (MORIN, 1977 , p. 76).
It is now, according to Morin, squeezed “between microphysical chaos and the diaspora”, and it matters to know how it was born: “How did it develop from scratch? How to conceive of it despite, with and in disorder? How can she appear to us as the sole sovereign of the universe if it is now so difficult to justify her existence? (idem).
What is the genesis? “the concept of order, in classical physics, was Ptolemaic. As in Ptolemy’s system, where suns and planets revolved around the Earth, everything revolved around an order”. (MORIN, 1977, p. 82).The Copernican revolution, however, was not the final word: “Hubble took away the entire astral or galactic center. And here is the great Meta-Copernican and Meta-Newtonian revolution, which went underground from Carnot and Boltzmann to Planck, Bohr, Einstein and Hubble. There is no longer a center of the world, whether it is the Earth, the sun, the galaxy or a group of galaxies” (idem)
And he continues: ”There is no longer an unmistakable axis of time, but an antagonistic double process that emerged from the same and single process. The universe is, therefore, simultaneously polycentric, centered, decentered, disseminated, diasporizing…” (ibid.).
MORIN, E. (1977) The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA.
What is natural and the possibility of knowing
16
Sep
The problem of knowing the world (natural and not 
cultural, this is what we have) must start from a premise of clearing our minds of cultural convictions, most of them idealistic, that blind us to the possibility of understanding that we do not dominate nature as proposed the Enlightenment, and worse, we run the risk of destroying it and putting civilization in check.
Quoting Edgar Morin in the epigraph of his first chapter of the book “The Nature of Nature”, I write the second in capital letters even to deify it in the sense that it is still unknown to us, and contains mystery that affects us, as proved by the current Pandemic that still challenges us.
Edgar Morin, opening the first chapter: “The Spirit of the Valley”, quotes Karl Popper: “Personally I think there is at least one problem… that interests all thinking men: the problem of understanding the world, ourselves and our knowledge as part of the world”, so this knowledge is neither definitive nor eternal, as everything evolves and is perishable.
To introduce these convictions, he makes a second quote by Jacob Bronowski: “The concept of science is neither absolute nor eternal”, and he will make a third, which is for the next post.
He begins with 5 convictions that made him start this book and where is his “cogito” his suspension of judgment of everything he thought before, his first conviction of these problems states that he: “holds us to the present, they demand that we let go of it to consider them in depth” (Morin, 1973, pg. 13), and professes his second conviction: “the principles of knowledge hide what, henceforth, it is vital to know” (idem) thus detaches himself from his previous ideas.
His third conviction is the strongest, increasingly convinced that the relationship science Ʌ politics, Ʌ ideology when it is not invisible, continues to be treated in an indigent way, through the reabsorption of two of its terms in one of them that has become dominant” (idem) , gives you food for thought.
His fourth conviction is that “that the concepts we use to conceive our society — the whole society — are mutilated and lead to inevitably mutilating actions” (idem).
Finally, his fifth conviction is: “that anthroposocial science must be articulated in the science of nature, and that this articulation requires a reorganization of the structure of knowledge itself” (Idem), so the knowledge we have needs to be modified to from its bases.
He knew that his task was really encyclopedic and vast, that’s why he even isolated himself in a castle (I don’t have the precise data) because his task: “I myself needed exceptional circumstances and conditions’ to move from conviction to action, that is, to work” (idem).
And it is from there that he wrote his complex method with three initial questions: “What does the radical self of self-organization mean? • What is the organization? • What is the complexity?” (page 14).
MORIN, E. The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA., 1973.
O homem na natureza e o sobrenatural
08
Apr
Entre o mistério e o conhecido, entre o humano e o sobrenatural, há mais coisas 
entre o céu e a terra do que pensam a nossa vã filosofia e nossa humana teologia, ambas precisam de uma mão “extra”.
Precisamos para caminhar em frente de acreditar em algo, ou em alguém que é muito mais palpável ao humano, mas esquecemos como diz Morin, como diz Heidegger e até o crítico literário que nos deixou: é preciso saber o que é Ser.
Morin reclama do humano que não sabe mais do próprio humano, a Pandemia tem mostrado isto com inúmeros exemplos em todo lado, gente que não se compadece dos que morrem todo dia, gente que quer atribuir a culpa do vírus a esta ou aquela pessoa, e pessoas com comportamento como se não estivéssemos numa pandemia, em todos âmbitos faltam humanismo do respeito ao ser humano primeiro e a sua vida como consequência.
Na visão de Heidegger expressa em seu clássico “Ser e Tempo”, o homem é o ser-no-mundo, ou seja, um ser-em-situação-temporal, mas não preso a ela e está sempre aberto para tornar-se algo novo, assim poderíamos pensar o que será o novo no pós-pandemia, isto dará um traço existencial ao que significa ser preso ao tempo.
Porém estava aberto ao novo, isto depende de uma visão de mundo (weltanschauung ou cosmovisão), nela se prende sempre uma visão do mistério da vida, do universo e do que pode existir além dele o sobre-natural, porque o nosso conceito de natureza é incompleto.
Se viemos do barro, ou se a própria vida surgiu de pequenas reações orgânicas do inorgânico (o conceito de mutação aórgica), significa também que nesta origem há mistério e uma série de hipóteses são válidas, porém algo “novo” já aconteceu no passado que deu origem a criação da natureza orgânica, dos animais e do homem nesta “natureza”.
A ideia que podemos objetivar a natureza (supondo que nela nada é sobrenatural) era na visão de Teilhard Chardin a necessidade de entender o homem como algo “complexo” da natureza, que possui consciência dela, porém a objetivação das ciências atuais que procura vê-la só “do lado de fora”, foi citado por Ways (apud Chisholm, 1974) como uma forma arrogante e insensível de lidar com o mundo material, há sempre algo do Ser nela.
O trabalho sobre Ecologia de Chisholm destaca o papel que a não compreensão da natureza como um todo pode ter na sua degradação e o surgimento de anomalias, escreveu (Chrisholm, 1974): “uma vez que o método e a ideologia dependiam do fracionamento dos fenômenos naturais em parcelas controláveis, em teorias e experiências antes de passar ao problema seguinte, o homem foi perdendo o sentido da vida como uma grande teia que é a que a Ecologia ensina” (Chisholm,1974), assim também o homem e a natureza operam como uma rede, uma “teia ecológica”.
Também há a ligação inversa do sobrenatural com o natural, é curiosa a passagem Bíblica que Jesus depois de ressuscitado aparece aos apóstolos, mostra os pés e as mãos que foram perfurados e quer comer um peixe (Lc 24, 41-42): “Mas eles ainda não podiam acreditar, porque estavam muito alegres e surpresos. Então Jesus disse: “Tendes aqui alguma coisa para comer?” Deram-lhe um pedaço de peixe assado.”
Assim no sobrenatural também a relação com o natural não se perde, embora na visão bíblica este “noutro plano”.
CHISHOLM, A. Ecologia: uma estratégia para a sobrevivência. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1974.
