Being Human: The Search for Order

By Seán Ó Nualláin

This feels like a time of environmental and moral crisis without parallel.... Not only do human beings seem not to believe in anything but, despite exponential advances in information production, we do not appear to know much either. This book is a guide for everyone who feels understandably perplexed.

The book considers issues as diverse as:

• the lure of alternative religions and belief systems
• the use of the rhetoric of economics to justify amoral decisionmaking
• Green politics and genetically-modifies crops
• New technology's power to preserve the status quo, and
• the true impetus behind the Human Genome Project.

Presenting an explanation of recent findings in science and their relationship with society and politics, this book seeks to give guidance towards responsible political action. Starting from themes developed in the companion volume The Search for Mind, the author attempts to provide intellectual roots for the 'anti-capitalist' or 'anti-globalization' movement and, in particular, treats social protest as a form of knowledge-seeking.

The author brings to very topical and controversial concerns some much-needed clarity. Complete with reader-friendly summaries of current thought in the biological, physical, and social sciences, this book is designed primarily for the popular market but will also appeal to those working or studying in these fields.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2003
• ISBN: 9781841508658

Book preview

Being Human

The Search for Order

Seán Ó Nualláin

Revised edition published in Paperback in Great Britain in 2003 by

Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK

Revised edition published in Paperback in USA in 2003 by

Intellect Books, ISBS, 5824 N.E. Hassalo St, Portland, Oregon 97213-3644, USA

First published in Hardback in 2002

Copyright © 2002 Seán Ó Nualláin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Electronic ISBN 1-84150-865-9 / ISBN 1-84150-088-7

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1    The Current crisis

i    The environmental crisis

ii   The demographic crisis

iii  The economic crisis

iv   The political crisis

v    The moral/fideistic/epistemological crisis

2    Our Age of Ignorance

i    Noetic Science

ii   Physics

iii  Biology

iv   Economics

v    Technology

vi   Psychology

vii  Politics and Sociology

viii Religion and Myth

viii.1 Universals in religion

viii.2 Cosmogony

viii.3 The psychology of the millennium

viii.4 The problem of human suffering

ix   Value

x    Some conclusions

3    Theories of Everything

Introduction

i     Dei ex machina

i.a  The sciences of complexity

i.i.a  Catastrophe Theory

i.i.b  Chaos

i.i.c  Games

i.i.d  Something for Nothing?

i.b  Information

i.c  Computation

i.d  Buckserologists (Know-it-alls)

ii    Precedence claims and claim-jumps

Introduction

ii.a  Physics

ii.b  Darwinism

iii   Eschatologies

iv    Stake Takeover

v     Weltanschauungen

v.a  Gurdjieff

v.b  Marxism

Conclusions

Appendix A: How does Science Progress?

Appendix B: The Reduced History of Physics

Appendix C: Genetic technologies

References

Index

Dedication

To all who sincerely seek the truth, whether in their study or on the streets of Seattle, Genoa, and Dublin

Acknowledgements and Errata

Barbara Lougheed acted as midwife for this book and I humbly thank her and her family. Likewise, Linda Scales and Accent Design contributed in their different ways. Appendix C was commissioned by me in my role as Irish Green party science and technology convener; I wish to thank Ray Ryan for this.

There is a rather noticeable mistake about Rom in the second edition of ‘Search for Mind’, but not in the first. On this point, i.e. that of errata, writing about Ireland was perhaps a mistake, as the subject is perhaps too close. This is exemplified by the hejira of Conor Cruise O’Brien from advocate of Irish unity to revisionist to again supporting Irish unity as the only way of defeating the IRA; their goal of Irish unity achieved, they would rather presumably disband. I thought I was confused! As I write, the rather shocking view enunciated here about 9/11 is becoming commonplace, and more’s the pity that it may even be correct.

Preface

There is a remarkable consensus that something is wrong with the current globalised politico-economic system. Remarkable not only in its diversity, but also in its awareness that no tested viable alternative currently obtains. The green/anarchist/socialist/trades union Seattle mob finds itself singing from the same hymn sheet as George Soros when pointing out where the problems are. When it comes to solutions, however, each faction has its own separate agenda. As on this, the political/economic level, so also on the epistemological and fideistic levels. Yet the act of recognising this diversity is itself salutary; remarkably, unlike our Biblical predecessors, we can communicate to each other the fact that there is a confusion of tongues. Such communication is a central, relatively modest, aim of this book. However, it has the gall to go on to propose solutions, at the appropriate levels, if tentatively, to current environmental and political problems. Moreover, it does so by digging into the academic disciplines which deal with these problems, and related subjects. Finally, it explores apparently unrelated areas of human activity, like religious practice, to determine whether they have any future constructive role to play. The solutions proposed will not detain us here; they are re-introduced, time and again, in the course of this book.

It is the second volume in a two-volume series. ‘The Search for Mind’, originally published in 1995, sought to provide a lingua franca for the disciplines that comprise cognitive science. The structure of that book is straightforward; its major chapters are on philosophy, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence (AI), and consciousness studies. Areas like anthropology and ethology are touched upon. If a theme emerges independently in two different disciplines, its status is heightened. The response to the book from specialists in each of the component disciplines was gratifying, and it has been updated rather than reworked for the revised edition. However, Alberto Greco’s review in ‘Philosophical Psychology’ questioned whether there was bigger game to be hunted, a more general ‘Noetic Science’, and to some extent this book can be seen as a response to that challenge.

We take from the first volume only a certain questioning attitude about the true subject-area of psychology, a dynamic view of knowledge that will be further developed, and the notion that the human mind/body is an opportunistic system capable of adapting over time to enormous changes in the social and conceptual orders. (The general hierarchical format of the first book, with much use of sub-sectioning, is adhered to; readers of this volume are encouraged to emulate readers of the previous volume in dipping in as they wish to particular sections). There is a strong claim implicit here that ‘psychology’, as currently understood, can tell us little about certain questions in the social and noetic spheres. On the one hand, it is being argued that the political movement ending in the utopian socialism of the Soviet Union needs a level of analysis other than the ‘psychological’ for its explanation. On the other, it is being argued that our acceptance of the truth of findings in areas like quantum mechanics (QM) is, to some extent at least, an act of faith; the limits of our cognitive apparatus have been exposed as we approach the very small, as the very large. As it attempts to tease out where these limits are in the context of various disciplines, this book becomes vastly more ambitious, controversial and potentially significant than its predecessor. The remainder of this preface will look at the potential benefits and pitfalls involved.

The first pitfall is, quite simply, professional discourtesy; I regret if any specialist in any of the areas involved here feels slighted by this project. Hopefully, the immediately following discussion will restore any wounded pride. Any project like this one is written at a number of levels; there are benefits and pitfalls at each. In The Search for Mind, as has been noted, the creation of a new lingua franca between the separate disciplines and the emergence of synthesis were the benefits. Another such in the early 90s was quite simply the compilation of salient facts about different disciplines in a single book. This, of course, is now a much less valuable exercise; the facts are readily available, free of charge, on the Web. Moreover, there now is much less excuse for inaccuracy. At the Gradgrindian level of just the facts, then, the potential pitfalls outweigh the potential benefits. Finally, the challenge of providing as good a prose description of many of the concepts here as those available on the Web is a considerable one.

The above, however, is not one of the foremost sources of danger. These relate to a complete insensitivity to the disciplines as actually practised, rather than their bald written expression. Such insensitivity can result in the type of obnoxiousness that we associate with the superannuatedly precocious. (Several uncomplimentary references to middle-aged enfants terribles will be made in the course of this book). What these malcontents do not realise is that the whole human psyche is involved in any authentic scientific enterprise; in particular, scientific formation involves the association of certain emotional connotations with certain findings in certain disciplines. Just as we cringe – or, at best, smile bravely – as an eight-year-old plays unfeelingly through a late Beethoven quartet, so do we find revolting a discussion of cosmology without an access of wonder, or cloning without a certain seriousness about the potential consequences. There are analogous patterns in every discipline from the natural and social sciences.

Secondly, and much more subtly, practitioners of these disciplines often have robust rules of engagement with their disciplines, and with each other, whereof they remain silent. ‘Be right, or be fun’ is one of them. As any player of a contact sport knows, there are the rules, which are written down and implemented by the referee, and then the code, which is often rather rough justice administered by the players themselves. In an area like QM, the code is altogether more fugitive and yet compelling. Thus, we can understand Einstein’s comments about the early David Bohm that he got his results too cheaply as being about code-violation. Even if laconic in eventual expression, any putative breakthrough in a field must manifest evidence of thousands of hours spent fully engaged. Moreover, in a field like QM, one is serving at least two masters; the dictates of mathematics, and what can only be described as ‘physical intuition’. In that vein, to take another example, Roger Penrose praises Newton for his superb physical intuition. Attempting to summarise a complex theory in a few prose paragraphs is a dangerous exercise; Richard Feynman would famously erupt if journalists asked him to do so. The danger, of course, is that of a reign of terror by epigram and bon mot as science becomes primarily a journalistic exercise.

That said, a second, perhaps related danger of interdisciplinarity slouches toward us; though a committed Francophile, I will term it the ‘French disease’. Briefly, the dynamics of French philosophical dialogue – or continental claptrap, as it is less politely known – rarely succeed in surviving the transformation into English. What look like brilliant interdisciplinary insights in French send antennae quivering for kilometres in English as the flies follow them across the Channel. Alternatively, parody articles get accepted, as has actually happened; Derrida’s response was to express his pity for their author. Thus, we come to the nub of the problem; the sense-giving exercise can differ greatly across cultures. I write in full awareness that this whole book may strike a perfectly responsible reader as pointless.

All that said, it is time to familiarise the reader with the different levels at which I believe this book may work, with appropriate caveat lectors. The first level, that of compilation of facts, could be better done with web agents tailored to suit particular interests, as has been alluded to. The second, the sense-giving one of weaving the facts into humanly digestible stories, is beyond the scope of these agents for maybe a decade; yet the web is full of these stories, and I’ve mentioned my concern about emulating their quality. The third level is that of discerning patterns in the future interplay of science and society. Finally, and most ambitiously, is the level of proposing solutions.

So what are these solutions? What resources are their to neutralise the prospect that we, the post WW2 generations, will enter the halls of infamy as environmental vandals with selfish high-octane lifestyles, who indulged ourselves in a hydrocarbon feast as we polluted the biosphere irrevocably, producing nothing of lasting intellectual or artistic merit in the process? The first resource is, of course, the capacity to phrase and communicate messages like this. The second is the near-universal acknowledgement of moral lapse, as we revolt at being so labelled. Moral existence is a human ineluctable. The first problem is that for many this realization is not enough; anyone who really believed in global warming could never hop on a plane again. However, the rest of us may be sufficiently appalled by our selfishness to change completely to an environmentally low-impact, if professionally diminished, lifestyle. Therefore, the first level, that of sheer statement of fact, has been sufficient.

A deeper level of engagement is necessary for those of us who wish to remain involved at the cutting-edge in the world as it is. Perfectly respected economists have a huge variety of possible solutions; Bush the younger does not lack for economic expertise around him. For some, however, their prescriptions are obviously ill-motivated; economics, the steward of the household as dictated by its etymology, cannot consistently uphold a course of action that results in global warming. Coupled with the funding that Bush receives from oil companies, that argument may be quite sufficient for many to take to the streets in protest. A central argument of this book is that such action is itself noetic, that is knowledge-obtaining; those who protest will learn in the manner that Kierkegaard described for conversion, that of a responsible leap of faith. Nothing further will be necessary for the activists who read this book.

Alternatively, we may be attempting to find a single sense-giving principle from one or other area of human activity that will help us genuinely to change. We will find several such in physics, only to withdraw as the lack of the biological and specifically human contexts is felt. A central theme in this book is to honour the many real distinctions that exist between disciplines; despite books entitled the ‘Quantum Society’, links from physical finding to social reality are hard to find, and any suggested here are tentative in the extreme. Religion and philosophy used claim to have the capital to set up shop on their own. Here, philosophy is looked at as the application of rational argument in any context. The discussion of the putative future role of religion will bring this section to its close. It is of course a moot point to call what I am discussing ‘religion’.

For what I am proposing is something stripped of its temporal as its sempiternal aspects. What I am suggesting for anyone who is not already out on the streets in this time of enormous crisis arises from an altogether fugitive zone. Religion always claimed some exclusive access to the ground of Being; it is argued here, on the contrary, that such access is so common that none of us get through a day without it. Whether through Buberian experience of the other in dialogue, sex, raves, sport, art, meditation, we seek to lose ourselves in the infinite as a practical daily exercise. Ironically, organised religion has historically persecuted such access, when it became a mass movement. The positive social role of religion, in this context, was to point out that self-actualisation through quotidian activity in the world was also important, and part of the same movement toward human wholeness. It is those for whom this final paragraph is anything other than nonsense who will benefit most from this book, just as, in turn, the biosphere and society will in the long run benefit most from them, as distinct from the more immediately activist.

Introduction

It has become a truism that we live at a time of unparalleled environmental and moral crisis. Truisms aside, the crisis is simultaneously deeper and subtler than it first appears. Not only do we not believe anything but, despite the current apparently exponential advances in certain types of technology, we do not know very much either. For example, we lack suitable technological resources to attack certain current environmental problems to a large extent because we lack knowledge about how ecosystems work. The gravity and protean nature of the current crisis begins to impress itself on us when we realise that we lack this knowledge precisely because there is no agency with sufficient moral authority to divert research monies in sufficient quantities to intensive long-term study of these issues.

Thus, in general, we do not know because we have not asked. We have not asked because there are no compelling reasons to do so. The reasons there are (for example, environmental destruction) do not compel because our scale of values has become distorted. The imperatives due to next year’s company profit accounts or presidential election override those due to events that, though catastrophic, are perhaps a score of years away. As the environment deteriorates and much of the world starves, hitherto undreamt-of capital and technological resources accumulate in the West. Moreover, we differ from lemmings only in that we will drive, skidoo and fly over the cliff’s edge.

It may seem scandalous to suggest, as Part II of this book does, that whatever its other problems, ours is also an age of ignorance. Apart from the currently omnipervasive technological marvels, more research is being done in more fields than at any other time in human history. However, as we’ll see in the accounts of physical and social sciences in this book, here appearances are misleading. For example, physics is ultimately founded on quantum mechanics, an account of reality so strange that Nobel laureates are prepared to submit that nobody understands it. Biology, at first sight, is profoundly atheoretic; its one apparent encompassing framework, the neo-Darwinian synthesis, plays host to enormous explanatory gaps. Economics has reached such straits that transnational corporations can use economics professors as hired guns to justify policies whose consequences are unspeakable in environmental terms and in terms of employees’ lives. The gobbledygook that emerges featuring inter alia ‘maintaining competitiveness’, ‘supply-side theory’, ‘downsizing’ and so on is premised on imponderables. The connection with reality is slight when decision-making time comes and the axe falls.

This bears dwelling on, even now. When it comes to macroeconomics, our situation is Orwellian. In effect, certain economic theories support the major centres where capital has accumulated i.e. the transnationals. Given the spurious nature of several of macroeconomics’ key concepts (for example, GNP) and the lack of any theory whose explanatory framework can successfully handle all stages of the economic cycle, it becomes possible to pick a theory which suits venal purposes. The major media depend on the transnationals for income and will not stand in the way when this highly-selective economic theory gets aired. However, the real damage starts when this convenient set of concepts begins to influence state policy and the lives and tax dollars of ordinary men and women. To fight back involves not only the sound bite-hostile task of exposing the cankered roots of these concepts in the foundations of economics, but doing so in a mass medium which is beholden to the supporters of your opponent’s view. In our moral and epistemological vacuum, the power of money to create reality seems at first glance unassailable.

One of the main tasks of this book is to take a second glance. We begin by outlining the separate components of the current crisis in Part 1. This crisis is seen as having five components which interact in various ways. That the first such component, the environmental, attracts much press is a healthy sign. Its many obvious manifestations in our daily existence include higher skin cancer rates, higher asthma rates in children, and species’ extinctions at a rate of dozens a day.

Yet, as will be discussed at some length, this environmental devastation has been caused as the result of the industrial activity of just a fraction of humanity. By historical accident, it is the 12% of us of European stock who are responsible for the current mess. If the Eastern Pacific area continues to follow its current path, at least two billion able polluters will burden the biosphere by the middle of the 21st century. In combination with this trend comes another aspect of the demographic problem i.e. the amount of rural dwellers moving into ill-equipped cities. How long can this continue before the cities explode?

The rural to urban drift can be thought of as due to a confluence of state policy, economic (mis)management and the innate human wish to broaden horizons. The mention of economic factors begs the question of how to characterise the current global economic state. A school of thought exists (for example, Saul 1992) which contends that, contrary to current appearances, we have been in recession since the 1973 oil crisis. In the meantime, devastating job losses in the corporate West have inculcated massive insecurity (see, for example, Utchitell et al., 1996). It will be argued in Part II that the rationales given for many job cuts are inadequate and are there mainly to provide a smokescreen for the naked abuse of power involved. For the moment, however, we need to focus on such issues as the necessity of tight fiscal policies.

To a large extent, individual states are powerless against the might of transnational corporations. It is impossible, according to one account, for even relatively large countries like France to sustain independent interest rate policies, or to peg the exchange rate of their currency. International flight of capital can take place, computer-assisted, in milliseconds. One increasingly popular solution has been the creation of much larger and more powerful trading blocks; thus, the EU and NAFTA (and perhaps South America’s Mercosur will suitably expand). However, this justification for creation of these blocks may not survive scrutiny. Just listen to George Soros (1998, p. 194);

There are subtle ways in which currency speculation can be discouraged that fall well short of capital controls … in 1992 we at Soros Fund management found it practically impossible to go short of the Irish punt.

A second wing of the attack on the nation-state comes from the environmental crisis. Where are the international regulatory bodies with the teeth to arbitrate in situations where Country A has irrevocably contaminated part or all of Country B? Moreover, the supernational trading organisations (like the WTO) claim charter to override individual countries’ environmental (and soon, possibly human rights) legislation.

What seems a final nail in the coffin of the nation-state is the ugliness of many current nationalisms. The recent Yugoslavian break-up is a recent example; however, in other places the addition of religious fundamentalism to the tinderbox can create a de facto split (between believers and non-believers). Religious fundamentalism is above all the assertion of considerations appropriate only to the process of the individual’s spiritual formation at particularly sensitive crisis-points in that formation on civic life. (The comment about Savonarola that he was fool enough to believe that, since he could live on top of Mont Blanc for a moment, he thought that everyone else should do so in perpetuum, is appropriate here). Its re-emergence is the most certain sign that we have reached a period of moral and indeed epistemological crisis. The former dimension is partly due to cosmopolitanism and its consequence of moral relativism. The latter is due to our failure to characterise different types of knowledge (for example, the religious as opposed to the scientific) in terms of different movements of the human psyche.

We shall spend much time discussing basic concepts in science (and indeed religion), which is the book’s ‘guide for the perplexed’ role. The aim here is twofold. On the one hand, we need a first aid manual against establishment-generated bamboozlement. Secondly, we need to be able to perceive when a theoretically neutral science like economics has been used in the service of partisan politics. Interdisciplinary claim-jumping is all the more dangerous in that one needs to know the elements of both disciplines in order to recognise the boundary.

In Part II, then, we analyse the basic concepts from a large range of disciplines. Our gateway to the other disciplines is through a proposed new field called ‘Noetic Science’. This takes from Cognitive Science the notion that knowledge is primarily active and context-dependent, a ‘knowing how’ rather than a ‘knowing that’. In this light, the ancient Persian custom, narrated by Herodotus, of trusting a decision identical both while drunk and while sober makes sense. A decision should make sitting sense and walking sense, as the adage goes. It is argued that scientific theories typically include some real insights into reality coupled with much socially-and politically-conditioned flotsam. Finally, the theories involve hooks which capture the neophyte’s attention by playing on certain psychic structures. Doctrinaire adherence to any theory – for example, Marxism or Chomskyan linguistics – involves a commitment at many levels of our humanity ‘below’ the purely rational.

Physics, the supposedly ‘purest’ science, will be our first stop. The eerily beautiful, timeless cosmos-scapes offered by geniuses like Einstein and Hawking will be outlined. The problem of the role of the observer in quantum mechanics (QM) also will detain us. From it we shall derive a compelling metaphor for the vast variety of relationships possible between mind and matter (or, more precisely, consciousness and the physical world). Modern physics has enunciated some new principles for science itself; those of complementarity and the role of the observer will be emphasised. Finally, the modern physics view of the cosmos in terms of fields will be emphasised.

Biology admits of a different set of explanatory criteria to physics, including inter alia teleology. The challenges set us by genetic technology are massive and the first major task in this section is to understand this technology. We must also carefully study some of the many controversial issues in the theory of evolution.

The first social science to be perused is economics. As economic discourse has achieved a position of great power in our society, we must work hard to understand its basic concepts and consequent theoretical frameworks. It will be concluded that no encompassing theory of economics exists which can justify the current massive upheaval of human lives in the name of economic ‘truths’. Secondly, it will be argued that conscious human effort is the real de facto currency and economic systems should be judged worthwhile, inter alia, insofar as they justly reward this effort. The current situation involving piling enormous mounds of paper speculation on previous such mounds is unsustainable. It took Wall Street until 1969 to emulate its peak in 1929; who will bet against 2041?

Our material progress has been due to technological advance rather than the deus ex machina of the market; it behooves us to study technology well. It is argued that it is, of itself, neither good nor evil; its many current misapplications are essentially political in genesis. The danger of its dehumanising us leads into the section on psychology. Here it is argued that instead of the misguided attempt to be scientific in the sense of the ‘hard sciences’, psychology should have concerned itself with the assertion of the reality of all facets of human nature. It is only on the back of a correctly worked-out psychology that an environmental philosophy and a correct aesthetics, inter alia, can be elaborated. A notion of human development involving assertion of all its aspects is worked out.

With the compromising of the human bias has come a venal politics and rank conformism in society. Metaphors from biology are used in this section further to underpin the notion of the individual in liberal democracies. This assertion of individual rights is continued in a section investigating human development through use of mythic themes. We then pause for some time to consider the role of religious thought in what is now a secular society. A reformulation of both ethics and aesthetics is one immediate consequence.

These basic concepts analysed, we need to take stock to examine what resources exist to deal with the current crises. For example, it may be the case that certain discoveries from the physical sciences constrain reality in interesting and (ultimately) ‘benevolent’ ways. Equally significantly, there may be no such central truths. A whole slew of books has come out in the past twenty years claiming, variously, that modern physics scientifically confirms the intuitions of Eastern mystics, that quantum mechanics strongly constrains the acceptable structure of self and society, and much more. We need to investigate these notions, particularly as they obviously qualify as claim-jumps.

A second recent trend is the emphasis on a method of analysis (like complex systems theory) or concept (e.g. information, computation) which claims validity across all sciences, though itself belonging to none. Moral consequences are sometimes drawn e.g. the genetic heritage of all species is informationally describable; we are morally obliged to protect genetic diversity. So now we have a moral imperative based on what seems a scientific sine qua non (i.e. information). Moreover, this imperative resonates with our intuitions of what is worthy of preservation in our world; we feel any action we might take in its name is legitimate.

Along with the claim-jumps (for example, that of evolutionary biologists into sociology) and dei ex machina, we shall also find other means of dominating what previously was rational discourse. One is the old millennial trick of eschatologizing a trend which, as we shall see, has even reached physics. Another is the old Inquisition trick; essentially, disallow certain types of ideas. This is currently being done quite effectively by the takeover of media by big business. These four moves are quite distinct from systems which are total Weltanschauungen. These involve positing certain attributes of the cosmos and our role in it, and producing an effective personal demonstration of these attributes and processes within ourselves. All religions originally began as Weltanschauungen. They inevitably transcend rational knowledge. Finally, the question is posed whether such Weltanschauungen can currently exist. Can an appropriate one save us?

Whether it can or not, we will have learned much. The role of the intuitions of what is worthy of preservation in the world and the search for a scientific holy grail which will affirm them are the twin wings of the attack of this book. We must feel any action we take to resolve the current crisis is legitimized by the most certain knowledge of our day, that supplied by science. Moreover, such action must not only fit our moral intuitions; it must be the result of a moral demand. Hopefully, by the end of this book the reader will experience increased clarity on which of these moral imperatives directly relate to her.

1 The Current Crisis

Dickens’ famous decree that the present is always simultaneously the best and worst of times should give us pause when using terms like ‘the current crisis’. This disclaimer aside, the current combination of real environmental degradation, conceptual confusion (the epistemological crisis) and moral paralysis gives us grounds to feel unique. This part briefly outlines the environmental, demographic, economic, political, epistemological and the moral/spiritual components of the crisis.

i. The environmental crisis

The