Godel's Proof and The Human Condition - The Basic Essays

On Global Warming and Other 'Geological
Time-frame Matters of Economic Interest'

Economics Note 7 -companion piece to
The 'Black Box' Nature and Course of Human Existence
Modern man is relatively unaware of the effect he has on the resource/environment of his 'whole-world/econiche' -that, for the seriousness of its implications to his existence, it can be viewed only in 'geological time-frame' sense -much the same as an epoch of the Cenozoic era, for example.
With the exception of influence by humans (deliberative capability), all life-form evolution can be identified as 'essentially mechanical process in econiche physical properties, characteristics and life-form affects therein'(*1). That evolution is also further identifiable in three, generally successive stages of econiche inhabitation -diasporation, saturation and 'dynamic stabilization'(*2), during any of which the organism may become extinct. This envelope in general resource/environment properties is not constant however; it is, rather, itself changing in geological and climatic properties affecting generally larger-framework life-form evolution(*3). We have, therefore, a continuum of such evolutionary geological time-frames with which (exclusive of deliberative capability) 'a mechanistic evolution and extinction' of any organism can be identified.

Hominid evolution permanently alters this 'essentially mechanistic' situation however, in that humans are (now) deliberatively capable of assimilating the etiology of their existence into a genetic imperative and 'a nature and course of human evolution'; they are also, therefore, 'uniquely capable of manipulating geological time-frame constitution' in ways -'hindsight' speaking, 'which may not be consonant the best well-being and viability of the organism-whole' as is determinable only heuristically alone in that Nature and Course of Human Evolution. [*4 - re: extinctions et cetera-
No 'great stretch of imagination' is required to identify geological time-frame with (among many other things) global warming; fishery, arable land and oil-energy depletions; riverine and estuarial biomass 'corruption' from deforestation, river-damming, and agricultural and civilizational run-off; and 'inadvertent extinctions' by man of mammoth, moa, dodo, Giant Auk, Steller's sea cow, passenger pigeon et cetera. -Mankind has been a 'geological time-frame factor', in this respect, for at least 10,000 years.]

Solar system and internal earth mechanics will continue to affect topological and climatic properties in 'geological time-frame' ways grossly affecting humans -but nevertheless assimilable by humans in affect of his 'nature and course', thus this organism will be able to adapt to such changes, in general, as long as 'deliberative capability meets organism-whole viability requirements'. It is, of course, impossible to say how 'organism-whole viability requirements' may evolve, but it is reasonably certain that in addition to factors in solar system and internal earth mechanics, the lifestyle-and-quality of a critical-mass population will ultimately and inevitably be determined by what mankind does to his resource/environment in geological time-frame affect.

Humans (however) are in a still-diasporative stage of econiche inhabitation; they are, therefore, also of the same 'essentially mechanistic' disposition as warm-blooded, non-deliberating animals at that same stage -which means, 'deliberatively' speaking, that humans have 'little concern for resource/environment affect' -and therefore even less understanding of the role of that affect in their 'heuristically-to-be-determined and ultimately critical best well-being and viability of the organism-whole'. Add to this extremely complex body of earthly life-form intermechanisms the fact that each has a momentum attaching it -human reproduction in particular, and the difficulty of containing that momentum- and one may (should?) begin to understand the gravity of the situation. -In effect, we have no idea what we're doing.

1 - Our continuing 'best well-being and viability' depends upon what we discover about the organism and what there is of the resource/environment to be discovered 'useful to that best well-being and viability'.
2 - Global warming notwithstanding, there is some probability of 'dynamic stability' succeeding our presently diasporative mode of inhabitation with successively uncorrupted successively polar resource/environment'.
3 - Global warming however, opens use of that resource/environment to our 'generally still warm-blooded cerebrating vertebrate mentality' -use and inhabitation that might otherwise be 'more judicious'...
4 - The sooner we incorporate 'black-box thinking regarding classical diasporation, saturation and dynamic stability', in other words ... , the more we leave of that polar and sub-polar resource/environment to 'optimizing best well-being and viability'.
(-from The 'Black Box' Nature and Course of Human Existence)

This 'hominid of geological time-frame in-the-making' is critically ignorant of himself as a classical 'new-to-the-econiche, pecking-order-based animal consuming its way into dynamic stability'; a matter of extreme importance, consequently, is 'American free-enterprise capitalist democracy selling itself and its ignorant consumerism to the world'.

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feedback? -perryb@condition.org
First posted: December 7, 2000 Last Updated: January 7, 2003.2

*1 - regarding the identification of all life-form evolution as 'essentially mechanical'-
First, in that 'There is no way for anyone to demonstrate that he is without influence', the idea of "essentially mechanical [but non-deterministic evolutionary] process" is 'axiomatic' in the scientific domain (the only one that counts here :-). In this respect, all argument against this is dialectical and therefore outside this observation and that domain.
-and second, the 'essential mechanicality of life-form evolution' is introduced ('deliberative influence' excluded) in The System of Human Experience and elaborated in the primary reference of material in this economic note: The Nature and Course of Human Evolution as The Basis of Economic Policy.
*2 - The 'three, generally successive stages of econiche inhabitation -diasporation, saturation and dynamic stabilization' is introduced and variously discussed in The Nature and Course of Human Evolution as The Basis of Economic Policy.
*3 - geological time-frames: the paleological eras and epochs which generally identify geological and climatic changes grossly affecting life-form evolution -of particular interest here, the plio-, pleisto- and holocene epochs (last 4 million years) which encompass 'hominids and mammals we can relate to'.