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Human beings too often mistake technological progress for evolution of mind. We possess the same thought processes as far back as we can remember; we know this due to recorded history. Technology advances because new knowledge is produced by using previous knowledge as a foundation. That is one of the wonders of the way human beings think. Other living creatures on the earth don't produce innovative knowledge beyond their natural instincts. Humans can change that temporarily, via instruction to individual animals, but the knowledge is lost forever to the species when the individual animal dies. Non-human animals certainly haven't shown any innate ability to expand on human-given knowledge, despite cute anomalies such as primates trained in sign language.
The knowledge I speak of is our technical knowledge of the physical world. This knowledge persistently grows and expands because of our natural curiosity, coupled with our desires to make our lives easier, more lucrative or more fun. This type of knowledge is not at all synonymous with wisdom about the behavior of human beings or about the nature of existence. However, these two particular areas are of vital importance because human beings can't change their collective reality, despite centuries of philosophical creativity. Although we have advanced technologically, recorded history has clearly shown that the human issues of today are the same human issues of ancient times; yet we are certain that we are wiser than people who lived in the past. This doesn't mean we are doomed to make the same mistakes. What it means is we shouldn't abandon wisdom from the past just because we have cell phones and they didn't. Yes, our speeds of communication and travel have increased, computers have drastically changed the world, and yes, our ability to record our observations allows us to amass incredible amounts information. These examples of our mental prowess don't erase the fact that the same behavioral issues that troubled human beings from the ancient past are still with us in the 21st century. The thoughts of supposedly 'primitive' people of the past should not be entirely dismissed just because they couldn't turn on the television or radio and have marketing drivel and cultural poppycock influence their minds for night after night, year after year, and decade after decade. Remember, way back in those ancient days they had much more time to actually think about their reason or purpose in the universe, due to far less extraneous distraction. Survival and human relationships were more the focus. If you lived somewhere on earth where there was no access to 'modern' medicine, would that mean you were a primitive idiot because you died for lack of receiving an immunization? Would it mean your observations about the world and ability to interact with people were all suspect, simply because you didn't know how to create penicillin? Of course not. As technology has advanced, survival has gone mostly into the background for the average human being. At the same time, as technology has advanced, the idea that our relationships with other human beings are vital to our interaction with the world has become secondary to our belief that we don't truly need others anymore. This is an ultimate result of thinking our technology can address all issues. Human beings produce problems via behavioral disharmony. Devices are merely mindless artifacts that only do what we use them for. There is no device that could permanently change the human condition without actually physically changing the human being so much that the being itself no longer retains truly human status. What we have told ourselves is that the people of the past were primitive beings who lacked the ability to understand how anything in our modern world works. This is a blatant lie. Our minds back then are the same as our minds now, and the fact that we build on previous knowledge to produce the technological wonders of the present has everything to do with the time line of history. You could pull someone (who understood your language) out of a cave from the past, and explain computers and the Internet to them. Once the wonder of these items subsided, he or she could use them just as effectively as you do. Technological issues are separate from human issues. We are not our technology; our technology is a physical manifestation of our natural abilities. Human issues are still in the same state they were in primitive times; we are not enlightened in this regard, despite our amusing self delusion that our gadgetry and philosophical sophistry equals greater wisdom. Take a hint from the people in the past who spent a great deal more time thinking about human existence and purpose than we do. Arrogance is not equal to wisdom: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Here's the point: We are not smarter than the millions of people who have lived and died before us. The sooner we stop pretending that our collected knowledge of physics and science have evolved us mentally as a species, the sooner we can properly address the real problems that plague our existence. |