Before humans, earth was only occupied by a wide range
of unconscious species; living creatures that are not conscious of what they are
or where they are. They definitely care even less about what surrounds them, and
they don’t bother to understand why the trees grow or to weave myths and
stories to justify seasons change. They are plainly indifferent as to how their
bodies function, how the universe works or even why they exist in the first
place. They are just surviving; they eat, drink, sleep and mate to sustain
their race. They are purely and solely satisfying their biological needs.
While the vital organs of these beings function in an
acute and sophisticated way, and the environment around them including species variation,
natural views… is so startling and impressive, these creatures are completely
insensitive to the charm and mystery of the existence. If humans weren’t
around, no one would appreciate the beauty of the moon or sunrise, the accuracy
and balance of the natural system, the wideness of the space above, and
therefore the greatness and power of the creator.
Then, humanity happened, their bodies function
generally the same; they too need to eat, sleep, and couple, they struggle to
survive, seek safety, live in troops… but there is something exceptional and
unique about them. Since birth, human beings are genuinely trying to understand
the world around them; the baby is curious and avid for discoveries, and he has
just the capacity that enables him to learn and assimilate his knowledge. Since
early childhood, youngsters learn to master a fundamental tool: Language.
Knowing the names of objects and everything else on earth allows them actually
to internalize and conceptualize their world, they can therefore reason,
project a potential future, fantasize…
To visualize more clearly this transformation, let's imagine a story
of a living being, let’s say a young monkey (a classic one, I can also say a
cheetah but since some monkeys, in shape, are pretty close to humans, it
would make the example easy to apprehend) The body of the monkey is
impeccably functioning; the heart is pumping blood, the lungs are extracting
oxygen and releasing CO2, the kidneys are filtering the blood, the stomach is
processing food…now the whole body is restlessly active in a very sophisticated
way, but guess what, the monkey has absolutely no idea what’s going on beneath
that hairy skin of his. He can’t control the process done by his organs nor master their delicately balanced and acute performance. It just happens in
there by a divinely designed mechanism to keep the monkey alive, and the little being has completely no power over it. And this applies to all species; plants,
animals, and humans.
Thus, and unfortunately, the monkey is unable to appreciate the
wonder of his own body as well as the things around him. He is a being that lives
with no purpose and no meaning other than surviving and mating. He is not aware
of his very existence and his biological instincts are taking full control over
his actions, in a systematic and predictable way. He has no reason and no
conscious to interfere with his passive existence; he is the pure exhibition of
a living material.
Then one day something peculiar happened, a mysterious
non-material form inhabited the monkey’s body. This form is at once curious and
ignorant; it doesn’t know anything and wants to know everything, and will
definitely not disregard this enigmatic world and leave its puzzles unnoticed
and unsolved during the monkey’s lifetime. That spirit is asking “What”, “How”, and “Why”, and
formulates the answers in time and space; “what is that body?”, “How is it
moving?”, and why is it existing?”. And so these questions apply to everything
around as well. The monkey is now conscious of the world and himself; he is
reasoning, seeking truth and knowledge, and has the will and power to maneuver
his biological inclinations (reinforce them to get more pleasure and
satisfaction or restrain them to conform to laws and beliefs).
The Monkey has now an advantage over all the other animals,
he can learn, organize, plan his future, define his existence and manipulate
his physical form, possibly even against its natural instinct.
If we want to dismantle that spiritual form through
the changes it brings to humans, we can generally spot two new distinctions:
1. The ability to learn: That process takes place
in the brain area, especially through stocking received information, treating
and interpreting it, and eventually communicates it.
2. The consciousness: It might be located in the
heart; a very complicated process that matures along the monkey’s physical and
mental growth. It’s that awareness of the ability to think and learn that gives
us a certain liberty and responsibility to plan and act, though within loaded morals
and ethical principles. And this consciousness is what can differentiate humans
to their creations: machines.
The
spirit (or soul or immaterial form…) is inserted in the human body when it’s
still freshly growing inside the womb; which means that it get developed
alongside the physical form, and for that characteristic to develop, it has to
be nourished with proper food of intellectual nature: Education. In fact, early
in the history of human beings; the first people with that unique spirit were still
close to the animals. That's because their minds weren’t fed enough to reason
correctly and thus benefit from its potential. The specificity of reason was
still developing and it needed time. That's being said, it doesn’t mean that they
were stupid or primitive, but they were more likely devoting their life to
satisfy their biological needs than to observe, meditate, experiment and
therefore collect and give good nutrition to their spirit.
The
physical form has existed for so long that it kind of was fully developed, the
body masters it functions and was perfectly adapted to its environment. The
spirit however is something new; it needs similarly time to process and
develop, and it needs an amount of previous experiences to virtually reach maturity. A
quick observation to the evolution of human history will provide an evident
proof that we are increasingly mastering our unique skill. Which the emerge of an important question: If the material form evolves throughout the information
gathered by its sensors that causes an alteration in the DNA composition, then
how the immaterial form develops in the long run?
In less than two centuries, humanity was able to reach
higher level of knowledge and innovation, and accomplished what our ancestors
couldn’t even dream of for millenniums. The reason of this skyrocketing rate is
the accumulation of information, and
thus, an upgrading of reasoning. When the books were finally preserved, translated,
and published; philosophers and scientists were encouraged to write without
fears theirs theories, experiments and researches. Books were no longer burned
or discarded, but thoroughly archived, valued, discussed, and promoted. It was
only then that humanity could take advantage of previous knowledge and build
upon it and so on. The collectivity of thinking and wise minds is what enables
that huge jump to an advanced progress in technology and other aspects.
A single human can achieve just little in his lifetime,
but if he is dedicated to think about something bigger than himself, he will
therefore create a Lego brick that will be used to build a huge
construction. The more educated people, thinkers, researchers, scientists… are
out there, the more Lego bricks we will have, and the faster human achievements
will succeed. Knowledge has no limit. But if the humanity keeps developing and
creating advanced technologies, to what extent could it expand? And could that
Lego construction grow bigger infinitely to the point of becoming unmanageable and
will absorb humans in the process? Or would it, at some point, collapse and ruin humanity
under its wrecks?
Being a human is living a painful paradox; we are not
allowed to be like other living beings even though we have a living body, we
can’t just wander around, eat, sleep, and mate, because we have the burden of
reason. On the other hand, our spirit is also confined and hindered by the
physical form and its needs. We live to harmonize between two things inhabiting
one form. The vital process and its structure are stranger to the spirit,
likewise, the complexity of the soul is not comprehended by the physics, yet
the two are magically connected and impact one another. The body functions
independently, and the mind wonders abstractedly.
Our soul is like an alien parasite that possessed the
human form in order to understand and contemplate the nature, study it and improve
the living conditions. Or are we destroying the world instead? The body is our
host and we have the privilege and liberty to direct it and use it to a higher
and noble purpose. We are under a test, are we going to succeed under all the
distraction and impulses of the material body to overcome its limits and
challenges and therefore complete the task and purpose of our delegation?!
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