Life (Part VII): Epilogue
Chronicle of a Failure Foretold
To smile with the sad joy of the olive-tree. To wait. Never to tire of hoping for joy. - Miguel Hernández.
Together with Dobzhansky and Simpson Ernst Mayr was one of the fathers of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. He died in 2005 at the age of 101 and in 1995 he published an excellent book This is Biology (1), in which he says:
Non-scientists tend to naively assume that when a new scientific explanation or theory is proposed it is readily accepted. In fact, in very few cases it has happened that a new idea causes instantaneous and revolutionary illumination in its field.
Unless someone has said it in a remote country and we have not found out, there are only a few people -myself and my readers- who have known explicitly, through my articles and video, that living human beings have an implicit biological law that says that our purpose is the survival of our species. And another law that says that broad altruism is the best means to achieve that goal.
In addition to be written in our genome, the first law was written centuries ago in Genesis 1.28 where, on the 6th day, Jahweh /God ordered the humans: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth.” On the 5th day he had said the same thing to the animals. The second Law “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” said in Leviticus 19:18, was ratified and expanded by Jesus of Nazareth, preaching love to all neighbors we have near or far.
Jacques Monod also stated the first law referring to living beings but without referring the human species in particular. Maybe he didn't mention us because it was obvious to him, or maybe because he didn't want to have trouble with philosophers or theologians.
Recently, some wise young men at the University of Oxford said that we must try to ensure that our species survives. But they do not realize the implicit law in our genoma that orders it, and therefore they have serious doubts and problems to justify such mandate and the practice of altruism that it entails.
Right now there are many people and groups who preach the need to take care of our environment including environmentalists, Papal Encyclicals, Agenda 2030, etc. And in these discourses is usually implicit the survival of the species. But they do not explicitly mention the biological law that dictates it, so they lack authority to sustain their ideas, and therefore they are only listened to in what interests each particular population group.
Maybe the fact that the basic law of survival is not seeing is due to its obviousness or because there is an instinctive rejection. Seeing it and accept it represents a great transformation in our individual and collective beliefs. It imposes on us an obligation that we do not expect and that is difficult to evaluate, both for each person (2) and for collectives or social groups, whether those gropus are vertical (public and private organizations, states, humanity), or transversal (political parties, religions, ideologies, powers that be…)
Personally, I have been working on these ideas since 2000. I spent fifteen years without daring to say anything because I was surprised that no one before me had seen and expressed this law of the life and the moral imperative it entails. Also I had doubths that my idea was true. I still have doubts, but less and less. Among other things because in these twenty-four years, the idea and its context are increasingly present in the environment. And I no longer have to discuss the objections that were raised to me in the first years when I began its dissemination.
What is clear is that if this law exists its importance is enormous, both for its theoretical and practical uses, and for providing an common and universal basis to ethics which can serve as a guide for the government of the world and of their groups and collectives. Especially in these moments of greater risk of possible self-destruction in the short or medium term with problems of all kinds lacking a clear direction on how to solve them.
I believe that with the six preceding articles and with what I just said, all readers who have come this far will have realized the difficulty for these two laws to be seen and assumed by those who can do something with them.
For my part, I would be delighted if someone convinced me that the law of survival does not exist. Or that if it exists we can continue acting as we have done until now: acting by groupal instinct like the rest of living beings. And so I could stop bothering everyone and dedicate myself, in the little time I have left, to other tasks that I really want to do.
For now, I remain almost certain that our duty as human beings is to try to collaborate in whatever way we can so that our species survives. Seeking the greatest well-being for current and future people. And being happy with it (2).
Having said the above, what can we do?
Something quite simple would be to practice, in our daily lives, the things that we believe are good for the survival of the species. For example, aplying ecologists and other experts ideas for improving the habitat, such do not eat beef, do not travel by plane, recycle, be austere...
In 2018 we created a Club to spread these ideas and one of the members suggested that older people should commit suicide to save resources for the rest of the species. I replied to him that we old people are useful for many things, among others as objects of care. And besides, there is the problem of the example to be given, because in the matter of dying and killing you know how these things to start but not how they finish.
These or similar measures may be good but they do not solve the underlying problem. The patient to be treated is global humanity whose members are increasingly interrelated for better and worse. For this reason, I believe that it is urgent and essential that there be a global entity or organization that, based on the two vital ideas and with a global vision, analyzes the problems and possibilities for improvement and proposes the actions it deems appropriate. The relation of the possible applications mentioned in the previous article gives an idea of the magnitude of this work. But you can start by having an initial global vision.
It seems that the ideal would be for this task to be carried out by the U.N. or under its auspices. But it can also be done, at least in principle, by private or public entities: Governments, Political Parties, Churches, Foundations, Universities, Masonic Lodges, Think Tanks, Clubs, existing or emergent work groups, etc.
I will continue to try to get these ideas to the leaders of the organizations that may have an interest in seeing them and a greater capacity to do something about it.
My readers can participate in this work of disseminating the two laws of the life and their uses and applications, by sharing the link to this blog and the Survival and Altruism website to people who may be interested in these issues. Especially those that belong to any of the aforementioned organizations or can influence their activities.
Since we have finished the Series of Life, likely in August we will take vacations.
Enjoy the summer!
