“I will be a Naturalist” (Emarson, 1832)
I never was thinking that our life can be in different realities... till now.
Of course, in fiction movies and books can be clearly described different world... but that I can live in not real-world...?! During 10 years I’ve been selling car loans to the dealers and customers and the best way to do this was to explain the sense of inflation (the idea was - better to take money from a bank and at the same time to use a new car). My story was about an invisible object that comes every month and takes some money from your account as inflation (lost of purchasing power). Without knowing the “rules of the game”, without being self-aware of what I do I tried to create a person (called inflation) and persuade people about the bad intention of this imaginary. But what sets me apart from me knowing that I am a part of “social reality” builders and me being neglect to the fact of this new reality? Because it was given to me as a fact or a tradition, why would I question it? If this person-inflation was constructed, then originally by whom, by me?
Ralph Waldo Emerson during the nineteenth century stated that nature is a beginning of spirituality and divine. In 1820/30 Transcendentalism became a new philosophical movement that Emerson supported throughout his career. Nature, so to say, was a subject of research in all aspects of science and philosophy. In parallel to this (around 1830/40) Charles Darwin worked on his book On the Origin of Species (published 1859). I assume that that research accompanied by related works, which could somehow affect the perception of Emerson. But instead of physical-based reality, Emerson defines nature as a God-created "Universal Being". In a lecture delivered to the Boston Natural History Society, 7 May 1934 and future essay “Nature” (1836) he defines spirituality as a dominant idea of everything. As it may seem at first glance, a flowery-spiritual text raises the question of human disregard for nature, but on a more detailed analysis, one can identify some germs of ideas that already in the full form will be presented by John R. Searle a 160 years later in a work “Construction of Social reality” (1995). At the beginning of the 21st century, Yuval Noah Harari would gather all this knowledge and give a forecast of upcoming reality.
For this analysis, I will use lecture delivered by Emerson in 1834 “The Naturalist”, Searle “Construction of Social reality” (1995) and lecture by Yuval Harari delivered in July 2018 for German Ethics organisation in Berlin, plus his TED talk 2015. I'm not aiming for deep analysis of all theories but I want to try to bring up the tendency in the development of our society and und try to understand if it was Constructed or Given?
In order to follow the growing process of “social reality” theory formation, I compare these three philosophers, historians in six areas. These aspects are to some extent considered by these scientists. In this way, we could recognise better overlapping and differences with the regards of the time period. But this research highly subjective as every work which man produced apriori consists of part of subjectivity.
1. Man
In early 1834 in a lecture “The Naturalist” Emerson position mankind in the midst of nature, but after Darwin’s theory this “position” likely changes in society. Searle in 1995 already focusing on different problems in large and Harari in his book “Sapiens” 2011 defines for man a ruling place. The creature which can create and fast reinvent social structure, which can communicate better than the other creations and the most difference, is an ability of imagination. Only our kind can create and believe in fictions (Harari, 2015, online) thus a rise of humans was almost predictable in Nature.
2. Nature
If Emerson in 19th century sees the Nature as a spiritual idealistic world, then Searle in 20th century take it as a granted and in the beginning of the 21st century Harari points that in reality there is the objective world but the “fiction reality” becoming almost more powerful than Nature.
3. Abilities, Communication skills
Regarding our ability of language, Emerson points out certain obligation and patterns. Searle explains the theory behind the naming things - why screwdriver is a screwdriver? And Harari without giving a flowery philosophical identification points out that actually, just a rare number of people can think beyond his/her own kitchen. In the contrast of the exalted lecture of Emerson and highly philosophical Searle, today’s reality is much grounded.
4. Numerology
Numbers were created by the consciousness of humans. Therefore mankind simply trying to build the numerological and algorithm system the purpose of which is changing century to century. For example, Mendeleev periodical table during Emerson time, Big Bang theory during the 20th century and Poincaré conjecture in the 21st century. But among theories and scientific discoveries, today numbers and algorithms might be used against humans or manipulate humans in our newly build artificial reality.
5. Science, Spiritual and domination
At that time Emerson already pointed “the evils of Science” and propose as essential truth a divine spirituality. But mankind has gone the way of science and technology. Searle confirms conscious intentionality which builds fictional entities aimed to appease humanity. There no discussion about God and spirituality we are facing a point when “natural selection might be replaced by intelligent design” (Harari, 2018, online). Spirituality no longer dominating the brains and souls of humans but technology and digitality does. Harari is going even further. He espouses the danger which is coming from the socially constructed reality. Our hearts and beliefs can be monitored and manipulated by the dominated group of people.
6. New Reality
...social reality is created by us for our purposes... (Searle, 1995, 4)
After all, no one can disagree that we are living in two worlds. One is a physical nature and another is a fiction which also has physical entities. What was given and what was created? The answer lies in the origin of these two worlds. Nature, for instance, we can assume, as it is not proved, comes from the Big Bang and evolution brought mankind in the physical world. It was created by a Big Bang or for believers, it was created by Big Bang with the participation of God. After reaching consciousness humans started to build a convenient world – “social reality”, “fiction” or however you might call it. The real world - because mankind agreed about this reality. And according to Harari, the only creation of this world in which every person believes is money. No person in the world does not believe in money. When a child comes to this world he is at the beginning take two worlds as a granted. From this point of view, we can say that the realities of this child were given by society and provided by parents. It is a truth that today there is no possibilities of choice. But, I think, there are possibilities to change it or influence to this both realities.
I didn’t know that I’ve been playing games as a marionette in the hands of the ruling humans. The world of money and expensive cars was not bad but it was too simple and idealistic for me. Since I am consciously aware of the duality of life we are living in, minimum what I can do is being conscious of fiction and possible manipulation and maximum, I can change the tendency and brought back the awareness to people through art or even raise a new idea of being “The naturalist” ;)
p.s. In OCA educational materials is a mistake about the date of Emerson’s lecture, was given in 1834, which leads to the wrong comparison of the Wall Street Crash in 1934.
Bibliography and references
1. Emerson Ralph Waldo, The Complete Essays and Other Writings (1940, 1950) The Modern Library New York. Random House, Inc.
2. The Naturalist. Lectures. Ralph Waldo Emerson Delivered to the Boston Natural History Society. 7 May, 1934
3. John R.Serle (1995) The construction of social reality. New York: Simon and Shuster
4. Wikipedia [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism [Accessed 14/11/18]
5. Wikipedia [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin [Accessed 14/11/18]
6. Wikipedia [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(essay) [Accessed 14/11/18]
7. TED Talks. Yuval Noah Harari, What explains the rise of humans, June 2015 [Online] Available from: https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare [Accessed 13/11/18]
8. TED Talks. John Searle, Our shared condition – consciousness. May 2013 [Online] Available from: https://www.ted.com/talks/john_searle_our_shared_condition_consciousness?language=en&utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare [Accessed 13/11/18]
9. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Random House. [Online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSt8mu1taNYBueeYW455MpONFPhDv0kuv [Accessed 14/11/18]
10. Prof. Yuval Harari The Challenges of The 21st Century Recorded July, 2018 [Online] Available from: https://youtu.be/FSloTpkHYYI [Accessed 14/11/18]
11. https://www.ethikrat.org/en/the-german-ethics-council/ [Accessed 15/11/18]
12. [Online] Available from: https://www.ynharari.com/book/21-lessons/ [Accessed 15/11/18]
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