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In response to the paradigma shift FROM SURVIVAL TO QUALITY OF
LIFE (the greatest ever) :
a progressive evolutionary worldview
ECCO Jan. 25th 2007
Jan BernheimVrije Universiteit [email protected]
A poorly prepared project takes three times as long as planned
A well prepared project takes twice as long as planned
Suffering as the default state of the human condition
• Nature is indifferent to suffering: only survival matters
• Examples: spider wasps, predators
Escapisms: renunciation (oriental philosophies) or metaphysical transcendency (religions, mysticism, the eternal life of the soul…)
Challenges 1/4
• The old discourses, religions and communism, for example, are discredited.
• Richard Dawkins (The Delusion of Religion, 2006) : religions are pernicious because:
- Fallacious
- Calamitous
- Obstructive for progress
President Bush says God talks to him. If he had said it was through his hairdryer, there would have been a national emergency. I for one don’t see what the hairdryer adds to the ridicule of the situation Sam Harris In: Letter to a Christian Nation 2006
Pros and cons of religions
• “Good people do good things and bad people do bad things. But for good people tot do bad things, it takes religion.”
Stephen Weinberg
• “And for bad people to do good things also that takes religion.”
Freeman Dyson
CHALLENGES 2/4
• The old discourses filled needs. Their discredit leaves voids:
Believers are happier, give more to charities… Unbelievers know better what they don’t believe
than what they do believe. A world without God is cold and gloomy, without
transcendence.Can one replace religions by a scientific
worldview that would be at least as satisfying?
Challenges 3/4
Alternatives to the great discourses?
• Grotesque worldviews (fundamentalisms, New Age…)?
• Relativisms?
• Consumerism and Postmodernism: vacuity as a worldview.
Challenge 4/4
• From heteronomous (communitarianisms, authoritarianisms), humans have become autonomous
• ( individualism).
(Also according to modern christians, e.g. Roger Lenaerts S.J.: De droom van Nebuchadnezar, Lannoo, 2004)
What after the grand discourses?
Alternative philosophical
strategies
:• No worldview The end of History
(Fukuyama)
• Postmodern Relativism
Two separate worlds:Material
(life IN the world)Spiritual (religions,
belief in belief , New Age …)
One world
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
Objective
• Can we, following Leo Apostel, construct a contemporary worldview based on the sciences and multidisciplinarity?
• Let’s rise to the challenge: the Darwinian (~ matter) and historical (~ time) perspectives lead to a
progressive evolutionary worldview
Evolutionary Theory : short instructions for the user 1/3
• 1) variation and 2) selection of better fit variants– Evolution is both conservative and
progressive: what works well persists and what works better is selected.
– It obtains for both genes (units of biological transmission) and for memes (units of cultural transmission)
– Fitness for what? For capacity of survival and procreation
Evolutionary Theory : short instructions for the user 2/3
• The two imperatives of de existence are:SURVIVAL and PROCREATION
• In a competitive world, with limited resources, the two survival strategies for which we were selected are :
- agression - egoism
and
- co-operation - altruism
Avatars of Aggressivity
• violence,
• elimination,
• appropriation,
• submission,
• exclusion,
• exploitation of nature and humans
• ....
Avatars of co-operation
• Kindness, friendship, love (in that order),• solidarity, compassion, care (in that order),• benevolence, helpfulness• credibility, • justice
in short: what we call the VIRTUES, a universal ethics, “secular humanism”, the inter-religious common language proposed by the catholic ethicist Tristram Engelhardt MD.
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
Agression and co-operation as survival strategies
• A mix of both strategies is necessary for survival.
• Problem: Our genes by and large are those of the hunters- gatherers of 10.000 years ago, selected for what THEN was the best mix of agression and co-operation: we’re ‘misfits’, poorly adapted to the present world, which is far more complex.
CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASING COMPLEXITY
• The more complex a society, the more opportunity for aggression & co-operation,
• More interactions = more feedback aggression inhibited
co-operation rewarded
How do we cope with our genetic misfitness?
• We compensate for our obsolete genes by memes: horizontally and vertically transmissible cultural factors, such as:
behaviours, judeo-christian norms et laws or secular humanistic principles ...
Civilisation is a means to cope with
our obsolete genes.
An ETHICS
Time, Complexity
AGRESSION
CO-OPERATION
Behavioural mix adapted for society
Genetic mix
CULTUREL AJUSTMENTNEEDS
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
An ONTOGENESIS: where do we come from?
Ontogenesis repeats phylogenesis / development re-iterates history (Haeckel’s law)
– For anatomy
– In the mental and behavioral realm: developmental psychology
– For societies and civilisations: modernity
versus
the anteriority (not inferiority!) of alternative societal models
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
The purpose of life?: an AXIOLOGY
• From survival to QOL: the greatest revolution ever
• Its utilitarian ethics, suffering and enjoyment as the measure of all things (JS Mill, J. Bentham, Peter Singer, …) also provides the purpose of life: maximising the ratio of enjoyment and suffering
Definitions of Happiness
• Relativistic, from Aristotle to postmodernism
• Escapistic
• Evolutionary: sustainable pleasure, i.e . the feeling one has when the indicators for satisfaction of needs are favourable : food, shelter, love, growth and (Maslow!) self-actualisation
A tall order:
to measure subjective well-being, the perception quality of life
i.e.
To quantify what is qualitative
To make objective what is subjective
Conventional question versus Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA). Which global question is better suited?
I am ...
... with lifeas a whole
very satisfied
neither/nor
satisfied
unsatisfied
very unsatisfied
5
4
3
2
1
I am ...
... with lifeas a whole
very satisfied
neither/nor
satisfied
unsatisfied
very unsatisfied
5
4
3
2
1
very satisfied
neither/nor
satisfied
unsatisfied
very unsatisfied
5
4
3
2
1
Conventional Question
(CQ)On this scale I rate the current period as …
best period
worst period-5
+5
0
… in my life
On this scale I rate the current period as …
best period
worst period-5
+5
0
… in my life
Biographical Question (ACSA)
OR
Examples of sequential ACSA measures during disease
-7
-5
-3
-1
1
3
5
-7
-5
-3
-1
1
3
5
-7
-5
-3
-1
1
3
5
-9-7-5-3-1135
• Bernheim, J.L., and M. Buyse: 1984, J. Psychosoc. Oncol. 1. 25‑38
Discrimination (inter-group comparisons) & Sensitivity to objective change (after life- and
QOL-saving transplantation in End-Stage-Liver Disease )
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ACSA
CQ
OBJECTIVE indicators of (SUBJECTIVE) happiness
• Health• Wealth• Security• Liberties• Equality• Tolerance• Information,
knowledge
In short:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
Liberties, Self-determination and Control
• Over death: palliative care and
euthanasia.
• Over procreation.
• Over sex life.
• Over partner choice.
CONCLUSION
Yes, if• Happiness is the highest good,• And the evolution of the
objective conditions for happiness is the indicator of progress,
• then there is objectiveobjective progress.
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
How do we live? A political-economical PRAXEOLOGY
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights : condition of happiness
• NEW phenomena : -> the entrance of ethics in Realpolitik -> intolerance for unhappiness -> the extinction of generation conflicts
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxeology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
The progressive evolutionary worldview in everyday life:
a LIFE PRAXIS
• Good deeds: in complex systems, small
actions may have great consequences.
• Hope is a rationel use of probability / Risk
acceptation
• It is highly irrationnal not to take emotions
into account
What to expect from a worldview : help in confronting the big questions
• What exists?: an ontology• Where do things come from?: an ontogenesis • The purpose of life?: an axiology • Where are we going?: a futurology• Truth and un-truth?: an epistemology • How to live in uncertainty? a life praxis• An explanation of behaviours?: a praxiology• Good and bad?: an ethics• A rational framework for emotions and mysteries
Scientific Emotionality, evolutionary spirituality.
From Spinoza to Teilhard to Apostel 1/2
• Feeling the presence of God
• Feeling deep peace and harmony
• A wish to come closer to God
• Feeling the world becoming ever more complex, and entropy decreasing
• Profound satisfaction with the reality of progress and our place as the temporary endpoint of the evolution of living beings at the heart of the continuum between elementary particles and the universe
• Wish to understand ever more about the cosmos, nature and ourselves
A progressive evolutionary worldview
Provides
• Not a road, but a roadmap
• Not roots, but a GPS
• Not a destination, but reference points
(you need lighthouses, but the last thing you want to do is head for them)