EvolTrans.Scale

Notes on the Evolutionary Transition
Why is it, for example, that aggressive and obnoxious behavior are rife
when we would all enjoy positive and beenficial behavior more?
Positive & peaceful & non-violent behavior work, they just don't get the
instant response being mean might. And so many societies in the west thrive
on impatience...
(examples)
This is a VERY interesting point... basically it is a
question of the time scales that our cognition typically functions at...
we simply can't see that the long term better plan is positive & peaceful,
when the instant response of anger and aggresssion is instantly rewarded.
Why i find this very interesting is because it fits into the general
picture i have of a direction human evolution must take.. which
is away from short term and local-space perspective, towards a longterm
and global perspective.
This is a serious and
necessary-for-our-survival shift in basic cognitive patterns. These
patterns worked just great when we were small villages, and could
trash a place (one local place) and move to another (also local).
However, human behavior has altered the network of interactions on the planet
such that the entire system is more tightly woven than before, with
humans themselves serving as many the hte connections (connecting, for instance,
by direct transport and pollution, chemicals that never made it to water
before, to aquifers and rivers).
More than that, what used to be purely local effects (like trashing a local
river) have escalated to serious impacts on global temperature,
climate, oceans, and abiotic flows .. in other words, humans have chnaged
the scale of interaction or effect that our species has from local
to global impact.
In the same vein, our temporal effect on the planet used to be
miniscule - i.e. sure, that river was dirty when the Upongis
used it, but 10 years later it's fine.... Now, though, we are generating
effects that could last hundreds and even tens of thousands (in the case of
nuclear waste) of years.
Both of these together -global and long term effects - mean that since
our *ACTIONS* last far longer and over a far greater spatial scale/distance
than they ever have before,
that our *perceptions* and the decisiosn based on them, also need to do so...
To ignore these facts means that we are at the mercy of feedback loops that
we have created, that will affect *us* globally and over the long term,
sufficiently to alter our future in a significant way - perhaps so far
as to make us extinct, depending on the degree to which we extinguish
other species, alter climate, induce mutagenesis, and so on.
To me, this represents a fundamental evolutionary transition that is
not, however, occurring in the typical manner, through the genetics of a
species, but in its learned cognitve behavior, its attention, and its belief
structures and perceptions. I say 'evolutionary transition' because this
shift will affect all our later and potential evolution, as well as
that of thousands if not millions of other species.
Humans are affecting virtually ever species on the planet now;
what happens to us will change impacts on these other species as well. Further,
more than any species but perhpas the bacteria who initially provided us
with atmosphere, humans are also affectinwhat is known as the 'abiotic'
components of our local and global ecosystems - the transport of nitrogen
phosphates, and other chemicals, the water cycle, ocean currents and flows,
and climate and weather patterns.
In other words, this may not be simply an evolutinary transition for
humans, but for the planet as a whole.