Construction of New Paradigms
Humans rely on environmentally shaped, biologically defined, and socially constructed operating systems/paradigms to function in the world. They operate on the multiple levels: personal, socio-political, cultural, and technological. These operating systems need to be coherent and in alignment with the bio-physical realities for the evolutionary sustenance.
Our current juncture may be defined as “a time between the worlds”: old paradigms have become self-terminating whilst new paradigms are yet to take shape or become dominant. Following sketch is an attempt to associate these different operating systems. Columns on the left may be considered current hegemonies and on the right, we see the emergence of new operating systems
Our current operating systems, specifically their manifestation as socio-political-economic ends necessitate perpetual-growth in the economic output. From the viewpoint of the “naturalistic evolutionary constructivism” (Patil, 2020, p. 7) this is understood as an outcome of the “temporally biased (short term) bio-physical / naturalistic, structural / institutional, resource-based / environmental, and psychological attractors” (Patil, 2020, pp. 49–50) towards the fulfilment of the material securities. This may be broadly termed as “materialistic consumerism” to indicate that materialistic orientations are considered primary ends in themselves. This orientation transcends prominent (and conflicting) ideologies of the modern era: ranging from communism to neo-liberalism. This status quo is not surprising considering the aforementioned attractors and deeply rooted (psychological) coupling between the access to the basic material necessities and the evolutionary survival.
The remarkable effectiveness of modern scientific methods in the harnessing of natural phenomena (including fossil-based energy subsidies) has rendered us with astonishing technological capabilities and resultant multiplication of human flourishing and ecological impact. The operating system of modernity is hitting its tipping point of utility maximization (and it has exceeded it in the multiple ecological spheres), pulling us closer to the emergent existential risks and accelerating deterioration of the biosphere. Solutions proposed in the mainstream remain tied to the naïve technological optimism that is likely to be counter-productive (see Section 2.3 Ideology of Techno-reductionism in (Patil, 2020, pp. 23–27)) and quantitative growth narrative (e.g. “green growth” (Hickel & Kallis, 2020)). They contradict the inherent biophysical limits to growth on our planet.
“Everything is an instrument. If you ask what it is an instrument to, the answer will be that it is an instrument for the making of instruments, which will in turn make still more powerful instruments, and so on ad infinitum” — Bertrand Russell (1931).
Furthermore, this operating system tends to incentivise competition and exploitation at the expense of cooperation and exploration. The practical upshot is that the negative feedback motivation structures are accentuated, leaving us in the perilous state of being “technological giants and ethical infants”. Or, as Daniel Schmachtenberger hypothesises, “game-theoretic rivalrous dynamics multiplied by exponential technology, self-terminate.”
Therefore, we need to move beyond both the perpetual growth narratives and underlying materialistic ends of social and individual meaning-making (as depicted on the right-hand side). This shift would be as significant as the advent of modernity or a shift to a sedentary life from hunter-gatherer mode.
Throughout the evolutionary history, paradigmatic shifts seem to be preceded by a large-scale catastrophe: the great oxidation event wiped off a majority of the early life forms and more recent historical examples show a pattern of “destructive creation” in the cultural multi-level selection. The great filter (ahead of us) is therefore offered as a hypothesis for the Fermi paradox.
“So, let us be alert — alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.” — Victor Frankl
This grim prognosis is by no means inevitable though:
“Where danger is, grows the saving power also” — Heidegger (1954)
The evolutionary niche of humans seems to be “niche switching”, an extensive cultural malleability in response to novelty (Weinstein, 2019) and we ought to utilise it the near future. Jon Stewart notes that one of the more remarkable features of evolution is “evolvability”: the emergence of new evolutionary processes (Stewart, 2019). Furthermore, research suggests that beyond certain levels, material growth and affluence yield little or no improvements in the qualitative development of the living standards (the obvious example is the contrast between the Northern Europe and qualitatively impoverished US, despite its ‘superpower’ status).
We need to work on the emergence of the post-materialistic social operating systems that focus on qualitative development. This would involve a shift away from the materialistic ends and towards more existential orientations marked by the cosmic perspectives that internalise the realistic significance of our sentient lives. This also relates to the widely cited mental health and “meaning crises” of modernity (foreshadowed in Nietzsche’s “God is dead” lament). This orientation serves also as a necessary pre-requisite for further automation of the industrial production from the current predicament in which people derive meaning from their functional economic value.
As I conclude in my master’s thesis, some essential ingredients for this paradigmatic shift are:
· Polycentric governance (Ostrom, 2012): a dispersion of power away from the current concentration at the national levels to both local and international polities
· Integration of traditional, modern, and post-modern worldviews and wisdom (Freinacht, 2017)
· Evolution of networked intelligence underpinned by internalisation of interconnectedness and interdependence (Stewart, 2019)
· Adaptations of complexity sciences in our technological trajectories to mitigate their unintended consequences, as opposed to the dominant reductionist scientific methods of modernity (see ‘Section 4.2: Complexity, Techno-Realism, and Cultural Paradigm Shift’ in (Patil, 2020, pp. 47–53) and (Renn, 2020, pp. 408–416) )
