It is a fact of life the human has the same requirements for survival as do all life forms: the need for sustenance, for security, for procreation. For the animals these needs are quite straightforward, the literal things directly associated. For the animals instinct and environment govern the competition to fill those needs, but such is not the case for the humans.
Human intelligence has set perception and imagination as new players alongside instinct and environment in the competitions for survival. For all that it is an obvious observation it still needs made: because his environment includes abstract imaginings communicated the life of a human is at least one order of magnitude more complex than any of the other creatures sharing the planet with him.
Further, the human capacity for abstract thought communicated enables a single human to form alliances with multiple collectives beyond those defined by nature, alliances beyond the troop or pride as would be seen in the other animals. The human will form alliances with several unique arrangements of differing individuals according to a common thought or imagining, specialized structures evolved to enhance the cooperative efforts aiding the cause of survival.
I will assert to you these groupings, whose sum is known as society, provide to their members aid in more than survival within the physical reality, they also serve as the foundation for survival in the inner reality created of abstractions and imaginings in ways not yet fully understood.
Among the deepest and most profoundly life altering consequences intelligence burdened on the human is the ability to perceive the common physical reality from a perspective other than first person singular. To perceive reality from a perspective removed from the self opens to human perception a vision very likely unique to the human: the possibility to see your own self among the multitude as others might see you and be compelled to ask the most uniquely human question there is: who is that?
Consider that question if you will. When the question is set in the first person it instantly takes the more familiar form of Who am I ?
But how to answer that question? It is not such a simple problem, and nature provides no clues. Perhaps there are other creatures who also ask that question, but that possibility remains undefined for lack of communication between the species. To the best of my knowledge only the human must define for himself an identity unique enough to recognize self from other within the internal reality expanded into the third person perspectives made possible by intelligent imagination. The question of self recognition, self identification is as unique a marker of humanity as exists, separating the human from the other creatures sharing the planet with us.
I will assert the challenge of building an identity robust enough to be recognizable from any perspective available to the abstract inner reality is the single most powerful force empowering evolution in shaping both society and the inner structure of the individuals who are the component elements of those societies.
Even the most casual glance across human history shows the impact of the ongoing quest to satisfy the question of self identity. From within the perspective of this question the dividers of race and culture, nationality and religion, the various social classes within the larger definitions are revealed as little more than constructs in the cause of facilitating an acceptable answer, for it is from these artificial divisions the majority will derive the symbol set used in the cause of self definition.
Such symbol sets are the one critical function nature does not, and cannot, provide to any species ascending from instinct into abstract intelligence. Within the animal kingdom there is no demand for such, only the presence of imagination empowered by abstract intelligence creates need for such symbolisms in the struggle for survival. Where nature is concerned the humans are very much on their own in answering the question they quite literally invented.
It should be no surprise that when faced with this new challenge the humans returned to their first source of strength. The humans ascended to dominance on the strength of cooperation within and between the various collectives enabled by symbolic communication, it is to those same collectives the humans turned to meet this new challenge threatening their mental rather than physical survival. They did as they had done before, and in so doing opened the way for evolution to resume its’ work.
With what has gone before set as both foundation and anchor it is time to move beyond observations distilled from history and deal with humanities current state of affairs. Just how has mankind fared in his quest to live in the divided reality of abstract imagination? What tools, what tactics have been employed? And most critical of all, what are the long term consequences for the human race of such tools and tactics considered in the context of evolution’s efforts? Such thoughts are next on the agenda in Chapter Three, “Tools bartered and borrowed...”
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