A view of how knowledge informs yet impairs understanding.
Prior to the rise of
homo sapiens our
planet tumbled though its
intersteller journey as a dynamically (im)balanced
organism, subject to the same
external health threats as any creature, though on a
cosmic scale. Variations in
solar output, collisions with
asteroids and other large
space debris, and other dangers, render this existent Life as tenuous as any of the lives living on It.
The ultimate insult to a life is to be eaten from within. I fight off
viruses and
bacterial infections, I recover from accidents. My general
bio-order is maintained. One day I discover that some of my own cells are out of order, and have lost their sense. I have
cancer, and am
terminal. There is no question that I must do whatever I can to eliminate this insideously tightening noose; and yet to do so I must destroy a part of myself without any certainty of success. I proceed with
chemical and
radiation treatment. The
cancer has spread. I become nauseated and lose much hair and weight, but persist. The news is good. I am in
remission. The majority of the
malignancy has been
eradicated and what ever small pockets of
tumourous cells remain are, with luck,
benign.
This personal,
microbiotic commentary is directly analogous to the
macrobiosis (Earth); and the larger Intelligence must make similarly
therapeutic decisions. Earth will do what she must to
equalibriate. If there is not a fundamental abandonment of my desire to exceed (succeed), which is
explicated as a
mass conciousness of growth, then our
expurgation as a group is inevitable. First degree Matricide (Gaiacide) is the calculated alternative.
Seeing that our situation is
hopeless we are faced with the question of belief. If Humanity is not the supreme organizer then who or what, or how, is IT? Our
individual vageries range from utter rejection of a
belief system to the absolute
faith of the
initiate. This variety represents the individual manifestations of our
dis-ease. When I am content, or in a state of ease, there is no
conception, no
dogma; only
perceptive receptivity. In this state I "Love, and do as I will"; and there is no harm.
There is a
tension; this is of the nature of Lifeing. The grand
cosmic vomit pours from energetic concentrations (stars) and is
transmuted by incidental
transmogrifying concentrators (Earth, you, me, bacillus streptococci) into a form relatively stable over time. Our hold is fragility itself.
This
tenuous grasp is threatened when any of the
collective components becomes inordinately
dominant. In the normal course
disease and dearth of
food sources will effect a correction. Our human species, however, is capable of
reducing disease factors while increasing
food sources. This metaphorically cancerous ability could be considered our species' defining factor.
The unique way in which we operate on acquired knowledge to our exclusive advantage is both one of the grandest of lifes' experiments and one of its' direst threats. Knowledge, familiarity gained by experience, and its extrapolation, is temporal in nature and thus transient in its selection and application. Intelligence, understanding, is transtemporal, both outside and of nature, and thus endemic to life. Intelligence is the Ground; knowledge the path of least resistance.
As I tread the path of knowledge my selection of which trails to follow is always re-active, and thus a disturbation in the field of intelligence. So also is the choice of application since I am acting on a reactive premise. It is instuctive to observe that while our applications of knowledge flourish our understanding is commensurately diminished.
Knowledge has impacted on our species' understanding in the relative sense, in that our lot is far removed from that of our ancestors. This distance is trivialized by the actual suffering of large portions of our current being.