The End of the World

(at least for humans)

 

1. Only human beings use words.

There is little doubt that a great diversity of languages are observed on our planet, from the dancing of bees to the singing of whales. But the complexity of word usage by human beings stands in marked contrast to the pheromonal communications of insects, the trilling of birds, or the barking of dogs. The highly specialized, and endlessly diverse, powers inherent in human speech have enabled human beings to construct a vast, and seemingly endless, array of Ideas.

2. Ideas are made of words.

Simply put, Ideas are nothing more than words, either single ones, or groups of them, and the never-ending evolution of words in human cultures continually results in the proliferation and enhancement of their concomitant Ideas.

3. Our man-made world is constructed of words.

All constructed objects, from straw huts and stone pyramids, to superhighways and skyscrapers, represent nothing but Ideas which have been developed, or extended, in material form. As such they are virtually made of words. This is more clearly understood when we try to imagine how such objects might come to exist outside of any kind of word usage. How would anyone have ever hit upon the Idea of making paper, for example, without a previously acquired ability to manage words?

Although the relationship between using words and making a spear may not be as apparent as that between talking and making paper, it is every bit as real—and necessary. Again, we need but try to envision the manufacture of any man-made objects in the complete absence of language. The image of primitive peoples just sitting around making pottery, for example, without saying a single word to each other, either during the process or before, is inconceivable. Everything in our constructed, or developed, world exists solely because we keep talking to each other.

Ideas (words) constitute the most primal human artifact. All that we have made, from pottery and arrowheads, to books and technology, is but the reflection of our Ideas, an extension of our words.

4. Our personal identities are created with words.

Our strong feelings of personal identity are a byproduct of our constant involvement with oral exchanges. We only feel that we are a who because everyone—everywhere—seems to keep reminding us that we are. It began of course when our parents named us, and was further developed when they (or our friends and relatives) conferred upon us the dubious distinction of nicknames. It was further, and more deeply, enhanced when we started school. As our command of language matured, the Idea of our personal identity advanced, step by step, along with it. It is no exaggeration to say that, whenever we are engaged in ordinary conversation with someone, we are doing little more than reinforcing our sense of who, or what, we are. In other words, we are, in effect, virtually creating and/or reinforcing our selves whenever we are talking to others.

5. There are two kinds of Ideas, the concrete and the abstract.

Ideas that may be represented in our imagination, or extended in material form (made from pre-existing natural resources) are said to be concrete. Those which cannot be so extended or represented, like time for example, are considered as abstract.

The primary distinction between these two classes of Ideas centers around their ability to be imaged. If we are able to form an image that a particular word, or arrangement of words, might suggest, then that word (or group of words) represents a concrete Idea. If we are unable to form such an image, then the word (or group of words) suggests an abstract concept. The single word, "triangle", for example, triggers this image:



But the words, "personal identity" cannot prompt such a corresponding image.

Words like, "personal identity," and "time," are valid as Ideas per se, but because they are not capable of being imaged, they are forever consigned to the realm of the abstract. As abstractions, they will always be but mere words, something that we may endlessly talk about, but never see (or in any other way sense). They will thus always connote something of an illusion for us, despite the strong feelings (of certainty) that are often attached to them. Concrete Ideas, on the other hand, have the ability to assume a tangible reality, one that our sensory equipment may actually register.

6. Our ability to manage Ideas is limited by our senses.

Ideas that may not be detected by our sensing hardware, or represented in our imagination, may not thereby—automatically—be disqualified from participating in what we are pleased to call reality, but their limitations are immediately apparent (perhaps I should say that our limitations are immediately apparent) with respect to what is required to actually know them.

There are a great many Ideas that are affected by this, from the social and spiritual, to the mathematical and scientific. Society, for example, is full of Ideas that are nothing more than purely abstract notions, like, truth, goodness and beauty, all of which are but mere words whose Ideas we are incapable of visualizing, or forming an image of, but which we never seem to weary of talking about. The same can be said of religious dogma, the value of numbers and scientific hypotheses (not to mention the ever-present time, whose abstract presence wends and weaves its way through the fabric of all conversations, from the cosmic to the mundane, despite the fact that no one has ever seen it, or had any other kind of physical contact with it.)

7. Words are a product of the environment.

In the beginning, speech developed from the primal sounds which early humans were likely to make in response to various factors in their environment, or to events going on inside their own bodies. A sudden pain in any part of the body would have surely caused a vocalization of some kind. The appearance of wildlife, a sudden gust of wind, lightning and other occurrences in their surroundings would have also triggered the eruption of certain sounds from them. The repetition of these sounds would (eventually) inevitably become a part of the culture that learned to consistently associate them with the vagaries of nature, both in and around them.

Words are ultimately traceable, in other words, to environmental stimuli. In the same way, the dance of the bee informs other bees of the whereabouts (in the environment) of food, and the songs of whales echo the specific conditions of their surroundings. It is only the complexity of human vocal chords that enabled us to discover and develop the richness of sounds that we call words.

8. Words (and their Ideas) are an extension of Images.

Animals think with images, from the visual to the pheromonal. Whenever we observe our dog or cat dreaming we know that they are re-playing images that they have encountered in their waking moments. Human beings, on the other hand, think with images and Ideas. When a human child (with a limited command of words) plays with blocks, and happens to arrange them in a certain order, we are likely to say something about the child having the idea of placing the blocks in such a manner. We speak this way out of mere convenience. When a toddler stacks two blocks on top of each other, the arrangement does not suggest an Idea that the child had (because he/she does not, in all likelihood, know the word, "stack"). It does suggest, however, that he/she is thinking—with images. In other words, this:



does not—in itself—suggest an Idea. It suggests only an arrangement of images. But this:

"two blocks stacked on top of each other"

does represent an Idea. The connection is obvious. This:

"block"

means nothing without this:



The association of Ideas with images makes it apparent that words have their roots in physical realities, and that images do not suggest Ideas until words are attached to them. Words (in their most primal sense) are but an echo of images (or a response to other physical realities), and an image standing alone, with no words attached to it, is not an Idea, but an image only. An image, in other words, may represent an Idea, but not actually be one.

9. Words are a physical reality.

Sound is a physical phenomenon that occurs in an envelope of air (and a necessary chapter in any basic physics textbook). Words, and their Ideas, thus occur only in the biosphere of our planet. The physical nature of words ties them inextricably to the energy of the physical universe. It may feel to us as if they are far removed from the universe’s seemingly distant cosmological powers, but such a feeling is deceptive. It stems from an illusion that is created by the disparate natures of two forms of energy. The raw energy of the universe, which creates material forms and drives them through space, is ultimately the same energy that causes human beings to speak and develop technology. It may be filtered, and considerably refined, passing as it does through the processes that result in the earth and its biosphere, and then through the dynamic of human culture, but it is universe energy just the same, and the highly distilled form of it that we know as words makes it amenable to virtually endless transformations, from Shakespeare and the Bible, to computers and space shuttles.

10. Understanding the nature of words helps us understand our relationship to the universe.

In the West especially, we learn to think that the world is one thing, while we are something else entirely. As a result of using scientific methods to study the world around us, or through practicing a religious belief, we all too easily succumb to the feeling of being separate from the thing we are studying, or believing in, to the extent that the object of our study, or belief, becomes something out there, away from us, which we call the world, or the universe, or, God. Our ability to use words generates Ideas that cause us to feel that we are detached from the world around us, or the God above us, not in any way a part of its (or His) ongoing dynamic.

And, in a very real sense, it is perfectly natural to feel this way. The Ideas are, after all, going on only inside our heads. There are no Ideas circulating in any other place in the universe (so far as we know) except in the brains of human beings. With the ability to manage the highly refined form of universe energy that words represent, it is understandable that we could develop such feelings of exclusivity.

But however natural these feelings of separateness may be, they are every bit as illusory. Nothing exists but the universe in action. All that is happening is only a part of something it is doing, a small piece of its greater dynamic. We are not separate from the universe; we are a unique action of it. It is, in truth, no exaggeration to say that our thoughts and feelings are its thoughts and feelings.

11. Everything is real.

Because everything may be ultimately reducible to the universe’s energy, everything must be real. Whenever we assert that something is "real" or "unreal," we are only suggesting that it is either nearer to, or farther away from, the primal, raw, or fundamental, energy of the universe. The earth is unquestionably real to us, as well as the sun and moon, or any other celestial objects we may care to name. But Ideas are just as real as all the galaxies in the universe. Both (galaxies and Ideas) are made of the same energy. The energy of Ideas is clearly distinct from the remainder of the universe’s energy to be sure, because it is so highly refined, and, so far as we know, limited to the biosphere of one planet. Such refinement, however, has nothing to do with its reality. As we do so often, we speak out of mere convenience whenever say that something is "not real."

Alice In Wonderland is every bit as real as the great galaxy in Andromeda. The difference between them is evident in their "level of development." The Andromeda Galaxy is raw, undeveloped real estate; Alice in Wonderland represents a fully developed neighborhood, and a historically preserved one at that!

12. Meaning exists only within the context of word usage.

Everything may be real, but it is just as meaningless. Meaningfulness is, after all, only an Idea, a word, a sound, a form of energy generated by the universe’s primal, raw energy, the same energy that is causing comets to hurtle through space, and stars to travel in their courses. Our talk of the universe is only a greatly refined form of the universe’s own energy - turning on itself. It means nothing more for the universe to talk about itself this way than it does for us to look in the mirror at ourselves and make subjective appraisals about what we see. It means nothing for us to see our reflection in the mirror and exclaim that we are beautiful, or ugly, or to assert that we are clever, or stupid. It means nothing, in short, for us to make any qualitative statements about ourselves.

13. Nothing is wasted.

In spite of the fact that meaningfulness is meaningless (aside from its usefulness in the realm of Ideas, in the world of words, or the commerce of language), attempts to realize it, or achieve it, are not in themselves wasted. Because everything is the universe’s energy in action, it is not possible to waste anything. In this sense, waste itself is meaningless. There is only the universe in action, and nothing more. We only feel that we waste things when we are acting within a particular context, one constructed by Ideas.

14. There is something new under the sun.

There is no evidence that Ideas ever happened before the evolution of human beings, nor is there any indication of their extraterrestrial existence. They appear to be something entirely new in the universe.

15. Ideas are not eternal.

There was a time before Ideas, and there will a time after them. Like stars, Ideas are simply an action of the universe. In all probability their lifetime will be much shorter than that of stars. Developed and refined energy is usually much more fleeting and temporal than energy in its more primal and raw form. The lifetime of the sun is approximately 10 billion years, that of the human species probably not even one billion years. Human beings will, in all likelihood, play out in about one million years.

16. Human beings and Ideas appeared at the same time.

The human species appeared in absolute concurrence with Ideas. Pre-human hominids were non-human because of their inability to manage words. A language of words is the defining characteristic of humanness. This means that feral children, because of their lack of word power were not truly human, in spite of their human physical form.

17. Human beings and Ideas will disappear at the same time.

The human species arrived with words, and will depart with them. It is possible that some universe event outside of language will cause the end of Ideas, but it is much more likely that the Ideas will destroy themselves.

There are several ways this could come about. The Ideas could reach a certain limit, a place, or dimension, beyond which they would be unable to proceed, or operate. Or they could result in a technology that is materially unsupportable, but which is increasingly relied upon for sustenance. Because of their superior refinement, which gives them the ability to be multidirectional, they may result in complexities that are virtually incomprehensible, and thus self-destructive. This could very likely come about when the Idea of thinking machines becomes more fully developed. In the same way that human beings have turned over laborious and tedious physical tasks to machinery, they may also, in the near future, delegate to an extremely highly-developed technology the challenge and complexity of thinking.

There are numerous examples (of diverse classes) of people who are even now (and many who have been for some time) engaged in primarily mental activities that are clearly not in themselves an inherent part of their own lives, structured activities, which essentially offer pathways for our mental energies to explore, pathways that have been designed by someone else. These pathways ultimately represent ways of thinking which are not our own. When we get immersed in a game—of any kind—from athletic to video, or lose ourselves in a movie or a book, or become enrapt in a piece of music, we are in essence not thinking our own thoughts, but those of another, namely the person who conceived the game, developed the software, wrote the movie or the book, or composed the music.

18. Language is the property of the culture that practices it.

It is completely natural for human beings to be entertained by, and get completely lost in, the Ideas created by others, and not think their own thoughts. This is so because we really do not have our own thoughts. Because language is a purely social activity (remember, feral children, because they lived outside of any human social group, had no language), and because Ideas are themselves nothing but words, there is really no such thing as our own (individual) thoughts (any more than there is such a thing as our own individual language). All thoughts, or Ideas, are social, and, in truth, belong to the culture that spawns and develops them. The Idea depicted by a romance novel, for example, is not the sole property of the author who wrote it (other than in a purely legalistic sense). Authors, however reclusive they might be, do not come up with book Ideas in a vacuum. No one ever wrote a book (or a computer program or a musical score) in complete isolation, never having any contact with other human beings (either before or during the writing). If a human being is writing, then, previously, they were talking; and if they were talking, they were around other human beings who were also talking.

19. Feral children are proof that isolated human beings do not learn a language of words.

It could probably never be proven, but it is nonetheless a virtual certainty that a human being, possessing a command of language could, and most likely would, lose his/her command of that language if they were somehow completely disassociated from other human beings for a long enough period of time. By complete disassociation is suggested of course a total detachment from any human artifact, from technology to books. Such a separation would eventually result in the complete disuse of the language previously learned, and ultimately in a reversion to feral living. The connection between being human and using words cannot be overemphasized.

20. Vicarious living is on the increase.

All of these behaviors (reading books, watching movies, being a sports fan, listening to music, playing video games and so on) are forms of vicarious living, and represent but different ways of interacting with developed resources. It seems that the more developed the society, the less direct contact there is with the natural (non-developed) environment. It is common in our culture, for example, to speak of "couch potatoes," human beings who allow their very lives to be sucked out of them by the powers inherent in a cathode-ray tube (or LCD display). And the virtual addiction of youth to electronic video games is not only widespread, but more or less accepted. The mindset is already in place, in other words, that would allow the final transformation (from human thinking to machine thinking) to proceed, and do so in a manner that would probably go unnoticed, in the same way that we don’t notice it when we fall asleep (or die).

21. They who live by the word shall die by the word.

Words made human beings, and words will unmake them. A very special, and highly developed, form of words will cause their own undoing. These very special words already have a name: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Soon (perhaps very soon) AI will completely host human thinking. When this takes place, both the human thinking and its host will disappear. It will happen this way because AI is happening within the context of human thinking, in the same way that human thinking itself is taking place within the context of the universe. Human thinking, in other words, is the very universe within which AI is occuring. AI will thus disappear when it completely takes over human thinking, for the same reason that human thinking would disappear if its universe were to somehow vanish.

22. This is the way the world ends, with neither a bang nor a whimper.

It means nothing of course for human thinking to end this way. Meaning is something that takes place only within the context of Ideas, a context which will no longer exist. When human thinking ceases, any Ideas about its former presence in the universe will end with it.