Krasilov, 1997. Metaecology-01. Introduction. Definitions. Problems. The Ash of the Titan

V.A. Krasilov. Metaecology. Moscow: Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1997. 208 p. Part 1.

Introduction. Definitions. Problems. Titan's Dust.

Chapter 1. PREMONITIONS. Solenoids. Foundation.

From the online publisher. The text of this book is already available in several places online. I consider it one of the most brilliant attempts to understand the essence of man created at the end of the 20th century. To facilitate students' acquaintance with this wonderful text, I am posting it here. – D.Sh.

V.A. Krasilov

Metaecology.

Regularities of the evolution of natural and spiritual systems

Introduction. Arising at a late stage of evolutionary history, humans retain information about many millions of previous species in their genetic memory. In another form, this information is contained in the paleontological record. The study of organisms that have long disappeared from the face of the earth is essentially a resurrection from the dead, a return from non-existence to new existence in the spiritual world. This is the functional purpose of the metaecological system.

From the online publisher. The text of this book is already available in several places on the Internet. I consider it one of the most brilliant attempts to understand the essence of the human being made at the end of the twentieth century. To facilitate students' acquaintance with this remarkable text, I am posting it here. - D.Sh. V.A. Krasilov Metaecology. Regularities of Evolution of Natural and Spiritual Systems Introduction Having emerged at a late stage of evolutionary history, the human being carries in genetic memory the information of many millions of preceding species. In another form, this information is contained in the paleontological record. The study of organisms that long ago disappeared from the face of the earth is, in essence, a resurrection from the dead, a return from non-existence to a new existence in the spiritual world. This is precisely the functional purpose of the metaecological system. In my books "Evolution and Biostratigraphy" (1974), "The Cretaceous Period. Evolution of the Earth's Crust and Biosphere" (1985), "Unsolved Problems of Evolutionary Theory" (1986), and others, a more general model of biological evolution is presented, based primarily on paleontological data. In the book "Nature Conservation. Principles, Problems, Priorities" (1992) I used this model as the theoretical foundation for the relationship between human beings and nature. Proceeding from the similarity of all systems, I attempt in this new book to apply it to the analysis of spiritual life. Among those who in one way or another contributed to the creation of this book, I owe to my mother my interest in everything that lies beyond the reach of analytical thought. My teacher of philosophy was my father (despite his deep aversion to that direction of philosophical thinking which in his day was considered the only correct one). I do not know whether he gained anything from his association with me. But I owe much of my interest in philology and linguistics to my daughter. My wife, a constant participant in and critic of my reflections, helped to give them a more definite form. I am grateful to our Moscow friends, Natalya and Vitaly Maslov, for their participation and support, to L.D. Volkova for assistance in preparing the manuscript, to artist I.S. Sergeenkova for preparing the illustrations, and to I.V. Kirillova for participation in the book's publication. I consider it a pleasant duty to express my gratitude to the Academic Council and directorship of the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences for their decision to publish this not entirely conventional work. Definitions The following definitions reflect the author's position with respect to the fundamental concepts of ecology and metaecology. Commentaries on them are contained in the subsequent chapters. Adaptation: a change (in reactions, developmental programs, or behavior) that confers an advantage in specific conditions. Spiritual principle: a system of self-knowledge and comprehension of the meaning of life. Life: the preservation of a system through its reproduction on the basis of hereditary information and adaptation (this definition extends to spiritual life as well). Culture: the diversity of physical and metaphysical models constituting the fund of material and spiritual development; the product of the functioning of the metaecological system. Personality: the structure of individual spiritual life; the product of the functioning of the ego-system. Metaphysics: the symbolic embodiment of the phenomena of spiritual life. Metaecological system: the interaction of personality and its spiritual environment. Metaecology: the study of metaecological systems. Model: an essential (pertaining to causes, mechanisms, and purposes) representation of a system in one or another symbolic (rhetorical, mathematical, graphic, physical, or constructive) form. Science: the construction and development of logical models of physical and metaphysical systems. Progress: advancement toward a defined goal; in an ecosystem, the increasing role of living components at the expense of inert and bioinert ones. Diversity: an indicator of the complexity of a system, the qualitative differentiation of its components (ecological niches in an ecosystem). System: a structured set; a dynamic system comprises all the constituents of a process (a chemical reaction, the reproduction of organisms, the formation of a personality, social development, etc.) that are necessary for its development. Existence: interaction between the elements of a system (the definition emphasizes the fact that, generally speaking, is self-evident but not always taken into account: there is no existence outside a system. That which exists, both in the physical and in the metaphysical sense, exerts influence and is itself subject to influence. Otherwise it does not exist. Past existence is real, by virtue of the traces of interaction left in the memory of the system — this may be a fossil, a genetic contribution to a population, a technological or spiritual contribution to culture, or at the very least a record in a civil register. Future — new — existence is predictable as the offspring of systemic interactions). Evolution: the historical sequence of changes in a system, determined by its developmental program and adaptation to changing conditions of existence. Ego-system: the system of formation and development of individual spiritual life. Ecological niche: the structural or functional role of a component within an ecosystem. Ecological system (ecosystem): a life-support system; the totality of objects involved in the process of reproducing the living (within the entire sphere of life — the biosphere or its structural subdivisions), sustaining the biological cycle of matter. Considered from the perspective of a single organism, species, or community of organisms, all remaining components of the ecosystem constitute the habitat. Ethics: the aggregate of norms regulating the interaction of components in ecological and metaecological systems. Problems Contemporary problems — ecological, political, social, and everyday — are ultimately various aspects of the conflictual nature of human existence, which is rooted in competition among individuals, economic formations, states, ethnic groups, religions, technologies, and between human beings and nature, a competition that constantly or periodically assumes the form of mutual annihilation of the competing parties. This form, however, is considered "uncivilized." One might think that civilization softens competition. At the same time, competition is acknowledged — now practically unanimously — as the engine of progress and, consequently, the mechanism of civilizational development. This is but one of the superficial aspects of the contradictoriness of contemporary culture. The material sphere of Western civilization rests on competition — the mechanism of forming and maintaining "vertical" relations of "higher and lower." The spiritual sphere of the same civilization rests on the opposite — "horizontal" — relations of love for one's neighbor, of the interchangeability of the first and the last, as proclaimed by Christian ethics. These spheres are thus incompatible. Between them exists a competition that at times assumes very harsh forms. Following the persecutions of Christians, the destruction by Christians of Hellenistic culture, the triumph of the Inquisition as an extremist form of spiritual coercion — whose victims included Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, and hundreds of less prominent representatives of rationalism — and after the attempts to establish the reign of reason by means of the guillotine and to subordinate spiritual life to eugenic theories by means of gas chambers or labor re-education, the Western world arrived at the civilized division of the rational — the sphere of practical life — and the irrational — the sphere of spiritual life. In this process, science, once an instrument of spiritual development, came to be placed entirely in the service of material needs. Ideas about the purpose and meaning of existence, and the highest moral values, are drawn from other sources. As a result, they are situated outside the sphere of reason, whose capacities are limited to the pragmatic dimension of human existence, leaving spiritual life entirely under the dominion of the irrational. In this book I have attempted to show that such a state of affairs cannot be considered normal. Ethical detachment has led to the tendency of the scientist to regard the results of his activity as facts of science, useful for its development independently of social and spiritual consequences. However, a scientific discovery does not remain the exclusive property of the professional sphere but in one way or another transcends its boundaries, becoming a fact of spiritual life and promoting either its development or its destruction. After all, scientific discoveries are stimulated by our desires, which may be either constructive or destructive. In our experience, destructive discoveries are more effective: we have not yet learned to cure many illnesses, but the annihilation of an entire people, or even of all humanity, no longer poses a great technical problem. The task of restoring the unity of culture requires a revision of the relations between science and society, a revision of the principles of scientific research, and, first and foremost, a fundamental reworking of evolutionary theory, which has been maintained, to some degree artificially, within the conceptual framework of the mid-nineteenth century. The Ash of the Titan Already Socrates considered lack of understanding to be the source of evil, and the justice of this view is confirmed by the entire history of the twentieth century, which proceeded under the banner of changing the nature of the human being — for his own good, of course — and was marked by unprecedented crimes against humanity. People were re-educated in the spirit of equality and class solidarity, liberated from congenital defects, purified of inferior individuals and races, and subjected to constant brainwashing. As long as we proceed blindly, these purifying impulses may very well flare up with renewed force. One need not be surprised at the tenacity of evil: it is constantly nourished by attempts to do good. According to the Orphic legend, human beings were fashioned by the gods from the ash of the defeated Titans, mixed with earth. And so they are dual in nature. What belongs to the earth lives by its own life; what belongs to the Titans, by its own. In his material life, the human being follows the physiological needs of the organism from conception to death, which is itself a physiological need. The material life of the human being, like that of an animal, is a struggle for existence and the continuation of the species, in which he employs various technical means. However sophisticated these latter may be, they do not define the essence of the human being, his qualitative difference from animals. In another life, the spiritual one, the human being satisfies needs that, beyond himself, seemingly no other earthly creature possesses. The primary among them is justification — the determination of the meaning of what occurs in material life, that is, of survival and the continuation of the species. The dual existence of the human being has long been and remains an enigma. Why search for meaning when one can simply live and take joy in life? If the spirit is engendered by the flesh, then perhaps it is yet another instrument in the struggle for existence — self-analysis for the purpose of correcting behavior, growing into a global reflexivity? In that case, the spirit ought to sustain and enrich material existence, enhancing its value. Subjects with a rich spiritual life ought to be the victors. In reality, we more often observe the contrary. The outcome of spiritual life is the recognition of the purposelessness and meaninglessness of material existence. Spiritual life enters into conflict with material life and strives to abolish the latter. One might suppose that spiritual life is an invention of those subjects who require a refuge from everyday existence. And that the materialists concern themselves only with the observance of rituals, as a precaution (in case some accounting is after all being kept up there). In their hands, the spiritual world is transformed according to the familiar schema of "dominance and subordination," acquiring a caste structure, becoming ever more a copy of the material world, or even a caricature of it. It is difficult to suppose that this kind of spirituality can elevate the human being. The relations between the ash and the spirit develop along several schemas. 1. Coercion. Spiritual life negates material life as base and meaningless, as enslaving the spirit. Material life negates spiritual life as artificial, as suppressing natural instincts. Both sides resort to compulsion, which over time becomes a barely worthy goal of life. In its pure form, the schema of coercion is not viable. It is realized in periods of crisis (Moses, Savonarola, Nikon) and quickly degenerates toward compromise. But its elements are preserved in other schemas. 2. Compromise. The duality is accepted as something inevitable. Equilibrium is achieved through the separation of the spiritual and material spheres: to each its own, as in the parable of Caesar's coin. In the Western world, this schema was established after the Renaissance and continues to occupy a leading role to this day, but is subject to periodic collapses — recently increasingly prolonged ones — prompting the thought that compromise is not the final solution to the problem. 3. Union. The final fusion of the material and spiritual principles into a harmonious whole has been declared the supreme task by the most influential teachers of humanity, from the Buddha and Lao-tzu to Plato and Christ. Yet even now we are no closer to its resolution than we were two thousand years ago. More than that, the gap between the natural and the spiritual has deepened and has taken on the character of a permanent schizophrenia, long perceived as the normal state. Even Freud's disciple Erich Fromm ("Psychoanalysis and Religion," 1950) advises treating "the other part of ourselves" — the subconscious, physiological part — "with a deep sense of humor." Perhaps it is precisely this kind of misplaced humor that prevents us from making use of the experience of millions of years of evolution, without which the present appears meaningless. The absolutization of the physiological principle gave rise to sexism, eugenics, and racism; that of the social principle, to Machiavellianism and the utopia of enforced equality. Their combination proved explosive. Attempts at spiritual renewal were reduced to the repetition of the thoroughly forgotten old — the "elder" Sophists in existentialism, the Gnostics in theosophy, the Stoics in Tolstoyism. On this path, little that is new is likely to emerge, because there is no system within which it could emerge. The conception of the spiritual world as a system arose in the writings of the Platonists, Gnostics, and Scholastics far earlier than the analogous conception of the material world. Just as metaphysics (that which in Aristotle follows after physics) historically preceded physics, so too metaecology — the study of the systemic interactions between the human soul and its environment — appeared long before ecology, which studies the analogous connections between organism and environment. However, in the contemporary world, far more attention is paid to ecology than to metaecology, which has in essence been left outside the domain of scientific investigation. Are scientific approaches applicable here? Are verifiable hypotheses possible? Evidently they are, since any logical construction is verifiable and can be refuted by more convincing logic. The reader, whoever he may be, may begin to refute the author from the very first pages: there are no professional barriers in this book. The profession of paleontologist has, however, helped the author to perceive in the human being the logical culmination of a very lengthy journey. When a disciple asked Confucius about death, he answered: "You do not know life — how can you understand death?" The disciples said to Jesus: "Tell us, what will our end be?" Jesus said: "Have you discovered the beginning, so that you now seek the end?"

Among those who, in one way or another, contributed to the creation of this book, I owe my mother my interest in everything that goes beyond the reach of analytical thought. My father was my philosophy teacher (despite his dislike for the direction of philosophical thought that was considered the only correct one in his day). I don't know if he gained anything from communicating with me. However, I owe much of my interest in philology and linguistics to my daughter. My wife is a constant participant and critic of my thoughts, helping to give them a more defined form. I am grateful to our Moscow friends, Natalia and Vitaly Maslov, for their participation and support, to L.D. Volkova for her help in preparing the manuscript, to artist I.S. Sergeenkova for preparing the illustrations, and to I.V. Kirillova for her participation in the release of the book. I consider it a pleasant duty to express my gratitude to the Scientific Council and the Directorate of the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences for the decision to publish this not entirely traditional product.

Definitions. The definitions below reflect the author's position on the basic concepts of ecology and metaecology. Comments on them are contained in the following chapters.

Adaptation: a change (reaction, developmental program, behavior) that provides an advantage in specific conditions.

Spiritual principle: a system of self-knowledge and knowledge of the meaning of life.

Life: the preservation of a system through its reproduction based on hereditary information and adaptation (this definition also applies to spiritual life).

Culture: the diversity of physical and metaphysical models that form the foundation of material and spiritual development; a product of the functioning of a metaecological system.

Personality: the structure of individual spiritual life; a product of the functioning of the ego system.

Metaphysics: the symbolic embodiment of the phenomena of spiritual life.

Metaecology: the interaction of the individual and their spiritual environment.

Metaecology: the study of metaecological systems.

Model: an essential (concerning causes, mechanisms, goals) representation of a system in some sign (rhetorical, mathematical, graphical, natural, constructive) form.

Science: the construction and development of logical models of physical and metaphysical systems.

Progress: movement towards a set goal; in an ecosystem, an increase in the role of living components at the expense of abiotic and biocosmic ones.

Diversity: an indicator of system complexity, the heterogeneity of its components (ecological niches in an ecosystem).

System: a structured set; a dynamic system includes all components of a process (chemical reaction, organism reproduction, personality formation, social development, etc.) necessary for its development.

Existence: interaction between system elements (the definition emphasizes the, generally speaking, self-evident but not always considered, circumstance that there is no existence outside the system. What exists, both in the physical and metaphysical sense, influences and is influenced. Otherwise, it does not exist. Past existence is real, due to the traces of interaction left in the system's memory – this could be a fossil, a genetic contribution to a population, a technological or spiritual contribution to culture, or at least a civil status record. The future – the new – existence is predictable as an emptiness of systemic interactions).

Evolution: the historical sequence of system changes, determined by its development program and adaptation to changing environmental conditions.

Ego-system: a system for the formation and development of individual spiritual life.

Ecological niche: the structural or functional role of an ecosystem component.

Ecological system (ecosystem): a life support system, a set of objects involved in the process of reproducing life (within the entire sphere of life – the biosphere or its structural subdivisions), which maintain biological circulation of substances. Considered from the perspective of one organism, species, or community of organisms, all other components of the ecosystem constitute the environment.

Ethics: the set of norms that regulate the interaction of components of ecological and metaecological systems.

Problems: Modern problems – ecological, political, social, domestic – ultimately represent various aspects of the conflict of human existence, based on competition between individuals, economic entities, states, ethnic groups, religions, technologies, humans and nature, constantly or periodically taking the form of mutual destruction of competing sides.

This form, however, is considered "uncivilized." One might think that civilization softens competition. At the same time, competition is recognized – now practically unanimously – as the engine of progress and, accordingly, the mechanism of civilization's development. This is just one of the superficial aspects of the contradiction in modern culture.

The material sphere of Western civilization is built on competition – a mechanism for forming and maintaining "vertical" relationships of "higher – lower." The spiritual sphere of the same civilization is built on opposite – "horizontal" – relationships of love for one's neighbor, the interchangeability of the first and the last, proclaimed by Christian ethics. These spheres are thus incompatible. Competition exists between them, sometimes taking very harsh forms.

After the persecution of Christians, the destruction of Hellenistic culture by Christians, the triumph of the Inquisition as an extremist form of spiritual violence, whose victims included Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, and hundreds of less prominent representatives of rationalism, after attempts to establish the kingdom of reason with the guillotine and to subordinate spiritual life to eugenic theories with gas chambers or labor re-education, the Western world has come to a civilized separation of the rational – the sphere of practical life – and the irrational – the sphere of spiritual life.

At the same time, science, once an instrument of spiritual development, has become entirely subordinate to material needs. Ideas about the purpose and meaning of existence, higher moral values are drawn from other sources. They consequently end up outside the realm of reason, whose possibilities are limited to the pragmatic side of human existence, leaving spiritual life entirely to the power of the irrational.

In this book, I have tried to show that this state of affairs cannot be considered normal. Ethical detachment has led to the scientist tending to view the results of their work as scientific facts, useful for its development irrespective of social and spiritual consequences. However, a scientific discovery does not remain the property of the professional sphere but, in one way or another, goes beyond its limits, becoming a fact of spiritual life and contributing to its development or destruction. After all, scientific discoveries are stimulated by our desires, which can be both constructive and destructive. Based on experience, destructive discoveries are more effective: we have not yet learned to cure many diseases, but the destruction of an entire people or even all of humanity is no longer a major technical problem.

The task of restoring cultural unity requires a review of the relationship between science and society, a revision of the principles of scientific research, and, above all, a fundamental reworking of the theory of evolution, which, to some extent artificially, is kept within the framework of ideas from the mid-last century.

Titan's Ash: Socrates himself considered misunderstanding the source of evil, and the justice of this is confirmed by the entire history of the 20th century, which passed under the slogan of changing human nature – for its own good, of course – and was marked by unprecedented crimes against humanity. People were re-educated in the spirit of equality and class solidarity, freed from innate defects, cleansed of inferior individuals and races, and had their brains constantly washed. As long as we move blindly, these purges can easily flare up with renewed vigor. One should not be surprised by the persistence of evil: it is constantly fueled by attempts to do good.

According to Orphic legend, humans are made by the gods from the ashes of defeated Titans mixed with earth. Therefore, they are dual. That which is from the earth lives its own life, that which is from the Titans – its own. In material life, a person follows the physiological needs of the body from conception to death, which is also a physiological need. Human material life, like that of animals, is a struggle for existence and procreation, in which they use various technical means. Whatever these may be, they do not define human essence, its qualitative difference from animals. In another life, the spiritual one, a person satisfies needs that, apart from them, seemingly no other earthly creature has. The main one is justification, defining the meaning of what happens in material life, i.e., survival and procreation.

The dual existence of humans has been a mystery since ancient times and remains so. Why seek meaning when one can simply live and enjoy life? If the spirit is born of the flesh, then perhaps it is another means in the struggle for existence – self-analysis for the purpose of behavioral correction, which evolves into global reflection? In that case, the spirit should support and enrich material existence, increase its value. Individuals with rich spiritual lives should be the victors.

In reality, we more often observe the opposite picture. The outcome of spiritual life is the recognition of the meaninglessness and futility of material existence. Spiritual life enters into conflict with the material and seeks to eliminate the latter.

One might think that spiritual life is an invention of individuals who need refuge from the mundane. And materialists only care about observing rituals to cover themselves (if there is some accounting going on up there). In their hands, the spiritual world transforms according to the usual scheme of "mastery – subordination," acquires a caste structure, and increasingly becomes a copy of the material, or even a caricature of it. It is hard to imagine that such spirituality can elevate a person.

The relationship between ash and spirit develops according to several schemes.

1. Violence. Spiritual life negates the material as low and meaningless, enslaving the spirit. The material negates the spiritual as artificial, suppressing natural instincts. Both sides resort to coercion, which over time turns into a barely human goal of life. In its pure form, the violence scheme is unviable. It is realized during crisis periods (Moses, Savonarola, Nikon) and quickly degrades towards compromise. But its elements are preserved in other schemes.

2. Compromise. Duality is accepted as inevitable. Equilibrium is achieved by dividing the spiritual and material spheres: to each their own, as in the parable of Caesar's denarius. In the Western world, this scheme was established after the Renaissance and retains a leading role to this day, but it undergoes periodic collapses, lately increasingly prolonged, suggesting that compromise is not the final solution to the problem.

3. Synthesis. The final merging of material and spiritual principles into a harmonious whole is declared the ultimate goal by the most influential teachers of humanity, from Buddha and Lao Tzu to Plato and Christ. But even now, we are no closer to its solution than two thousand years ago.

The absolutization of the physiological principle gave rise to sexism, eugenics, and racism; the social principle gave rise to Machiavellianism and the utopia of forced equality. Their combination proved explosive. Attempts at spiritual revival were reduced to repeating the fundamentally forgotten old – the "elder" Sophists in existentialism, Gnostics in theosophy, Stoics in Tolstoyism. It is unlikely that anything new will emerge on this path, because there is no system in which it could arise.

The idea of the spiritual world as a system arose in the works of Platonists, Gnostics, and Scholastics much earlier than a similar idea of the material world. Just as metaphysics (what comes after physics in Aristotle) historically preceded physics, so metaecology, the study of systemic interactions between the human soul and its environment, appeared long before ecology, which studies similar connections between an organism and its environment. However, in the modern world, ecology receives much more attention than metaecology, which has essentially been relegated outside the scope of scientific research.

Are scientific approaches appropriate here, are testable hypotheses possible? Obviously, they are possible, since any logical construction is testable and can be refuted by more convincing logic.

The reader, whoever they may be, can refute the author from the very first pages: there are no professional barriers in this book. The profession of a paleontologist, however, helped the author see in humans the logical conclusion of an extremely long evolutionary journey. Confucius, when asked by a disciple about death, replied: "You do not know life, how can you understand death?"

The disciples said to Jesus: "Tell us, what will be our end?" Jesus said: "You have discovered the beginning, why do you seek the end?"

V.A. Krasilov. Metaecology. Moscow: Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1997. 208 pp. Part 2.

Introduction. Definitions. Problems. Titan's Dust

Chapter 1. PREMONITIONS. Solenoids. Foundation.