Nature's
blessing and curse is the idea
We
so often use the term nature to describe the working of the
environment, climate, animal behaviour etc, but we have lost
site of the very thing that binds us to all these things and
that is, the idea. The idea makes us an integral part of nature.
The idea is a universal function that we share with most if
not all of the animal kingdom. There are even arguments pointing
to the possibility that plants have an ideational attribute
to their functioning.
If
we look at the honeybee and how the colony builds its hive,
we have to conclude that the information required to build the
hive is already present in the bees. Darwin suggests that the
technique evolved from small and successive modifications of
simpler instincts and resulted in the final plan of the hive
and the technique to realise such a plan. This does however not explain where the
original instinct and idea came from in the first place. Putting aside
the actual physical quality of the instinct, and concentrating on the idea behind the
instinct we can see that the idea is either communicated between
successive generations of bees or it is something innate in
each bee and given new impetus in each bee.
The
behaviour of the male lion is particularly interesting when
looking at ideas. A single male lion will challenge the male
leader of an existing pride for the purpose of removing the
leader and taking over his role and the female lions in the
pride. If this challenge succeeds the new leader will kill the
lion cubs from the previous male. To us this sounds abhorrent
and against our common sense. In fact it is the simple idea
of removing the remnants of the previous male from the pride
for a fresh and new start. It also induces the females in the
pride to become fertile.
We
can see in nature that some ideas are to us positive, and others, negative. It is no
different in human nature. The idea has from the dawn of mankind
been the way we conduct ourselves in nature and with each other.
It is however, human consciousness that enables us to give ethical
accounts of the ideas that present themselves to us. We know
that to build a structure, a life or a nation is positive for
the people doing the building. It is growth and moving forward,
it feels good and we flourish when doing so. On the other hand
if we have to displace our neighbour to achieve this idea, it
becomes negative from our neighbour's point of view. This exemplifies
the relativity of the ethics of an idea and that the idea rarely
ever consists of purely positive outcomes.
It
is clear from the above that the idea operates outside of ethical
constraints. It is the human consciousness of outcomes that
attaches an ethical value to it. The idea has however, a purpose
in nature that has worked since the dawn of time and its goal
is always in the future. It is the struggle for survival and
the ingenuity of the idea that enables this survival. It is
a popular belief to think that human nature can stand outside
of this system because we have a level of consciousness and
ethical guidelines. This is a naIve belief as the continual
struggle between individuals and nations shows.