Vladimir
Gruzdev
IMAGE,
WORD, DIGIT – ON A HALFWAY TO INSECT CIVILIZATION.
(Article
for UNESCO 7th International Congress on Philosophy and Culture. August
2004)
For a human being
world is not restricted to physical reality alone, it comprises some
virtual component which one can call a system of “worldviews” or reality
interpretations. This system embraces philosophy, religious doctrines,
scientific and all other ideas, concepts and theories. Such system
of reality interpretations becomes more important to some people than
reality itself: ideas affect motivation and behavior, judge results
of our actions and define our image of self. There’s a statement in
sociology known as theorem of William Thomas: “a situation defined
as real is real in its consequences”. It literally means that our
worldview is actually real in its consequences, no matter to which
extent it corresponds with physical reality.
System of worldoutlooks
and civilization of today are based on words (or semantics). “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were
made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John, 1; 1,
2, 3). Mental processes, experience imprinting and communication between
people is impossible without using language and words. Word is a discrete
unit of consciousness, a unit of meaning. Human perception is mediated
by word: everything that doesn’t have a name is left behind the frames
of conscious perception. As a result we do not perceive the world
directly, but only by means of its verbal description, its conscious
reflection. World comes into existence when it gets a description
as Carlos Castaneda would say.
Breakdown with
reality and necessity of consciousness as mediator in perception of
the world is the payment for acquired ability to think. The fact that
humans lost its ingenuous state has found a mythological reflection
in biblical legend when Adam was banished from Eden for tasting forbidden
fruit from the tree of knowledge. “And the LORD God said, "The
man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must
not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of
life and eat, and live forever." (Genesis, 3; 22)
There is a hypothesis
that sequence of obtaining and processing information in humans by
hearing – speech – thinking based on the word was preceded by pre-human
sequence: seeing – telepathy – meditation, when a discrete unit of
consciousness was visual image insted of a word. It is known from
the theory of information that visual images need considerably greater
volume of operative memory to be processed, than verbal descriptions.
In other words, memory output greatly increases if visual images are
substituted by words. Development follows the most economical path.
Arguably all those
restrictions to create images of humans and animals common for monotheistic
religions as well as negative approach to creativity in various religious
traditions tends to illustrate a tendency of consolidation of role
of the word as semantic unit of consciousness. “You shall not make
for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on
the earth beneath or in the waters below” (Exodus, 20; 4). Thus religion
contributed to formation of a new mechanism of mass-consciousness
management by means of using words.
We must note that
iconoclasm preceded the Separation of Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Worshipping
icons was considered idolatry. Around that time Catholic church introduced
a notion “filioque” (“from the son” in Latin) which means communicating
with Holy Spirit not only through the Lord God, but through God Son
as well, who was interpreted in Gnostic tradition as Logos, i.e. word.
In visual arts the archaic chain of obtaining information from visual
perception still retains. That is why painting requires ingenuous,
emotional perception. Painting stops being self-sufficient, unique
and specific language, stops being true art once it becomes descriptive
and meaningful.
Another existing
chain of information processing, which is even more rational than
the one operating with words, utilizes digit as a discrete unit. This
principle underlies functioning of computers.
The change of
a discrete unit in information processing chain from visual image
to a word and then to a digit implies that:
The last consequence
justifies the possibility of suggestion on conscious level. One can
see the amplification of suggestion effect as individual consciousness
unifies, becoming a mediocre particle of mass consciousness. The nature
of suggestion effect is alike of a virus: informational commanding
code (or RNA of a virus) infiltrates cell, organism or computer system,
in order to change its behavior or mode of functioning.
Rationalization
and formalization of the chain of information processing is also possible
within the same unit of consciousness, word for example. Comprehension
of a poetic line involves larger volume of operative memory (due to
multitude of meanings, associative cohesions and aesthetic effect)
than comprehension of an order or synonymous command that contains
the same number of words. The better the poetic line is – the more
orders you can “replace” it with.
Consciousness
projects its characteristic mode of perception on the world. Determined
consciousness considers the world as linear sequence of causes and
consequences. Living in at least 3-dimensional world we keep thinking
in a single “linear” dimension. Rational scientific interpretation
of the world exists as a projection in a space with fewer dimensions
than physical reality. Thus number of degrees of freedom decreases
as system becomes more determined. And it’s not the reality which
is fully determined, but our thoughts about it. People restrict themselves
by accepting dominant system of world interpretations and using the
trivial ways of obtaining information.
Acceleration and
formalization of thinking are manifested in “informational explosion”.
As time becoming denser and concentration of events increases our
logic starts to give up unable to cope with overwhelming stream of
information, which leads to stress and neurotization. It is not just
an external phenomenon but the effect of selected mode of information
processing.
Pure logical approach
is unable to convey multisemantics and vividness of perception without
losing significant emotional nuances thus limiting the freedom of
choice and losing individual meaning. Husserl noted that consciousness
is the field where meaning is being obtained. Meaning is what we introduce
to the world. Every person brings new meaning.
Unification of
consciousness, development of technocratic approach applied to reality
and attempts to institute the unified consensual reality with the
same set of rules for everyone are resulting in the loss of freedom
and meaning of life. Along with rationalization, as information is
put in the higher order, the system will be getting more and more
mechanistic and artificial as a degree of its “vitality” in biological
sense will decrease.
There are examples
of civilizations based on absolute superiority of social interests
over individual ones common for insect associations. Maurice Maeterlinck
wrote in his book “Life of the insects”: “Termites used to have wings,
they don’t have them anymore. They had their eyes, but eyes were sacrificed.
They had a sex, but it was sacrificed too”. We could say very similar
thing about mankind: we have long lost our wings, we refuse to trust
our own eyes and we are almost ready to deny our sex.
Biological world
is ruled by the strict regulations of survival - instincts and species
competition. Organic life when it starts obtainig social qualities
and characteristics tends to become totalitarian. The leader in animal
pack has absolute power, ants associations have some elements of slavery,
and bees have distinctive features of communist society. There’s no
freedom there at all.
Human society
is also aimed on achieving total subordination of individual interests
to the ones of a group of people to provide maximum manageability.
Certain elements of freedom are present in the social sphere as a
result of a compromise, a concession of society. But the need in such
compromise arises only when a large group of people wants to get more
freedom. This, in its own turn, requires certain level of spiritual
and cultural development.
Freedom proposes
various possibilities for making choices. The more possibilities –
the more freedom you have. Freedom begins with a possibility to interpret
reality. Nietzsche wrote that “reality is open for countless interpretations”.
Human creativity is a form of freedom manifestation. Russian historian
and philosopher G. Fedotov (1886 – 1951) said that “freedom is the
late and subtle flower of culture”.
Art has an exceptional
value in this context. Creative aspect of art is being more important
than cultural aspect, which tends to establish a system of values
and define stereotypes of perception. Creative aspect implies overcoming
old and conservative while making something new, at least when it
comes to new interpretation of reality. Creativity is not just making
new things, but it is also a perception process that expands your
abilities and helps to form one’s opinions and tastes. This is the
path that protects one from any form of suggestion from the outside
world.
Artist’s predestination
is overcoming canons and stereotypes of perception. This does not
promote sustaining of social stability, based on suggestibility and
manageability of ordinary society members. But it is the only way
to manifest new qualities and capabilities of perception by overcoming
old stereotypes, which leads to change in the whole hierarchy of values.
Artists are helping to accumulate mutational material needed for mankind
evolution.
Probably in
the future the greatest achievements of humankind will be the ones
of imagination and creativity instead of logic and pure reason.