Artificial World
Human beings consider themselves somewhat superior to other organisms in a sense that they have created things that the others are still attempting to even conceptualise. Things like all these money, politics, philosophy, science and even economics etc are probably very much considered of a higher order compared to what the organisms around us are more familiar with. But if you think about it closely, all these things that we have created affect us only in a sense that they have been created to govern our lives and their influence do not extend beyond the realms of humanity. It does not influence the world beyond what we have accepted as the parameters of humanity. If you remove human beings from Earth, all these things subsequently disappear. Conversely, if you remove these things from Earth, only humankind will be affected. There might be the argument that the environment is affected in the process and I agree that there is much sense in that. It can be considered a form of externality. But if you look at it closely, you realise such things deemed the "environment" and suchlike are but the tools that facilitate the effect of human beings on the rest of humanity over the long term. You burn a forest, you breathe the foul air, you die. It does not alter the nature or history of treekind in as similar a way as humanity has affected humankind through its artificial manipulations of the environment. But that was a digression.
The fact is that all these things that human being created are like a code that only can be read by one model of computers- take that particular model away and the code is as good as gibberish even if the other computers are around. Only human beings would create this thing called an economy that is but the combined conceptualisation of all the world put together. It was entirely man-made but remains so central to the way we have been influenced to behave. In the desire to create systems and restore order to our lives, we have created non-existent braces that only make sense as a form of systematic guideline for us to create artificial sense of our lives. Ultimately, only humankind can make head or tail of this thing that they have created themselves. Ironically, we decide to make rules to decide how we should behave.
Take that all away and the world would not be affected one bit. We have merely been creating things to affect ourselves. Mere playthings to entertain in our heads to convince ourselves that there is a meaningful existence in doing things like generating intangible revenue. Funny thing is- it really does affect our lives at the end of the day!
Come to think of it, even language is but artificial and only pertinent to the human race.
[Note: All my more recent entries have been given a "ning" tag, which allows you to read all my entries (i.e. excluding xun's entries) by clicking on the "ning" tag found at the bottom of each of my recent entries. Xun might want to do something similar to help people who only want to read his entries without having to be blogged at by me, although I doubt he would be willing to go through all that trouble, being much less flamboyant than I am.]
The fact is that all these things that human being created are like a code that only can be read by one model of computers- take that particular model away and the code is as good as gibberish even if the other computers are around. Only human beings would create this thing called an economy that is but the combined conceptualisation of all the world put together. It was entirely man-made but remains so central to the way we have been influenced to behave. In the desire to create systems and restore order to our lives, we have created non-existent braces that only make sense as a form of systematic guideline for us to create artificial sense of our lives. Ultimately, only humankind can make head or tail of this thing that they have created themselves. Ironically, we decide to make rules to decide how we should behave.
Take that all away and the world would not be affected one bit. We have merely been creating things to affect ourselves. Mere playthings to entertain in our heads to convince ourselves that there is a meaningful existence in doing things like generating intangible revenue. Funny thing is- it really does affect our lives at the end of the day!
Come to think of it, even language is but artificial and only pertinent to the human race.
[Note: All my more recent entries have been given a "ning" tag, which allows you to read all my entries (i.e. excluding xun's entries) by clicking on the "ning" tag found at the bottom of each of my recent entries. Xun might want to do something similar to help people who only want to read his entries without having to be blogged at by me, although I doubt he would be willing to go through all that trouble, being much less flamboyant than I am.]