HONS 2406 PAUL GAUGUIN S WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHERE ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING?

HONS 2406 PAUL GAUGUIN S WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHERE ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING?

1) What prevents us from accepting wilderness preservation arguments? 2) What are some other wilderness preservation arguments? 3) What can we do concretely to preserve the wilderness?!2

Q1: What might prevent us from accepting common wilderness preservation arguments? Psycho-biological issue: Delusional species

What might prevent us from accepting wilderness preservation arguments? Psycho-biological issue: We are a delusional species. Delusions are built into our minds as a survival mechanism.

Delusions in Art 1: The artist Salvador Dalí

Art is intrinsically a delusion Drawing is deception; it suggests three dimensions when there are but two! And no matter how hard I try to convince you about this deception, you persist in seeing three-dimensional objects. (M.C. Escher)

The intrinsic delusion of literature The act of writing literature is a type of brain scan and an emotional barometer reading of the writer. The act of reading becomes also a type of brain scan for the reader: he/she views the images transmitted; tastes, smells, and feels emotions transmitted through words in her/his inter-cranial darkness.

Literature: Fables of Jean de la Fontaine

Placebo effect

Myths The Creation f Adam by Michelangelo

Delusions associated with nature: How does nature delude us? How do we delude nature?

Delusions are wired in us (genetically) to serve us, psychologically & in turn biologically After all, natural selection, like the robot overlords engineered the delusions that control us; it built them into our brains. If you re willing to personify natural selection, you can carry the comparison with robot overlords a bit further: natural selection perpetrated the delusion in order to get us to adhere slavishly to its agenda. (Robert Wright) (See Matrix movie for further elaboration.) Delusions of specialness of individuals and tribes in order to guarantee survival at all costs.

Specialness of humanity

Homo Narcissus Homo Sapiens?

Heliocentrism vs. Geocentrism Where is the next Galileo to debunk Anthropocentrism?

To abolish our sense of specialness, we may need to self-refute and follow the example of nature. Descartes: I think, therefore I am. Pascal: Humans are a thinking reed. J.M.G. Le Clézio: Around the plant the world is circular, fixed, invisible; things exist without phenomena, or with phenomena so tiny that they re not worth mentioning. It is the scrap of the common life, the little stick planted all alone in its earth, without bonds or chains. It is truth isolated, serene, the majesty of being oneself, naked, and alone, of being a crumb of reality and not even knowing that one is that crumb.

So, what is the logical (if not paradoxical) conclusion we can draw about our future? We may need to reject the core evolutionary value of specialness of the individual or of an individual species to preserve the rest of the planet and our species.

Q2: What might be some other (related) Wilderness Preservation Arguments? Wrong Question: Wilderness vs. Nature? Preservation vs. Conservation? Reframing the question: What might be some other Nature Conservation Arguments?

Proposal1: We should conserve nature, because that is what we are wired to do genetically In other words, we conserve nature because that is what nature is designed to do. On condition that we view the planet as completely part of our tribe.

Proposal 2: It is not so much a question of interconnectedness, but interdependence. Concentric circle of life of the planet?

Proposal 3: Homo Sapiens a key stone species like the prairie dogs.

Conclusions and Contradictions Three cases: intrinsic rule of nature is conservation; interconnectedness; key stone species Paradoxically: We are invited to conserve nature because we are a keystone species. However, this may make us feel special, which contradicts the reading of Homo Narcissus how can we make sense of this contradiction?

Q3: What can we do concretely to conserve nature? FIRST OFF, OTHER BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSTACLES People don t want to feel invalidated in their lives and they don t want to feel that they bear the responsibility of the world on their shoulders (Morton 10). People don t want to be told what to do, unless there is widespread consensus and support among a group (tribe).

Where is the child who saw the emperor without his clothes? Supreme Court refuses to block young people s climate lawsuit against U.S. government.

Gift giving this season Giving Tuesday help to raise funds for charitable causes. Fresh Air fund

Possible Final Exam Question (You ll be asked to write on two questions): NO open-notes Come up with another nature conservation (as opposed to wilderness preservation ) argument. Build your case first by presenting four wilderness preservation arguments highlighted by Nelson. How might we explain a widespread, if not illogical, resistance to conserve nature? And, what would you suggest to make nature conservation second nature in human populations?