When Zarathustra arrived at the edge of the forest, he came upon a town. Many people had gathered there in the marketplace to see a tightrope walker who had promised a performance. The crowd, believing that Zarathustra was the ringmaster come to introduce the tightrope walker, gathered around to listen. And Zarathustra spoke to the people:I teach you the Overman! Mankind is something to be overcome. What have you done to overcome mankind?
All beings so far have created something beyond themselves. Do you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and revert back to the beast rather than overcome mankind? What is the ape to a man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just so shall a man be to the Overman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame. You have evolved from worm to man, but much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes. Even the wisest among you is only a confusion and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I ask you to become phantoms or plants? Behold, I teach you the Overman!
The Overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beg of you my brothers, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!
It was probably around the 9th century B.C. somewhere in Middle Persia when Zarathustra after 10 years spent in solitude in the mountains came down and spoke those words. Probably even you now reading that had a smile on your face, thinking what is that? Imagine the reaction of the primitive people that lived back then. They came to see entertainment (tightrope walker), what they did not expect was a madman.
But the question is who is really mad?
Zarathustra is called a prophet because he had a message and that message carries on until this day. Although it has been hundreds of years since he spoke them I today find them more true than anything else and it will probably dawn on more people when we go further into the future.
The main thing I want to pass on here is evolution and your relation to it. The simplest way of putting it is, if you don’t evolve you die, you go extinct. In practice this means that if you don’t evolve you won’t be happy (in other words Nature won’t reward you). I am strongly against any kind of mediocricity and low-level thinking. If you don’t want to grow and be something better yourself or create something better for the world in this life time, actually create some sort of VALUE, then you might as well die already. If you think about comfort seeking and finding easy solutions for your life then you’re not only not going forward but you’re going back. Because nothing in nature is stale, everything is in motion. There is either movement forward, or backward. Either you evolve, or you leave space for something bigger and better. In every man there is a desire for permanence and fullfilment. This is the root of human misery because permanence exists only in the mind. In reality everything is flowing and ever-changing and it is your decision to go with that or not. Nature has already made a decision, it is a chemical process that started millions of years ago and I don’t think it will stop soon.
So what do we have to do if evolution is just a chemical process? The thing is evolution as we know it has stopped working in human beings. Our genes are the same as those 30 000 years ago. In the last 100 000 years our brains have actually decreased their size. With advancments in medical science there is no longer a possibility for natural selection. That is why evolution now will take place in our minds, in the consciousness of our species. And it is up to each and every individual to take part in this. There are people in history that made a step forward and showed us that it is possible, we must take what they know and apply it for ourselves.
So if you’re ready to hop into the bandwagon called Progress, join me there. Because I’ll have a lot to tell you, it won’t be easy but it will be fascinating as hell because we’ll be riding into the very core of your being. I’ll show you things you never imagined existed, yet at the same time you always knew there was something there. We’ll need to understand a lot and the funny thing is this journey will never end. Nevertheless if you’re ready to accept that fact read on. I can only promise you that Nature will reward you for your effort with pleasure, that is how this system is built… but that is a story for another day.
Before jumping into the bandwagon called Progress we need to build it bigger to have more people in it.
Hope the *** spam filter will die
“In the last 100 000 years our brains have actually decreased their size. With advancments in medical science there is no longer a possibility for natural selection.” – This reminds me of the song “Evolution” from Korn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VntFEWF8I8A).
MM, I have not yet commented here, but I have to say that I am very happy to see other people with the same thoughts as myself. More such people are needed in this time…
Keep it up, you have a message.
Science has lots of answers. More answers which make sense than religion. However, Science cannot answer the questions which i think about pretty much everyday.
Evolution is constant.
But if evolution exists, what sparked us off in the beginning?
I dont think MM talks about religion at all. 😉
“The thing is evolution as we know it has stopped working in human beings. Our genes are the same as those 30 000 years ago. In the last 100 000 years our brains have actually decreased their size. With advancments in medical science there is no longer a possibility for natural selection.”
I hate to rain on joor parade with some wise-ass comments, but these are extremely cabbage-looking and simple-minded claims. It’s been known for ten years that the human brain has been loosing mass for some time, but that the brain to body mass ratio has remained constant, which is a much better tool for measuring intelligence. Most of the decrease has happened in the past 10 000 years, which is a ridiculous short time to globally change the geenes controling our brain/body ratio. Even if had changed it would contradicted your first statement. A short reason to this would be the switch from a stone-age diet to one consisting of as little as one fifth as much animal food. This is replaced by grains and such mainly from the agricultural revolution.
And joo don’t really believe that our geenes are the same as those 30 000 years ago, do joo? In that time Americas got inhabited by Indian ancestors and relatively recently the ancestors of the Inuits reached the far north and had to compete with distinguishable cultures along the way. Brazilians don’t look anything like chineese, and Inuits can stand half-naked out in the cold without loosing as much heat in their extremeties and skin compared to others. Now is that attributed to geenes or just luck?
Joo could at least wait another 100 000 years before saying that human evolution has stopped. Joo can’t expect us to further evolve in bloody record time, guv.
Also, people still prefer such traits as hawtness, bravery, money and intelligence. So natural selection is still going strong ‘n’ steady. 😮
Hey $able,
>> This reminds me of the song “Evolution” from Korn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VntFEWF8I8A).
Excellent song and video. If you think about it the chimp has actually more to think about than the average man today. Thinking all day how to survive and how to escape predators is a bloody hard task to do, we don’t have to do that, thinking is sort of a pass time activity for us. Anyways I’m not predicting any doomsday I’m more optimistic about our future, but I want that better future to happen now:).
Skoskav:
I agree with your point, but I’m trying to get my point across which is more important than facts. Facts change, that’s the only fact.
Like you said, evolution is a chemical process hence there is not much evolution going on in a single person. You have nearly the same DNA code you had since you were born, only it’s more destroyed by free radicals. The patching of the destroyed DNA code, which constantly takes place in your body, might by accident create a bit better DNA, but usually the older you are the worse your DNA gets. I believe that human evolution only really happens when a female egg gets fertilized. The new, to be born human has a completely new DNA code, which might by accident be better than the one of his parents. Then if he/her has a child with someone who also has at least as good a DNA code then again if everything goes well their child will have an even better DNA.
Thanks to evolution we adapt to the environment. If we sent people to Mars and they built a colony there, then in a couple of generations (maybe more) they would be more adapted to living there than the new visitors from Earth.
Life’s goal, from the biological perspective, is to spread life everywhere over the vastest area possible. That’s why evolution has created humans, they will eventually colonize the Moon, Mars, maybe Venus and then the neighboring solar systems.
You wrote that if you don’t grow you might as well die, if only it were that simple. Do you know of any genius Einstein Jr. or maybe do you know of any theories created by his parents or grandparents? Same story with other renown geniuses. It’s probably always a one time spark of genius in the “dull” chain of generations. The geniuses were lucky as their parents’ genes at that particular moment of fertilization joined and created “genius” DNA.
This is why I do not agree that the rest that does not “grow” deserves to die from the evolution’s perspective. I believe the contrary, evolution wants to see as much people on Earth as the Earth could possibly feed. Besides you would also have to know in which direction to grow in, because most directions aren’t useful from the evolution’s perspective.
The geniuses from the evolution’s perspectives magically appear, so that they invent something useful for the rest, like space traveling so that humans can start multiplying in the whole universe.
Never the less I believe everyone should grow and make the maximum possible use of their brains, have fun and enjoy life – we shouldn’t be too serious about it
“Kto pierwszy szedł przed siebie?
Kto pierwszy cel wyznaczył ?
Kto pierwszy z nas rozpoznał ?
Kto wrogów? Kto przyjaciół
Kto pierwszy sławę wszelką i włości swe miał za nic?
A kto nie umiał zasnąć nim nie wymyslił granic ?
Kto pierwszy w noc bezsenną wymyślił wielką armię ?
Kto został bohaterem? Kto żył i umarł marnie?
Kto pierwszy został panem? Kto pierwszy został królem?
Kto musiał wstawać wczesnie, a kto mógł spać za długo?
Zapatrzeni w tańcu, zapatrzeni w siebie
Wciąż niepewni siebie, siebie niewiadomi
Pytać wciąż będziemy, pytać po kryjomu
Kto pierwszy był fakirem?
Kto pierwszy astrologiem?
Kto pierwszy został królem?
A kto chciał zostać bogiem?
Kto z gwiazdozbioru Vega patrząc za ziemię zgadnie
Kto pierwszy był człowiekiem?
Kto bedzie nim ostatni?”
MM, what is your idea that doesn’t change like facts that your trying to tell us? I might have missed your point.
Anyways, if you were saying that facts change, I want to add to it and maybe even start a discussion.
1. As a lot of other programers, I’d like to say first of all, I’m happy the universe wasn’t ‘programmed’ by me (if it were even designed in the first place…) because it would fail. I’m also happy that I’m not the person to design the processor that runs the whole **** universe, because it’s got to be disgustingly mind-boggling (if it doesnt need one, all the more amazing).
I’m pretty much saying that for any philosopher, religion and science should go hand in hand. To believe that a deity may exist, contrary to scientific belief, is not thinking inside the box, but outside. I also want to say that we may not be very intelligent at all, that there were stupider than another species we wouldn’t know it, and we may not even notice them, much the way that a fish in water can’t see people above the water very well.
2. Another thing: have an open mind… but not to let others throw their ideas in, but rather to sift through other ideas from another perspective until you know, truly, that theirs is bs. 😉 I like to think that women like men who are resolute because it strikes their imagination; a man who really knows what he’s doing, and that theres worth in it. So philosophy is important, it guides us in every action we take, whether we learned it from a young age or if we actually reasoned out the way to live.
3. Science isn’t king. Atleast not ours yet. 50 years ago, scientists were stark sure that atoms were it. Now, not so… even Einstein question it. And why was Einstein still a devout Jewish? He knew how little he knew… Think about it this way, there’s a lot of different ways to be right, and wrong. When the atom allowed the atom-bomb to function, it could have been just one reason. Imagine if we lived in a game. We realized that “Hey, this world can be predicted using math…” when its just one specific world, there could be a comp running it, or not. Michio Kaku for example, cofounder of the string-theory believes parallel universes could exist! Imagine all people can hear, but not see, or touch… we’d think very awkwardly about sounds. Scientists themselves know that animals have senses that we lack. How would it feel to experience sonar…
Science is… the cream of the crap. One day, we’ll pile up to some guys fat ***.
4. Progress is not always good. Yes, human thought could be a natural trait of people. We may have evolved with some unique trait called thought, but I think we created science and tech to help us reach our goals, not to change them over and over… Think about it, what would happen if the pregressive world acheived what it wanted (each individual would have what they want): One day, we will aspire to not be human; to not be bound by our earthly limits. Why not have wings? Why not have 10 bodies It will happen. Read about it… Why not suddenly look like a model. Or to be either man or women, or have no sexual identity… We will seek to be inhuman, we wont even want to live in this world, rather our own customizable world, a place we can feel artificially fulfilled and happy, living in our own little game. When we learn to reproduce the cell, we will have artificial and perfect humans. We wont be ourselves. We wont have parents or children; we wont need them.
Science and tech… the forefront of ‘progress’ will not change the world to our bidding, but us. Will we corrupt ourselves? Is it corrupt at all?
5. Don’t drink as much as I just have or atleast not Brandy. I wish someone would reword this comment so it made a little more sense…
Lincoln Hawk:
I’m using the word evolution in a wide context, not only DNA mutation. Maybe I didn’t explain that well but it will become clear later.
Boston:
Wait for the next parts of this article, you’ll see that we actually think alike, although I don’t drink brandy, only cheaper alcohol :).
This is taken from Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. It is a work of fiction. This is a completely different Zarathustra than the one you are probably thinking of.
Yes it is. But Zarathustra was a real person.
Indeed. There is a fictional Zarathustra and a real one, sometimes called Zaroaster.
most of us can’t,Xaviera