Human and/or Animal: The Morals, Ethics and Responsibilities of the Highly Intelligent Part One

Preface

There are intelligent Humans and is their ingenuity something they have developed or is it an attribute Nature has arbitrarily provided. If Nature granted this favourable ability; was it for the advantage of those fortunate Humans?

“The power of a fresh mind taking a fresh look at a problem is one of the wonders of the world.” (Lee Smolin)

“No one came to be wise who did not know how to revise an opinion.” (Anthony Clifford Grayling)

“We must stop trying to force new facts to conform to obsolete systems.” (Frank S. Capon, 1984)

“Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.” (Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881)

“You are not only responsible for what you say [or do], but also for what you do not say [or not do].” (Martin Luther, 1483-1546)

“Intelligence is an accident of evolution and not necessarily an advantage.” (Isaac Asimov)

“It has [yet] to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.” (Arthur Charles Clarke) “[…] that what is true is what we [Humans] have made true.” (Giambattista Vico, 1668-1744)

“To recognize you could do something to contribute to a better, fairer world does not place you under an obligation to actually do it.” (Julian Baggini)

DAVID RALPH MACKERETH dmackereth@canimac.com

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844-1900)

“Equality is the result of human organization. We are not born equal.” (Hannah Arendt)

“No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.” (John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873) Supporting an obligation for the Highly Intelligent!

“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.” (Martin Heidegger, 1889-1976)

First, we need a definition of whom should be included in this Highly Intelligent (HI) Category. We can use the Mensa qualification of the 98 th percentile or higher on a standardized intelligence test as a foundation. Since there are approximately eight billion Humans, there would be 160 million or so of these brainy folks available to service Humanity and Nature, with each individual country having a comparative two percent of its population included.

The following five questions may assist your efforts determining the source of your extraordinary Human skills, traits and attributes: 1

– Did you ask to be born? Yes / No 2 – Did you request the skills, traits and attributes you were born with? Yes / No 3 – Did you choose your birthdate? Yes / No 4

– Did you stipulate the location of your birth? Yes / No 5 – Did you organize the education/training for your formative years? Yes / No

The argument can be made that absolutely everything that made/makes you a potential Human had/has nothing to do with you – you cannot help being who you are! Your DNA is the result of millions of years of Nature’s efforts, and trillions of mutations (none of your choosing). But HI folks (with remarkable innate capabilities) may be able to adjust their attributes and attitudes through diligent exertion benefiting Humankind and the Biosphere. “He [Human] discovered in himself an ability to choose his own way of life without being tied to any single one like the other animals.” (Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804)

This essay includes my conceivable solutions addressing important issues confronting Humanity and the Biosphere and HIs may wish to make contributions (will be most welcomed), as these are an individual perspective.

Issues considered:

- Eliminate the consequence of Money on the Democratic Process

- New approach to Tax on Corporate Profits to benefit all Stakeholders

- Improvements to Binary Politics

- Climate Change: not just in Human Terms

- Adding NOTA (None of the Above) to Elections

- Paying taxes: an honourable exercise

- Redefining GDP to account for Gross Dominant Position countries

- Human Law Versus Natural Law: possible new language

- Humans evolved within small groups

- Individualism: benefit and/or mistake

- Freewill: Physics and Humans

- Increase Separation to include State, Church and Business

- Status of the Military in a Democracy

- United Nations Security Council: eliminate leading Arms Exporters

- Medical research and Public Health Care

- Role of the Stock Market

- Understanding and Addressing: Too Big to Fail

- More Citizens to participate in the decision-making process

- Do markets self-organize

- Human evolution through Mutual Aid/Cooperation

- Level of Civil-Disobedience required for a Healthy Society

- Revenge: non-Humane attribute

- Language/words matter

- Derivatives: calculus and/or economics

- Do interest rates reflect the Economy or Inequality

- Arms Expenditures: ROI or enhanced Entropy

- Are all Debts Equal

- Transparency and Governments

- Prejudices and Biases of Leaders

- Private and Public Compensation

- What do Humans owe to the Future

- Management of Death

- Improvements to the Binary Legal System

- Decisions on a country going to war

- When and how Religion was invented

- The Benefits of Praying

- Maturity: living in the Digital Age

- Charity/Philanthropy: Scorecard of Society

- Carbon, Digital and Humane Personal Footprint Goals

- Before reading/learning anything - first develop an opinion

- The advantages of the Final Exam on the First Day of the School Year

- Excessive Personal Wealth: is there a benefit to Humanity/Biosphere

- Ownership of Human Intelligence

- Animal, Mammal, HumanLess, Human, Humenvitarian, HumAIn Progression

- Profit: a simpler calculation than Quality

- Minimum wage requirements: consequence of Capitalism

- Addressing the basic needs of citizens in Sanctioned Countries

- One is born a Mammal and can become a Human - Digital Age: Apocryphal Geniuses

- Artists: Creators or Businesspeople

- Professional Athletes: Participants or Businesspeople

- Zero-based budgeting: benefits - Self-control: being Human - Animals and effective populations - Existentialism and Nihilism

- Punishment: Humane Justification

- Progress: A Human Addiction

- Lowest living standard: true measure of a country’s status

Prior to reviewing the thoughts and discussions presented, you may wish to reconsider your answers to the five initial questions. And if you recorded one or more ‘Yes’ responses; you may wish to forgo the rest of this essay.

Assisting further, we can scrutinize Bill Gates, who is obviously an outstanding Human. However, in addition to his five Nos above (my assumption), Malcolm Timothy Gladwell highlights in his 2008 ‘Outliers’ an interesting series of events aiding Bill:

- His Lakeside high school had access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968

- One of the interested parents worked at C-Cubed - C-Cubed needed someone to check code on the weekends

- ISI needed someone to work on its payroll software

- Lived within walking distance of the University of Washington

- The University had free computer time between 3 and 6 AM

- Bill was recommended as a best programmer to TRW

- Lakeside allowed Bill to write this TRW code during spring term

If Bill was born in either 1925 or 1985 instead of 1955, and/or started life out in either the Sudan or Suriname instead of Seattle; Bill’s life would probably have followed a much different scenario!

Part One

“You will perhaps wonder that an obscure person who has not the honour to be known to your lordship [you] should presume to address you in this manner.” (George Berkeley, 1685-1753)

Part One will discuss and outline observations and potential resolutions concerned with Democracy, Voting, Cooperation, Smaller Groups, Citizen Participation, Civil-Disobedience, Government Transparency, Electoral Financing, Binary Politics, Leaders, Human Progression and the Separation of State, Church and Business.

“Intelligence is characterized by a natural comprehension of life […] for a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” (Henri-Louis Bergson, 1859-1941) “[…] that according to my ability and judgment I will carry this out [using my Intelligence to benefit Humanity and the Biosphere].” (Hippocrates of Kos, 460-370 BCE)

Human evolution through Mutual Aid/Cooperation “But man can neither be understood nor saved alone.” (Mary Beatrice Midgley)

“I failed to find – although I was eagerly looking for it – that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.” (Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin, 1842-1921) There is expert recognition that evolution was greatly enhanced by mutual aid and cooperation. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) identified, “[…] those communities, which included the greatest number of sympathetic members, would flourish against the strong.” A survey of Planet Earth may indicate many Humans are currently apprehensive (with the strong; the wealthy and powerful minority dominating) and could use the assistance of thoughtful and workable alternatives.

“[Civilization] came about only when humans learned to live together collectively, to abide by rules and structures for the common good in which the weak are protected against the strong.” (Frank S. Capon)

Do HIs have an obligation to intervene wherever possible to decrease suffering throughout the Biosphere? No, they are not mandated to do so, as Nature does not provide them with a right and/or wrong decision-making manual. They are free to choose how best to use Nature’s endowment!

In ‘Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution’ by Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1902) we discover, “In the great struggle for life –for the greatest possible fulness and intensity of life with the least waste of energy – natural selection continually seeks out the ways precisely for avoiding competition as much as possible.”

Humans evolved within Small Groups

Humans need to better understand how Billions of Humans can ‘now’ and ‘in the future’ exist within the Biosphere recognizing many of the Human inherent tools were developed within small groups, over hundreds of thousands of years. “[…] [Ian MacDonald Robin] Dunbar’s number holds that we can only really maintain about 150 [human] connections at once.” (BBC.com)

Massive cities have and are being developed and becoming more condensed – corporations have hundreds of thousands of employees, millions of customers – Facebook has a billion and a half of users – Walmart revenues of $ 560 Billion and Amazon $ 470 billion. Can the diverse motivations of Humans effectively administer large countries and/or corporations? But there’s hope: “Considering our technical instrumentalities of communication and tabulation, it is possible to reintroduce the principle of the town meeting into contemporary mass society.” (Erich Seligmann Fromm)

In 1957, Scientist Fred Hoyle observed, “I fail to see any great difference between the social conventions of our modern civilization and those of primitive barbaric peoples.” Compare a barbaric society to an Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Walmart, Money Driven Elections, the Super Wealthy dominated one!

“The first and most evidently adverse tendency of organization in particular, is that discipline is substituted for thought.” (John Kenneth Galbraith) HIs can substitute thought for discipline!

Aldous Leonard Huxley cautiously assists in 1941: “The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved. […] Good is a product of the ethical and spiritual artistry of individuals ; it cannot be mass-produced.”

“Small rooms or dwellings set the mind in the right path, large ones cause it to go astray.” (Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, 1452-1519)

Animal, Mammal, HumanLess, Human, HumEnvitarian, HumAIn Progression

“That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving; […] are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms.” (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970)

“Man’s intellectual, social, and spiritual natures are altogether exceptional among animals in degree, but they arose by organic evolution.” (George Gaylord Simpson) And not by individual composition!

“A member of an animal species inherits, in the form of instincts, the collective experience of that species.” (Vere Gordon Childe, 1892-1957)

“Evolution has managed to unshackle humans from the environment in ways that most animals, at least cannot change.” (Simon Blackburn)

Broadening the definition of what it means to be Human may prove useful. An in-depth personal observation may indicate Human Animals maintain Animal traits, can choose to be a Human and, with effort, even become HumEnvitarian.

Some clarification on terminology used: HumanLess – underdeveloped Human abstract thinking Human – a bipedal primate with abstract capabilities Humenvitarian – progressive behaviour towards Humanity and the Biosphere HumAIn – Artificial Intelligence Human

“It is by now a platitude to say that understanding human thought and action is in large measure understanding what problems and perplexities they strive with.” (Isaiah Berlin) Many HIs are adequately suited to assist Mankind and the Biosphere, if they so wish. “The idea of freedom is authentically. If not exclusively, human. Outside the human universe it is unknown and inconceivable.” (Milovan Djilas) “Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are conditioned” (Baruch Spinoza, 1632-1677). Answering the original ‘Questions’ with Five Nos may equate to Humans having no Free Thought/Will capabili- ties (although superior intelligence may enable specific overriding).

A ‘HumEnvitarian’: “[…] responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind” (Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre). And “If we are to have any quality of life, large numbers of citizens must devote their efforts to such activities as teaching, health care, social work, recreation facilities, museums, restaurants and countless other ‘non-productive’ occupations” (Frank S. Capon, 1984).

“We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotion, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.” (Edward Osborne Wilson), without allowing evolutionary forces the time/opportunity to generate the necessary adaptations to Human intelligence/abilities.

Humans: “[…] the only animal species that in not only animal, the only species that is partly not natural.” (George Kateb) With abstract thinking credentials!

“Humanitarian consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.” (Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965) Possibly a HumEnvitarian!

“A man’s genius is always, in the beginning of life, as much unknown to himself as to others; and it is only after frequent trials, attended with success, that he dares think himself equal to those undertakings, in which those, who have succeeded, have fixed the admiration of mankind.” (David Hume, 1711-1776)

“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself.” (Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, 1828-1910) Try a calculation, and watch out for those zeros and infinities!

“Knowledge acquired and extended for its own sake is the specific quality that makes us human.” (Gilbert Arthur Highet) And it is how Humans use that knowledge in positively enhancing Humanity and the Biosphere that allows one becoming HumEnvitarian.