Aristotle
To find answers to the questions from the title, let's try to figure out what progress is and how it is related to reason. Someone thinks that progress is accelerating, but there are those who believe that progress is slowing down.
How to measure progress?
Progress is considered to be the process of development from simple to complex, from less organized to more organized. Many people recognize this process as non-linear and not always monotonous. And so the thinking of a person is arranged that if he comes across a complex riddle, for example, to assess progress, then they usually try to divide such a task into some separate parts. Such separate components, by which one can understand something about progress, can be considered those that are given in Wikipedia :
- social (bringing society closer to freedom, equality and justice),
- material (material production and satisfaction of needs),
- spiritual (transition to moral values),
- scientific (continuous knowledge of the surrounding world and scientific activity).
In general, progress articles are usually replete with lists of great accomplishments that should inspire even greater accomplishments. Another extreme is immediately encountered, it is argued that progress is so rapid that it must be artificially limited. However, it is not often possible to find a description of the reverse side of this brightly shiny medal.
Let's try to consider the individual components as signs of progress and understand, as they say, is there a boy?
So, the first component is social. There are several aspects to consider and immediately you can stumble upon obstacles.
The first aspect concerns the organization of power. It would be rash to claim that a successful way of exercising political power has now been found. It cannot even be said that democracy, autocracy, totalitarianism or some combination of existing types of government are better. Something suggests that these methods are far from ideal, in addition, they are all known for almost as long as humanity exists. Maybe it's all out of date and it's time to come up with something new in the context of globalization? But, unfortunately, among the main states, which include the overwhelming majority of the world's population, it is hardly possible to find one that is trying to implement, or at least offer something that would be a step forward. And here everyone stared intently and questioningly at China, and waited. As they say, time will tellwhether humanity has matured this time. What happens in terms of power, where are we moving along the steps of progress, up or down? While there is a feeling that there are no steps at all, millennia pass and things are still there.
The next aspect is considered to be social equality in economic terms. If we look at the degree of the gap between the incomes of the richest and the poorest, then it is difficult to argue that there is a movement for the better, rather the opposite. And if you try to look into the future? Are there opportunities to realize socialism? Can we say that capitalism is the ideal to which it was worth striving for throughout the entire history of mankind? Is there any progress in the past 100 or 200 years? And again - hardly.
However, from the point of view of the third aspect - the quality of life - there is still an achievement in the social plane. The continuous growth of the population and the average life expectancy of a person eloquently testifies to a slow, but nevertheless, progress forward (according to WHO, the average life expectancyon earth is more than 60 years old, and once in antiquity, people somehow managed to reach 30-40, as old-timers say). So far, it cannot be said that mankind has conquered old age, but on average it has really become longer. A lot or little can be understood by looking at the threshold of retirement. And again we will try to direct our gaze a little further than the nose. Is humanity going to conquer old age? No, not diseases, but aging, "programmed" wear and tear of the body? Something is not visible messages about how scientists were allocated large sums for research in this area, maybe someone will correct? All these were aspects of the social component of progress, as we see, if there is any step up, then it is very small, while there is nothing to be especially proud of.
The second component of progress is material, that is, production and satisfaction of needs. And here, for sure, the majority will agree, without a doubt, humanity has reached unprecedented volumes of production of any product, be it food, various equipment, medicines, etc., almost anything and all this splendor can be obtained with little cost. It would seem that these are the fruits of progress, live and rejoice. But if you look at the availability of these benefits, then there are big doubts that the needs of each person can now be satisfied more or less equally. Yet the modern economic system is far from ideal. And here again everyone is looking intently in the direction of China, what if we missed something? And there, in China, it seems that there are successes, they recently announced that they had overcome poverty. It turns outthat in the material plane at the moment of all mankind there is progress only in China.
The third component - spiritual - concerns morality, religion and tolerance. It is difficult to talk about development in such delicate matters. Can it be argued that there is no oppression of man by man? Can the restriction on the right to have children in China be considered a development? Moreover, there is such a "wonderful" expression "golden billion", is this a dream of humanity, of each and every one? Yes, witches are no longer burned at the stake, but the death penalty is still there. The last witch was executed about two hundred years ago, and since then, various fortune-tellers have even earned their "craft". Is this a step forward too? And despite the presence of social sciences, hardly anyone will say whether changes are needed here or not, and in which direction. In a word, if over the past hundreds of years there has been some movement forward in terms of spirituality, then it is quite difficult to see it.
And finally, the fourth component of progress is science. And here, finally, we can really talk about obvious, high-profile and well-known achievements. But again, this is all from one side only. Most of the achievements of mankind are necessary in order to reach an agreement faster, deliver faster, sell faster, that is, to get benefits faster. A nuclear reactor, for example, is profitable, that is, relatively speaking, you can spend little fuel, but get a lot of money for electricity. And even telecommunications and computer technology are mainly not for the dissemination of knowledge, but for making a profit. Any sane person understands that quantity is really usefulinformation on the Internet is decreasing faster and faster. Telecommunications are clearly not being used to move forward. Telecommunication technologies themselves will remain forever only next to man, in space they are completely useless. On Mars (and this is the planet closest to us) there will be no common Internet with the earth using electromagnetic waves, this is not a Wi-Fi router to install, or a cell tower. From the exchange of data there will be only e-mail once every half an hour and that's all, this is the maximum.
Indeed, science helps to make a profit, but is this the main purpose of science? Of course, not in this.
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Something else about science. With all the visible and significant advances in science, however, we do not know everything about the world around us. For example, the cause of the mass extinction of almost all life on the planet is not fully known and understood. This has happened many times. And generally speaking, this was not the fault of a person, because then he simply was not there. And now certain types of living beings are disappearing, and people are quite good at putting their hands to this business. But the fact remains: the species of living beings disappeared and are disappearing on the planet, this is a natural process, it can be slow, or it can be very fast. And if we go to the end in this matter, then we can draw a very sad conclusion that the disappearance of a person as a species is only a matter of time until a person takes some measures to prevent this from happening.I would like to draw your attention to this separately.
At one "perfect" moment, you may suddenly need to solve a very (many times the word "very") difficult problem. All of humanity will have to solve this problem at once, not just one country, not one scientist, and, perhaps, it will have to be done in a very short period of time. And in general, there may not be time to solve the problem at all. You don't have to go far for an example. Recent events have quite eloquently demonstrated the readiness of the healthcare system (and not only it, and not only in any particular country) for such a problem as another clearly not the most deadly virus. There is no need to talk about any really serious threat, all that remains to be done in this case is just to turn around in a sheet and quietly crawl towards the cemetery, and it does not matter where this threat appears, it will fly with a meteorite,or people will create it themselves. But let's not talk again and again about the seriousness of what is happening at the moment, so as not to be distracted from the essence. Quite a lot of scenarios are known for the end of everything, even a separate post was devoted to this, it seems.
And the essence of the question is this: are we ready not to disappear without a trace along with most of the extinct species on earth? Most likely, the answer will be no. And this means that our separation from other species on the planet is still minimal and, in terms of million-year evolution, is fleeting in time. And the stage of development to which we have risen at the moment may not turn out to be that high, because there is nothing to be particularly proud of. As much as we would like to puff up our cheeks, one flash in the sun can blow off the entire atmosphere, or even the entire planet, and it will no longer be possible to say that intelligent life has appeared in the solar system. Who should or can pay for the solution of this issue and to whom, and what is important, can someone solve this issue?
Benefit, benefit, profit all around, it would seem, what does capitalism have to do with it? And in the bottom line, perhaps the most noticeable advance in terms of progress can only be called the emergence of science in mankind as a phenomenon in itself and the improvement with its help of a hoe into a combine. And all the uncomfortable questions can hardly be called progress.
But what about intelligence?
And here I want to talk about intelligence. No, unfortunately, not about fashionable artificial intelligence, but about unfashionable natural intelligence, because in these conditions it must manifest itself in full force. So, so that the disappearance of a person as a species does not occur, it is necessary that the intellect somehow manifests itself. And what do we see from the point of view of even the most noticeable scientific progress? And there, the intellect pursues only the benefit, and this is "eat-dominate-multiply", that is, it looks more like not intellect, but ordinary animal needs and reflexes. That is, the triumph of a reasonable beginning, unfortunately, is not yet visible. The main attributes of the mind - education and science - are currently disadvantageous and are not a priority. Rather, it is the lot of a small number of enthusiasts. Yes, we turned the rivers back, but,pardon the analogy, and the beaver knew how to build dams even before humans. Can it be argued that reason appeared on the planet earth, if in its actions it does not present itself as anything sane and reasonable? Actually, this is the answer to the question of where our future has gone. There is nothing reasonable in its foundation.
What's the bottom line?
In the end, we can say that we need science. But not science in itself. It can be said differently. To defeat old age, disease, war, environmental problems, to challenge the natural laws of nature and understand how to use the latest advances for good, in the end, for there to be progress, it is necessary for the intellect to wake up, otherwise the feeling is created that it begins to fall asleep ... And education must necessarily be accessible and free. Only under these conditions there will be more scientists, which means that there will be more chances of solving problems, when they appear, there will be more chances of solving a problem that does not yet exist, but which may appear suddenly, but will be so complex that it would be nice to have a solution now. , then it will be too late to drink Borjomi.
Surely many will say that education is already available, they say, a storehouse of knowledge - the Internet - is available to anyone. Of course, the Internet is great, it allows you to spread knowledge. Indeed, the word "education" from the word "know". But what is interesting, are there many people who know without the Internet which plants are edible in unfamiliar areas and which are not? Are there many people who know how to properly grow many edible plants? Are there many who can create some kind of mechanism that makes life easier? Are there those who can generally extract at least some metal, find, distinguish and extract mechanically, chemically? Are there many people who know all this at once?
Needless to say, knowing this is only half the battle? For education to be complete, in addition to “know”, it is also necessary to “be able”, by the way, this is also Aristotle said. Are there many people who know and can do all this at once? As you can see, everything indicates that everyone does not possess knowledge and skills, but only all of humanity together.
But what if the intellect is outside the person, like some insects? Indeed, in fact, knowledge is stored not in the heads of individual individuals, but outside them, that is, in books, or on the same fashionable Internet. It turns out that the memory of the intellect is stored outside any of us. We can only draw knowledge from there for a while and use it. This is the first thing. And secondly, how about creating something new? People can also create something only together. Not a single person is now able to create something new alone. This means that the ability to create, apparently, also belongs not to each of us, but only to all together.
So what can you do?
And we can only hope that the intellect, if it really exists and if it does not sleep, then belongs to the human species and cannot exist without it. And in order to be able to assert that a mind has appeared on the planet earth and it is developing, it is necessary that this mind at least learns to stay “afloat”. As George Carlin said in one of his monologues, the planet is unlikely to be threatened by something, it has experienced something else, and it will outlive people, but humanity is threatened unambiguously, and most likely, it will destroy itself (this is if translate into censored Russian). It is necessary that the intellect, reason, common sense, finally, awakened, otherwise their own efforts or a cataclysm of a planetary scale (not to mention a cosmic natural disaster) will simply lead to the disappearance of this flash of reason, short by cosmic standards.