Evolutionary Algorithms
Evolutionary algorithms…Hegel on history, Spirit and consciousness
At one point in history one of our evolutionary algorithms led us to a belief in one God. What are the nodal points of human/historical consciousness? War? Random advances in technology? Politics? Is it just an ongoing and uninterrupted process that consists of actions both large and small?
“The genuine truth is the prodigious transfer of the inner into the outer, the building of reason into the real world, and this has been the task of the world during the whole course of its history.”
– G.W.F. Hegel
Hegelian Imperative
If you are an Hegelian, then you will believe that there is an historical imperative that is based on the progress of reason in human affairs. According to this theory, succeeding generations – despite the catastrophic events that serve as the raw material of what Hegel called “the slaughter bench of history” – continue to evolve in spite of so many setbacks large and small.
There is a degree of measurable truth in this theory.
As we become more adept at physical survival and – especially in the modern era – we become more and more dependent on the application of intelligence to practical problems. There is a corresponding set of metaphysics at work, as the growth of the consciousness of freedom on an individual basis has taken hold just about every where on earth today.
History of consciousness of freedom according to Hegel
As Hegel pointed out in his description of the three epochs: in the earliest period of human history only one person was believed to be completely free. In the next period (as in ancient Greece) only a few enjoyed this status. The present or modern era is characterized by a belief in universal freedom, wherein everyone is aware of the fact that he or she is the ground of his/her own being.
Does history possess directionality?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says this about historical “directionality”:
“Philosophers have raised questions about the meaning and structure of the totality of human history. Some philosophers have sought to discover a large organizing theme, meaning, or direction in human history. This may take the form of an effort to demonstrate how history enacts a divine order, or reveals a large pattern (cyclical, teleological, progressive), or plays out an important theme (for example, Hegel’s conception of history as the unfolding of human freedom discussed below). The ambition in each case is to demonstrate that the apparent contingency and arbitrariness of historical events can be related to a more fundamental underlying purpose or order.”
Summary
In his Wissenschaft der Logik Hegel defines actuality as ‘the unity of essence and existence’. It is the gradual progress towards the realization of this unity which constitutes the meaning of history for Hegel. Out of what appears as incomprehensible chaos, the philosopher has to distill the hidden meaning written into it by reason. While previous philosophies, and Kant’s in particular, tended to divorce the realms of essence and existence and even postulated their ultimate incommensurability, Hegel sees history as the context where the Nous is in the process of being realized. In history, spirit externalizes itself and becomes objective and man’s consciousness reaches awareness of itself:
The genuine truth is the prodigious transfer of the inner into the outer, the building of reason into the real world, and this has been the task of the world during the whole course of its history. It is by working at this task that civilized man has actually given reason an embodiment in law and government and achieved consciousness of the fact.
Shlomo Avineri (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) sheds some light on Hegel’s view of history in the following passage:
In his Wissenschaft der Logik Hegel defines actuality as ‘the unity of essence and existence’. It is the gradual progress towards the realization of this unity which constitutes the meaning of history for Hegel. Out of what appears as incomprehensible chaos, the philosopher has to distill the hidden meaning written into it by reason. While previous philosophies, and Kant’s in particular, tended to divorce the realms of essence and existence and even postulated their ultimate incommensurability, Hegel sees history as the context where the Nous is in the process of being realized. In history, spirit externalizes itself and becomes objective and man’s consciousness reaches awareness of itself:
The genuine truth is the prodigious transfer of the inner into the outer, the building of reason into the real world, and this has been the task of the world during the whole course of its history. It is by working at this task that civilized man has actually given reason an embodiment in law and government and achieved consciousness of the fact.
That such a view of history could lead to a deterministic theory of development is obvious to Hegel himself and he repeatedly cautions against this eventuality, pointing to the place of consciousness in the process of history. Since spirit is to him the content of history, history is not a spectacle in which the mighty have the last say.”