The
Physicalist perception of nature goes by the belief that whatever has happened
was meant to happen and whatever is meant to will happen, and it proceeds in a predetermined trajectory, a path seldom
faulted upon. It goes on to expose the diminished
role of humans in the past and the present as it states that whatever
humans have done or have not done had no effect on the past and neither would
have an effect in the future, therefore the course that the universe follows is
indifferent to our activities, and simply carries forward on the way it was
pre-determined. The perception also discards
the existence of values and meanings of survival of a species and hence undermines
the ecological niche.
Nature
herself in such matters has been prejudiced; as she concentrates her greatest
devotion not to the maintenance of what already exists but on the selective
breeding of offspring in order to carry on the species. The above observation
made based upon the Darwinian Theory suddenly lay to waste the understanding of
many of the physicalist perceptions. As every minute modifications Nature makes
to the biotics and abiotics, happening every single nanoseconds cannot be
simply based on an offhand attitude by completely submitting oneself to the
belief based on the deterministic perception of Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and
the likes, like the lassiez faire economy offering itself to the market forces.
Such an economy without any appropriate state intervention is a precursor to
nothing but the great depression itself. Similarly, the physicalists
perceptions that the free will of nature or the appropriate feedback based response of nature, must take a back
seat and let whatever would happen to happen based on the predetermined could
only be disastrous, therefore it is easily deductible that a calculated intervention by nature is extremely
necessary. Chaos theory explains volumes about how the behavior of the simplest
of the dynamic system can be highly sensitive to little changes to the initial
conditions. The famous Butterfly effect which states that something as small as
the flutter of a butterfly can be responsible for a typhoon halfway around the
world, goes further to muff the opinion of the physicalists. So based on the
reflections of chaos theory it is evident that behavior of nature cannot be
dependent on the deterministic forces alone to guide the universe from big bang
to the great implosion. Therefore the judgmental
response of nature depending on the environment plays a greater role in all
the events that what the physicalists would care to admit.
The feature
that is fundamentally wrong about physicalists opinion is that, this philosophy
to a much greater extent has neglected or fails
to understand the true nature of the
humans, their activities and how their encroachment upon the ecological
niche of the others has had an impact in the past and also the theory further plays
down their role in determining the course of future.
These
perceptions as a psychology also threaten
to harm the humans from taking any proactive measures towards containing the
climate change and would hinder any kind of motivation towards sustainable
development, because a human psychology manipulated by physicalist perception would
make us lax towards the commitments that countries have made for combating
climate change, and the regime to lay check on these progresses advocated by
various climate summits through protocols and conventions would simple lose its
ground, because whatever is to happen is inevitable (as a physicalist would
argue), so why make so many sacrifices by reducing carbon emission or worrying
about the future of the planet . Also adhering to an extreme confidence in the
physicalist perceptions will also make us undermine
the ecological niche, as they believe that the purpose and meanings of
something’s or someone’s existence has no real place in a deterministic milieu.
This might in turn make us turn a blind eye to their importance in our
ecosystem and their existence may simply escape the necessary importance it
requires from humans. This further deteriorates the situation of biodiversity loss as a phyisicalist is
less concerned about the immediate effects of human activities as according to one
who has placed trust on this theory is made to feel that whatever the humans
involve themselves in, their activity neither increases nor decreases their
chance of survival, or the future welfare of the planet, that is the future is simply not subject to the
decisions of today as the universe seldom faults upon the trajectory laid down
by the deterministic forces. Therefore the human activities that have launched
a great assault on the rich biodiversity of the planet are of little value or
no value to the physicalist. Also the Physicalist perception stands to be a
dangerous excuse that may be cited by the developed countries to evade the
responsibility and commitments they owe towards combating climate change and
promoting sustainable technology.
Another
criticism about this is belief is that it that has no rigid mathematical formulation in itself and further goes to
challenge the mathematically backed and well-studied likes of chaos theory and
the observed phenomenon associated with Darwanian notions. Therefore the
physicalist perception don’t fulfill the need to be accepted as a proper
scientific theory and also is inconsistent
with the existing scientific theories and to the apathy of the physicalists
their notions are nothing but pseudo-scientific.
The
physicalist theory also fails to account for the randomness associated and the importance of the ecological equilibrium.
It has been silent on the fact that why a disturbed system (i.e, when the
balance is lost or the system is displaced from equilibrium) must always seek
an equilibrium or in other words, move towards an equilibrium. If the
intermediaries were so trivial and the universe was to follow the predetermined
path, why would the nature concern itself with maintaining the equilibrium?
To sum up,
the reason why I criticize the physicalist perception of nature is because,
this theory has no scientific backing, it is incoherent with proven scientific
theories, it tends to undermine humans and their activities and their impact on
the ecosystem, it is a bad psychology which may mar practical efforts to faced
global challenges like climate change and global warming , it also does not
explain the need for equilibrium and
does not account for the feedback based actions of nature and also by setting little meanings and values to species
it has undermined the significance of
ecological niche.
