The back of the mirror

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The back of the mirror - An attempt at a natural history of human knowledge is the title of a book (first published in 1973) by Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), which he called his main work.

In this work Lorenz discusses the interplay of genetic and civilizational influences on the cognitive faculties of humans. His philosophical considerations develop against the background of a view that can be described as gene-culture coevolution , according to which a mutual influence and dependence between biological evolutionary factors and sociocultural evolution is assumed. According to this philosophical theory, human behavior, especially its cognitive faculties (the “mirror”), is influenced both by innate behavior (the “backside”) and by cultural traditions.

Like other representatives of the gene-culture coevolution before him, Konrad Lorenz tries to go beyond anecdotal individual cases and generally to determine the underlying systematic relationships, interactions and laws between biological and cultural evolution or between genetically determined, instinctual and learned, cultural behavior to clarify. The aim of such analyzes is a comprehensive explanation of human behavior and - based on this - the possibility of predicting further cultural evolution.

The layering of being in evolution on which gene-culture coevolution is based

Based on the philosopher Nicolai Hartmann, Konrad Lorenz advocates the theory of the stratification of being ; In contrast to Hartmann, however, he relates this to evolution. The otherness of genetic and cultural being leads one to see both areas as fundamentally separate and incompatible; the theory of layered systems explains this otherness and at the same time represents both as an ultimately unified and cohesive system. Gene-culture coevolution sees itself as part of this theoretical concept.

According to Nicolai Hartmann, the four great layers of being in nature are the inorganic of the material, the organic and living elements of plants , the soul and emotional elements of animals and the cultural and spiritual elements of humans (Lorenz 1987, p. 58). The stratification is due to the fact that under certain conditions completely new properties can suddenly arise (Lorenz uses the term fulguration for this ( fulgur = lightning)), such as the living from the material, which was not hinted at beforehand (Lorenz 1987, p . 49) and which then condition and form a new layer in it. As a clear example, Konrad Lorenz cites an electrical circuit (Lorenz 1987, pp. 48-49), in which the correct connection of a capacitor with a coil creates the completely new system property of electrical oscillation . The new quality ( oscillation ) can neither be seen in the subsystem of the capacitor nor that of the coil alone.

In the words of Nicolai Hartmann, Konrad Lorenz states, but now applied to evolution, that the world, despite all its diversity and heterogeneity, by no means lacks uniformity. The system of the world is a layered structure in which from layer to layer there is the introduction of new laws and categorical formations, "depending on the lower, but with a demonstrable peculiarity and independence against it" (Lorenz 1987, p. 58) . The special properties of the lower system are contained in the higher ones, but never the other way around. All of this then also applies to the spiritual and cultural being of man, i.e. H. Just like the vibrations of the electrical circuit or the vitality of organic being in the special novelty and otherness in relation to the preceding, instinctive, it cannot be traced back to supernatural influences. Although completely new properties have arisen practically out of nowhere, in the end they can only be understood with the help and on the basis of the preceding or the subsystems, even if they cannot be found there in any way.

The Origin and Advantage of the Spiritual-Cultural Layer in Evolution

While the transition and the gap between plant and animal represents the puzzling innovation to this day, in which sensation, experience and (space-time) awareness arise from chemical - physical structures and laws (Lorenz 1987, p. 215), they concern the other two transitions or gaps between the layers, i.e. the one between material and living being as well as that between animals and humans, both the acquisition, storage and transmission of information (Lorenz 1987, p. 216). For the emergence of living being, its further development and thus for the process of evolution itself, the acquisition and storage of information according to Lorenz was indispensable, but can even be equated with it (Lorenz 1987, p. 216). From the first beginnings of the living to the animal, this was achieved solely through the genetic system, but then experienced a revolutionary innovation in the transition to the spiritual being of man. Konrad Lorenz describes the emergence of the new layer of specifically human being and its great evolutionary advantage as follows:

During all of the tremendous epochs of the earth's history, during which our pre-human ancestors arose from a pre-living being deep beneath the bacteria, it was the chain molecules of the genomes that were entrusted with the task of preserving knowledge and, with that pound, growing it multiply. And now, towards the end of the tertiary, all of a sudden a completely different kind of organic system emerges , which tries to do the same thing, only faster and better. [...] It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the spiritual life of man is a new kind of life . [Italics underlined by KL] (Lorenz 1987, p. 217).

The decisive evolutionary advantage of the new system or the new layer does not affect the external, physical form of being, which is still exclusively determined genetically, but only behavior. The advantage is that a necessary behavior adjustment, for which the old genetic system with its technique of mutation (or the new combination in the fusion of the sex cells) and selection at the gene level would possibly have taken tens of thousands or more years , with the new mental system, can ideally be accomplished in seconds. The new mental system abstracts the world perceived by the senses and makes adjustments and improvements on this conceptual level of abstraction, ultimately also according to the technique of random trying and selecting, just much faster and more effectively than on the physical and genetic level.

Just as behavior adaptation and improvement in the new system is not found on the genetic level, it is not stored and passed on there either. All of this happens on the abstraction level of the new layer, which is only built up and expanded by each individual during life, through what we call learning . The means, in particular, of the transmission and exchange of information is not the genome and sexual reproduction, but language. A step in the renewal and dissemination of information no longer takes at least a generation, but is in the range of seconds for language. With a generation sequence of around 20 years, this corresponds to several million times the acceleration, and not only between two individuals, as in the case of genetic information transfer and modification, but with today's technology in extreme cases between millions or even billions of individuals. Konrad Lorenz expresses it with a simple example: "If a man invented bows and arrows in primeval times, from then on not only his descendants, but his entire society and, subsequently, perhaps even the whole of humanity, owned these tools" (Lorenz 1987, p . 218). There was not the slightest change in the genome.

If the acquisition and dissemination of information is regarded as a decisive aspect of evolutionary life, it is in fact no exaggeration, as Konrad Lorenz did after the above quote, to regard the spiritual being of man as a new kind of life. The achievements of human existence were only possible with this new, spiritual system, which is not based on supernatural influences, but on a revolutionary innovation in the acquisition and distribution of information.

The relationships between the instinctual and the spiritual layer in human existence as gene-culture coevolution

The behavior caused by the older layer of our being is genetically stored and behavior control happens on this level or layer through the emotions. According to Konrad Lorenz, the emotional sphere with its many phylogenetically fixed, inherited elements plays "an essential role in the motivation of our social behavior" (Lorenz 1987, p. 229). In the spiritual layer of the human being, the meaningful perceptions of the layer below are abstracted in the terms of thought and language and the information found is only applied and passed on in this way. Both systems function according to their own regularities, which, in the words of Konrad Lorenz, easily leads to the idea that "we are dealing with two processes that can act as vicarious agents for each other, but otherwise run alongside each other without relationship and causally have nothing to do with each other" (Lorenz 1987, p. 226). This misconception is amplified by the fact that it is generally not seen that human emotional behavior is controlled by genes. Natural evolution is only related to the physical being of man and the spiritual and cultural being is strictly separated from it and is often attributed to supernatural causes. According to Lorenz, the cultural development “with a kind of horizontal demarcation” is sharply differentiated from the results of the previous tribal history (Lorenz 1987, p. 226).

However, despite their differences, both processes have something to do with one another. Konrad Lorenz writes that in reality man has become the cultural being he is today through a typical tribal history. "The reconstruction that the human brain has undergone under the selective pressure of the accumulation of traditional knowledge is not a cultural, but a phylogenetic process" (Lorenz 1987, pp. 226–227). This then not only applies to something that lies in a distant evolutionary past, but also applies to language as the main component of our spiritual and cultural being in the here and now. Lorenz states that certain structures of thought are the same in all peoples and cultures and are therefore innate (Lorenz 1987, p. 229). Every child has "certain rules of sentence formation to own from the start", the child thus "does not learn to speak in the actual sense, it only learns vocabulary" (Lorenz 1987, p. 231). Regarding the case of a child born deaf and blind, Helen Keller , mentioned by Lorenz, who learned to read through tactile sensations despite the failure of the two most important senses, a person learns the language just like a bird learns to fly, “because he can do it too innate ”(Lorenz 1987, p. 235). The fact that language as a key component of the new information system is based on instinctive behavior that is triggered in a very specific time window can also be seen from the strange fact that in general the language is learned by every toddler faster and at the same time better than by everyone Adult at the peak of his mental capacity. With a quote from Arnold Gehlen, humans are “naturally a cultural being” (Lorenz 1987, p. 238).

Despite their differences, both human behavioral controls are closely interlinked not only in the case of language, but also in general. According to Konrad Lorenz, the astonishing contradictions in human social behavior, such as wars and crimes, “find an informal explanation and can be categorized without any gaps, as soon as one has come to realize that human social behavior is by no means exclusively based on intellect and cultural tradition is dictated, but still obeys all those laws that prevail in all instinctive behavior that has arisen phylogenetically, laws that we know very well from studying animal behavior ”(Lorenz 1984, p. 223). This natural explanation then extends even further through the following circumstance: The mental-cultural behavior system cannot change the genetically stored information, whereby an inappropriate, genetically coded behavior is not eliminated, but only culturally covered. Inappropriate genetically coded behavior represents a constant threat or seduction and can break out again at any time. The spiritual and cultural progress of the human being therefore requires constant cultural control, especially in situations that address the trigger stimuli of inappropriate instinctive behavior. This control and guarantee is provided on the one hand by religion and on the other by the legal system. The “sinfulness” of man finds a completely natural explanation here, which is conditioned solely by the special properties of the various layers of his being and behavior and is characteristic of the gene-culture coevolution.

The end of genetic evolution in humans and the problem of further cultural evolution

The cultural progress, which replaces the instinctive "law of the strongest" by the cultural legal system, had, together with the further technical progress, a momentous effect on the old evolutionary system, which in the short term is hardly noticeable in evolutionary standards but still represents a significant and symbolic step in the relationship between biological and cultural evolution. There are still mutations at the level of human genes, probably even more than in the past due to chemical and physical stress, but due to the changed interpersonal behavior and the independence from the whims and forces of nature achieved through technical progress, there are as good as possible no more selection. Violence and war as a means and expression of the archaic right of the strong have largely been overcome, at least to the extent that they no longer have a systematic selective influence on genetic reproduction. There can only be genetic selection if a certain genetic form that is adapted to it has systematically greater chances than others to reproduce and spread. But precisely this mechanism no longer works in modern humans on the genetic level, "here the selection has been canceled" ( Monod , p. 143).

There is therefore no longer any evolutionary further development or change in humans that takes place via the genetic level, but there is still the shaping and influencing of human being and behavior through the status of the genome that has been reached and can no longer be changed - u. a. in that the new system is brought about by the old one. The further gene-culture coevolution of humans is determined and conditioned by the cultural advancement and the examination of the instinctive behaviors that can no longer be changed and which are more and more unadapted due to the cultural advancement.

A good example of the problem of this type of gene-culture coevolution is, for example, the control of food intake, which in its genetically determined adjustment no longer properly fits today's lifestyle. The recognition of this maladjustment of the behavior together with the consequences and the will and desire to adapt is often not enough to correct the instinctual influences. The result is that people today no longer die prematurely due to the forces of nature and wars, but due to obesity, poor nutrition and the diseases caused by civilization, although they know about the causes and the consequences. In this simple and fundamental human behavior, the failure of the many voluntary and mental-cultural adaptation measures, such as in the form of the various diets, is a good and meaningful example of the power of instinct-controlled behavior and thus also of the type and problematic of today's gene culture -Coevolution.

Konrad Lorenz addresses another of the new dangers when he quotes his teacher Oskar Heinroth with the words that "the pace of work of the Western civilization man is the stupidest product of intraspecific selection" (Lorenz 1984, p. 47). This is an inappropriate behavior that people generally have not even recognized in this inappropriate behavior. Technology makes many things possible today, from the atom bomb to the artificial genetic modification of the human being. But not all possible technical developments are also sensible, reasonable and adapted, namely with regard to the overall system of life. Konrad Lorenz describes the excessive striving for ever greater economic growth as a haste into which industrialized and commercialized humanity has increased as (cultural) competition between conspecifics (Lorenz 1984, p. 47). In view of an overpopulated and limited earth ecosystem, this behavior is extremely unreasonable and inappropriate, especially in the long term. This is in some cases also recognized today, whereby the maintenance or even increase of this behavior suggests that instinctive, archaic behaviors hold the strings in hand, especially those that are still dominant in terms of power, wealth and rank. These are or become as unreasonable and unadjusted by today's circumstances as excessive food intake, although they are so familiar to us as these behaviors and values ​​and continue to appear emotionally as proven, good and right - a dead end of evolution.

A possible impending turning point in human cultural evolution

Konrad Lorenz writes, "that man as a species is at a turning point in time, that there is now the potential for an unexpected higher development of mankind" (Lorenz 1987, p. 304). According to Lorenz's criticism, this higher development and turning point cannot be achieved in view of the previous gene-culture coevolution through ever greater material growth, as is still generally assumed today as progress, but through "a self-knowledge of civilized mankind based on scientific knowledge “(Lorenz 1987, p. 303). According to Konrad Lorenz, this would raise the cultural, spiritual striving of humanity to a higher level. In the sense of a continuous further development of the gene-culture coevolution, the future can only lie in a spiritual growth, which in contrast to the material growth corresponds to the very own human being or the new spiritual layer. This would finally help the spiritual and cultural in the gene-culture coevolution to make a breakthrough and to become the determining and dominant part.

A decisive aspect of this intellectual and cultural progress would then be that it is generally recognized with understanding and reason that human behavior is stratified and fed and influenced by two completely different sources, namely two purely natural sources. This alone also provides a comprehensive and real understanding of a gene-culture coevolution. In this comprehensiveness it is what Konrad Lorenz meant when he said that there has never been a reflective self-exploration of human culture on our planet (Lorenz 1987, p. 304). In the understanding of Konrad Lorenz, this reflective self-exploration of human culture is only possible if a person recognizes the biological basis which his spiritual being and his culture first produced, and if he does not supernaturally justify this natural process and thereby cover it up. The central statement of the gene-culture coevolution and progress in it is therefore that of Konrad Lorenz, "that instinctive elements are also contained in human social behavior that cannot be changed by cultural influences" (Lorenz 1987, p. 303).

literature

  • K. Lorenz: The back of the mirror . Munich 1987 (cited is the dtv edition, which appeared for the first time in 1977; the first edition was published by Piper in 1973, ISBN 978-3-492-02030-5 )
  • K. Lorenz: The so-called evil . Munich 1984 (first edition Vienna 1963)
  • J. Monod: Chance and Necessity - Philosophical Questions in Modern Biology . Munich 1991, ISBN 3-492-22290-0