So let's plant an apple tree

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So let's plant an apple tree - the time has come is a non-fiction book and bestseller from 1985 by the German science journalist Hoimar von Ditfurth about the global threats to humanity .

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The author begins his book with the words "End times ... we are not doing well". Nuclear war , environmental degradation and population explosion , and the inability of human society to respond adequately, threaten the very survival of the human species.

What is special about Ditfurth's work is the philosophical second part of the book, in which the question is examined whether humanity as a collective is able to change its behavior, because this is an elementary prerequisite for its survival. Ditfurth presents the high influence of genetics on behavior on the basis of cases from twin research in order to show the limitations of so-called human free will . Ditfurth concludes that it is not possible for mankind to change its behavior so fundamentally that a faunal cut (mass extinction of species) and thus also the own demise of mankind can be avoided. He sees the evolutionary task of mankind precisely in bringing about this faunal cut.

The elementary problem of mankind is overpopulation (the "root of all evil"), and this cannot be prevented because human ethics contradict it. There is no ethically justifiable way of reducing the number of people on earth or even stopping any further increase across cultures and countries. Even wars and epidemics are not enough for this, so that the ethics of mankind mean their downfall, because the number of people that this planet can feed is limited. The limited ability of humans to estimate series of numbers is also fatal. Humans can estimate linear series, but not exponential developments, and the world population is increasing exponentially. In his opinion, this is an important reason why the impending danger is not properly perceived. Another reason: the ecological collapse is absolutely silent. There are no animal or plant species loudly protesting against their extinction.

Regarding the Faunenschnitt, Ditfurth borrows from the philosopher Ulrich Horstmann (p. 323). Its characterization, called “ conditio humana ”, is not cynicism, but emphasizes that man cannot help being who he is. It is not his responsibility, vulgo: People are not angels, but would like to be.

Ditfurth therefore sees the extinction of Homo sapiens as natural . However, he is convinced of the fundamental meaningfulness of individual existence, as part of universal evolution , which enables humanity, as actors in cosmological history, to understand its fate without despair and resignation . From an evolutionary point of view, the downfall of mankind is simply a matter of course, so that better adapted forms of life can take the place of man.

Ditfurth's conclusion is:

"Just as the certainty of my individual death - regardless of all fear of the process of dying - does not throw me into despair, there is little reason to doubt the meaning of the existence of the species Homo sapiens on this planet simply because you too Occurrence like that of all other living creatures could naturally only have a temporary character! "

Although the argument shows that man is in a bad way, Ditfurth would be very right if someone convinced him that his line of argument is flawed, which leads to the irrevocable conclusion that the time has come (with extinction of humanity) (p. 282). He just doesn't see how "this diagnosis could be contradicted".

Ditfurth consistently closes his book with the words: “So let's plant an apple tree. The time has come. "

The book was very controversial, and Ditfurth was accused of fatalism . His point of view is negative and pessimistic.

Humanity under threat

Ditfurth sees two major dangers for mankind. In his opinion, the one, the danger of a nuclear war, poses a lesser threat, although it would be absolutely fatal in and of itself, since it need not occur. However, this does not apply to the other danger, the collapse of the earth's biosphere, since this collapse has already started, it is in full swing (“The time has come”). Ditfurth goes into detail. With regard to the nuclear war, he describes the effects of a 150kt nuclear weapon ignited over a large city :

  • radioactive contamination of 2,000 km² (the size of an average rural district)
  • the inner city evaporates (stone and steel evaporate at a temperature of one million degrees Celsius, just as water evaporates at 100 degrees Celsius)
  • At a distance of four kilometers (e.g. in the city park that every big city has), the heat flash from the nuclear weapon causes uncovered skin to boil briefly, and trees, grass and wooden structures go up in flames
  • the German rescue service would be claimed for weeks, the medical capabilities of the country for years beyond the limits of performance

With regard to the ecological collapse, Ditfurth cites the following facts (as of 1985):

  • 35 percent of the West German forests suffer to varying degrees from a disease known as forest dieback
  • one species (animal or plant) is dying out every day, estimates suggest that the earth will lose 20 percent (2 million species) of the species that still exist on its surface in the next two decades
  • Nettle corners in gardens, left to give the peacock butterfly (butterfly) a chance, provoke neighbors' protest
  • the inexhaustible abundance of fish in the world's oceans is no longer sufficient ( overfishing caused by overpopulation)
  • 40 million people die every year on earth from hunger and starvation (mostly in the form of intestinal diseases). There are 40,000 children every day alone. Cause: An unjust world economic order that assigns all advantages to the developed countries and does not give the underdeveloped countries the opportunity to "develop".

If people let things drift further, Ditfurth fears, nature would at some point know how to help itself: "A few billions of people will starve to death, die of epidemics or have to go into the inevitable [also nuclear-led] final wars of distribution over the last drinking water reserves or the last agricultural ones still usable soils perish. "

Ways out

Ditfurth emphasizes the extent of the problems ahead. The problems are a) urgent (“at most two generations”) and b) worldwide (there are no other spaces for mankind on earth). Since the problems are global, only a globally coordinated effort by all countries in the world can bring "the last minute effect". In terms of the danger of a nuclear war, this means that the western world will “freeze” the existing armaments potential (“ overkill capacity”) in order to put an end to the arms spiral. The western world is capable of this, the eastern world is not (because of its backwardness), says Ditfurth. For the ecological danger, Ditfurth suggests using Gerhard Prosi's (economist) concept that in the future companies will no longer be allowed to pass their costs on to the general public. General: In the future, nature should no longer be viewed as an object that can be exploited for free. Prosi: “The prosperity that we enjoy is inflated by the value of our overexploitation of nature.” The same principle of no longer shifting the costs onto (defenseless) nature, also applies to the individual (recycling of Raw materials), but reaches its limits when it comes to bare survival in the third world .

The death

The fact that people and animals die is ultimately a banal statement. Nobody lives forever. The same is true of species, e.g. B. dinosaurs , mammoths and Neanderthals . Humanity, although undoubtedly the “crown of creation” (on earth) at the moment, will also one day die out. Ditfurth wins something good from death despite its "futility". He claims that there is an afterlife in which all human beings are embedded. And this is not just meant as a “consolation”, as religious “wishful thinking” about an afterlife may have. Death, which many people see as a fall into absolute nothingness, can, if it is accepted and accepted by people as part of their life, lead to the realization: "I don't want to live forever." (Which idea, millions of years to have to live!)

The Hereafter

Man does not live in the world, but in the image that he makes of the world. If it were different, if things were already as they appear to humans, then all research and science would be superfluous ( Peter Sloterdijk ). So there are gaps in the worldview, things that are imperceptible to humans (e.g. X-rays) and that they don't even know exist. According to Ditfurth, the world is open to the top - "unimaginable and inconceivable". That part of reality that eludes human knowledge and that one has to imagine as immeasurably larger than the part known to man is the afterlife, writes Ditfurth. Man now has consciousness (mind, thoughts, dreams , self-critical thinking, intentions) that can be viewed as a means of transcending the world . Ditfurth states: “... because human consciousness can be understood in the context of the outlined dualistic conception as an indication of an actual, more fundamental reality that lies beyond our this-worldly reality, which epistemology has seen through as an imperfect image and this in every sense of the world Word is justified in the first place. "(Pp. 357/358)

Effect, trivia

  • It is the guide book for the growing environmental and anti-nuclear movements of the 1980s.
  • The title of the book refers to a quote attributed to Martin Luther (wrongly because it cannot be proven in all of his surviving work) : "If I knew that tomorrow the world would end, I would plant an apple tree today."
  • The work belongs to Ditfurth's older work, who died a few years after the book was published.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ No longer an animal and not yet an angel. ( Blaise Pascal )
  2. ^ The stationing of 464 Cruise Missiles and 108 Pershing 2 rockets on the western side in 1983 resulted in the stationing of Soviet medium-range missiles in the GDR and Czechoslovakia
  3. ↑ untreated sewage in the Rhine, discharge unfiltered pollutants (sulfur dioxide) into the air; burden the state with the cost of apprenticeship training
  4. ↑ Ditfurth cites squatters (landless farmers) in the Philippines as an example , who can only make a (poor) livelihood by slash-and-burn, but encourage soil erosion and cause themselves damage sooner or later
  5. ↑ From the perspective of the individual, death may seem pointless, especially if at the end of life there is a risk of years of infirmity. Ditfurth sees the meaning of a (human) life in connection with the type (humanity) in which the individual living being is integrated. The species (or more generally: evolution) is not so interested in the individual as it is in the fact that the individual maintains the species (through reproduction). The single individual is subject to the interests of evolution (for maintenance and higher development). Since the individual comes into the world with a genetic make-up ( DNA ) that does not change in the course of life, and on the other hand evolution is designed for change (higher development, perhaps even with a future goal ), from the point of view of evolution Periodic successor generations replace the current generation. For “reasons of space” (the earth has only a limited surface), the generation to be replaced has to cede, that is, to die.
  6. ↑ Man's relationship to life is ambivalent: Of course he would like to live, but not forever. It is doubtful whether Ludwig van Beethoven would have had the same vigor with his 109th symphony as he undoubtedly felt when he composed his ninth symphony - the vigor that made him write the ninth symphony in the first place. In this sense every person is historical, especially outstanding personalities like Jesus Christ - but also (in a nefarious way) Adolf Hitler. Life is unique (to be lived) and not arbitrary (long). Ditfurth traces the ambivalence back to the genetic structure of humans (the DNA): on the one hand, the fear of death in humans, coded in the DNA, an "archaic program", programmed before the incarnation, i.e. already effective in every animal, and on the other hand the Hayflick Program, also encoded in the DNA, which only allows people to live around 100 years, whereby the Hayflick program is the "stronger" of the two programs: Nobody lives forever.
  7. ↑ Ditfurth considers three theories with regard to the philosophy of mind or the mind- body problem : a) Identity theory (the mind is identical to the accompanying physical processes in the brain): In Ditfurth's view, this theory is worthless because it (dogmatic ) declares to be "identical" what is not identical (namely spirit and matter). b) Monism (the physical processes in the brain are the cause of the mind): Ditfurth rejects this theory, since the monism ultimately means that the mind is an epiphenomenon of matter, i.e. a (ultimately superfluous, insignificant) accompanying phenomenon of matter . But epiphenomenalism has been disproved since Hans Jonas (1903-1993) ( power or impotence of subjectivity? ). c) Dualism (mind and matter are two different phenomena that interact with one another: matter (the brain) can trigger thoughts, e.g. in the case of physical complaints the thought: "I feel uncomfortable." On the other hand, thoughts can be neural , ie trigger physical processes such that a thought causes the arm to be raised, and it seems to be the case that thoughts are brought up by the brain in the sense that they are perceived in the same way as, for example, the eye an (objectively present ) Image perceives.) Ditfurth does not regard dualism as “the true Jacob”, but as less contradictory than identity theory or monism.
  8. ↑ According to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) there is no possibility for the human capacity for knowledge to ever learn anything about the thing in itself, to know it. Jonas therefore describes Kant as a "renouncer". For humans there are only categories of ideas (time, space, causality (connection between cause and effect)) that are innate and therefore valid a priori. Now there is a not inconsiderable difference between the image of the world reconstructed by the brain and the objective real world that exists outside of the human being, the thing in itself. This difference has been the central theme of all epistemological research since Plato ( allegory of the cave ). For example, electromagnetic waves (800 nm), the thing in itself, appear to humans as a color impression (red). Now Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), with the evolutionary epistemology he developed ( The Back of the Mirror ) made it probable that there is a (fuzzy) connection between the thing itself (real category) and the associated thought category / appearance. The a priori (i.e., independent of the thing in itself) (pre-) given categories of thought become a posteriori experiences, acquired experiences , through evolutionary (phylogenetic) consideration . Not the individual, but the (biological) species to which the individual belongs, has experiences with the thing in itself, which are passed on to subsequent generations through reproduction (DNA) - in particular there is the possibility of a ( mutative ) development, a higher development / refinement of the Experience given. Lorenz: "Evolution is a knowledge-gaining process." Example for the thing in itself: the natural laws for flow ( water , air ). The experience that the species has in the course of evolution: fish fins / wings of a bird. If fish fins didn't have the slightest thing to do with the laws of flow of water, as Kant claims, then no fish could swim, ma W., it would have long since died out. Ditfurth now suspects ( we are not only from this world ) that in the course of the next billion years the experiences / knowledge of humans or those of their genetic successors will come closer and closer to the true nature of the thing itself. With the heat death of the universe (in approx. 60 billion years) the point has been reached at which the thing itself is (sharply) recognized / known as such. This (timeless) state is then the afterlife, postulates Ditfurth. Thought and real categories are one in this otherworldly state.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Table of contents of the book, blurb at hoimar-von-ditfurth.de
  2. ↑ See Martin Schloemann: Luther's apple trees? A chapter in the history of German mentality since the Second World War. Second, expanded edition. Pro BUSINESS, Berlin 2016 (first Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994).
  3. ^ Ditfurth 1985: - Book editions in the DNB