Humans do not live by knowledge alone. The knowledge relationship is only one element of human involvement with the outside world, and the knowledge construct, important factor as it is, is but one component of the human environment. The latter cannot be reduced to the knowledge construct and any attempt to do so is not only unjustified but also dangerous, with the outside reality ending up pinned to the procrustean bed of a priori ideas. Since the knowledge construct cannot replace the outside world, knowledge neither can nor should be the only factor influencing its own development. As we remarked earlier, knowledge does not feed exclusively on itself; it is not a kingdom unto itself. It is and has to remain relational, a link between knowers and the world, in order to fulfill its existential role and to justify its existence. Knowledge has to be seen in the context of the dynamic involvement of the knower in, and with, the outside reality. This perspective should not obscure the fact that the knower is an individual and that he thinks as an individual, i.e., a self distinct from everything else.

The individuality of the knower is a fundamental fact which must be fully recognized in the analysis of the existential dimension of knowledge. But, in order to be adequate, this analysis must also give full recognition to the insertion of the individual knower in the system of beings and relations forming the reality of which the knower is a product and an integral part. The acts of knowing and the knowledge which results from them reflect not only the individuality of the knower, but also his insertion in, and dependence on, the environment. If we stress again this fact, it is because all too often we tend to forget it and view our knowledge as if we were sovereign minds, self-contained and knowledge-wise self-sufficient. As we said above, knowledge is relational. In order to serve as a bridge between the knower and the outside world, it has to reflect on its basic, personal level both the individuality of the knower and his insertion in, and dependence upon the environment. It is because of this dependence that the individual is forced to test his ideas and to adjust them to the perceptible outside world existing independently from him. And he has to do this no matter what his or anybody else’s thoughts or desires may be. It is in the context of this dependence, and in virtue of it, that humans think, learn and progress. Without this dependence, knowledge would have little if any existential meaning and justification.

The existential dependence of knowers on their total environment balances the impact of the knowledge construct on the development of knowledge. It does not allow the knower to enclose himself completely in the sphere of his intellectual products and remain thus on a given level of development of knowledge, or within a particular manner of knowing, without producing negative consequences for the knower himself and for the development of knowledge. The existential dependence of knowers prevents the closing of the knowledge system composed of knowers and the knowledge construct and keeps open the evolutionary system of man, maintaining the possibility of evolution of humans. Evolution is a systemic process, the product of a system. In order that the process continue, the system must persist and act as a system. This means that its elements must remain interdependent, interactive, influencing each other mutually. Knowers must not exclude themselves from the impact of all elements of their environment by enclosing themselves in the sphere of ideas.

It would seem that rationality, being the most powerful factor producing evolution in the whole realm of living beings, would naturally predispose humans to be synergistic with their natural environment. This, as we know, is not always the case. It often happens that we enjoy the company of our ideas more than that of tangible reality. The situation is further complicated by the exponential growth of the knowledge construct and its growing impact on humans. The growth of this impact is a mixed blessing. On the one hand it changes the conditions of human evolution, making it more and more specifically human, and distinguishes it increasingly from purely biological, infrahuman evolution. On the other hand, it increases the danger of knowers becoming enclosed in the growing sphere of their ideas and products. The fact is, that the greater the impact of the knowledge construct, the greater its power to help humans and to harm them. What does not change in the process of the evolution of knowledge is the ambivalent value of knowledge for humans.

Of all the elements of the human environment, the knowledge construct enjoys a unique status because of its intellectual nature. The power of its impact results from the feed relationship existing between the human mind and ideas. The mind produces ideas and in turn is influenced by them. Thus the furniture of the mind becomes richer, more complex and more manmade. One can, therefore, say that the mind becomes more and more its own maker, with all the good and bad consequences that this fact entails. The impact of the knowledge construct does not end with its influence on the mind itself. Through the agency of the mind it acts on the whole human being and influences individual and group behavior. Indeed, the chain of influences it generates does not end there. Proportionally to the progress of knowledge, human behavior influences more and more the existential situation of humans, making it increasingly more complex, more unstable and more intellectually demanding. Thus, the changes in the human condition force the intellect to think further and search for new ideas and solutions. The new ideas in turn influence the mind, and so on. The cycle recommences anew. The situation involves essentially four elements: mind, ideas, behavior and human condition and may be represented as follows:

mind ? human condition ? ideas (knowledge construct) ? behavior

 

Much effort and ingenuity has been spent to find out and/or to prove which of these four elements is the most fundamental and plays the determining role. The answer given to this question has far-reaching consequences, supporting either the spiritualistic or the materialistic worldview. Indeed, it would be interesting to know whether one of these four elements is definitely prior to and more fundamental than others. With which one does the merry-go-round begin. The problem is whether the question thus formulated helps us to explain adequately the nature of the relationship existing between the four elements. In order to understand this relationship it is necessary to realize that the four elements form a system and act synchronically whatever be the order of their appearance on the scene. Being interdependent and complementary to each other, they should be viewed as integral parts of the system.

What matters most is the realization that we deal with a system, and that the system is dynamic and evolving. The system itself and its elements are becoming increasingly more complex and its internal and external causality more powerful. The system, being a system, is more than the sum total of its parts. Consequently, it cannot be understood adequately through an analysis of its parts. Moreover, the elements, though interdependent, are not similar in nature or in causality. For this reason, the interdependence of the four elements should not be taken univocally. Each arrow indicates the direction of causality but represents a different kind of causality and a different kind of dependence engendered by this causality. In fact, the relationships transforming the four elements into a system are more complex than the arrows would suggest. For instance, the knowledge construct influences directly the mode of thinking and the contents of thoughts of the individual. Through this action, it impacts also on his psychological state and his physical nature, the two being affected by ideas and by the material products of rational behavior.

If, notwithstanding its apparent simplicity, the diagram under discussion is difficult to understand and gives rise to different interpretations, it is because it expresses relations of interdependence. The relation of interdependence, transforming elements of this relationship into a system, is always complex and difficult to grasp, especially in this case because we deal here with dynamic factors, producing not a stable state but a sequence of dynamic states, a life process. Confronted by such a situation, one is tempted to make it more intelligible by simplifying it. To do this one has to reduce the relation of interdependence to that of subordination which is the simplest case of interdependence. This temptation is particularly strong in trying to understand the role of the mind in the diagram. The difficulty has essentially two sources: the nature of the mind which is not a material, palpable entity, and its relatedness to other elements of the diagram.

The intellect is influenced in different ways by all the three other elements, but it is not a mirror or a product of these elements. The ideas, judgments and reasonings which it produces are not a mirror image of the outside world, either. The intellect is not a mere receptor, although knowledge, whether on the sense or the intellectual level, always involves reception. The intellect is an active factor; it thinks on the basis of, and from, a given set of data, but is not contained within and by it. The more creative is the mind, the more it transcends the initial situation. The intellect is not only the linchpin of the system under discussion, it is also its most, though not absolutely, free and active element, capable of transcending any given existential situation and of changing it by introducing new ideas. New ideas not only help to better understand the situation, they increase also the human potential for thinking and for doing things, the net result being better understanding and more efficient activity.

In contradistinction to animal life, human life depends on ideas, i.e., on the knowledge construct. It is obvious that this dependence is increasing. It is because of this dependence that it can and does influence humans in different ways. As far as this impact is concerned, it is worth repeating that the development of knowledge has two apparently contradictory effects. It allows humans to behave in an evermore efficient way, satisfying an increasing number of continuously more sophisticated needs and desires. The price of this achievement is the growth of the complexity of behavior which instead of reducing, multiplies human problems, as has been implied in Law XVII. At the same time the development of knowledge gives humans the possibility of conceiving the means for dealing with these problems. Whether they are using these means and how they use them is another question. Knowledge, as we know, is a necessary, but not the sole factor determining human actions. Problems of pollution and overpopulation are two generally known and highly illuminating examples of this situation.

It would be quite interesting to try to enumerate all other factors besides knowledge which influence human actions. However, such a project would not only transcend the scope of the present book, it would also go beyond the limits of the knowledge of the present writer. Fortunately, the list of these factors is not necessary for our purpose. What matters for us here is the fact that the net result of the influence of the knowledge construct on knowers is the growing pressure to think more, to know more and to behave more rationally. The need to know more and to think more is a fact of everyday experience and hardly needs demonstration. As far as rational behavior is concerned, one may perhaps have doubts about real progress in this area. The number of atrocities which have been committed in our century and the growing destructiveness of our behavior seem to mitigate against any affirmation of an increase of rationality in human actions. It would be futile to try to engage here in serious discussion of this question without doing injustice to the scope and importance of this problem.

Short of discussing the problem, let us point out two things. Firstly, more advanced knowledge and greater capacity to act are not, unfortunately, synonymous with automatic moral progress. Modern knowledge, which has developed for almost four centuries now, is quantitative, factual cognition which tells us much about how the world is, but little about how we should behave. Questions of value have been intentionally excluded from the purview of research. In light of this situation, the lack of moral progress should not be surprising. Ethical consciousness does not increase when it is not properly cultivated, unless we are confronted by life-threatening situations. Science did not make us morally better but gave us greater power to do things and thereby to increase our capacity to harm ourselves. This statement allows us to introduce the second point concerning the question of the increase of the rationality of human action. It is a sad but true fact that the wrongdoings of the present century were made possible by the progress of knowledge. They are a monstrous but tangible proof of this progress and of the ambivalence of human achievements.

In light of what we have just stated, is it still possible to view the impact of the knowledge construct forcing us to know more and to behave more rationally as positive and desirable? All the negative effects notwithstanding, the greater use of reason is definitively a progress, but it is not an unmixed blessing. Indeed, the more we think, the more problems we have. The description of the impact of the knowledge construct would be incomplete without mentioning the fact that it creates difficulties, but it does not create insurmountable problems. As we already know, problems are proportional to knowledge. Solutions to problems caused directly or indirectly by knowledge and its development can always be found, provided there is the will to solve them and that one has the knowledge adequate to do this task — which, of course, is not always the case. Problems and the knowledge necessary for their solution do not always coincide in time and in space.

As is well-known, the possession of highly sophisticated and specialized knowledge which creates many of today’s problems and which is required for solving them, is not easy to learn nor is it uniformly distributed in the world. Generally speaking, two kinds of conditions have to be satisfied for the possession of this type of knowledge, namely, intellectual and material. First, individuals have to have sufficiently high IQs and be adequately educated. The combination of these two factors is not easy to come by and eliminates the great majority of the world population. Secondly, one must have an adequate research system and financial means to cope with complex problems, such as, for instance, the disposal of radioactive waste. It is obvious that these two conditions exist in very few countries. Other societies are, therefore, increasingly at the mercy of those having more knowledge and a better knowledge industry. This is particularly significant and disturbing in view of the nature of the problems which humanity now faces.

Until recently, humans have been so overwhelmed by nature and so preoccupied with fending off natural dangers that nature, not humans, was seen as the principal source of their problems. This is why it is so difficult to accept the fact that, as we have stated before, the great problems of our times are all direct or indirect products of the development of knowledge. They all result from our constantly growing ability to do things, to impact on nature and to change the natural course of events. Not only are ordinary people a growing source of problems for themselves because of their growing demiurgic power, but the uneven distribution of these powers is an additional source of difficulties for individual societies and for humanity as a whole. Inequalities among individuals and societies are nothing new; they have always existed and were accepted as natural. What is new is the growing awareness of the injustice of this situation and the realization that the inequalities are not only not disappearing but are increasing.

What is particularly troublesome is the fact that the growth of inequalities is a consequence of the development of knowledge. Notwithstanding the amoral nature of modern science, the general progress of knowledge and of education gives us both a growing sense of responsibility for the situation which we create and a desire to help those in need. Earlier (Law XVII) we insisted on the relationship existing between problems and knowledge. Let us now point out another, perhaps even more surprising relation existing between the progress of knowledge and the number of people in need of help:

Law XXIII: "The number of peoples in need of help is proportional to the level of knowledge and the ability to act"

 

The progress of knowledge makes the growth of the world population possible, but it does not decrease the need for help, quite the contrary.

In our analysis of the consequences of the development of knowledge we have not yet discussed the very important issue of moral responsibility which is intimately bound up with rationality. The growth of the sense of responsibility is one of the most meaningful and hopeful consequences of the intellectual evolution. It is a rather surprising consequence in view of the nature of scientific knowledge, which is the principal factor of the progress of knowledge. As we have said earlier, science purports to be a value-free cognition and does not delve into moral issues as such. It has been developed at least in part, as a substitute for religion, and it has little use for traditional, religiously inspired ethics. Yet its growth has led to a greater awareness of the consequences of our activities and to a more adequate understanding of our responsibility for them. Quite unexpectedly and to the displeasure of all those who believed that science would help us solve our problems, ushering us into a golden age of universal human happiness, the very success of science confrons us with the possibility of self-annihilation. Thus, unwittingly, science has made us understand more and more clearly the manmade threats to our individual and collective survival.

Scientific culture did not cultivate moral awareness as such, but it did produce a dramatic development of the scope and complexity of ethical issues. Traditional moral systems arose in response to, and for the purpose of dealing with, problems proper to a much simpler mode of life and were commensurable with a much lesser power to do things. Present moral issues have gone far beyond those of yesteryear. Moreover, the ethical problematic is continuously growing in the number of issues, their complexity and urgency. Machiavelli could claim that moral considerations are of secondary importance in politics. Interestingly enough, the great problems of our times such as overpopulation, pollution, atomic power, etc. . . . are moral, public, universal issues from which there is no escape. They are more and more central to political life on national and international levels, whether politicians like it or not. We must understand that their rise to prominence is intimately bound with our power to do things, which in turn, is related to the knowledge construct. Let us express the all important relationship between the knowledge construct, the power to act and ethics by means of the following law:

Law XXIV: "The moral problematic is proportional to the knowledge construct and to the power to act."

 

Being a function of the level of knowledge and the power to do things, the scope and complexity of moral problems is not a constant, but a continuously growing variable. It cannot be otherwise because the more we do things, the more problems we create. The scope and complexity of our behavior is proportional to our knowledge and grows with it. The more sophisticated our activity becomes, the greater and more durable its consequences. At the same time our need and capacity to understand them grows, as we have already mentioned. Responsibility for one’s behavior is the mark and the price of rationality. The more we know, the more aware we have to become and the more aware we do become of the need to evaluate the short and long range consequences of our acts. And thus grows inexorably the sphere of moral issues. Let us stress again that the growth of ethical problems is not the result of a free decision of humans to become more morally perfect; no such development is visible. The increasing concern with the consequences of our behavior is a systemic phenomenon. The system is composed of humans, their behavior, its consequences for human well-being and survival, and the concern of humans for their future. The survival instinct obliges us to make value judgments; the growth of our demurgic powers makes them more and more complicated and forces us to make them evermore often.

Morality is not fun. The need to mind increasingly the consequences of one’s behavior is a rather unpleasant result of the development of knowledge. The question is whether or not this is an accidental and inconsequential result which, with more knowledge, we would be able to eliminate in the future. Unfortunately for all those who expect knowledge to liberate them from moral obligations, there is no such relief in sight. Not only is the need to mind the consequences of our acts proportional to our demiurgic powers and to the level of knowledge, but the need is an essential device of properly human evolution. It is an inevitable consequence of our rational capacity to distinguish between good and evil; it underlies our choices and is responsible for the ethical dimension of human life. All too often we forget that, all other factors being equal, our capacity to make choices is proportional to our capacity to do things, which in turn is proportional to our knowledge. Let us express this fundamental relationship in the form of a law:

Law XXV: "The capacity to do good or evil is proportional to knowledge."

 

Indeed, moral discernment is inextricably bound with rationality and the growth of ethical issues is an unavoidable result of the development of rationality. In order to be properly understood, the feed relationship between ethics and knowledge has to be seen as an aspect of the feed relationship between humans and the knowledge construct. As we know, this latter relationship produces human cultural evolution. The ethical dimension of human life, being a necessary element of this relationship, is thereby a necessary condition of properly human evolution. Without the latter humans would never have left the cave or become moral agents.

Humans are by nature social animals. The social dimension of their existence is not an accidental aspect, one which they can do without. On the contrary, it is an essential element, necessary not only for their biological life but for their distinctive, specific quality of humanness and the human mode of life. The importance of the social dimension is quite visible in human cultural evolution. It is both an individual and a social process; one cannot occur without the other. As we have seen, the most important manmade factor which plays an increasingly decisive role in this process is the knowledge construct. In order to better understand this role one has to discuss its social dimension. Society is a structure which encompasses many individuals and lasts for generations. Its principal value consists in this, that it is larger than the individual, both in space and in time, thus making possible cooperation, i.e., synergy among individuals and accumulation of experience through successive generations. The two functions are necessary for its development.

It takes time and many individual contributions to produce a significant body of knowledge. The knowledge construct proper to a human group is not a product of an individual intellect within the limits of a single life. More than one intellect has to contribute to it and more than one generation. This is a well-known fact. Less well-known are the conditions of accumulation of the knowledge construct and the consequences of these conditions. First of all, the knowledge construct is a distinctly social product, requiring synchronic and diachronic relations among individuals. These relations can exist only within an established and preferably stable society. Rational individuals and individual intellectual creativity are a necessary condition for its development, but not a sufficient one. Individuals as individuals are incapable of building one of significant scope. Only society can assume this task, inasmuch and to the extent to which it can make possible the accumulation and preservation, from generation to generation, of the results of individual acts of knowledge. Just as the individual is the knower, so society is the facilitator and keeper of the knowledge construct.

To the extent that it is a social construct, it is impersonal and transpersonal: it does not belong to anybody in particular. The fact that the knowledge construct transcends individuals is essential to its evolutionary nature, which presupposes cooperation on a larger and larger scale. Moreover, it rewards the effort to synergize, offering significant advantages to the builders and users of large knowledge constructs. However, the advantages of possession of a large knowledge construct do not come cheaply for its building is difficult, expensive and takes time. It presupposes a proper cultural and intellectual climate, as well as sustained mental and material input. No two societies have identical attitudes towards knowledge and equal means to develop the knowledge construct. So there are enormous differences of distribution of knowledge in the world and an uneven use of knowledge from country to country. It is difficult to imagine that this situation will change significantly in the foreseeable future. Quite the contrary, the differences, if anything, are increasing. The accumulation and preservation of knowledge becomes a more and more complicated task demanding specialized skills and complex social organization. The larger and more advanced the knowledge construct, the greater must be the intellectual and economic potential necessary to sustain it. Only large, well-organized, efficient and wealthy societies can afford it.

There is a feedback relationship between society and the knowledge construct. The larger, the more stable and more efficiently organized society is, the better it may accomplish the task of building the knowledge construct. In turn the more this is developed, the greater advantages it offers society and the more it facilitates its development. It is not by accident that the development of knowledge always coincides with social and economic development. The development of society is a systemic phenomenon, of which the development of knowledge is an integral and important factor. This explains why small, nomadic, or inefficiently organized societies have never developed large knowledge constructs. It is also understandable why there is an acceleration in the development of knowledge and so much competition in this field between states. Nor is it surprising that the most vigorous and massive effort of the development of knowledge of all times is the work of the richest society on earth, namely, the American society.

In light of what has been said here, it is plausible that there is a definite relationship between the size, mode of life, culture and organization of society and the knowledge construct it possesses. Since the development of knowledge becomes evermore costly and demands larger and larger cooperation, it transcends the capacities of any one country. Thus the progress of knowledge is an evolutionary factor producing global interdependence. Seen from the perspective of the development of knowledge, the development of planetary society makes sense and the globalization of humanity appears to be a logical next step in human evolution.