12._ Humanity

We affirm that the Humanity, as level of emergency of the self-conscience and the symbolic thought, represents an important stage of the cosmic evolution. Is it perhaps a necessary step, after the appearance of the life and the conscience, or "intelligent life"?

Like in all the cases of emergence, it has not been able to anticipate it in the previous levels; it is an authentic newness; its appearance has depended on the action of "heuristic" tendencies in the middle of the chance; it does not respond to any own intention or conscious purpose present in the previous level; it only can be considered "a posteriori" like purpose of the Nature.

On the other hand, how we can describe as "cosmically important" to that it happens in a so very small place, in an insignificant planet of a very ordinary stellar system, of one of the countless galaxies of the universe? And although we could grant it some qualitative importance as profit of complex organization, is not a delirious thought thinking that it can play an outstanding role in the universal evolution towards the Last Newness, towards God?

In order to try to respond to these questions we must consider several aspects.

In first term, that the conditions adapted for the appearance of the life do not occur in any place, and specially not in the center of the galaxies, and that they require of a long time of preparation so that the material elements that constitute it can take place. For that reason, the sprouting of the life only can be expected in places with certain environmental properties, such as moderate temperatures and liquid presence of water, and only after a long preparatory period, of thousands of million years, in the existence of the universe.

It is certain that there will be surely innumerable planets in the immense universe where the appropriate conditions occur, and probably countless appearances of different forms of life in multiple places, and different times, occur. That those lives evolve towards intelligence, as we know it, and specially towards a type of intelligence like the human one, it seems something hazardous. We could even say, --if it is allowed to us to locate in a point of view like this-- that if the "human phenomenon" had not happened, perhaps was not any reason to wait for it. But it has happened. Only in the Earth? We do not know it. We do not know if the Humanity is the unique beginning of the level of self-conscious emergence, or if it is one of his many occurrences.

In any case, the Humanity is the beginning of a newness of incalculable consequences for the future of the Earth, and we think that even for the Universe, by insignificant that are their origins.

In second term, we must consider that the human species has been existing for very little time, in comparison at the age of the Earth. In effect, the first hominids lived about 5 million years ago, the first representatives of the human species date from about 2.5 million years and the first Homo Sapiens only about 600,000 years, whereas the Earth formed about 4,600 million years ago and the Universe since about 14,000 million years.

Consequently, the effects of the human existence only can be beginning to manifest themselves. Of course, the civilized Humanity, human History, has only about 8,000 years old, a ridiculously brief lapse in terms of the evolution. Nevertheless, the effects of the civilization are transforming the terrestrial surface, and it is planning the future colonization of the Solar System. And, over this, the human being has been different deeply from the animals, acquiring progressively his present characteristics and personal and cultural capacities, in that brief term. In view of all it, it will be difficult to exaggerate when imagining what can get to be the Humanity within, we put, a million years. Or its descendants, or new emergent, within several hundreds or thousands of million years.

Of course, the history of the Humanity is ethically ambivalent: in spite of its profits, is full of the most horrible misfortunes and injustices, and the consequences of the civilization, in spite of its great artistic and scientific profits, and to its advantages for the human survival and well-being, can be corrupting and destructive, until the point to threaten the same Earth existence.

The future of the Humanity, far from being insured, is doubtful, risky and difficult. It even can be that is not future at all. This uncertainty is real, from the inside of the process, in spite of the presence of the "good will" and the action of the Spirit. It shows the great responsibility that we must assume the human beings --each one in its "infinitesimal" particular scope-- in the advance of the cosmic process. But we trust that the positive tendencies of the human ethics will prevail, and in that case, we think that the future impact of the Humanity can be of crucial importance in the universal evolution towards God.

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