EREIGNIS – Mutual Conditioning
If, as quantum theory suggests, everything is interconnected, then we should also probably assume that from this interconnection there must also arise an evolutionary, mutual conditioning that would ultimately strive for a positive unfolding for the benefit of that self-same everything.
In philosophy, this idea of the interconnected universe runs rife through much of oriental philosophy, but also through Platonic and Pythagoras’ ideas in the west, Medieval and Renaissance ideas of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, Alchemical theories and New Age philosophies of holistic health and harmony. In Heidegger’s philosophy, for example, mutual conditioning is not merely an Esse ist percipi, Subject-Object relationship, it is a fourfold thing between “earth, sky, mortals and divinity.”
For Heidegger, mutual conditioning takes place as an Ereignis, which Dreyfuss defined as “things coming into themselves by belonging together.” In other words, we become what we can be according to how the other elements of the fourfold relationship allow that becoming to take place. But, Ereignis is not a simple one-way process in which humanity takes from the Universe what it can in order to fulfil its own ambitions, the earth and sky also “comes into themselves” through humanity.
For this reason, we see Heidegger’s fourfold concept of Ereignis as an elaboration on, and a further development of the idea of Esse ist percipi or a Western approximation of the Oriental idea that everything is One. Yet Heidegger’s concept also contains a more purposeful seed than the relativistic nihilisms implied by most eastern philosophies. We are not just a part of the whole, we actually take part in a positive, progressive, and creative process of coming into ourselves, while at the same time allowing the rest of the Universe to come into itself as well. If Esse ist percipi allows Being to occur, then it is Ereignis that permits the existence of meaning within that Being. This is because, if there is no mutual conditioning, things just do not matter.
We believe that technology should also be brought into this fold, for, by placing it there, we can also see the enormous responsibilities that it has and, at the same time, also make clearer the great responsibilities resting on humanity’s shoulders as creators, programmers and manipulators of those technologies.
The mutual conditioning that takes place between humanity and the world is one of Esse ist percipi on one level, which in Heidegger’s terms is realised through the process of discovery or uncovering that humanity makes of the world and that bears the conditions necessary for humans to exist.
Human technologies, of course, are a fundamental element that allows this uncovering to take place by giving us the means to make deeper and deeper analogies and calculations regarding the fabric of the world and the Universe that envelops everything. Nevertheless, the use of these technologies, and the uncovering process itself, must never jeopardise humanity’s fundamental role on Earth, which is to act as the protector of the planet, not its violator: a role which we have largely lost sight of precisely because of the perverse spell that our own Faustian relationship with the technology created by us has woven. But there is a positive side to this debacle, as the tragic consequences of this enchantment are being made more apparent day by day. If we are to protect our world from our own seemingly irreversible, smothering growth, and preserve it, we need an advanced technology to accomplish this, and that technology must be created in a way that will not bring further harm.
Technology only has the purposes we have created it for, and because of this, human purposiveness is vital if we are to be capable of inventing technologies that really matter, fulfilling a positive role within the mutual-conditioning fold of the Ereignis.
