The anthropocene is a complex, tentative notion in my mind that is steadily gaining traction. From my first introductions to philosophy to dummy, I bought right into relativity and jumped right off of the nonlinearity train. And so now, the move to systems theory does not seem so far off. A particular point of fascination for me is the aspect of autonomy within the holism framework. For as much as some scholars may speak of Gaia as a living being, “She” cannot willfully influence humans to act in any given way. The same goes for the rest of the beings that inhabit this complex system. Ultimately what we do is up to us, but we don’t have much control over what we set in motion either. The centralized coordination amazes me at such a grand scale—meanwhile I think it’s wonderful when all my housemates do the chores on time. I do contend that there has to be a shift in ethics in the coming future—a shift in state of mind, which may take some philosophizing. And to that, I unfortunately turn to an animated show called Rick and Morty. One episode in particular pops into mind, entitled Unity in which the main character, Rick, falls for an old fling who is a “collective hivemind” and takes over planets to make them peaceful and prosperous. Past the silliness of the scenario, Rick’s granddaughter confronts this entity as stealing the free will of the inhabitants of planet. The catch is, those inhabitants were destroying both their planet and each other. Sounds awfully familiar to me. This begs the question if the sum of the parts’ wishes doesn’t align wish those of its whole, then isn’t the whole more worth saving? Especially if saving the whole also saves the parts?
