View source for Breakdown of the Bio-Cultural Interfaces in the European Renaissance


=Discussion=

"In Europe, the bio-cultural interfaces began to break up during the Renaissance, before fully collapsing after the industrial revolution. To discuss the causes in full is beyond the scope of this article, but the bio-cultural interface eroded gradually, while  the  Cartesian  object-meaning-distinction  gained  dominance.  Minds  and  bodies are principal different realms, Descartes claims in the last chapter of his Meditations.  Reality  hence  comprises  two  profound  aspects,  the  reality  of  the  thinking mind, and the realty of matter. Solely human minds comprise thinking and conceive meaning. Things and objects, on the other hand, are mechanical bodies, and "it is not necessary to conceive of  this machine as having any vegetative or sensitive soul  or  other  principle  of   movement  and  life"  (Descartes, in  Cottingham et  al.,  1984,  I:108). 

The   object-meaning   distinction   allowed   nature   to   be   conceived   as   assemblages of neutral, dumb 'things'. Now, Titá could be chopped. It was 'just a forest'. The word 'just' succinctly sums up the modern mind, which transforms environments into 'resources', or even 'ecosystem services', which may be utilized or  converted  to  cash.  Cities  and  urban  areas  grew,  requiring  the  subsistence  farming  principles  to  develop  into  rational  and  effective  methods.  Harvests  turned  into  crops  and  commodities.  By  improving  healthcare  and  nutrition,  population growth rates accelerated.   

The phenomenon of waste is indicative for this cognitive shift. Waste is indeed well  known  from  premodern  cultures,  too.  Most  of  it,  however,  was  organic  leftovers  and  feces,  which  broke  down  and  recycled  into  soil,  atmosphere  and  hydrosphere (Strasser, 1999). But the more 'object' and 'meaning' separated, the more  things  and  objects  could  be  classified  as  waste:  packaging,  metals,  scrap,  clothing,  asphalt,  concrete  blocks  and  vast  numbers  of  synthetic  materials,  hydrocarbon  polymers  and  plastics.  "Waste  is  not  simply  a  product  of   material  and  intellectual  progress  but  is  in  fact  foundational  to  the  practices  of   modernization"  (Cooper,  2010).  In  addition  to  visual  waste,  an ever-expanding  application  for  chemicals  generated    accelerating    venues    of    pollutants,    that    accumulate    along biogeochemical cycles in atmosphere, soil, sediments, and food webs. Inventive scientific  processes,  moreover,  enabled  purification  of  substances  so  far  unseen  on earth, like Aluminum, Titan, Fluor and Silica, which neither break down nor oxidize through weathering – substances that will remain largely unaltered over geological time spans. Calculations reveal that the total mass of human products (houses, roads, metal, plastics etc.) presently exceeds the natural biomass of the planet  (Elhacham  et  al.,  2020).  During  the  interwar  period,  physicists  even  created completely new elements, which lack any geo-ecological home range on our  planet.  They  will  remain  waste  in  any  foreseeable  future  – substances  that  the ecosystems look alienated at and are unable to integrate. The  extraordinary  proliferation  of  waste  acts  as  tangible  proof  for  the  new  cognitive ability of humans to separate objects from meaning. The simple word 'just,' sums up the core problem of the environmental crisis." 

(https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1004/1657)

[[Category:Ecology]]
[[Category:Thermodynamic Efficiencies]]
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