Edward Wilson finishes his book with a wonderful chapter that induces the reader to understand the fact that we are part of an environment, and we have reason, but that doesn't mean that everything will turn out to be alright.

We are not programmed to be perfect, we can make mistakes. And it's absolutely understandable that we make mistakes. There are things that work, others that won't. And the responsibility as conscious species is that we have to estimate and see if we're creating instead of constructing.

While reading this chapter, I have to admit I came to question certain facts about my economic perspectives. Until what extent are we free? Who speaks for the species that can't communicate? What is the borderline of our capacity to transform nature?

Thanks to Consilience, I can't stop thinking about how important it is for us to understand the fundamental rules of the world. It is incredibly valuable and beautiful.

We are parts of a species anyway. A part of history. With brains capable of reasoning and feeling.

Wilson ends with a wonderful phrase:
"... And if we should surrender our genetic nature to machine-aided ratiocination, and our ethics and art and our very meaning to a habit of careless discursion in the name of progress, imagining ourselves godlike and absolved from our ancient heritage, we will become nothing."

In order to prove the theory of Consilience, we must understand that there is no such thing as other rules out of the regime of this universe. That is the difference between Transcendentalism and Empiricism. Transcendentalism asserts that there are inherent moral rules (whether coming from god or not), and Empiricism asserts that moral rules are a result of human behavior.

The independence of moral values from humanity asserts that there's some knowledge or mind outside ours. And that is why, if proven, Transcendentalism can disprove the theory of Consilience.

Though it is a difficult conversation that is still in the arms of philosophy, we can't discard the fact that our mind is the one that perceives knowledge and that is the only way we can understand moral values. Even, Michael Polanyi quotes:


“So far as we know, the tiny fragments of the universe embodied in man are the only centers of thought and responsibility in the visible world. If that be so, the appearance of the human mind has been so far the ultimate stage in the awakening of the world; and all that has gone before, the striving of myriad centers that have taken the risks of living and believing, seem to have all been pursuing, along rival lines, the aim now achieved by us up to this point. They are all akin to us, for all these centers - those which led up to our own existence and the far more numerous others which produced different lines of which many are extinct - may be seen engaged in the same endeavor towards ultimate liberation. We may envisage then a cosmic field which called forth all these centers by offering them a short-lived, limited, hazardous opportunity for making some progress of their own towards an unthinkable consummation." That is why we believe in gods.

We try to explain things, but with that we use our mind, the circuits. Further understanding of the mind will certainly help a lot understand this magnificent aspect of philosophy and our own visualization as species.