John Dunn

Ancient man created beautiful cave art in the deepest darkest places that could not be seen.

Inmodern terms, this was a frivolous and wasteful activity. It was like achild alone at play, expressive of a creativity that does not need an audience.

Measured by the same terms, the creation of the cosmos was a frivolous act.

Butis not a frivolous act an intervention in a self-regulating system? It is an act without purpose only in the terms of the self-regulating system itself.

Self-regulating closed systems, i.e. equilibria, do not need minds; do not need man.

Thecave painter does not affect the outcome of the hunt, but he asserts his will upon the world and escapes his former animal-like existence as apurposeful functionary within the self-regulating natural world.

Escapingequilibria is the essence of what it is to be human. In terms of the particular equilibrium from which man must escape, humanisation will always be an excess, exuberance and frivolity.

The frivolity is even more marked in the face of death. I do not know where this leads us, but may have something to do with the fact that man is being unto death, whereas animals are being in the present.

© John Dunn.