Gifts to Humanity

It's that gifting time of the year. So, I thought to take a closer look at the gifts I have already. Not just the kids, car, house, and health, but the real gifts, as in those I was born with. They are many, so many it is troubling why I have them. Among them is the gift of problem-solving. Another is the gift of curiosity. This article  is about them all, with a closer look at faith. 

December 20, 2022

Gifts to Humankind
by
G Donald Allen

Upon us now is the season of giving. Just as important is to inventory those gifts we have been given. And they are many. At Thanksgiving, we count our blessings. Today we travel well beyond counting to those wondrous gifts given to us at birth. These gifts co-mingle, coalesce, contravene, and entangle to make us what we have become. Not material, nor theoretical, and without position or location, they are undeniable. They are within the domains of psychology, chemistry, and sociology, forming our very human foundations. Evolution or design? Making a clear case is difficult.  

We should take time to celebrate these gifts, not the usual kind like a new sweater, a crystal vase, or perhaps a dozen golf balls. These gifts comprise what we, as unique beings, have been endowed with among a rich spectrum of abilities.  However, we are so caught within life, we scarcely have time to consider all the gifts bestowed upon us. Given in measure to us all, they are at times subverted by some while celebrated by others. It is the time of year to consider the potpourri given us and to regard how much, and if not to behold, then become aware. We should rejoice at our luck, a consequence only of birth. Yet, all these gifts require nurturing from our communities, and some develop despite them.

Our gifts are massive, defying explanations on almost every basis, and to an extent, they cannot be merely enumerated. They must be collected into general categories. Moreover, even the ability to make categories is a consequence of the gifts we have been given. Thus, we have a reflexive gift, the ability to examine what is there and relate it to ourselves. The main categories are Personal, Communication, Spiritual, Senses, and Thought. See Table 1.

Table 1- Gifts to Mankind

Personal	Communication	Spiritual	Senses	Thought
Intelligence	Love	Faith	Wonder	Problem-Solving
Consciousness	Music	Belief	Beauty	Strategy
Adaptability	Language	Soul	Aesthetics	Planning
Curiosity	Art	Worship	Joy	Intuition
Self-reflection	Generosity	Peace	Purity	Understanding
Logic	Social		Humor	Inventiveness
Experience	Compassion		Well-Being	Guessing
			Grief
			Fear

 

We list these gifts as though we each possess them all. Not so. Many have great difficulty with adaptability and logic, for example. As for art, music, and aesthetics in general, some have no capacity for them whatsoever. This is not of great consequence provided we understand or at least accept the wide variety of individuals. Emotion, though not listed, is subsumed to many of the other list items.

None of us have these gifts in the same measure. Some are better with language, we accept. Some also at art, music, logic, humor, and all. Particularly, when regarded as a specific gift, the notion of faith or belief is doled in measure from those whose faith moves their daily lives to others who have almost none.  The latter are sometimes called materialists, delighting only in material objects. Signaling no judgments whatever, such distributions of gifts are always implied in open discussion, but rarely on those more subtle such as faith, intuition, and inventiveness.  To have a soul is another gift altogether, totally foreign to many, perhaps even the person standing at your side. These are among the most special gifts, partly personal and partially of thought, and given to only some. Think of those without them as blind to the full spectrum of light shown upon the human being.

As Egypt is the gift of the Nile by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, we are the gift of our DNA. An optimization problem of the future will be to determine how far the concept and model of our (specific) DNA can take human beings. Are more chromosomes needed for humans to advance further? Note the DNA of some species has persisted unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, while it changed rapidly for others. Currently, biologists scarcely know how our “gifts” are distributed through DNA, much less understand its full capacity. Such questions and problems might be covered in a course on advanced genetics – in centuries to come. Alas, the era when geneticists, psychologists, and sociologists work together is yet to come. A new field will be born, perhaps bio-sociology, geno-psychology, or something sounding out-of-this-world right now.

Some may object to the category of spirituality. We rest on the simple consensus that no matter how atheistic one may be, only a very few argue that the person is merely an electrochemical morass of triggering synapses, needing no further explanation. All seem to agree humans are more than stimulus-response machines. This leads to the notion of complexity whereby some systems become so complex they assume a type of self-organization rendering a sense beyond mere chemical fibrosity. Even today, researchers study this complexity, though being caught up in the subject of their studies makes objectivity tricky.

Through design, evolution, or whatever your favorite origins theory may be, we have these gifts.  From every viewpoint, it is a wonder we have so many gifts and so far beyond our needs. From the evolutionary viewpoint, the wealth of gifts seems near miraculous, given that mankind evolved essentially to be successful at hunting and gathering, plus living in small social groups. Yet, today we dabble in quantum physics and produce novels great in length and intellectual depth while living in great cities.  Other animals have some gifts on our list in some measure, e.g. love, but have relatively few. To me, the breadth of gifts is almost mysterious, and certainly without clear explanation.

We have not these gifts in the same measure, as mentioned. Some are better at language, and we agree. Some also at art, music, logic, humor, and all. Some of us are better at math and we understand or at least accept this. Even some of us are adept at accepting orders. Particularly, when regarded as a specific gift, the notion of faith or belief is doled in measure from those whose faith moves their daily lives to others who have almost none.  This “faith” concept attracted me only recently as a possible explanation of personal differences between folks. The latter are sometimes called materialists, delighting only in material objects. Signaling no judgments whatever, such distributions of gifts are always implied in open discussion, but rarely on those more subtle such as faith, intuition, and inventiveness.  To have a soul is another gift altogether, totally foreign to many, perhaps even the person standing at your side. These are among the most special gifts, partly personal and partially of thought, given to only some. Think of those without them as blind to the full spectrum of light shining upon the human being.

This brings us to consider the details of what on earth is faith. Few deny it. But what is it? And how did it evolve, if evolution is the answer? Faith seems to be a belief that something will happen or something exists without rational certainty or uncertainty in a word. Faith seems not to be a cause-and-immediate-effect phenomenon but more like a cause-and-effect at a distance. Collectively, we seem to have faith in education, or is it merely inductive heritage? Farmers live with the faith that rain will fall and their crops will grow – and bet their lives on it. Rural people live with more uncertainty than city dwellers, where all or most events are tied to other people. In consequence, city folks have somewhat lost faith as an essential component of life. This quick analysis, however, avoids the question of why it exists in the first place.

Deeper still is the plain fact that some people simply do not have it at all or to a lesser degree. However, in comparison with art and other aesthetics, it seems not to be considered this way. So, perhaps the atheist is simply missing the ability to have any sort of faith, just as others can’t carry a tune. Or is it that the theist has faith in what cannot exist? Either possibility has no clear answer.

Finally, as to our gifts, we can say the deist has the easier burden here. They are gifts, period. The atheist has the greater task of explaining why the range of gifts is so variegated, so diverse, and so unexplainable. A note is that belief and faith differ in the respect that many can believe in something (like gravity or relativity) but have little or no faith or even understanding of it at all. Even the best physicists and philosophers have the same conundrum, though not diminishing the manifold theories they’ve produced.

Other gifts such as happiness are not listed. Rather, they are combinations within and between various categories. Satisfaction, fulfillment, and victory are similar. So, we conclude our brief journey into gifts, rejoicing in how incredibly many we have, though perhaps not understanding why. Just lucky? However, the desire to seek enlightenment may yet be another gift. But then maybe … Just curiosity?