Man’s Destiny in the Universe

Part of a discussion of Lyndon LaRouche with associates on Nov. 21, 2015

[PDF version of this transcript]

LaRouche: The point is, we’re dealing with a global situation. We’re so restricted by the way we even think about a global situation, because we live in a city, and an area, and a larger area. Most people in the United States and Europe are idiots when it comes to actual assessment of what the implications are.

Haven’t we by now learned from Kepler and beyond on the Galactic System, that there is no such thing as an Earth system? The Earth system is an aspect of a larger system. We haven’t learned that because we’re still memorizing gibberish of the type that we get in the United States and elsewhere; it’s gibberish.

Where’s the future of mankind located? And if it’s not the future of mankind, why are you bothering about it? The question is, what are the issues of the existence of mankind as a species? Now, as far as we know now, Ben [Deniston] will come out some time with some water from the Galactic System; but that’s not the limit to the thing. It’s a multiple Galactic System, and there are things beyond it—effects beyond that.

And mankind has to realize that those processes, combined with the significance of the human mind—the human mind is the only thing that’s important. And it’s how you treat the human mind and how you use it which defines the destiny of mankind. All these little fantasies about this part of history, that part of history, are all fantasies; because mankind has to operate on a basis which is galactic. Otherwise mankind has no clear purpose.

You Have to Go to a Higher Level

And people talk about people who are dead —“Oh, they died.” Well, what do you mean they died? You mean they’re not significant? Many of them are not significant in terms of their behavior. But this kind of thing—the popular opinion—I despise popular opinion; I see nothing but evil in popular opinion. Or it’s ignorance, which is about the same thing.

So, that’s what we have to do. We have to realize what we’re dealing with; mankind has reached a point where mankind can no longer play tiddlywinks with history. We are part of beyond the Solar System entirely; we’re in the Galactic System and beyond that. That’s where our destiny is located. And our destiny is located in the future of mankind; in the optimal level of mankind.

NASA/JPL-Caltech Beyond our Solar System: This artist’s concept shows the Voyager 1 spacecraft entering interstellar space, which is dominated by plasma, ionized gas (illustrated here as a brownish haze) which was thrown off by giant stars millions of years ago.

When you think in those terms, then you begin to think. Otherwise, you’re just like a dummy; you’re going through the motions like a dummy on the stage. And we have to operate on a truly global basis; otherwise, we don’t know what the future is. If we define everything in this restricted area, you don’t know what the future is; you’re just talking. You’re babbling, reciting words that don’t mean anything. And now we realize that mankind’s future depends upon things that most governments refuse to acknowledge as existing.

And we’re all practical; everyone’s practical. And practical people are idiots, if they even aspire to that high level of achievement. You want to collect bones? Be a dog.

No, we’ve got to cut this stuff out about all these interpretations of things; it’s nonsense. There’s no reality to it. When you look at the Galactic System and realize that the Galactic System exists, and there’s a highly complicated process which you cannot overlook; you cannot just predetermine that. By now we should know that you don’t have that kind of knowledge of the actual power to adduce things in that way. You have to go to a higher level which has always been mankind’s destiny; to go to a higher level than mankind had ever imagined.

And it’s by doing that, that mankind is able to progress and find the meaning of the existence of mankind. And only then are you really a person who understands humanity. Until you know what the future of mankind is, as mankind has never known it fully beforehand, that’s when you get the ability to judge what the future holds.

Jeff Steinberg: There’ve been some NASA discussions with the Russians and with the Chinese in the past week; and the basic message is that the next phase of work in space requires collaboration among the top scientists of a number of major nations for it to be successful. So it’s an area where what you’ve been saying about the old concept of nation-state, has to be superseded by defining certain key missions that are in the common interests of mankind as a whole.

NASA Five NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, pictured in the tunnel between the Space Shuttle Discovery and the SPACEHAB module in 2011.

LaRouche: The idea of the nation-state is actually something which holds mankind down and backward; because by now all the evidence we have in terms of science, is that we have not even begun to scratch the meaning of mankind, what mankind’s function is. And it’s what we can create from the development of the future that counts. People get so tied up with involvement in what they think their personal destiny is; and that’s too small a way to speak of mankind.

Ben Deniston: When you talk about science and the Galaxy, the problem is that people still think of it as an objective thing. You’re just figuring out what this stuff out there is, and you’re finding new discoveries of this stuff out there. But each day, you are transforming what the human species is.

LaRouche: Exactly.

The Meaning of Human Life

Deniston: You look at what Kepler did in the beginning, of moving mankind into really the level of the Solar System. Mentally, creatively, that created the basis for the human species to be a completely different species really. So there’s no difference between these two; not technology, not innovation, but you’re talking about the truly fundamental scientific discoveries.

LaRouche: Well, Kepler defined that. Kepler took the question of the mystery of what the Solar System means, and said that there’s a law, there’s a principle involved here. And it’s a principle which is only awesome, an awesome experience; and when you see that awesome experience, you have the insight into something about mankind which you had never had access to before.

And you just take what Kepler did, the way he defined the question. That changes everything about what our knowledge of what mankind is; because you have the whole system, and the system is a system which does not conform to any system which had been known by man before. And the discovery by Kepler in terms of the modality of the function of the process of the Galactic System and so forth. The Galactic System is an extension of this.

Now, we’re going into the Galactic System in a big way, relative to what we’ve known before. And that means we have to change what we think about mankind, to correspond to what we discover as being the powers of mankind which mankind has not discovered beforehand. When you want to say, “What’s the meaning of my life?”—that’s the question that defines the answer. And it’s the devotion to the future of mankind, and the future development of mankind on a higher level than before, which defines the significance of mankind. All these practical things, “Oh, I came in with this story,” and “I came in with the explanation,”—it’s all crap. Long past crap.

The Dark Side of the Moon

No, our job is to create the future; and if you want to create the future, you have to be devoted to the actuality of the future.

And that’s my big frustration; people don’t understand the future. You see, mankind has to grow up; they all think that they inhabit a piece of flesh which is sooner or later going to disappear. And they don’t understand what the meaning of human life is; and the meaning of human life is not located in one’s own bones.

The meaning of human life is the advancement of mankind’s ability to master the challenge of discovering the future of the universe. Nobody has ever discovered the universe; they haven’t found it yet. They’ll have to find it some time, I suppose, but they haven’t done very well so far. They have merely the shadow of something of which they have no knowledge. And people should learn to be a bit more modest about these kinds of issues; to recognize the richness of their ignorance.

Steinberg: You look at specific things like the massive effort to prevent the breakthrough on fusion, because of what that represents in being able to do the kind of exploration of the Galaxy that opens up doors.

LaRouche: Well, you see that they’re doing it in China, but they’re not doing it in other parts of the world. And China, they’re going behind the back side of the Moon, and the question of that which mankind does not otherwise actually see. And they’re all so innocent that they just don’t believe in the back side of the Moon; or they only have fantasies about it.

Xinhua/CCTV One of the many photos of the Moon’s surface by the descending Chinese lunar probe Chang’e-3 on December 14, 2013.

Some people in China have begun to get something beyond simple fantasies on this subject. And that’s where China is making progress, while in the United States there are sits and farts. So, our job is to create the future; and you have to know what the future is in order to create it. And without that kind of orientation, you don’t have the strength or intelligence to know how to deal with the future.