On Saturday I took part in a long discussion with Professor Hořejší, the longtime director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics. In a small group, we discussed a range of questions, from Darwinism and religion to various ethical problems. It was remarkably pleasant and uplifting to spend time in such a cultivated debate.
I mentioned that over the past generation, psychologists and neuroscientists have learned far more about the human mind than had been discovered in all previous human history, and that this is likely only a small preview of what is to come and what those after us will know. The professor’s view of our knowledge of the human cell was much the same.
What we did not discuss, however, was that these extraordinary scientific achievements are unfolding alongside a sharp mental decline. This is not a matter of feelings, nor of young people simply learning different things today. Mental decline is measurable and testable in many respects. It is a decline faster than even the darkest pessimists of earlier generations could have imagined. It is taking place across the whole of Western civilization.
There are world-class institutions, newly equipped with artificial intelligence, where discoveries are being made that take one’s breath away. And alongside this runs the decline of education, meaning that the masses are no longer receiving the schooling needed to understand these discoveries, much less to use them. But this is something we have seen before. It is the medieval model of society: widespread primitive dullness and superstition, with brilliant thinkers isolated in monasteries.
So when we speak of decline, we must also see the other side: the extraordinary potential of the road ahead. What might we accomplish if this decline were halted? How many dreams of earlier generations might yet be fulfilled.