What if our intelligence—rather than being a divine spark or a marvelous work of nature (depending on whether one identifies with creationism or evolutionism)—were a tragic error in life’s evolutionary process, a “disadvantageous” path that nature happened to take and will soon abandon in order to return to forms of life less destructive to the environment? This question, as distressing as it is fundamental for all humankind, is what the theory set out in this essay—named “Cancrism” by its author—tries to answer. And the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Yes, our intelligence is the product of an abnormal evolution undergone by the brain of the genus Homo, an evolution that has allowed us to bend the very laws of nature to our advantage, to upset—again to our advantage—the delicate and ultra-complex system of biological devices and mechanisms that formed spontaneously over millions upon millions of years, and to do so in a flash, in just a few thousand years, a mere instant on the cosmic scale. But it does not enable us to create a new equilibrium as solid as the one we destroyed.
What if our intelligence—rather than being a divine spark or a marvelous work of nature (depending on whether one identifies with creationism or evolutionism)—were a tragic error in life’s evolutionary process, a “disadvantageous” path that nature happened to take and will soon abandon in order to return to forms of life less destructive to the environment? This question, as distressing as it is fundamental for all humankind, is what the theory set out in this essay—named “Cancrism” by its author—tries to answer. And the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Yes, our intelligence is the product of an abnormal evolution undergone by the brain of the genus Homo, an evolution that has allowed us to bend the very laws of nature to our advantage, to upset—again to our advantage—the delicate and ultra-complex system of biological devices and mechanisms that formed spontaneously over millions upon millions of years, and to do so in a flash, in just a few thousand years, a mere instant on the cosmic scale. But it does not enable us to create a new equilibrium as solid as the one we destroyed.
Now we see that nature exists. It is made of an infinity of bodies, matter, and substances, among them our own planet Earth.
And Earth is so very small. Just a speck of dust, a grain of sand adrift in an immeasurable ocean. And within this tiny fragment of cosmic matter lives our species, the so-called human race.
We cannot dare to guess at the origin of this vast reality, so much greater than Earth and infinitely beyond human scale, for we lack both the knowledge and the intelligence to do so. But we can acknowledge its existence. We can compare its immensity to the frailty of our own bodies.
And within this immensity lies another dimension, one not greater, but far smaller. The microcosm, invisible to our limited senses. To glimpse it, humanity has forged tools: microscopes to peer into the infinitely small, telescopes to extend our gaze into the infinitely large. Even so, our reach is partial. Countless worlds lie beyond both instruments, forever hidden from us.
But this is not the point.
The point is not whether there is more space outside us than within, or whether the outer universe outweighs the inner. What matters is something else, something I invite you simply to contemplate:
All of nature, infinitely great and infinitely small, is in motion.
What is here one instant is gone the next. Does space and time exist only because there is motion? Or does motion exist only because space exists and time is merely its measure?
Setting aside such perilous questions, let us pass to something more immediate:
Motion is complex.
It is never uniform, but splinters into countless movements on every scale of macrocosm and microcosm. Think of electrons spinning around nuclei, molecules vibrating, cells dividing; think of planets revolving, stars collapsing, galaxies drifting. And in between there we are, the observers. Suspended between the infinitely large and the infinitely small, feeling within ourselves the pulse of motion. We may call it “life.” Yet stones and planets move as well. Do they too live?
Without leaping ahead, let us contemplate a third truth:
We cannot discern any purpose in motion.
“Purpose,” “end”, these are human words. We use them to describe a sequence of movements meant to alter one reality into another, usually judged good or bad depending on whether it favors us. But such language is meaningless when applied to stars or to atoms. Their motion neither helps nor harms us, except in the sense that their constancy does not disturb our lives.
And now, one more step in contemplation:
Though we cannot know the purpose of motion, it has shaped everything around us.
All that exists on Earth, our bodies, our world, arises from the same movements that govern galaxies and particles alike. How could it be otherwise? Could our tiny planet escape the laws of the universe and make its own? Only if we persist in imagining humankind as master of all. But how could that be, when we are so small, so short-lived, so fragile, mere dwellers on a stone cast into the cosmos by forces we cannot name?
If we accept this, then our contemplation, whether from the heights of heaven or the depths of the abyss, leads us to one conclusion: everything is shaped by laws or forces or simply by movements whose origins and ends we do not know.
Even the words “laws” and “forces” are too human. Perhaps we should say instead: everything is stirred, everything is marked by movement.
Whatever name we give, this much is true: everything we know, everything we touch, everything we experience, exists as it does because of these movements unfolding in space and in time.
We know what surrounds us here on Earth, and perhaps a little beyond, within the span of time closest to our own. We know it in the sense that we see it, touch it, experience it. Not in the sense of knowing where it began, or why it exists.
Of that, nothing is given to us, save for the myths and stories humanity has woven across millennia.
And yet those myths, those inventions, must not be dismissed. They too have weight, for only humanity has attempted to explain reality. Only humans, on this planet and in its nearby space, have shaped a brain capable of self-reflection, an inner mirror, as the glass mirror reflects the body.
The mind’s mirror, the brain, allows us to shape thought, sometimes as other animals do in rudimentary ways, but in us raised to the peaks of philosophy and science. Peaks that are low compared to the infinite unknown, yet high indeed when set against the capacities of every other creature.
The Planet's Cancer by Bruno Cesare Antonio Sebastiani is an important and timeless work that offers a philosophical and historical analysis of humanity's relationship with Earth.
The author proposes the idea of viewing humankind as a malignant tumor of the planet, which, through the abnormal evolution of the human brain, has disrupted the natural balance of the ecosystem and caused irreversible damage. This analogy and metaphor are the central theme of the book: humans that proliferate uncontrollably, override regulatory mechanisms, and ultimately threaten the viability of the 'host' that sustains them.
This first volume of Bruno Cesare's work frames the abnormal evolution of the human brain as the root cause of the destruction that has followed. He has led the readers through observing the historical progression of the 'disease,' beginning from the Neolithic revolutions to the rise of cities and communities. These theories are backed with critical analysis of how religions have contributed to this intensifying 'anthropocentrism' and capitalist expansion. These combinations of interpretations of myth and framing man's greed to acquire knowledge or Genesis's original sin are intuitive contributions of knowledge work.
The author's stance aligns with strands of philosophical and cosmic pessimism that leave little hope for humanity's fate. Often absent in this critical work is the lack of engagement with counterarguments such as cooperative evolution, ecological feedback systems, and nature's methods of re-equilibration or population control. But the tone, even while being pessimistic, is not nihilistic. He calls for 'individual optimism,' while deterministically denying a collective salvation given the state of nature.
This is a book for readers to detach themselves from the anthropocentric philosophy on the bookshelves. This is a radical dive into ecological pessimism and anti-humanist philosophy, which is both compelling and thought-provoking. This is indeed a meditation about a species that became too intelligent for the world that created it.