My theory of evolution of a philosophy

             “You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it." - Jiddu Krishnamurti      

              We evolve by questioning. We should ask questions whenever we want to question and about whatever we want to question. We should search for the answers. When we find our answers we build our own philosophy.

               It might so happen that for the same set of questions a group of people might get the same set of answers. So they all form a group questioning more and finding more answers which may continue to be same or different. When the answers turn out to be different a debate takes place. Every person with his/her own answer tries to convince the other person that his/her answer makes more sense. Please note that I am not saying that the person would say his/her answer is correct because there are no rights and wrongs when you talk about philosophy but just different perspectives. At the end of the debate a single answer or multiple answers might be accepted or they might agree to disagree on that particular answer.

              The questioning continues and when a situation comes where the answers turn out to be very much divergent there forms another sub group. Now this sub group evolves into many more sub groups eventually. This evolution happens only as long as questioning continues and those who agree to disagree coexist accepting the right to believe in one’s own answer. When this acceptance ends and one group starts believing that the other perspective does not have the right to exist and the right to be believed,  this group tries to convince the other group about the same but both stick to their perspectives. In the urge to stick to their own perspectives they stop questioning anymore. That’s when the progressive evolution stops.

               These perspectives which stop progressing are documented and are given a name “unquestionable beliefs” and are passed on to next generations. These next generations are conditioned to accept the perspective of those around them without questions. After a certain period of time, a strong desire to stick to the conditioned perspective arises and questioning becomes forbidden. This desire to keep their perspective unchanged for eternity becomes so strong that it gives way to put an end to any possible questions in the future. There might be many ways to stop these questions – fear of punishment might be induced, documented texts might be modified. This is where regressive evolution starts. 

               This might go on till the end of civilization or let me put it this way, this might end the civilization unless progressive evolution starts somewhere at sometime. The cycle of progressive and regressive evolution would go on. When a situation comes when those who want to start a progressive evolution cannot do so not due to losing the power of questioning but due to lack of strength to counter the regressive evolution, the civilization deserves to end.