With the advent of global warming and the nuclear arms race humans are rapidly approaching a
moment of truth. Technologically supreme they manifest their dreams and nightmares in the real
world through science art adventures and brutal wars a paradox symbolized by a candle
lighting the dark yet burning away to extinction as discussed in this book. As these lines are
being written fires are burning on several continents the Earth's ice sheets are melting and
the oceans are rising threatening to flood the planet's coastal zones and river valleys where
civilization arose and humans live and grow food. With the exception of birds like hawks black
kites and fire raptors humans are the only life form utilizing fire creating developments
they can hardly control. For more than a million years gathered around campfires during the
long nights mesmerized by the flickering life-like dance of the flames prehistoric humans
acquired imagination a yearningfor omnipotence premonitions of death cravings for
immortality and conceiving the supernatural. Humans live in realms of perceptions dreams
myths and legends in denial of critical facts waking up for a brief moment to witness a world
that is as beautiful as it is cruel. Existentialist philosophy offers a way of coping with the
unthinkable. Looking into the future produces fear an instinctive response that can obsess the
human mind and create a conflict between the intuitive reptilian brain and the growing
neocortex with dire consequences. As contrasted with Stapledon's Last and first Man where an
advanced human species mourns the fate of the Earth Homo sapiens continues to transfer every
extractable molecule of carbon from the Earth to the atmosphere the lungs of the biosphere
ensuring the demise of the planetary life support system.
