Monthly Archives: December 2024

December 19, 2024 – The Conscious Spiral of Evolution

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   How can the energy of evolution be seen in its conscious facet?

Today’s Post

Last week we looked at the facet of evolution which leads to increased complexity in ‘the stuff of the universe’, particularly as it manifests itself in ‘matter’.

This week we will look at the more mysterious facet commonly referred to as ‘consciousness’.

The Conscious Spiral of Evolution

Having seen how evolution proceeds through ‘discontinuities’ in which new and unprecedented structures and functionalities appear at key steps in the evolution of matter, how can they be seen to continue in human evolution?  In the human person, these new functionalities not only show themselves in their greater potential for union, but also in increased facilities such as influence over (and cooperation with) the environment, mobility, vitality and potential for further increase in complexity through future unions.

While the material manifestations of evolution occur in scientifically verifiable steps, each of them represents a highly discontinuous step from the preceding plateau of evolution.  On an evolutionary time scale, the transition to each new state of complexity can be seen to occur at an increasingly rapid pace.  One aspect of this rise in the complexity of living things can be seen in the characteristic of increasing ‘consciousness’.  The increasing convergence of Teilhard’s spiral can be clearly seen as entities have now emerged that are not only conscious, but aware of their consciousness (humans).

Recognizing that Teilhard makes no sharp distinction between the ‘pre-life’ realm of evolution and that of ‘life’, we can nevertheless see how this rise of evolution through discontinuous steps spills over from one to the other and continues its rise into the ‘realm of consciousness’.

While the earliest days of humanity are only vaguely understood, it is possible to roughly track this convergence of the spiral of evolution as it is active in human history (all dates approximate):

  • Very early humans began to employ ‘intuitive’ modes of thinking, based on instincts and clan relationships some 200,000 years ago. These modes are expressed in ‘religious’ terms.
  • The evolution of primitive ‘laws’ of society begin to evolve from clan norms about 15,000 years ago
  • During the ‘Axial Age’, concepts of person and society emerge from primitive concepts into ‘philosophies’ based on ‘right brain’ (intuitional) modes of thinking 3,500 years ago
  • ‘Left brain’ (empirical) modes of thinking arise in Greece some 3,000 years ago.
  • Merging of left and right ‘modes’ of neocortex functions begins with the assimilation of the so-called ‘left brain’ thinking into the legacy ‘right brained’ mode as Jewish-inspired Christianity becomes influenced by Greek thinking 2,000 years ago
  • Scientific/empirical thinking emerges from the Christian right-left merge 1,400 years ago
  • The ‘Enlightenment’ emerges from prevalent right-brained, post-Medievalism at the same time as establishment of the personal as locus for the juridical (Thomas Jefferson) three hundred years ago
  • An abrupt increase in human welfare, as documented by Johan Norberg, “Progress”, begins one hundred fifty years ago. (We will address Norberg in more detail in detail in later posts).

In each of these ‘discontinuous bursts’ we can see Teilhard’s three ‘vectors of increasing complexity’ at work in the human species:

  • Human societies are all initially similar to the groupings of the less complex prehuman hominids which preceded them
  • They each in turn reflect an increase in both the vitality and potential for union from those that preceded them
  • Each new step required new and more complex cultural norms for the conduct of human relationships, increasing personal differentiation, and leading to increased vitality and power to unite.

It’s also important to note the timeline: each discontinuity in the above list took less time to effect its step of increase in complexity than the preceding one.

Next Week

This week we saw how Teilhard’s ‘energy of evolution’ can be seen at work as the ‘axis of evolution’ raises the manifestation of complexity from the ‘material’ to the ‘conscious’ state as found in the human person.

Next week we will continue to track these modes as they lead to ever newer manifestations of complexity, such as the ‘awareness’ that can be seen in the human accumulation of evolutionary energy.

December 5, 2024 – Mapping the The Human Species Into the Convergent Spiral of Evolution

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   How does universal evolution continue in the human?

Today’s Post

Last week we saw how Teilhard’s ‘energy of evolution’ can be understood as a ‘convergent spiral’ in which the three ‘vectors’ of evolution (tangential, vertical, radial) are always at work in the raising of the universe to its current complex state.

This week we will see how this imagery can be seen by his ‘lens of evolution’ as it expands into the realm of the human person.

Tracing The Evolutionary Spiral From Quarks to Humans

In Teilhard’s model, the components of the ‘stuff of the universe’ are not only pulled closer to each other when they unite, but they are also drawn closer to the centerline of the spiral, which he refers to as the ‘axis of evolution’.  In doing so they become more responsive to the universal energy by which all things become united in such a way as to differentiate themselves in the process of being enriched.  Teilhard sees the structural and functional enrichment of any product of evolution as necessary for its ability to respond to the ‘complexifying’ energy radiated by this axis.

Thus, in this simple graphic metaphor, Teilhard shows how the universe evolves as things connect in such a way which increases complexity, which in turn increases the potential for further union, which increases its capacity for further complexity.  He succinctly captures this recursive universal process as

“Fuller being from closer union.  Closer union from fuller being.”

   Teilhard’s insights are echoed by Paul Davies in his book, “The Cosmic Blueprint”:

“I have been at great pains to argue that the steady unfolding of organized complexity in the universe is a fundamental property of nature”.  (Italics mine.)

   John Haught, in his book, “The New Cosmic Story, also sees this phenomenon from Teilhard’s cosmic vantage point.

“Running silently through the heart of matter, a series of events that would flower into ‘subjectivity’ has been part of the universe from the start. So hidden is this interior side of the cosmos from public examination that scientists and philosophers with materialist leanings usually claim it has no real existence.”

  Teilhard sees this recursive but ascending and converging action as occurring everywhere and at all times in the evolution of the universe.  Through his ‘lens of evolution’, we can now begin to see ourselves as products of this same process.   By applying his spiral metaphor to humanity, the human person can be placed squarely into the flow of cosmic evolution.  In his words

“I doubt that whether there is a more decisive moment for a thinking being than when the scales fall from his eyes and he discovers that he is not an isolated unit lost in the cosmic solitudes and realizes that a universal will to live converges and is hominized in him.”

   The extrapolation of Teilhard’s simple spiral from the unimaginable simplicity of the earliest manifestation of ‘the stuff of the universe’ to the human person allows us to understand ourselves as the most recent manifestation of this ‘stuff’ (at least on this planet), produced as the result of these three components of energy which interact to increase complexity in the universe.

Teilhard sees these three vectors acting in humans:

  • We engage with ‘tangential’ energy when we relate to others (our ‘interconnections’).
  • We enhance and enrich our ‘persons’ in these engagements, by engaging ‘radial’ energy as we become more conscious of, and learn to cooperate with, the ‘tangential’ energy which differentiates and enhances us. In this cooperative activity both our individual persons and our ‘psychisms’ (groups of persons) become more complete and more enriched.
  • This new level of completeness into which we are ushered as we cooperate with the ‘tangential’ and ‘radial’ vectors is a measure of the third vector, that of ‘complexity’ (our growth to Teilhard’s ‘fuller being’).

So, to the question of “where are we in this universal journey from pure energy to some future state of increased complexity?”, Teilhard offers a suggestion:  We are early in the process of learning how both relationships and cooperation are essential to our journey toward ‘fuller being’.

Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’ may certainly serve to put humans into a wider perspective, but with the ‘materialistic’ leanings of science that Haught references above, and the overly ‘spiritualistic’ leanings of religion, it is not put to common use today.  How can the ‘convergent spiral of evolution’ be seen as active in the kinetic and confusing activity common in human life?

Next Week

This week we saw how Teilhard’s three components of universal evolutive energy, which have recurred throughout the evolution of the universe, can be tracked as they lead to ever new manifestations of complexity, such as the ‘consciousness’ found in the human person.

Next week we will take a look at how two main manifestations of this energy can be seen in the conventional terms understood as ‘materiality’ and ‘consciousness’.