How does Teilhard see the process of compression as enabling human evolution?

This Week

Last week we saw how Teilhard recognizes an ‘interrelation ’ thread in the ‘compression’ of the human species which underlies the action of his ‘convergent spiral’ as it spills over into human evolution.

This week we will apply his ‘lens of evolution’ to take a closer look at how it plays out in the ‘compression’ phase of human history.

   Compression, Evolution, and The Human Person

There’s much to be concerned about in the compression phase of our evolution on this planet.  The anxiety which seems so prevalent in our society today is surely not misplaced as we cautiously tread upon the bridge to the future while we are building it. Teilhard acknowledges the anxiety that arises as we move from expansion to compression:

“Surely the basic cause of our distress must be sought precisely in the change of curve which is suddenly obliging us to move from a universe in which … divergence… still seemed the most important feature, into another type of universe which .. is rapidly folding-in upon itself.”

At the same time, Teilhard asserts, if we know how to see it, the very compression that causes such concern can be seen as an agency necessary to our continued evolution.

Teilhard can make this seeming counterintuitive assertion based on his six observations of the ‘noosphere’, the layer of human influence on our planet:

1. We are the latest products of evolution, and certainly subject to the same rise of complexity seen by our precedents.  Therefore, we can expect to see in ourselves the continuation of the energy of evolution that we saw at work in the previous products.  Put simply: the agency of evolution as increased ‘complexification’ will continue to find ways to assert itself in us as it had in our evolutionary precedents.
2. Just as the ‘laws’ that worked so well for these precedents in each of their evolutionary stages were not replaced, but expanded in each new stage, this trend can be expected to continue in the ‘human stage’.
3. Therefore, the inevitable compression in the human stage must contain some means of moving us forward. ‘New laws’ must be discovered.  As Teilhard puts it, humanity is

“…vitally forced to find continually new ways of arranging its elements in the way that is most economical of energy and space.”

4. Thus the ‘outer push’ of compression must somehow be accompanied by an ‘inner pull’ which occurs if the human elements are to find new ways to connect which expand their ‘personness’ and become more of what they are capable of becoming. This transition from an external force which pushes us ever closer, to an internal force which pulls us together by freeing us from our limited possession of ourselves, allows compression to effect complexification. In this way Teilhard understands love as the latest manifestation of the basic force of evolution:  the only energy capable of not only uniting us by what is most unique in us but in doing so increasing our uniqueness.
5. Human ‘invention’ is a manifestation of ‘finding new laws’ (# 3 above). John McHale, in his book, The Future of the Future, echoes Teilhard when he notes

“At this point, then, where man’s affairs reach the scale of potential disruption of the global ecosystem, he invents precisely those conceptual and physical technologies that may enable him to deal with the magnitude of a complex planetary society.”

6. Teilhard does not underestimate the risk, stressing the importance of choice, which requires the existence of faith:

“At this decisive moment when, for the first time, man… is becoming scientifically aware of the general pattern of his future on earth, what he needs before anything else, perhaps, is to be quite certain, on cogent experimental grounds, that the sort of temporo-spatial dome into which his destiny is leading is not a blind alley where the earth’s life flow will shatter and stifle itself.”

Teilhard sees the need for “cogent experimental grounds” for us to have faith in the evolutionary process in which we are enmeshed.  The problem of course is that neither traditional science nor religion have thus far developed a clear picture of how evolution proceeds through the human, much less the ‘cogent experimental grounds’ which would articulate it.  In many cases, both often question the concept that it may do so at all.

It’s been some eighty years since Teilhard made his case for optimism about the evolutionary future of the human species.  Since then, human society has become ever more proficient at gathering data; we are drowning in it today.  With all the facts at our hand, is it possible to find some ‘cogent experimental grounds’ in this data to meet the need that Teilhard identifies?

The Next Post

This week we turned from using Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’ from seeing ourselves as moving from expansion to compression to a more detailed look at how he sees this transition manifesting itself in the ‘noosphere’, the layer of human-induced changes to our world.  We noted his identification of both the risks that are present in this transition, as well as the need for faith in the fourteen billion year rising tide of evolution that will usher in a new phase in which compression brings complexity in the form of ‘personization’.  We noted that with all the data generated in today’s ‘dataorcacy’, is it possible to see examples of such a counterintuitive process occurring?   Next week we will begin to overview how examples of such ‘personization’ can be seen in today’s events.