How can a look at the human use of fuel illustrate Teilhard’s projections for human evolution?

Today’s Post

Last week we identified the “tornado of statistics” that Johan Norberg assembles in his book, “Progress” as substantiating Teilhard’s optimistic view of human evolution.  In doing so, it would also offer the ‘cogent experimental grounds’ that Teilhard saw as needed to firm up our faith in the future.

This week we will take a first step by applying this approach to the subject of ‘fuel’.

Example: A Brief History of Fuel

Few issues are closer to our everyday lives than that of fuel.  Every person on this planet uses fuel every day for such things as heating or cooling their homes, cooking their meals, transporting themselves and communicating.   As the issue of fuel is so ubiquitous, its history provides an excellent metric for putting our evolution into an objective perspective.

The discovery of fire a few hundred thousand years ago was a monumental moment in human history.  The availability of cooked, rather than raw, food led to improved health, and the ability to heat habitats led to an increase in habitable area.  It is obvious that both led to general improvements in human life.

Following the many thousands of years in which wood was the only fuel, coal began to take its place, increasing in use as the Bronze age led to the Iron age, and continuing a key role to this day.

Today other types of fuel, principally gas but including nuclear, wind and solar extraction, provide fuel for the many applications of the modern era.  Newer, cleaner sources, such as Hydrogen, are on the horizon.

While fuel offers an example of how human evolution can be seen to continue, how can it be seen to serve as an example of ‘cogent experimental grounds’ needed by humans if we are to see evidence of and have confidence in evolution in our species?  Applying Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’ to ‘fuel’, eight insights can be seen.

From Teilhard’s Perspective

The first is that of Human Invention.  The history of fuel offers an articulation of the steps of human evolution:  first ‘discovery’, then ‘extraction’, then ‘application’ and finally ‘dissemination’.  Some early humans discovered that certain stones would burn, and over time developed methods of extraction and dissemination that made it possible to use coal as an improved method of heat (more BTU per volume). This required improved methods of extraction and dissemination, such as mining coal vs gathering wood.

The second is that of the Human Psychism.  Each of these steps required an increase in complexity not only of the technology but more importantly an increasing development of what Teilhard refers to as ‘human psychisms’.  By this he is referring to the aspects of human society which are the core of the Inner Pull of compression addressed last week.  By psychism Teilhard refers to the human groups which effect the

 “.. increase in mental interiority and hence of inventive power”

required to find and employ

 “.. new ways of arranging its elements in the way that is most economical of energy and space.”

   This does not only pertain to the management of fuel, but to the exponential rise in the uses of fuel: from cooking and heating to such things as the smelting of ores and the powering of engines.  Each such step required yet another ‘new way’ of thinking, an increase in the organization and the depth of knowledge of the ‘psychism’ and the need to draw on the resources of the noosphere (such as education) for their success.

The third insight can be seen in the dissemination of the resulting “new ways” over the face of planet.  While coal, for example, was ‘discovered’ in China approximately in 4000 BC, it wasn’t until the advent of expanding empires before, for example, the discoveries of the Romans could spread far and wide. The third example can be seen in Globalization.

The fourth of Teilhard’s insights is his observation that compression of the noosphere not only results in globalization, but also in the increase in the speed of the spread of invention.   Hundreds of thousands of years of wood burning, followed by a few thousand years of coal dependency followed by a few hundred years of transition to other sources of fuel.  Not only can evolution be seen to rise, but to converge, and the increasing convergence can be seen to stimulate its increasing speed.

The fifth Teilhard insight is the Timeliness of Invention, the recognition that humans invent as necessary to insure their continuing evolution.  Had humans not discovered the advantages of coal, the dependency upon wood would have left our planet by now denuded and bereft of oxygen.  We would be extinct.  Had not new sources of fuel come available in the Eighteenth century, the exclusive use of coal would have doomed us to asphyxiation, choking on the effluvia of civilization.  (A poignant example can be seen in the ‘Great Smog’ of London which killed over twelve thousand people in 1952.)

The sixth Teilhard insight is the recognition of the failure of forecasts that do not consider the six above phenomena.  Such an example is Thomas Malthus, whose dire predictions from the early 1800s are still read today.  Malthus depended on historical data for his end-of-times predictions (increase in population outstripping production of resources) but failed to recognize the basic human capability of invention, by which production would rise exponentially and unwanted side effects mitigated.  Malthus provides an example of the failure of any forecast which uses the past to predict the future without taking human invention into account.

The seventh insight is that of Change of State.  As Teilhard notes, the journey of cosmic evolution from the big bang is not a linear one.  At key points, not only does the “stuff of the universe” change, but it changes radically.  The transition from energy to matter, from simple to complex atoms, from molecules to cells and from neurons to conscious entities, are profound.  Further, the energies on which they depend are profoundly different as well.  In our simple example of ‘fuel’, this can be seen to be happening literally before our eyes.  The result of each step from wood to coal to gas and onto future sources could not have been predicted from evidence of the past.  The changes are highly nonlinear.

The eighth and last Teilhard insight is that of Risk.  Human evolution is not guaranteed to continue.  Continued innovation and invention, deepening insight into the structure of the noosphere provided by new human ‘psychisms’ and improvements in globalization which tighten communications all require closer cooperation.  None of these will happen unless humans continue to have faith in their future.

The Next Post

This week we began to use Teilhard’s ‘lens’ to focus a two-pronged look at how evolution can be seen to continue through the human species:  The first of which is to look objectively at what we know about our history so far, and the second to see how in this view such data bears out Teilhard’s insights into human evolution.  This week we looked at a rather simple example, ‘fuel’ to illustrate this approach.

Next week we will begin a much more detailed look at the data from Norberg’s book, “Progress” to see how its statistics substantiate Teilhard’s optimistic worldview while providing the ‘cogent experimental grounds’ necessary for our faith in the future.