Today’s Post

Last week we moved from seeing Teilhard’s reinterpretation of the traditional Western theological concepts of God, Trinity and Spirituality into addressing how these concepts actually can be seen to play out in human evolution as it moves from its expansion into what appeared as limitless space, to its compression as the ‘sphericity’ of the earth increasingly limits available space.
We saw how as we move further into this era of human evolution, the tactics common to human expansion begin to morph into those which will accommodate such ‘compression’ without diminishment of the human person.

This week we will begin to look at navigating the ‘Northern hemisphere’ of Teilhard’s imaginary sphere in a way in which the continuation of the human species is assured while accommodating the individual evolution of the human person.

Compression, Evolution and the Human Person

There’s plenty to worry about in this new phase, and the anxiety which seems so prevalent in our society 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 as subject of the same rise of complexity seen by our precedents, can expect to see 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 assert itself in us as it had in our evolutionary precedents.
2. Just as the ‘laws’ that worked so well for these precedents for each stage 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. These ‘new laws’ must be discovered in order for us to move forward. 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 can find new ways to connect so as to expand their ‘personness’, to 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. Thus 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.”

   “Cogent experimental grounds”? Neither science nor religion offer a clear picture of how evolution proceeds through the human, often questioning the concept that it may at all.

It’s been some eighty years since Teilhard made his case for being optimistic 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 make some objective sense of, find some ‘cogent experimental grounds’ in this data to see whether Teilhard’s projections are proving true?

The Next Post

This week we turned from seeing Teilhard’s model of human evolution as moving from expansion to compression to a more detailed look at how this transition manifests itself in the ‘noosphere’, the layer of human induced changes to our world. We noted the risks that are present in this transition, as well as the need for faith in the thirteen billion year rising tide of evolution that will usher in a new phase in which compression brings 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.