Today’s Post

Last week we took a first look at a way to deal with the ‘noospheric’ risks, suggested by Teilhard: to better understand the noosphere (the milieu of human thought and enterprise) itself and what part we play in it.

In a nutshell, Teilhard saw that over its fourteen or so billion years of existence, evolution of the universe can be seen to follow the basic principle by which matter enters into more complex (and hence less probable) organizations under the influence of the basic ‘energy of becoming’ which is built into the ‘stuff of the universe’.   He sees this principle manifesting itself explicitly in the increasing complexity of this same ‘stuff’ over time, and therefore sees how this energy is reflected in in human lives as we participate in our own evolution.

Last week we looked at Teilhard’s graphic of the ‘spiral’ as a way of seeing how matter not only evolves, but in doing so it ‘converges’ as its capacity for unification becomes more pronounced through the first eight or so billion years. This week we will see how this convergent rise continues through the ‘life era’, and to its current state of ‘consciousness aware of itself’.

The Conscious Spiral

Last week we saw how evolution proceeds through ‘discontinuities’ in which new and unprecedented functionalities appear at key steps. These new functionalities not only show themselves in their greater potential for union, but also in increased facilities such as influence over environment, mobility, vitality and potential for further increase in complexity through future unions.

While the above 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. This increasing convergence of the spiral can even be seen to be active in the stage of entities aware of their consciousness (humans).

Last week we looked at this phenomenon in the ‘material’ realm of ‘pre-life’. Recognizing that Teilhard makes no sharp distinction between this ‘pre-life’ realm and the ‘life realm’, we can see how this rise of evolution through discontinuous steps spills over into it 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 morphs into human history (all dates approximate):

• Very early humans began to invent intuitive modes of thinking, based on instincts and clan relationships some 200,000 years ago
• The evolution of primitive ‘laws’ of society evolve from clan norms about 15,000 years ago
• ‘Axial Age’ concepts of person and society emerge from primitive concepts into ‘philosophies’ based on intuitions and instincts 3,500 years ago
• ‘Left brain’ (empirical) modes of thinking arise in Greece from the traditionally universal ‘Right brained’ (intuitional) thinking of earlier systems some 3,000 years ago.
• Merging of left and right ‘modes’ of neocortex functions begins with the introduction of ‘left brain’ thinking into the legacy ‘right brained’ mode as Jewish-inspired Christianity becomes more 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 the prevalent right-brained, post medievalism at the same time as establishment of the personal as locus for the juridical (Jefferson) three hundred years ago
• The abrupt increase in human welfare, documented by Norberg, begins one hundred fifty years ago.

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

• Societies are all initially similar to the less complex entities which preceded them
• They all in turn effect an increase in both the vitality and potential for union from those that preceded them
• Each new step required a new and more complex way of human relationship, increasing 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 increase in complexity than the preceding.

The Continuity Beneath the Discontinuity

Thus, while Teilhard notes the occurrence of discontinuity in evolution, he also shows how underneath these discontinues lies a basic fundamental, continuous current which powers the ‘axis of evolution’. He notes that at each such step, several things happen no matter which stage of evolution we are addressing:

• The evolved element of ‘the stuff of the universe’ (atoms, molecules, cells, neurons, humans) rises not only in its complexity, but in its uniqueness. Each new appearance, while initially retaining its similarity to its parent, becomes sharply distinguishable from its precedent.

• This characteristic is very important to the recognition that human evolution occurs in the same way that all steps have occurred in universal evolution. As Teilhard puts it: “True union differentiates”

This applies to evolution at every phase, from the Big Bang to the human person.

Thus, an important step in understanding the noosphere is to recognize that our lives are powered by a cosmic agent by which, to the extent that we can recognize and cooperate with it, we will be lifted ever upward. In Teilhard’s words:

“..I doubt 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.”

   Understanding this connects us to the fourteen billion year process which has raised the universe, as Richard Dawkins observes, “into its present complex existence”.   So, if we are to understand the noosphere, as Teilhard suggests as a step towards managing its risks, we need the ‘scales to fall from our eyes’ so that we can not only take in the breadth and scope of the universe, but recognize that we fit into it naturally, as a child to a loving parent.

The Next Post                         

This week we took a second look at ‘understanding the noosphere’ in terms of a rising, converging spiral, this week looking at the nature of the spiral as it rises from ‘complexifying matter’ by way of ‘enriching spirit’. Teilhard shows the current state of human evolution to be a stage in a sure and steady continuation of such rise over the preceding fourteen or so billions of years of universal existence. As such, we can now see that the basic nature of our lives is nourished and assured not only of survival but increasing fullness by this personal agent of evolution. All that is necessary, he asserts, is for us only to open our eyes to it, recognize it as active in our lives, and learn to cooperate with it if we are to be successful in dealing with the ‘noospheric risks’.

Having taken a closer look at those risks which can impede human evolution, and looked at a better understanding of the ‘noosphere’ as a start to managing them, next week we will return to the core topic of this blog, ‘reinterpretation of religion’, to see how religion can be employed to build on Teilhard’s “clearer disclosure of God in the world” to assure our future.