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

Having seen how evolution proceeds through ‘discontinuities’ in which new and unprecedented structures and functionalities appear at key steps in 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 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 ‘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 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 increase in complexity than the preceding.

 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.

   How can the energy of evolution be seen in its material and conscious facets?

Today’s Post

Last week we began to use Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’ to track his ‘convergent spiral of evolution’ as it winds its way upward in the form of evolutionary products now become aware of their awareness.

This week we will take a closer look at this activity in terms of its material manifestation.

The Material Spiral of Evolution

We are surely very early in the process of building an integrated understanding of all the facets of energy acting on us, much less an understanding of how to cooperate with them.  Even so, empirical science offers much insight.

While the light which science can shine on the past may not yet be complete, Physics highlights many of the ‘discontinuities’ which appear in the past evolution of ‘the stuff of the universe’, such as:

• Matter appearing from pure energy
• Atoms emerging from combinations of the first, simple grains of matter
• Molecules emerging from an infinitude of combinations of atoms
• Molecules increase their complexity to the point of ‘making itself make itself’ (DNA to proteins)
• Complex molecules reorganizing themselves into highly organized and centered cells
• Cells continuing this unprecedented explosion into more complex groupings such as found in neurons
• Neurons finding ways to compact themselves into centralized neurosystems, then into brains
• Brains evolving from the so-called ‘Reptilian’ layer to the mammalian ‘Limbic’ layer and finally, in the human to ‘Neocortex’ arrangement.

Each of these transitions can be considered a ‘discontinuity’ because the conditions which preceded each of them, taken out of context, do not suggest the significant change in complexity which was to appear in the next reconfiguration step.  Science offers no explanation of why atoms should be able to organize themselves into the greatly increased complex state of molecules, for example.  We saw last week how John Haught summarize this conundrum.

“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.”

   The standard ‘materialistic’ position of science is that in each rung of this ladder from complex molecules to complex neurons is fueled by a combination of generic replication compounded by random variations.  This ‘causality’ is further aided by the unquestioned observation that those products resulting from genetic variation ‘survive’ to continue their evolution when they conform most successfully to their environment.  This process, know as ‘Natural Selection’ is an adaption of the insights of Charles Darwin some hundred years or so ago.

As Teilhard and John Haught (in the above citation) note, Natural Selection does not explain the ‘unexpected emergence’ of increased complexity that recurs for some eight billion years before the cell can emerge as a ‘vehicle’ for Natural Selection.

The universe seems full of such examples of ‘unexpected emergence’, seen in the arrival of unpredictable new organizational principles and patterns in nature.  While Science can describe the physical processes which are involved in the transitions, it cannot explain the emergence of increased complexity that ensues.  There is no current scientific explanation of how the ‘stuff of the universe’ manages its slow but very sure rise in complexity as it moves from the undifferentiated level of the big bang to the highly differentiated human brain which is uniquely capable of an awareness which is aware of itself.

While all these stages and their transitions can be described and to some extent understood by Science, the increase in complexity that follows each step is another matter.  Further, while Science can quantify this increase up to the human person, how can it be understood to be still active in human evolution?

 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 in the evolution of matter as it leads to ever new manifestations of complexity.

Next week we will take a look at how second of the main threads of this energy can seen in the conventional term understood as ‘consciousness’.

   How does universal evolution continue in the human species?

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 always 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 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).

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 progress.

That said, can we quantify how such process can be seen?

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 threads of this energy can seen in the conventional terms understood as ‘materiality’ and ‘consciousness’.

   How can the energy which causes complexity to increase in evolution be understood?

oday’s Post

For the past several weeks we have been employing Teilhard’s ‘lens of evolution’ by seeing his insights into the action of evolution as it raises the complexity of the universe.  Last week we looked at his recognition of the agency of this process as an ‘energy’, manifested in three fundamental ‘vectors’.

This week we will take a closer look at how these three vectors work together.

The Convergent Spiral of Universal Evolution

Teilhard uses the graphic of a convergent spiral to show how these three vectors cooperate in raising the complexity of the universe in all phases of universal evolution.  Figure 1 shows this spiral with the three vectors mapped into it.

Figure 1.  The Convergent Spiral of Evolution

The first vector, A, maps the ‘forward’ direction of an evolving particle, as the result of the unification among its components which resulted in a new particle.  In our example of the atom last week, three relatively simple components, neutrons, electrons, and protons, unite into a new, unique, and more complex component, the ‘atom’.   In this step, three simpler particles reconfigure themselves into approximately one hundred eighty new and more complex entities.

The second vector, B, is a measure of the ‘upward’ direction: the increase in complexity which results from this unification.  As we have seen, the atom, as a unique entity, enjoys hundreds of thousands of modes of interactions with other atoms in their reconfigurations into molecules.

The third vector, C, represents the resultant component’s ’inward’ potential for further unification and ‘complexification’, and is inversely proportional to the distance from the vertical ‘axis’ of the spiral.

This third vector causes the spiral to ‘converge’.  Its ‘convergence’ suggests that as a product increases in complexity, it becomes increasingly responsive to the energy which draws it forward and upward.  Its increased ‘instruction set’ endows it with an increase in both modes of activity and modes of interaction.

Teilhard simply takes note that such a triad of energies, which he refers to as “tangential’ (A), ‘vertical’ (B) and ‘radial’ (C) can be seen to be active in every step of evolution from the ‘Big Bang’ to the human person.  As he explains in the “Phenomenon”

“In each particular element energy is divided into two distinct components: a tangential energy which links the element with all others of the same order (that is to say, of the same complexity and the same centricity) as itself; and a radial energy which draws it towards ever greater complexity and centricity- in other words: forwards.”

The third vertical vector, ‘upwards’ is assumed in the aspect of ‘greater complexity’.

The seven characteristics of complexity he identifies are manifestations of the many ways in which this complexity can be seen to increase.  The three ‘vectors’ identify the modes of energy by which they do so.

A very simple example of this tri-vectored evolutionary activity can be seen in the Standard Model of Physics.  We have seen how electrons, protons, and neutrons can unite to become atoms, which are clearly more complex, and therefore higher on Teilhard’s axis than their constituents.  The few (three) types of ‘the stuff of the universe’ represented by electrons, protons and neutrons become the many (approximately 180) types found in atoms, reflecting the increase in possible configurations of atomic connections over those of their few subatomic components.  The increased complexity of atoms can be seen not only in their increased structural complexity, but more importantly in their increased potential for future connectivity (‘information’).

Further, this potential in turn enables the emergence of a still larger set of products which are not only more complex but whose potential for increased interconnection is increased: molecules. Thus, three subatomic particles become hundreds of atoms resulting hundreds of thousands of molecules.

In such successive ‘trips around the spiral’ we can see the incredibly simple components of electron, proton and neutron eventually reorganizing into atoms, then into an infinitude of molecules which reorganize themselves into even higher levels of complexity.  An example of the result of such ‘complexification’ can be seen in the DNA molecule, the main building block of the even more complex cell.

The cell, without doubt, presents an evolutionary component astronomically more complex than its critical DNA molecule.  DNA itself, even by today’s standards, offers an example of complexity which science is still in the process of understanding.

How can the human person, itself yet another bewildering product of evolution, be seen by this same ‘lens?

Next Week

This week we saw how Teilhard fits his insight of an ‘energy of evolution’ into three components which recur throughout the evolution of the universe, playing the same roles with different but ever more complex modes of causality.

Next week we will continue to track these modes as they lead to ever newer manifestations of complexity, such as can be found in the ‘consciousness’ of the human person.