How can risks be seen in the rise of the universe towards increased complexity?
Today’s Post
Last week we saw how, although there are risks to the continuation of human evolution in our perennial (but so far successful) break-fix-break cycle, faith in our ability to manage this cycle is more important than the expertise we develop to invent fixes to those things we break.
This week we will take a second look at these ‘Noospheric’ risks from the perspective of our place in the upsweep of cosmic evolution.
The Fragility of Evolution
Looking at universal evolution from either Teilhard’s ‘lens’ or that of science, the enterprise of cosmic evolution can be seen to be ‘risky’. Science sees evolution occurring when the ‘stuff of the universe’ which emerges from the ‘big bang’ seemingly thumbs its nose at entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics by which each unification of particles of like matter comes at a cost of available energy. Such unification may well, says science, contribute to evolution by an increase in complexity, but at the same time is accompanied by a small loss of energy. By this understanding of Physics, the universe begins with a certain quantum of energy, and as soon as it begins it starts running down.
In seeming opposition, not only do things evolve while this is happening, but they evolve from simple configurations to more complex ones. As Steven Pinker points out in his book, “Enlightenment Now”, since there are obviously many more ways for things to be un-complex (disorderly, even chaotic) than there are for things to be complex (more orderly), the very existence of evolution seems counter to the Second Law. According to Pinker, “Evolution occurs against the grain.”
Worse yet, complex entities are clearly more fragile than simpler ones. In the example of DNA molecules, which contain the ‘data’ which guide a living entity toward its development, it employs such a stunning magnitude of components that it is more susceptible to cosmic radiation and random fluctuations than a simple molecule. Any ‘rise in complexity’ clearly is in opposition to the ‘rise in chaos’ potentially resulting from such effects.
Still worse yet, as Teilhard observes, while nature seems to have a built-in ‘agent of complexity’ by which its elements can unite to increase their complexity, (and without which evolution could not proceed) this factor becomes secondary to continued evolution when it enters the realm of the human and now requires conscious ‘cooperation’. As Richard Dawkins sees it, “Genes are replaced by ‘memes’ as the agent of evolution in humans”.
Once humans acquire the capability of ‘reflective consciousness’, by which they are ‘aware of their awareness’, the rules change once again. In the human person, evolution no longer depends on the instincts which served our ancestors so well. To continue in the human, it must now be chosen, and thus introduces yet a new area of ‘risk’.
The Next Post
This week we took a look at the ‘risky’ nature of an evolution which leads to increased complexity.
Next week we will look a little deeper at these universal risks play out in human evolution