How can Teilhard’s ‘lens’ help us become aware of the aspects of spirituality in our lives?

Today’s Post

Last week we traced the ‘spiritual ground of happiness’ to the ‘terrain of synergy’ between science and religion.  We saw that at the center of this terrain is the concept of ‘increasing complexity’ in evolution which opens the door to an overlap between science and religion and hence points the way to a truly integrated insight into human existence.

We saw again how Yuval Harari’s identification of the danger that our human capacities can alienate us from our evolutionary legacy connection with our environment.   But we also recognized that, contrary to his dystopian forecast, as we become more integrated and more whole in our individual lives and in our collective societies, we can come to recognize our true connection to the wellsprings of the cosmos.  Or, as Teilhard puts it:

“.. 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 made human in him.”

   This week we will look further into Teilhard’s insights into the structure of the cosmos in such a way which justifies such strong confidence.

Teilhard’s Simple Picture of Cosmic Evolution

As we saw how examining the structure of cosmic evolution through Teilhard ‘lens’, evolution can be seen as proceeding throughout the cosmos from the ‘big bang’ in the form of a ‘convergent spiral’.  As the products of evolution replicate themselves through joining and producing ‘offspring’ (eg atoms from groupings of electrons), they also experience a ‘rise’ in their complexity.  This increase in complexity endows future products with an increase in their potential to unite and thereby increasing the potential for further increases in complexity.

This increased potential of each product endows it with a greater capability for union, resulting in a spiral which ‘tightens’ as it ‘rises’.  The resultant increased potential is a third agent whose direction is ‘inward’, seen in the decreasing diameter of the spiral: its ‘convergence’.  From this simple model, Teilhard envisions that as these products become more complex as they rise, this complexity makes them more ‘resonant’ to the convergent nature of the ‘axis of evolution’.  Therefore, to Teilhard, a characteristic of a more evolved product can be seen in its increased sensitivity to the universal energy of evolution.   More evolved products of evolution evolve more quickly.

With these three forces, forward, upward and inward, applying as they do to every product of evolution in every age of the universe, Teilhard sketches the structure of cosmic evolution as it moves forward in the direction of increased complexity.

Teilhard also notes that not only does the diameter of the spiral decrease with time, it decreases ‘exponentially’.   The rate of convergence increases over time.  It takes some eight billion years for complex molecules to emerge from aggregates of atoms, but only five billion years for brains to emerge, then less than one million years for brains to become aware of themselves.

This is not, of course, religious teaching in any form.  It is simply a way of empirically looking at scientifically accumulated data in a different way.  The data by which the history of evolution is categorized becomes much more straightforward when the ‘characteristic of complexity’ is recognized, and, as we have seen, ultimately opens the door to science’s addressing of the human person.

Once the phenomenon of ‘increasing complexity’ is recognized in its universal context, all things in the cosmos become both inextricably linked and thus increasingly intelligible.  Humans therefore become a valid subject of science once their place in the universal ‘hierarchy of being’ is recognized.

That said, however, the problem still obtains that once the threshold of ‘consciousness aware of itself’ is crossed, it becomes difficult to study human evolution outside the conventional Darwinist paradigm of ‘Natural Selection”, which reduces humans to simple molecular activities under the influence of such things as ‘chance’ and ‘survival’.

Teilhard’s unique model of the ‘convergent spiral’ overcomes this barrier.  His three ‘vectors’ of ‘forward’, ‘upward’ and ‘inward’ apply equally to every stage of universal evolution and to every new state of energy and matter that results from it.

Science has little difficulty understanding the transition from pure energy (at the ‘big bang)’ through the evolution of complex molecules, as the ‘Standard Theory’ of Physics outlines.  The transition to the cell, and the latter (and quicker) transition to consciousness are more difficult, and by the time we get to ‘consciousness aware of itself’, all bets are off.  This is the main reason why the last stage is so poorly addressed by science.  Humans are either ‘epi-phenomenon’ or simply the random result of pure chance; either way they are outside the scope of scientific enquiry as such.

If science avoids addressing the human phenomenon, how can we apply Teilhard’s tri-vector conception of evolution to its rise through the human?

How Does Human Evolution Reflect the Evolutional Spiral?

If we believe that the universe is evolving along Teilhard’s three ‘vectors’, then we should be able to find examples of how they are playing out in human history.  As we have seen, science so far has been of little help.

Seeing our personal (and cultural) evolution through Teilhard’s ‘lens’, it emerges as a continuation of universal evolution as it

“…continually finds new ways of arranging (our) elements in the way that is most economical of energy and space” by “a rise in interiority and liberty within a whole made up of reflective particles that are now more harmoniously interrelated.”

   High minded words indeed.  Can we find examples?  Consider Johan Norberg’s book, “Progress”, which, in implicit agreement with Teilhard, does indeed offer both insight as well as articulation of these activities.

We first looked at Norberg’s ‘articulations of the noosphere’ last August, which clearly and objectively show an exponential increase in human welfare (a measure of human evolution) since 1850, and in which he cites many examples of Teilhard’s

“continual find(ing of) new ways of arranging (our) elements in the way that is most economical of energy and space”

  In all nine of the examples of Norberg’s increase in human welfare (Teilhard’s ‘arrangements’), he cites the Western value of human freedom as the underlying causality.

His findings illustrate the action of Teilhard’s three ‘vectors’ of the spiral:

–          Fruitful Unity: Each step of the exponential increase described by Norberg is precipitated by an action of human collective insight, a sharp and clear example of improved human relationships as the locus of the energy of evolution manifesting itself in the human.  Unity is the first vector: that which connects the products of evolution to move them ‘forward’.

–       Resulting complexity: As a result of each step, the complexity of society can be seen to increase in terms of more efficient organization, the reduction of human ills such as wars, famine, and disease, and increased human lifespan.  Increasing complexity is the second vector, the ‘upward’ component.

• Increasing response to the agency of universal complexification: Through the increases in education and communication since 1850, each new step of evolution provides a stage for the next as individual persons become better educated at the same time that collective society is raised to the next level.  In such results can be seen the action of the ‘inward’ component.

These three ‘vectors’ of human evolution, as they appear in our personal evolution, are a locus for human happiness.  In the alignment of our lives along the universal ‘axis of evolution’, we experience

• more complete and therefore increasingly satisfactory relationships
• which contribute to our personal growth
• which in turns enables us to deepen our relationships

Once again, we are reminded of Teilhard’s deep insight that

“Fuller being comes from closer union.  Closer union comes from fuller being”

The Next Post

This week we continued our exploration of the ‘spiritual’ ground of happiness, noting that this ‘ground’ is located within the ‘terrain of synergy’.  Once we begin to sense that the ‘ground of being’ is ‘on our side’, it becomes possible to build a level of confidence in the process of cosmic evolution as it rises through ourselves.

Having seen a clearer picture of this ‘terrain of synergy’ and its potential for a satisfaction with life that is grounded in a clear-headed, secular perspective, we can take our exploration of it yet a little further.

Next week we will outline the dimensions of the ‘terrain of synergy’, and how it can be seen as the center-ground for the two traditional ways of ‘telling the cosmic story’.