Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Human Evolution

We are products of evolution. We are the result of 4 billion years of the evolutionary process. The Evolution of Life is the result of the continuing cooperation of Earth systems. Any system that does not participate in the compliment of their larger system will eventually fail, without exception. This is death. Death in the natural world is not the result of competing species. Death is the necessary ingredient life needs to remain in harmony with the bigger process of life called Evolution. If death is not in harmony with the bigger process of life, it is not necessary, and is therefore detrimental to this process of evolution.

Darwin got it wrong in one important aspect: Survival of the Fittest. We have used this phrase to justify our slaughtering of the natural world. It has become our battle cry against nature. Nature is a network of complimentary systems. Any system that does not participate in the complement of another system will eventually fail. “Fittest” does not mean strongest, it means the part that fits best within the whole. The system does not get rid of another part that is benefiting the system. The system gets rid of the part that becomes detrimental to the system, and replaces it with a more beneficial part, one that “fits” better.

With this new definition of the natural cycle, this process of evolution, I can say that what we are doing is not part of this natural process. Evolution did not cease at the creation of Homo sapiens. Evolution continued on to create the mind, what Ken Wilbur calls the intangible noosphere. Through the continuation of evolution, the mind has created language, created writing, created the sciences, religions and philosophies, created society, culture, and laws. It is unique in the natural world, and it is the sole property of Homo sapiens.
The mind is the natural by-product of the Evolution of Life. But it does not end here. Evolution is and always will be at work.

The conscious decisions we make today guide the future evolution of the mind and its compliment to the rest of the system.

Our destiny is to bridge this gap that has been created between humans and the natural world, between what is the noosphere and the biosphere. To become compliments to the system called life. To participate in the creative, evolutionary process that has been guiding life for 4 billion years.

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