…and a first attempt at putting the Evolved Universe Hypothesis in conversation with Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the Noösphere, or Noosphere, or noosphere...
This understates the case: "Take fire, for instance. … An ever-increasing amount of what makes human beings reproductively successful is external to our physical bodies ... Indeed, our physical bodies can get, in some senses, less fit."
Control of fire allowed humans to pre-digest food externally. As a result, the human intestine shrank. People literally cannot survive without external digestion (either fire or fermentation). The downsizing of the intestine seems to have started with Homo Erectus. If that's true, external digestion is a defining characteristic of being human, as much as language or tool use. (CF Richard Wrangham.)
Working my way backwards through these posts, I was wondering if you'd hit on this. I read EVOLUTION FOR EVERYONE back around 2011, when I was starting a podcast / blog, and used it in a couple of college classes.
Oh, that's a nice piece, thanks for the link. Yeah, I'm extremely interested in the idea of memes, and memetics. (I loved Susan Blackmore's book, The Meme Machine.) I can't understand why it has fizzled as a science; there is so much there to play with. Perhaps because it is unavoidably tangled up with consciousness, which we also can't get a handle on using a purely reductionist materialist approach.
Ah, that looks like a fun book. Thanks for the tip... Yeah, they shouldn't have gotten so obsessed with the physical nature of memes. You will end up in the same swamp as "the physical nature of thoughts". As you pointed out (and I think I mention somewhere too), Darwin, and Darwinism, did pretty well for a very long time without having the faintest clue about genes and DNA.
Hi Julian, I’m quite new to your substack but I’m really enjoying reading your ideas about the evolved universe! The way you can explain the tendency for increased complexity in the universe without the woo-woo, as you say, resonates with me. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to reading more :)
Well, I’m in! Just subscribed after hanging in the fringe for a while. The de Chardin reference (I was introduced to his existence thru Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being) as well as your patient and honest response to a query I made several weeks ago have sealed the deal. Looking forward to the ride.
Hey, thanks! I HUGELY appreciate your support. This masterclass is proving to be fascinating, and will definitely enrich this Substack, and the eventual book. I hope you will enjoy its fruits in future posts – and thank you again for buying me some thinking and writing time, to process all I'm learning.
Julian, have you read "the evolution of everything" ... it's a great step by step explanation of how we got here, and taking it one step further (backward?) is a natural extension!
Great! Yeah, I love this stuff, I find this way of looking at the universe totally fascinating. By the way, how did you come across this post/my Substack? I’m interested in how people find The Egg and the Rock. (If it’s all new to you, I’m assuming you haven’t been a subscriber for a while, and are relatively new here.)
I'm subscribed to a couple others on Substack: Alex Dobrenko, Adam Mastroianni, and Heather Cox Richardson. Sometimes Substack asks if you want other emails and I don't know what I clicked.. Happy to find you though.
I studied biology and HATED evolutionary genetics and genetics.
I love the idea of having a new common vocabulary to start communication that bridges science and spirituality. Might take a long time to get into the collective consciousness... Hopefully we don't lose our democracy or incinerate ourselves first!
Ah, wonderful. Glad this is bringing you back to biology in a way that works for you. Feel free to tell any similar-minded friends! The more of us involved in this conversation, the faster we can change the collective consciousness.
The principles of Multi-level selection are also applicable on our own minds. Take the materialist bias, which has resulted in a removal of agency for pretty much all beings (as well as opened for arguments that humans lack free will) and reduced them to automatons. I can see many examples of how that bias, which is programmed into pretty much all westerners due to our cultural history, shows up in higher levels (e.g. the way we perceive women’s and men’s roles in society, or our relationship to animals and nature). I would say that noosphere suffers a bit from this, since it excludes non-human lifeforms and creates a dichotomy akin to medicine’s mind vs body, but on a planetary level.
side note: I believe this is related to entheogens and their facilitation of ego dissolution. It’s also interesting that a meta study shows that entheogens do shift people’s perception towards oneness.
This understates the case: "Take fire, for instance. … An ever-increasing amount of what makes human beings reproductively successful is external to our physical bodies ... Indeed, our physical bodies can get, in some senses, less fit."
Control of fire allowed humans to pre-digest food externally. As a result, the human intestine shrank. People literally cannot survive without external digestion (either fire or fermentation). The downsizing of the intestine seems to have started with Homo Erectus. If that's true, external digestion is a defining characteristic of being human, as much as language or tool use. (CF Richard Wrangham.)
Yes! Exactly! We are essentially symbiotic with fire.
Working my way backwards through these posts, I was wondering if you'd hit on this. I read EVOLUTION FOR EVERYONE back around 2011, when I was starting a podcast / blog, and used it in a couple of college classes.
http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=randall_hayes&article=009
Oh, that's a nice piece, thanks for the link. Yeah, I'm extremely interested in the idea of memes, and memetics. (I loved Susan Blackmore's book, The Meme Machine.) I can't understand why it has fizzled as a science; there is so much there to play with. Perhaps because it is unavoidably tangled up with consciousness, which we also can't get a handle on using a purely reductionist materialist approach.
I feel like people just moved on to the next shiny thing, once the debate got bogged down in what memes are made of, physically.
I liked Blackmore's book, and another (which did in fact have a foil cover in hardback).
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Electric-Meme/Robert-Aunger/9781451612950
Ah, that looks like a fun book. Thanks for the tip... Yeah, they shouldn't have gotten so obsessed with the physical nature of memes. You will end up in the same swamp as "the physical nature of thoughts". As you pointed out (and I think I mention somewhere too), Darwin, and Darwinism, did pretty well for a very long time without having the faintest clue about genes and DNA.
Hi Julian, I’m quite new to your substack but I’m really enjoying reading your ideas about the evolved universe! The way you can explain the tendency for increased complexity in the universe without the woo-woo, as you say, resonates with me. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to reading more :)
Hey, (belated) thanks, Jack.
Well, I’m in! Just subscribed after hanging in the fringe for a while. The de Chardin reference (I was introduced to his existence thru Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being) as well as your patient and honest response to a query I made several weeks ago have sealed the deal. Looking forward to the ride.
Hey, thanks! I HUGELY appreciate your support. This masterclass is proving to be fascinating, and will definitely enrich this Substack, and the eventual book. I hope you will enjoy its fruits in future posts – and thank you again for buying me some thinking and writing time, to process all I'm learning.
Julian, have you read "the evolution of everything" ... it's a great step by step explanation of how we got here, and taking it one step further (backward?) is a natural extension!
I haven’t yet, I must. I have heard only good things about it.
Just like termites are symbiotic with bacteria, or actually archaea, specifically methanogens called Methanobrevibacter
Yes, that’s a good example, it’s not unprecedented. But we’ve certainly taken the process to a remarkable extreme, for a large mammal…
I love this! Thank you! It's totally new to me. Mind Blown!
Great! Yeah, I love this stuff, I find this way of looking at the universe totally fascinating. By the way, how did you come across this post/my Substack? I’m interested in how people find The Egg and the Rock. (If it’s all new to you, I’m assuming you haven’t been a subscriber for a while, and are relatively new here.)
I'm subscribed to a couple others on Substack: Alex Dobrenko, Adam Mastroianni, and Heather Cox Richardson. Sometimes Substack asks if you want other emails and I don't know what I clicked.. Happy to find you though.
I studied biology and HATED evolutionary genetics and genetics.
I love the idea of having a new common vocabulary to start communication that bridges science and spirituality. Might take a long time to get into the collective consciousness... Hopefully we don't lose our democracy or incinerate ourselves first!
Ah, wonderful. Glad this is bringing you back to biology in a way that works for you. Feel free to tell any similar-minded friends! The more of us involved in this conversation, the faster we can change the collective consciousness.
The principles of Multi-level selection are also applicable on our own minds. Take the materialist bias, which has resulted in a removal of agency for pretty much all beings (as well as opened for arguments that humans lack free will) and reduced them to automatons. I can see many examples of how that bias, which is programmed into pretty much all westerners due to our cultural history, shows up in higher levels (e.g. the way we perceive women’s and men’s roles in society, or our relationship to animals and nature). I would say that noosphere suffers a bit from this, since it excludes non-human lifeforms and creates a dichotomy akin to medicine’s mind vs body, but on a planetary level.
side note: I believe this is related to entheogens and their facilitation of ego dissolution. It’s also interesting that a meta study shows that entheogens do shift people’s perception towards oneness.
Highly reminiscent of Deleuzian / DeLanda Assemblages