Has Everything Evolved?
Report of a Conference Workshop led by David Paterson
At last year’s Conference there was a thoughtexperiment workshop called Matter All the Way Up and Spirit All the Way Down, which explored the idea that science and art are emergent properties of the evolutionary process (see report in Sofia 89, September 2008). It left us wondering whether consciousness (i.e. self-awareness) could also be traced through the evolutionary process.
A second thought-experiment workshop, at this year’s Conference, was titled Evolutionary Emergence, and was introduced with some ideas influenced by Stuart Kauffman’s book Reinventing the Sacred (Basic Books 2008, ISBN 9877-0-465-00300).
The huge time-scale of the cosmos (quantum events on a scale of femtoseconds: 1012 and the age of the universe 1015 seconds), taken with the enormous complexity of the relationships that can be formed between different molecules in proximity to each other, means that – far from being an unlikely event, hard to explain – a molecule which can replicate itself and then evolve by mutation and natural selection is a nearcertain event, and indeed has most likely happened many times. Evolution of life is not anywhere near so rare and miraculous a series of events as has often been supposed. Far from having to invent a supernatural designer, we can see the ability of the physical world to organise itself as something to marvel at, even to worship perhaps. The natural world – and specially the biosphere – is itself sacred, and all the god we need.
But there remains the question of human consciousness. Together, the group traced animal behaviour in the evolutionary process, and saw survival value for a species which develops social behaviour; and that this could lead to communication and – eventually – to language. We noticed that one way of describing consciousness is ‘talking to oneself’. We noticed that an ability to understand and communicate about ‘something which is not present’ would have survival value, and that such an ability could lead to abstract thinking. Both abstract thinking and a sense of time are important markers in the development of consciousness in a human child.
Someone in the group said that in replicating themselves, molecules meet together and get excited, just like human lovers. (Even silly pictures are sometimes quite profound!) The evolutionary process is about different elements uniting – to make molecules – to make life – to plants – to insects – to flowering plants – and so on in beauty and complexity, with human consciousness the newest event in the universe (well, as far as we know, anyway!). The complexity and uniqueness of consciousness is that it enables us to be independent of our environment – to shape it rather than only to be shaped by it. And it doesn’t stop there, because consciousness also continues to evolve in depth and sophistication – in patterns of communication, in language, poetry, music, and ever-new ways of exploring ideas. We split into three groups of four at this point, and they reported back with the following ideas: • Distrusting the over-intellectualisation of modern man’s approach to the world • Appreciation of beauty, leading to creation of art, music, etc., perhaps originated in evolution because we needed to be attracted and enthused by certain things (e.g. potential food, sexual partners, babies needing protection). This has become a kind of ‘vestigial organ’, so that we now appreciate these things, even if they are not directly relevant to survival. • Evolution of consciousness gave early human beings a sense of time, awareness of mortality, a sense of otherness, an appreciation of sounds and rhythms evolving into music and eventually language – also recognition of pattern and colours that developed into art.
Some loose ends were revealed in our thoughtexperiment. One is the idea of ‘real’. Are quantum events ‘real’? Are these supposed particles ‘real’, are probability waves just human inventions like religious stories? But then – what is ‘real’? Does quantum theory have something to say about the phenomenon of consciousness? I think there may be a place for a third thought-experiment workshop at the next Conference on Religion and Social Justice.
David Paterson is Secretary to the SOF Board of Trustees and a former Chairman. He is the Convener of the Oxford SOF Group, which is organising a Day Conference on Saturday September 12th (see notice on page 21).
Report of a Conference Workshop