The evolution of the universe, from cosmos to human cognition (and why it matters)

[Carl-Richard]

Cosmogeny (astrophysical evolution), e.g. gas clouds to stars, to planets, to moons.
->
Phylogeny (biological evolution), e.g. fish to amphibian, to reptile, to mammal.
->
Ontogeny (individual development), e.g. child to adolescent, to young adult, to mature adult.
->
Microgeny (moment to moment), e.g. seeing the raw visual data of an apple, to experiencing arousal, to forming some mental concept about it ("apple", "edible"), to thinking about the apple ("am I hungry?"), to planning to eat the apple, to executing that plan, etc.

 

The principle that ties them all together is the interplay between two parts: selection and variation (Darwin), or "include and transcend" (Wilber). It's the interplay between what exists ("being", permanence) and what is to be ("becoming", impermanence), order and chaos, what is old and what is new, etc. Here is one way to tell the story (of the entire universe, from cosmos to human cognition):

 

Somewhere at the beginning of the cosmogenetic level, hydrogen clouds clump together and form stars, which include hydrogen gas but transcends it in form and function (density, temperature, potential fusion processes, life cycles, etc.). These stars may form star systems, which include and transcend stars. These stars may collide with each other, or they may collapse and explode and form new heavier elements (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc.).

 

You can then "select" (or "include") these new elements and create a new higher-order system, like a biological cell, which takes us to the phylogenetic level. A cell includes carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., but transcends it in form and function (cell membrane, ion channels, intra-cellular structures, signalling pathways, etc.). Cells may form a multicellular organism, which includes and transcends cells. These biological systems will evolve by the same process as astrophysical systems: selection and variation, "include and transcend". It just becomes very visible in biological systems because these systems make copies of themselves with sometimes slight changes, through mitosis or meiosis (involving mechanisms such as genetic mutation or sexual reproduction), and these changes become very complex very fast. That is how you get organisms like fish, frogs, seaweed and trees, all originating from the same organism (most likely), over a rather short period of time.

 

These biological systems have a life cycle, a bit like stars, where their structure builds up and complexifies, and then disintegrates and dissolves into more basic elements (while also creating new elements, like in supernovas, or new life forms, like in mitosis or meiosis, somewhere along the cycle). This takes us to the ontogenetic level. Taking humans as an example, you start out with a single fertilized cell which undergoes various types of cell division and cell differentiation, eventually creating a fish-like embryo, which then grows into a fetus, and then it gets born as a baby. Here you can clearly see the curious phenomena of "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny", where the earlier stages of the life cycle shows distinct similarities with the earlier stages of biological evolution. In reality, this recapitulation happens across all the levels, but here the notion again becomes very visible. As the baby grows up, it goes through various stages of development as a child (e.g. Piaget's stages of cognitive development), then as an adolescent through puberty and additional cognitive development (and of course other types of development), and then further as a young adult, mature adult, etc. Here is where theories like Spiral Dynamics, Cook-Greuter's Ego Development theory and other adult development theories come in. Of course, some organisms are social and form social systems, which include and transcend individual organisms, which is where societal and cultural development comes in. Also, you get a variety of individual organisms by varying which environment or which situations they’re exposed to, which is more captured by concepts like culture and society, but which again illustrates the principle of selection-variation in evolution.

 

Sticking to the individual level though, there is still a way to divide the evolution of the universe a bit further, and that is by looking at what happens as an organism interacts with the world, in the moments "between" the aforementioned stages of their life cycle, or "moment to moment", at the level of seconds, minutes, or even milliseconds; "microgeny". As mentioned in the description of microgeny earlier in the beginning, a good example is the process of interacting with an apple, here from a human perspective, but it could apply to any organism, or in fact not just an organism-object interaction, but any process in the universe, at the level of milliseconds, seconds, minutes, etc. For example, you could describe the crashing of a wave, or the evaporation of a water molecule, on the surface of a lake, which again happens "between" the ontogenetic stages of the life cycle of the lake (whether it dries out or experiences lake succession, etc.). Or to take it back to stars again, you can look at the process of solar flares or solar wind on the surface of the sun. However, the most interesting way to wrap this up is to look at human cognition, because of the connections to the other levels and the principle that ties it together:

 

So again, you see the raw visual data of the apple, which is processed by your visual system (from the retina to the optic nerve to the visual cortex) at 80-100 milliseconds (represented by the P100 signal in EEGs, a way to measure brain activity), to experiencing arousal at 80-120 milliseconds (N100), to forming some mental concept about it ("apple", "edible") at 250-500 milliseconds (N400), to thinking about the apple a little later ("am I hungry?"), to planning to eat the apple, to executing that plan, etc. Now, there are of course other ways that human cognition unfolds, and some of it can also be placed within the selection-variation dichotomy. For example, the dual-processing relationship between the default mode network (DMN), responsible for mind wandering and self-referential thinking, and the task-positive network, responsible for focusing on task-relevant information and performing working memory operations, also seem to reflect this dichotomy. The DMN produces variation by throwing tangential or "task-irrelevant" pieces of information at you, i.e. insights, while the tasking network selects which task to work on or which complicated operations to perform. So similarly to how a biological species evolves by throwing variation into the mix in form of genetic mutation or sexual recombination of genes, your mind (or brain) evolves moment to moment by throwing variation into the mix.

 

Now, when the relationship between the two parts of the dichotomy gets out of balance, you tend to get dysfunction, e.g. genetic abnormalities, cancers, psychic imbalances, neuroses, unconscious shadow personas, addictions. So if you think you have a problem, it might help to look to this basic principle of evolution: are you including and transcending, selecting and varying, in a balanced way? And who would've thought that this ties into the perennial wisdom traditions that celebrate virtues like balance and holism? We’ve known these things for a long time, in many places on Earth, and this is expected when you touch on something deep. Now, once you align yourself with the deepest principles of how reality evolves, then you’re bound to evolve in proper way. This is why philosophy and self-help, health or anything that you value as an organism, are inseparable, because understanding how things fit together is necessary, and the truth is that things do fit together. Reality is whole, evolving by the interaction of parts, but it's undeniably whole.

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

This conception of "transcend and include" gets increasingly murky, as you get into more abstract territory like ideas/culture. 

Just because you "integrate" a lot of stuff, doesnt mean that your view is objectively more "whole." I could reference all these subjects and tie them all together in a grand argument in favor of the holocaust. 

 

[Nilsi]

Heinrich Himmler always carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita with him and taught detachment and meditation (identifying with the Atman) to German soldiers fighting in WWII, to make them more efficient killing machines.

Adolf Hitler started "Mein Kampf" with a comprehensive cosmogeny, which he used as proof of the relative "insignificance" of human life in the grand scheme of the universe. I dont think I need to explain how that story unfolded.

[UnbornTao]

Now ask what something is beyond cosmology and hearsay.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

This conception of "transcend and include" gets increasingly murky, as you get into more abstract territory like ideas/culture. 

True.

 

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Just because you "integrate" a lot of stuff, doesnt mean that your view is objectively more "whole." I could reference all these subjects and tie them all together in a grand argument in favor of the holocaust. 

It's at least more whole than not integrating anything, or not trying to do so. It's a bit like how most forms of psychotherapy seem to work, largely irrespective of the particular tradition. Merely attempting to build an alliance and looking inward in a systematic way seems to be better than not doing so. So merely attempting to produce a worldview that makes sense of the world, that creates a sense of coherence and structure to the world, is better than not doing it. So even nazism is in a sense better than nothing.

Whether nazism is better than anything else is of course more subjective. That said, I think there are arguments to be made against nazism along the lines of the type of holism proposed here (which is grounded in perennial wisdom and therefore has cross-cultural value and thus a level of "inter-subjectivity", aspiring to objectivity), in the sense that building your society on scapegoating, hate and repression is neurotic and thus dysfunctional (maybe I'm strawmanning nazism as an ideology and ignoring their proposed utopia given that their project would've succeeded, but this is at least the historical basis of its existence). Such emotional expressions are appropriate as stress responses (short-lasting states that occur when a system is strained and trying to re-establish a functional baseline), but it shouldn't be the baseline existence (unless you prefer existing in a state of stress).

 

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I could reference all these subjects and tie them all together in a grand argument in favor of the holocaust. 

Seems fun. Do it  

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

24 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Heinrich Himmler always carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita with him and taught detachment and meditation (identifying with the Atman) to German soldiers fighting in WWII, to make them more efficient killing machines.

Adolf Hitler started "Mein Kampf" with a comprehensive cosmogeny, which he used as proof of the relative "insignificance" of human life in the grand scheme of the universe. I dont think I need to explain how that story unfolded.

That shows the dangers of spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is an example of when "transcend" gets imbalanced, repressing the "include".

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

7 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Now ask what something is beyond cosmology and hearsay.

That belongs in the spirituality section  

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

22 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That belongs in the spirituality section  

Maybe, and this thread in the intellectual section.  

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Maybe, and this thread in the intellectual section.  

My point with this thread is that personal development needs intellect

[UnbornTao]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

My point with this thread is that personal development needs intellect

I prefer a grounded approach to personal growth, otherwise it gets too abstract, but fair enough. 

Edited January 9 by UnbornTao

[Nilsi]

9 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Maybe, and this thread in the intellectual section.  

To make this even clearer:

My first point is that all worldviews are bound to be partial (should be obvious enough).

But my main point is that ranking those partial worldviews along some kind of axis of partiality-wholeness is itself ultimately arbitrary.

The idea of some kind of objective "holonic order" to the universe, the way Wilber talks about, is ridiculous.

Deleuze actually hit the nail on the head by contrasting arborescent and rhizomatic worldviews, as follows: 

 

Arborescent Worldview: being structured like a tree with one value/idea at its root, from which all the others branch of, in a hierarchically integrated manner

gg

Rhizomatic Worldview: being structured like rhizoma/funghi with all values/ideas being interconnected in a highly complex non-hierarchichal manner

Of course, you can now make the good ol' gotcha' move when it comes to postmodernism and argue that this denies the superiority of the rhizomatic structure over traditional hierarchical structures -- and thats precisely the point. Reality is inherently paradoxical and fluid (strange-loopy, if you want).

The problem is locking yourself into the idea of hierarchies/holarchies and getting stuck there.

Edited January 9 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

@Nilsi

Some things can be described as arborescent and others as rhizomic, or sometimes you can describe the same thing in both ways. I don't see much of a problem. If you are to describe something, you have to describe it in some way. As long as what you do is compelled by your sense, that is what matters. You can choose to view the evolution of the universe as having nothing to do with levels or sequences. You're free to do that.

This is why I think pragmatism is the ultimate worldview ;P 

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

Just now, Carl-Richard said:

@Nilsi

Some things can be described as arborescent and others as rhizomic, or sometimes you can describe the same thing in both ways. I don't see much of a problem either way. If you are to describe something, you have to describe it in some way. As long as you do what is do is compelled by your sense, that is what matters. You can choose to view the evolution of the universe as having nothing to do with sequences or levels. You're free to do that.

Great.

Ken Wilber would disagree though and since you based your argument on his ideas, I felt compelled to make this point. 

[Carl-Richard]

14 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Great.

Ken Wilber would disagree though and since you based your argument on his ideas, I felt compelled to make this point. 

I also based it on Darwin (selection and variation). Neither "selection and variation" nor "include and transcend" (the way I used it here) necessitate the concept of levels or sequences. It just follows easily. So that's a Wilberian idea (or my use of it) that is compatible with both arborescent and rhizomic ideas ;D

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I also based it on Darwin (selection and variation). Neither "selection and variation" nor "include and transcend" (the way I used it here) necessitate the concept of levels or sequences. It just follows easily. So that's a Wilberian idea (or my use of it) that is compatible with both arborescent and rhizomic ideas ;D

Fair. I threw in the holon-thing myself to make a point. 

[Yimpa]

39 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I prefer a grounded approach to personal growth, otherwise it gets too abstract, but fair enough. 

My partner grounds me more than a substance ever will. Then again, I wouldn’t have met my partner had I not used substances wisely with the intention of personal growth. 

[Carl-Richard]

Actually, I'll move this to the intellectual section. The post is 90% that. I actually didn't plan to make it about self-development (and I don't expect people looking for practical self-development device to read it all). It was just a good way to conclude.

Edited January 9 by Carl-Richard