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Survey on Ken Wilber and Evolution

Posted May 13th, 2010 by Rustin Selvey in Integral Potholes

What spring rain does for crops does not explain why it rains in spring.

If only Wilber knew that!

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I've started reading Sex, Ecology & Spirituality, and it's a mixture of interesting and painful. Again Ken is barracking wildly for his Interventionist Spirit, and attempting to use the science of evolution to support it, which is unfortunate.

I'm wondering what you guys think - and want to get a quick show of hands on the question "Does Ken Wilber misrepresent the science of evolution?". I've got a little survey running - you can participate by clicking here.

Rusty

http://bit.ly/wilbersurvey

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POSTSCRIPT

The outcome of this admiteddly extremely unscientific test was surprising to me:

50% in favour (Wilber misrepresents the science of evolution)

50% against (Wilber does not misrepresent the science of evolution)

Total sample size was only 18.

I thought it would be strongly against, seeing as almost everyone who voted came from this forum.

So Ken! You seem to have an issue on your hands. Address it!

Rusty

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problem

Posted May 13th, 2010 by stefano

Hi,

The issue isn't resolved, and I'm wondering if you know what you're actually asking?

For example, if "the science" changes and they find that DNA doesn't just undergo random changes (which are then selected), does that change what you are asking?

The other thing is, do you know what you mean by "spirit" ?

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Finsh Reading

Posted May 13th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

This question has been thrown up before and before and before and before..... Google it. Or something. Relax. Don't fret so. Keep reading.

That is all.

For just $14.95 a month, YOU TOO can offset your Karma Footprint by becoming a Member of Integral Life!

[has that already been done?]

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Healthy Alternatives

Posted May 13th, 2010 by shamansun

Evolution is one of the most fascinating dimensions so I've always been eager to learn about it. I was unsatisfied with Wilber's grasp of it as well, but this isn't to say Neo-Darwinism is a sound theory. There's a lot of interior debate on so many things. Evo-Devo is talking about genes being far more dynamic and active than how we have originally thought of them. I'd say science itself, especially biology, is in the midst of a great many discoveries that will revolutionize and catalyse a paradigm shift.

If you're interested in evolution, I strongly recommend Teilhard de Chardin's work. Wilber mentions Varela and autopoiesis, so that's definitely worth reading up on as well. Teilhard, for me though, was a great inspiration and helped put a lot of things in perspective. Lynn Margulis has some very sharp critiques of Neo-Darwinism as well. Probably one of the earlier pioneers of the new "cooperation vs competition" debate.

William Irwin Thompson is another great integral thinker who explores the evolution of consciousness in a very Gebser-like way, exploring cultural artifacts and "excavating" them for evolutionary themes. He's also an advocate of Aurobindo (or at least he grasps the ideas). So all in all, there are plenty of alternative evolutionary views that don't try to so bluntly "interject" spirit. For example Teilhard's idea that matter is itself a form of Mind, or consciousness, slowly animating itself.

Can't forget Whitehead and the process philosophers either!

Hope some of these recommendations are useful for you.

-Jer

Mu!

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Evolution vs learning

Posted May 15th, 2010 by Richard Layman in response to Healthy Alternatives

"William Irwin Thompson is another great integral thinker who explores the evolution of consciousness in a very Gebser-like way, exploring cultural artifacts and "excavating" them for evolutionary themes"

Very few people using the term "evolution" on this web site seem to grasp the important difference between characteristics that evolve and those that are learned. This is a very fundamental distinction.

The word "evolve" has by popular usage come to mean any kind of change or development mediated by any kind of gradual process. However, Gebser's (and many others) use of the term "evolution" with respect to consciousness must be completely distinguished from the modern scientific theory of biological evolution.

Cultural artifacts are just that--cultural (not biological). While the emergence of human culture in general may have roots in human DNA, I am aware of no evidence that any particular content or artifact of culture that has "evolved" (appeared) within the era of anatomically modern humans has a genetic root. Gebser's cultural artifacts are most likely the products of learning processes as opposed to evolutionary processes per se.

The fields of evo-devo and evolutionary psychology have made no claims of discovery of changes in human cognitive abilities or behavior due to evolution within the cohort of modern humans. Indeed, all changes attributable to evolution are dependent on changes in biology, all of which by definition predate the anatomically modern human of the last 100,000 years or more.

Richard

There is no answer. There is no solution. There is only practice. (Anon.)

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The distinction needed here is static quality vs dynamic quality

Posted June 2nd, 2010 by Rustin Selvey in response to Evolution vs learning

In biological evolution, things that tend to become numerous do so. The mechanism is natural selection of random gene mutations. The environment is the jungle, the savannah, the ocean, etc.

In social evolution, things that tend to become numerous do so. The mechanism is (natural?) selection of probably also near-random thought mutations. The environment is the human mind as largely defined by human cultures.

Gene's result in changes to the body they inhabit, but also changes to the environment the body they inhabit inhabits. i.e., phenotypes. The phenotype of human genes is the modern man-made world.

There is no duality to this evolution.

Rusty

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Duality of definition

Posted June 6th, 2010 by Richard Layman in response to The distinction needed here is static quality vs...

"The phenotype of human genes is the modern man-made world.

There is no duality to this evolution."

Rusty,

I can't criticize people for using "evolution" in regard to culture, language, ideas, etc. because the word had an applicable definition prior to genetics.

I once used the fungal metaphor that humans are the fruiting bodies of the DNA and culture is the mycelium, but the metaphor was about humans and culture, not about DNA.

There may be a few beliefs or "memes" that have an ancient genetic basis, but most memes don't because the evolution of the memes proceeds without any correlated changes in the genes.

Ideas have their own mechanisms of mutation and selection that are distinct from genetics, or that at most are only very, very remotely tangential.

You can say the phenome of the human genome includes the man-made world, and in a sense the DNA is ultimately the author of all human artifacts. But again, we manipulate our artifacts, our language, or culture, etc. independently of and at a much faster rate than any changes in our genes.

There is certainly no one-to-one correspondence between DNA changes and cultural changes, as some on this forum seem to believe.

Richard

My Blog: Poor Richard's Almanack 2010

There is no answer. There is no solution. There is only practice. (Anon.)

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evolution applies to genes and memes equally

Posted June 6th, 2010 by Rustin Selvey in response to Duality of definition

There is clearly a distinction between evolution and development, or learning.

But why do you want to quarantine the word evolution to the world of genes? its a generic process that has occurred with genes for a few billions of years, and with memes for a much shorter period.

The social and intellectual rest firmly on the biological. There is no other plausible arrangement. Unless, like Wilber, you believe in an interventionist God, which is simply childish.

Rusty
www.rustinselvey.net/

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interventionist spirit

Posted May 24th, 2010 by stefano

I just want to add something although this is tentative, as I usually try to avoid thinking about "spirit" as I don't know what it means. But...

Consciousness and matter are the left and right sides of the diagram of quadrants. Spirit isn't on the diagram because Spirit is both. Matter is the other face of consciousness, and consciousness is the other face of matter. Together both sides are spirit.

If the material world contains a highly complex informational matrix which evolves, that is just the material side.

On the consciousness side, we might feel that as "love".

So Spirit doesn't "intervene" in dead matter, for dead matter (along with consciousness) is already spirit anyway.

The trouble with Dawkins is that he misinterprets the absence of consciousness in matter, as an absence of spirit.

But consciousness isn't in matter, consciousness is the other face of matter, and vice versa.

When matter undergoes transformations which increase its informational structures, that is something spirit is doing.

When I undergo life experiences that transform my psychology to new levels of cognition and feeling, that is something spirit is doing.

I suppose I could dismiss any notion of spirit as being superfluous given that it can't be put on the diagram anywhere, in a logical way, but then we'd have to dismiss any notion that the material world and the world of consciousness have any unity, but as we tend to want to believe, or some claim to experience, that unity, then spirit has to be to be the unity of which there are two faces (consciousness and matter), and which is doing two things (growth and evolution).

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