Divergent Paths Of The Future Part I
Part I: Historical Foundations of Emergent Evolution
The search to understand the nature of the human being and the origin and development of life has found many new avenues of inquiry since the establishing of modern science in the 19th century. The invention of ever greater and more accurate technological instruments and tools have afforded new discoveries and deeper insights into the processes of the physical world. The foundational scientific views of the cosmos arising from material processes and the human as fundamentally a biological entity – a being whose seat of consciousness is seen as residing in the brain – have not changed. Despite this, unexpected and extraordinary discoveries in many different fields continue to occur all the time. These novel discoveries, made possible by new technologies, encourage reevaluation of older, static understandings and thus reinvigorate the inherent mystery of life and of the world. New understandings about humans and nature are being incorporated into the design and construction of a global, digital social system in which the relationship between human beings and the Earth is supposedly more interconnected. New technologies and social ideas are being designed and promoted as being in harmony with the natural flow and, according to natural science, the theorized physical evolution of life. Yet, is it possible that many of these technologies and social ideas could be the very infrastructure of a global, socio-technical superorganism, a superorganism that separates itself from divine guidance?
In order to address this question a historical timeline must first be drawn in order to establish a conceptual basis of understanding. This encompasses wide horizons of thought and disciplines which at first may appear to be disparate and unconnected. It is my intention to identify how potentially beneficial scientific and socio-technical paradigms and inventions are being used for potentially pernicious ends despite being introduced and promoted as purely beneficial. It will be my endeavor throughout this article series to: 1) examine some history of the convergence of various disciplines in science and technology and several past ideas and perspectives of a few key individuals regarding human and natural systems and evolution, 2) identify some modern, scientific and technological correspondences and reveal how these are born out of those very ideas and 3) demonstrate the extent to which these phenomena correspond to the esoteric understanding given through the insights of Rudolf Steiner.
Technology as a Pharmakon
Today, science is entwined in technology because the development of modern physical sciences is largely dependent on technological tools and their development. It has been said that technology is neither categorically good nor evil but is more accurately characterized as a pharmakon. Pharmakon is a term from ancient Greece and denotes that which can be both a remedy and a poison. Medicine, travel, communication, agriculture and education are among the many areas that obviously serve as a benefit to humanity. Aside from the more obviously nefarious uses of technology, such as surveillance and weapons of war, even when providing a benefit, technology often comes with potential repercussions not only for the Earth but for the overall well being of human beings – such as pollution and addiction to computer games and/or media. Therefore, it is not a simple matter of identifying what is purely good or evil, for any technology which is beneficial in one area can, at the same time, have drawbacks in other ways – truly a pharmakon.
As well as trying to understand the nature of the human being and discover the truth of the past development and origin of life, the understandings arising from new scientific-technological discoveries and inventions are also being used to help build a new social system. So-called “existential threats” to life on Earth (such as ‘climate change’ and ‘viruses’) have seemingly been identified and a focus on these is very present in the cultural, scientific and political realms. Each new social idea and technology is evaluated as to how it may help humanity in avoiding catastrophe. Diverse fields, such as cognitive sciences, robotics, biology, neurosciences, social sciences and philosophy are discovering that (what is referred to as) an intelligence is rooted in the interconnected dynamics between an individual organism's brain, its physical body and the surrounding environment which also encompasses the social milieu as well. Many social technologies are being designed to imitate or in some way reflect the integral processes of nature at differing levels. The concept behind this is that technology and technological social systems which mirror nature most effectively integrate human activity into nature creating a more harmonized whole. For example, some companies have adopted organizational structures inspired by natural systems such as ant colonies or beehives. In computational systems, algorithms inspired by swarm intelligence are used to solve optimization, routing, and decision-making problems by mimicking the self-organized behavior of natural groups such as bird flocks and bee hives. These structures emphasize decentralized decision-making, collaboration, and adaptability. Circular economy principles which mimic nutrient cycling in ecosystems are being used to minimize waste and maximize efficiency. Where did the gleaning of this alleged intelligence throughout nature and the endeavor for technology and social systems to mimic nature come from?
New Thought Paradigms: Complexity Theory and General Systems Theory
The creation and development of computers and of the internet is a rich history consisting of several inventions, including the creation of telegraphy in the late 18th century, punchcard-based tabulation (a form of analog computing) in the late 19th century and Bell Lab’s Complex Number Calculator in 1939. In the 1940’s came the first digital computing and in the 1950’s came transistor-based computers, magnetic memory storage and the advancement of the computer network (largely by the U.S. military for air defense). From the creation of the silicon-based circuit in the 1960’s through to today, the processing power of the computer continues to grow exponentially. As computers developed, so more powerful computational capacities were applied to scientific research and experiment. With this, great strides were made in physics and statistical mechanics. Probability theory, fueled by new computational power, began to reveal to scientists how to quantify uncertainty in complex, dynamical systems and scientists began to simulate different kinds of highly complex systems, even modeling living systems in silico (i.e. computer modeling).
Before computation and these new ways of thinking, science evolved primarily as the science of Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1643-1727), dealing with straightforward relationships between forces or objects and portraying the universe as a meticulously designed mechanism governed by deterministic laws. In the early twentieth century this reductionist mechanistic perspective began to crumble, especially in physics, as attention shifted to complex sets of interacting relationships. The study of complex systems challenged the explanatory power of deterministic paradigms and relativity and quantum theory supplanted Newtonian mechanics. Now complex sets of interacting relationships took center stage, revealing staggering intricacies even within the most basic physical entities, such as atoms.
Similarly, in biology during the 20th century, the extant laws of physics fell short in elucidating the intricate interactions within living organisms and biology faced challenges in explaining the self-preservation of organisms solely through the physical laws governing the behavior of atoms and molecules. Consequently, new laws governing integrated wholes were proposed. While not contradicting physical laws, these new laws provided complementary insights into how highly complex systems function when they act together. These developments led to the emergence of the new scientific paradigms of complexity theory and general systems theory. Situated at the intersection of computer science and mathematics, complexity theory studies the complexities of intricate systems by seeking to understand how basic rules or elements can generate elaborate and sometimes unpredictable behaviors. Similarly, general systems theory recognizes that natural systems, including human societies and the environment, exhibit intricate structures and behaviors that cannot be fully understood by reducing them to their individual parts or simple interactions.
Whereas reductionism focuses on an end result by assuming that the whole of a system can be explained from knowledge of its constituent parts, general systems theory recognizes the importance of understanding the process by accounting for systemic and emergent properties. These are the kinds of properties that only arise out of the whole of a system, such as the movements of the entire flock of birds evading a predator. General systems theory acknowledges that components within complex systems are interconnected and that changes in one part of a system can have ripple effects throughout the entire system. By studying the interconnections among systems, general systems theory more accurately accounts for the way relationships and interactions form the organization of life. Nowadays, a grasp of interconnected complexity is in many ways deemed preferable to the detailed but isolated understanding of a specialist of only one discipline. Whereas interdisciplinary research generally refers to specialists working within more traditional boundaries towards the same goal, transdisciplinary research refers to both academic and non-academic collaborators, working to resolve highly complex or real-world problems. With modern scientists uncovering organized systems in numerous areas of study, general systems theory has become a common problem-solving language across diverse disciplines. Systems theories find application in nearly all branches of natural sciences and they are increasingly taking a prominent position within the realm of human social sciences.
Emergence and Complex Adaptive Systems
To better understand how a new kind of socio-technical system could create a global superorganism, it is important to understand emergence because emergence is what the new interconnected global socio-technial system thrives upon. Emergence is a term that refers to something arising (emerging) out of the interaction and/or cooperation of individual parts, which is greater than the sum of those parts. An example of emergence in physical nature is found in individual ice crystals forming the beautifully symmetrical snowflake. Examples of emergence in biology include the synchronized movements of a school of fish and in the behavior and achievements of an entire ant colony. The internet – its very design and function – is an emergent phenomenon which comes about from the connected network of single computers and computer servers. The spread of ideas, culture, art, the creation of new ways of commerce, sociality and the carrying out of various functions of the state – all of these are phenomena which emerge from the world wide web.
Looking purely from the perspective of natural science, emergence in the animal kingdom often occurs when it becomes necessary to adapt to the environment, with no obvious leadership. Self-organization results in the creation of something that is greater than what creatures can create individually (such as the construction of the bee nest). Studying and experimenting with various kinds of emergence yields often unpredictable and unprecedented insights about both living and non-living complex systems. Complex adaptive systems are special cases of complex systems that have the emergent capacity to change and self-organize through learning from experience. Self-organization (also called self-assembly) is the spontaneous emergence of order out of what may first appear to be chaos. Human social networks show self-organization and the more data that can be collected across individual and social life further refines the understanding brought about in observing emergent qualities of groups of humans. These kinds of unique insights hold a great value, not only to those who are interested in understanding how beings work together, but also for the construction of a new kind of interconnected global socio-technical system.
The Merging of Science and Humanism: Oliver Reiser
In 1876 the Society for Ethical Culture was founded in the United States. Drawing inspiration from new Kantian principles (Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804), this association encouraged ethical conduct and prioritized social service actions over religious beliefs. By approximately 1950, various Ethical Culture societies in the U.S. and England had transformed this philosophy into humanism.1 Consequently, the American Ethical Union arose as a key founding member of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, a global alliance of humanists. Humanism was then picked up by Unitarians. Unitarianism denies the concept of the Trinity and instead asserts the unity of God. Like Humanism, Unitarianism promotes personal autonomy and advocates for the exploration of truth through rationality and personal conscience. As Humanism spread among Unitarian congregations, the establishment of the Humanist Fellowship at the University of Chicago occurred in 1927. This was followed by the founding of the New Humanist magazine a year later. In 1929, a Unitarian minister founded the autonomous First Humanist Society of New York (which would eventually include notable members such as Albert Einstein and Helen Keller). 2
Humanism is described as a rational philosophy, an approach to life as well as an ethical system. Broadly, humanism centers on the right and responsibility of individuals to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to a greater good. Most frequently, modern humanism refers to a non-theistic view centered on human agency and a reliance on science and reason rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world. Generally, humanism asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny. The aftermath of World War II was a time of great social and institutional reorientation. A struggle for technological dominance began between the Soviet Union and the United States, which would continue for over forty years. One humanist thinker at that time who called for “mental reorganization” and “social readjustment” is a little known, to the general public, humanist thinker named Oliver Reiser.
Oliver Reiser (1895-1974) was a professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburg for 40 years (1926-1966). Through his works such as World Philosophy: A Search for Synthesis (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1948), The Integration of Human Knowledge (Porter Sargent, 1958), and Cosmic Humanism (Shenkman Publishing Company, 1975) Reiser attempted to show that the humanities, the natural sciences and the social sciences could lead to a unified inquiry of both physical and human nature. Reiser initially called this unified worldview scientific humanism. (Later, partially inspired by Albert Einstein, he preferred the term cosmic humanism.) Throughout his books, Reiser maintained that scientific humanism could bring about a global society and sustained world peace.
In 1946, in his book, The World Sensorium: The Social Embryology of World Federation,3 Reiser calls for an “intellectual and social synthesis” culminating in what he describes as a “bio-social organism”, or, what he terms throughout the book, “world body” and “world brain”. Reiser said of this world brain, “Just as the cerebral cortex is the vehicle of the master reaction which regulates the diverse and otherwise conflicting biological reactions, so if we are to achieve a similar global strategy for mankind we shall have to evolve a seat of intellectual-social dominance – a world brain – to harmonize our multifarious economic-political-cultural activities. We seriously propose that Humanity must become in very fact a biological-social entity.” Reiser proposed that the “world brain” would be the “vehicle for the coming planetary culture” which would be mediated by a “world-federation”. At several points in the book he actually refers to this federation as a “world government” and proposes that “subjective idealism of a group with universal interest” will be the basis of an “objective[,] actualized federation of ministries which will provide leadership and authority.”
Reiser’s horizon of focus did not stay strictly within materialist boundaries. Reiser spoke extensively about extra sensory perception, “psychic ether” and “planetary brainwaves”. In a section entitled “Some Building Genes of the World Body”, referring to “the new world organism” Reiser states, “[U]nlike mechanistic theories of evolution, this conception will find the moving force behind evolutionary advance in invisible morphological fields of force which bend the arc of growth towards wholeness-formations.” The term “wholeness-formations” Reiser uses is referring to emergence. Reiser uses the term emergent throughout the book, often using it to refer to what he called a “new sociology”.
In Reiser’s book Cosmic Humanism, he suggests “Radio eugenics” by using “atomic energy radiation to initiate genetic or chromosome change[s] which cause mutations” and doing this “under the guidance of a psychosocial field to control the course of the biological changes so that the form of emergence is determined”. Eugenics is of course the practice, or advocacy, of controlled selective breeding of human populations. Historically, the implementation of eugenics, both in practice and as a scientific pursuit, has consistently been orchestrated by individuals and organizations wielding significant power and resources, driven by an unmistakable agenda to assert control over society and extend the power and life of only their own clique. As such, I need not go into the reprehensible lack of morality and ethics of eugenics, for, in essence, what lies at the core of the eugenics movement is elitist and racist ideology.
Despite the altruistic, humanist rhetoric that he uses, Reiser’s referring to a “seat of intellectual-social dominance” and endeavoring to control the alleged mechanisms of evolution, is to suggest no less than the use of the same types of manipulation and control that eugenics utilizes. It is these very mechanisms that are precisely what is currently being successively identified and explored by countless disciplines connected by general systems theory. As we continue to move into new domains in which technology is ever more woven into the fabric of individual and social life, the discernment of the difference between true self creation and the kind of evolution which is guided and/or manipulated by a hidden hand, becomes very important.
Lesser Known Developments From The Manhattan Project
Concerns regarding the potential for Nazi Germany to construct and deploy an atomic weapon during World War II sparked the inception of the Manhattan Project – the covert military initiative aimed at developing the first such weapon for the United States. Especially with the recent film Oppenheimer, the majority of the understanding and point of focus on the Manhattan Project pertains to the advent of the atomic bomb, yet this focus is at the expense of the knowledge that nuclear weaponry is only one of several significant world-altering enterprises that began with the Manhattan Project. While the world perceived the U.S. as spearheading the global effort to stop the Nazi regime, a select group of scientists in the inner core of the Manhattan Project purposefully subjected American citizens to hazardous levels of radiation without informing them or seeking their consent, most often without any apparent medical justification or anticipated benefits. In some cases radiological agents were directly injected into people and numerous individuals suffered severe health consequences, including fatalities, as a result of these experiments. These experiments persisted throughout the latter half of the 20th century and there can be little doubt that much was gained – but at what human cost – through studying the effects of radiation on the human body.4
Manhattan Project lead scientist Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) and many of the top level scientists working with him came out of the University of California (UC) and the UC research university system. UC took over the administrative management of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos National Labs and after World War II, retaining the management of those systems whilst adding other labs and ultimately coming under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Energy. Another large enterprise that came out of UC, the Human Genome Project – the international, scientific effort aimed at mapping and sequencing all of the genes in the human genome – can clearly be seen as a direct extension of the Manhattan Project. This kind of development becomes particularly relevant in the context of ideas expressed by Reiser, (i.e. “radio eugenics”) which we have already begun to glean are still alive and very operative in the world today.
The Problems With Darwinian Evolution
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) proposed that species evolve over time through the process of natural selection. Darwin’s theory suggests that individuals within a population vary in traits and those with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their traits to the next generation. According to this theory, over many generations this process leads to the gradual accumulation of beneficial traits, resulting in adaptation to the environment and the emergence of new species. Although Darwinian evolution has assumed primacy throughout science and culture, findings, particularly in the fields of mathematics and biology, have raised growing skepticism regarding this theory. For example: 1) Microevolution – while resulting in observable changes, the transition from one species to another has yet to be demonstrated; 2) Macroevolution reveals notable gaps in the fossil record, including the absence of intermediary forms. 3) Irreducible complexity points to the implausibility, both practically and mathematically, of complex systems evolving solely through chance mutations and then being selectively retained within a genetic lineage.
In 1966 at a gathering called "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution”, physicists, engineers and distinguished biologists – including the mathematician and physicist Stanisław Ulam, who was a prominent Manhattan Project scientist – convened at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia to address issues concerning evolutionary theory. Many physicists and engineers at that time had come to the same ultimate conclusion: the mathematics of Darwinism, (called neo-Darwinism) does not work. This remains to be the case today. The reason the mathematics of Darwinian evolutionary theory remains unsolved is because the strictly materialist framework to which it has been applied doesn’t account for what is often referred to as mechanisms of dynamic intelligence within various complex systems. Self-assembly and the intelligence which arises from emergence are now seen as providing the mechanisms which lead to the biological complexity and diversity which the mathematics have failed to account for.
Self Creation: Emergent Evolution as Counterimage of Spiritual Evolution
Autopoiesis is a term describing the capacity of an entity to reproduce itself – the property of a system being capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts; in other words, self-creation. Autopoiesis was initially only applicable in biology, but social systems came to be seen as autopoietic because it was realized that through communication they are also capable of reproducing and maintaining their own parts. As discussed above, humanism rejects divine and supernatural matters and believes only in the advancement of humanity by its own efforts. As a scientific humanist, Oliver Reiser placed strong emphasis on humanity creating itself anew by learning how to scientifically utilize ‘fields of force” – fields existing at different levels (electromagnetic, molecular, chemical, biological etc) which he suggested create and govern emergent evolution. Ever denser ubiquitous sensor networks (including surveillance and personal information gathering) enable more refined collecting and aggregation of as many data points as possible on the individual and the individual’s context within society. From this, it is hoped that various emergent phenomena will be identified, better understood and harnessed. This kind of system does not just take in information but also determines how information (“news”, advertising etc.) is disseminated and who it is disseminated to (through social media). The reciprocal flow of the output and input of information in any kind of living or non-living system is known as cybernetics. Insights gained from analyzing and prediction modeling are fed back into the same system which steers or “nudges” individuals, groups and ultimately the all of humanity in particular directions. In this kind of system the individual is not just a data point but becomes a computational device, a node. This use of individuals as computing nodes is called parallel processing and occurs without any awareness on the part of the individuals.
Anthroposophy has a similar concept as autopoiesis in evolutionary transformation. In anthroposophy, the human being is seen as partaking in a long, fundamentally spiritual, evolutionary journey. This evolution is a self-transformation which isn’t a given but occurs for each individual only through self-attained freedom. Although this spiritual self-transformation occurs individually in freedom, divine beings are a part of humanity’s evolution. This kind of self-transformation comes about through an individual attaining self-knowledge and taking a hold of inner forces which otherwise remain unconscious. The more the individual does these things, the more they become a conduit for the divine to act through the free individual ego, the ‘I’, the most essential part of the human being.5 Through anthroposophy, it is understood that only in the far distant future spiritual evolution of humanity, will individual human egos merge with the World-Ego and thus achieve an aspect of the beingness of a group-soul, albeit as free, self-aware, individuals.
On one level, by appropriating super-physical forces of emergence and mimicking nature, socio-technical systems endeavor to create a global brain – a cybernetic super-organism. Yet, on another level, this super-organism mimics what is fundamentally a spiritual process of the manifestation of a human group-soul, which – to the anthroposophical understanding – is not to come to proper maturity for a very long time. This touches upon the idea of a counterfeit, or counterimage, of divine spiritual laws and processes which I have expanded upon in a previous article.6,7 On the one hand, we have the evolution of the human and nature mediated through the reciprocal feedback of a symbiotic relationship with the machine, contrasted on the other hand with the divine spiritual evolution guided by free human individuals with the help of divine spiritual Beings.
The aforementioned newer scientific paradigms of thought are revealed to be intensely relevant to our modern world to the extent to which one becomes aware that numerous, seemingly disparate, fields and disciplines, appear to be synchronistically contributing towards bringing those very ideas into being – as if being masterfully orchestrated by an unseen hand. The second part of this article will trace how the ideas explored here act amongst us all today and expand upon exactly what modern ideas and social technologies hold the greatest potential – and danger – for bringing a cybernetic global brain into being under the cover of proclaiming to save the Earth and humanity. But at what cost?
This article was originally published in the 2024 Spring issue of New View, an Anthroposophical, physical and digital magazine. Please consider subscribing to this wonderful publication. Top picture: Evolution by Adrian Salamandre
Jane Arnold, Affect in Language Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013
Ibid
https://ehss.energy.gov/OHRE/roadmap/experiments/0491doca.html#0491_Plutonium (if this link doesn’t work put it in archive.org’s wayback machine)
Anthroposophy sees the human being as being made up of multiple parts (also called “sheaths”, “members”): physical body, etheric body (life forces), astral body (soul feelings) and ego (the essential self, the kernel, of the human being). In anthroposophy, the term ego (also called the “I-am”) is not used in a Freudian sense. The ego is the central part of the human being and is the I-consciousness. The ego is what passes from incarnation to incarnation and has the potential to act transformatively upon all of the other parts of the human being.
