Evolution & The Absolute

[LIFE]

Evolution- the progressive be-coming- within the forms of the "Absolute' has always struck me as an interesting paradox to ponder.

On the one hand you have biological evolution (and the corollaries of psychological and possibly spiritual evolution) as a 'progressive' complexity-building process. It can be understood why some would derive some manner of cosmic teleological argument from the empirically observation of evolutionary phenomena. Biological forms have become progressively more complex, and it seems reasonable to hypothesize that increasing neurological complexity afforded by evolution was paralleled by an increasing capacity for consciousness. Thus, more highly biologically evolved organisms have more capacity for consciousness, or stated another way, a greater degree of consciousness. From this one can extrapolate that a human being has a greater capacity for, and therefore, a greater degree of consciousness than a sea slug. So, complexity in terms of evolution of consciousness would therefore be an ever increasing capacity for such consciousness. The only reason that you and I can even ponder the messages on this forum, is due to evolution of the human brain and its corresponding capacity for conscious intelligence.

Overall, evolution appears to be a rather "unidirectional" process- a 'movement' from lesser bio-organizational complexity (and therefore, lesser capacity) to greater bio-organizational complexity (greater capacity). This apparently suggests to some that there is a teleological thrust to the cosmos- a 'purpose' by which it is driven. Some even go so far as to suggest a future state of consummation where we will have reached "evolution's end." There, some say, we will have 'reached' the Ultimate state of being through evolution and, since this presupposed purpose will have been fulfilled, evolution, in all of its forms, will end.

Others say that evolution never began and will never end and is, itself, an eternal movement. This would suggest an absence of 'purpose', at least in our conventional sense of purpose that usually corresponds to some 'goal', suggestive of a future event. A progressive movement to some manner of "end-state" has no relation to timelessness, for you cannot possess one dimension (an 'end') without it's corresponding dimension (a beginning). A 'goal-less' evolution would seem to indicate that the 'purpose', if one could call it that, would be the process itself rather than a future goal of the process. It could be likened poetically to a dance, which has no ultimate practical purpose apart from the beauty and experience of the dance itself.

On the other hand you have the 'Absolute'. The formless source and ground of all these evolving forms. It is the ultimate process, an aspect of which is the process-of-evolution. It is described as changeless and immutable. One may presume, and many have, that the eternally pre-existent 'Absolute' cannot become anything that It is isn't already. There is nothing outside of the Absolute, for It contains All that Is and possesses the potential for All that will be. It is complete in the sense that there is nothing other than It. It is changeless in the sense that It is always the indivisible existent All and can never be anything but the indivisible existent All. In that sense, It never changes.

And yet at the same time, maybe It is evolving. "That which Is" is radically different every infinitesimal instant. What exists one moment is gone the next- eternally gone, never to happen or be in that way again. When we talk about "What Is"- what IS is in a constant state of flux, a perpetual be-coming of seemingly progressive movement. What is one moment is not what is the next, and yet 'isness' itself has persisted unchanged. The 'Absolute' can take on ANY form, without deviating from being ALL that exists in that moment, and any and every other moment. The forms born of the 'Absolute' can take on ANY form without changing the eternal relationships of form/formlessness, actualization/potential, isness/nonexistence, etc.

When we think of evolution and be-coming, we think only of the formal aspect of existence- the manifest cosmos. But we must remember that the manifest forms are just as much an aspect of the 'Absolute' as the unmanifest field of potential (the source/destination of all manifest forms). It is ultimately an indivisible whole and it would therefore equally correct to post that It is changeless or that It is constantly changing. But what would probably best to say is that It is both changeless and changing.

In this way one can see that paradoxes hold true even at the level of the Absolute. It is both form and formless. It is dynamic and static. It is unified and diverse. It is individuated and whole.


Discuss...

[Sentientno1]

This is so interesting i would like to have the time to exchange thoughts with you..but the old puppet still needs to be fed, bathed and taken care of or it squeeks in protest.

Just one quick thought ...the subject matter is in terms of liniar time. Have you ever given thought to maybe all phenomena exists simultainiously? say like an old rpm record and time as it is experienced depends on which groove, you the needle, happens to be in?

[Prokopton]

I don't talk about the 'Absolute', but I will say that whatever one puts as an ultimate stands outside of time and I think encompasses all possibility in an eternal state -- not all of which will manifest. (That means it is not a process.)

Naturally masses of people have derived cosmologies from evolution, I'm not one of them and don't like them. On the other points you raise I believe a) evolution is non-teleological, with no goal or ultimate state, and b) I do not claim to know its 'purpose' and doubt it could be conveyed in any simple humanocentric way.

Gotta go to evening meditation now...

[LIFE]

I don't talk about the 'Absolute', but I will say that whatever one puts as an ultimate stands outside of time and I think encompasses all possibility in an eternal state -- not all of which will manifest. (That means it is not a process.)

The concept of all possibilities as pre-existing in some sort of external state sounds a little too much like 'fate' to me, where everything has already been 'written', so to speak, and now we're just living out the words.

I think of it more as a field of pure potential, not in the sense that it already contains all possibilities, but rather that all possibilities can come out of it. It is the Ultimate "blank canvas", if you will. And we have to remember that what comes out (manifests) from this "eternal state" is as much IT as that from which it came.

If we invoke the "Absolute' as encompassing ALL, then It would stand within time as well as outside of time.

Since forms are an aspect of what one may call the 'Absolute' and since forms are clearly evolving, it would necessarily follow that an aspect of the 'Absolute' is evolving, whatever that means (if anything).

[LIFE]

but the old puppet still needs to be fed, bathed and taken care of or it squeeks in protest.

Who's this, your hamster? LOL


Just one quick thought ...the subject matter is in terms of liniar time. Have you ever given thought to maybe all phenomena exists simultainiously? say like an old rpm record and time as it is experienced depends on which groove, you the needle, happens to be in?

This too sounds a little too close to 'fate' to me. And anyway, once you introduce the idea of a 'needle moving through the grooves', we're right back to time as linear.

"all phenomena existing simultaneously"?

Yeah, I've thought about that before, but that something which certain persuasions of spirituality might call "unconjecturable."

[Time]

Evolution is wicked...... I cant dress that statement up, It needs to be said its its purity LOL

The thing with evolution is that its always based on events. A species evolves much faster when its forced to adapt or die ( think of mammals after the dinosaurs).

But even after, and in some cases before the dinosaurs, the insects, reptiles, amphibians, some plants generaly stayed the same body type ( the only difference I can think off offhand that are major is body size). Crocs, snakes, spiders, misquitoes, sandflies... they all generaly stayed the same, while other life exploded. I think this suggest that there may be a "limit" of evolution, in regards to the ecosystem.

Because of the earths situation, there are only a certain number of possibilities that will occur ( of course this number is probably incalculable ATM). Of course if the earth/universe evolves, then of course things will have to follow accordingly, or cease to exsist.

I dont think its always brain size, flat out, but brain size, in relation to that species body. Humans have the biggest brain, in relation to our body sizes. This was becasue of the situation of us being able to cook our food, and live as hunter gathereres. This enables us to attain a HUGE variation of foods. This coupled with primitive "agriculture" ( just planting seeds for the food, not crossing hybridizing and monocroping) enabled our brains to grow and our physical streangth shrink in relation to other apes.

Humans are very complex creatures. We seem to have some charicteristics of many species on the planet ( we actualy mimic the evolution of human life in gestation from single celled organism, to aquatic, to rodent, to ape to human, and as far as we know we are the only species that deos this). And can master every situation we come across ( except a natural balance with the earth).


Then again, you have to think....... Everything on earth evolves, from the life, t the rocks, to the plates... everything evolves. Even the universe ( we can see this if we look towards the center of the universe, we generaly go backwards in time so to speak). This is more prevalent when you think of things such as the mendalbrot set, which shows the universe as a never ending repeating pattern. No matter how far you go into it, and where you look, the pattern will always repeat itself. IF we evolve, the universe has to evolve by default.

This also opens the possibility, that our bodies are essentialy scalled down versions of the universe. We are "god" to the "galaxies" and " plantes" inside ouir bodies ( cells atoms, digestive systems etc), and we have some controll over it. There is the humans society, which is yet a system inside the whole even more complex system of ecology. There is the System of the earth, which is literaly a collaberation of every single bit of thing onthe planet.

Now why wont a solar system run this way?, or a galaxy? or the universe?


Of course there are absolutes, other wise everything would jsut be total chaos, but its a delicate balance that depends on everything running like "clockwork", and ever changing and growing. Absolutes will change in a universe that lieraly works at random, yet is liek one giant "being" or "clock" or " whole system running with all the systems inside of it" like a computer. Things happen in the universe becasue of "accidents" which ceates a sence of flow.

Its just cause and effect. Every action effects another, or anothers, which causes yours and others situation to evolve accordingly, like rain falling on a lake, and the ripples ( chaos), are destorying the absolute (still lake). Yet when you look at it as a whole, that chaos creates a beautiful pattern of cause and effect, and of every action reacting to eachother, and creating a sence of harmony ( pattern, or something "pretty" LOL).

Evolution IS cause and effect. Polar bears are an excellent example. They are litteraly grizzly bears, who deciced to stay north and adapt, rather then move south when the climate changed a few thousand years ago. The climate made the bears adapt to the cold and snow and turn white ( so that they are harder to be seen by pray).

In my area, rabbits and foxes have brown coats in the summer ( woodland/grassland), and are totaly white in the winter ( everything is dead and white in the forests). You go a thousand kilometers south west, the rabbits stay brown, and have ears twice the size to regulate and cool their blood.

Evolution can take a certain number of pattenrs ( 5 plationic solids) and create hundreds of million of species alive today, hundreds of billions of life forms that are now gone ( 99% of species that existed are now extinct, all the species that are living now, are only 1% of all the plants and animals ever to have eAxsisted). As far as we know no animal has ever "re evolved" into exsistance ( other then having a dwindling population expand and thrive liek many garden plants, look up ginko biloba, and metaseqoia ( dawn redwood). Both plants had extremely limited populations before gardeners and botonists spread it back accross the planet. They both have the biggest and widest distibuation since the time of the dinosaurs because of us !!!!!!!


Its amazing how even in our desctructiveness, we are actualy AIDING evolution, but domestication. We baby our plants and animals, feed them, shelter them, proopagate them to new areas....... tis as much as us evolving from them, and them evolving from us. Do you know how long it wouldve taken for those ginkoes and dawn redwoods to get accross the ocean, let alone possibly re estabolish? either millions of years, or never at all. What abou the willomi pine? There were 12 trees found int he wild, and now theres an estimated 50 000 spread accross the globe. Theres no tasmanian devils left, but how many pet dogs do you think there are in tasmania?

While most of us dont we are even fully capable of making natuer go FASTER then it normaly would.... Even whole areas we can change...

There are many animals who are thought to have close, or the same intellegence as us ( dolphins and other apes, octopi/cuddlefish/squid and others), does this mean ( according to what you speak of) that they are as conciously aware as us?


Im not knocking your notion, becasue I think in a similar way, but it can lead to more destruction as well because " this ____ isnt as concious as us, there fore its ok to eliminate it/eat it/harshly treat it" and other things. We put humans at the top of everything, when in fact we are just as enviromentaly fragile as any one single species. You eliminate bees, the species is more then likley done fore. The same goes with the bacteria that decompose plants, because the world would literaly fill up with waste ( waste being unused not "bad).

IF being complex dictates conciousness, then we cant even say we are the most complex therefore concious, becasue we arent even concsious of things like, our food, or pills anymore. No one thinks of how their food got to their table, and most of us dont know how much work ( even in "easy" forms of agriculture.gardening) is put into your food. We arent even consious of the billions of organisms we wipe out, when we clear cut or burn down sections of forest, other wise we wouldnt do it at all. We arent even concsious of our own link to nature any more. IMO this shows that we arent fully concsious, or as consious as other animals.

Even chimps, who have very violent territorial reactions, are sill in homeostasis with the ecology. Killer whales are smart enought to trap prey in rocky moors to catch them, and can do basic number tests ( apes and even dolphins). The branch of animals that octopi are part of, have BETTER problem solving skills and memories then we even do.

Interesting post dude....

[Prokopton]

The concept of all possibilities as pre-existing in some sort of external state sounds a little too much like 'fate' to me, where everything has already been 'written', so to speak, and now we're just living out the words.

Well I have considerable experience suggesting big levels of pre-fatedness and no problem with it conceptually, since I don't think it cancels free will. But either way, I know others feel different, this is no biggie for me.