I first became aware of John Stewart and The Evolutionary Worldview from the YouTube video The deep meaning of deep evolution with John Stewart - Voices with Vervaeke. I bought the book and enjoyed reading it. In my opinion, it is one of the better grand narratives that I have discovered.
PREFACE: The Power of the Evolutionary Worldview to Provide Meaning and Purpose for Human Existence
How can we live a life that matters in a bigger scheme of things? How can the evolutionary worldview do this? The worldview provides us with an understanding of the large-scale evolutionary processes that have produced life on this planet and will shape our future.
…when these trends are seen as an integrated whole, there is an overall pattern in past evolution. Evolution has been heading in a particular direction. It has an unmistakeable trajectory.
It also seems increasingly likely that this is a developmental process. If it continues to unfold successfully, life on Earth will eventually be organized as a global super-organism that has goals and objectives of its own. At the core of this super-organism will be a diverse yet unified human society that is global, cooperative, sustainable and highly adaptable.
THE EVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO: Our Role in the Future Evolution of Life
Part 1. INTENTIONAL EVOLUTION
In recent years, “pay attention to intention” has resonated strongly with me.
At present humanity is lost… The emergence of the new evolutionary worldview is beginning to lift us out of the abyss.
Yes, civilization is fragile and we are in a metacrisis. However, it will probably take much more than an evolutionary worldview to solve our problems. Nevertheless, this feels like a significant piece of the puzzle to me.
…evolution tends to produce a particular sequence of outcomes of increasing complexity.
Yes. Emergence from complexity is fascinating to observe. Can we, should we, gain control of the process?
Socially, the next great step in human evolution is the emergence of a unified and sustainable global society.
This is not a new theme. A few years ago I explored How to Think About War and Peace by Mortimer J. Adler in detail. That experience did not leave me optimistic.
Psychologically, the next step is to free our behavior from the dictates of our biological and cultural past, so that we can do that which is necessary for future evolutionary success.
I agree but I think this will be more difficult than John Stewart anticipates. Yes, we have enough free will to set our intentions. But, individually, we have only a little bit of free will. We have not fully come to grips with the powerful pull of our animal nature and what it takes to rise above it. And we have just barely begun to explore collective free will.
The shift to intentional evolution
The shift to intentional evolution has begun on Earth. The evolutionary process itself is evolving. It is transitioning from a process that stumbles forward blindly to one that advances consciously and intentionally.
…if the transition to conscious evolution is successful, evolution on Earth will henceforth proceed deliberately and intelligently… Life on Earth will be able to envision a creative and meaningful role for itself in future evolution, and use the vision to guide its actions and its future development.
Understanding and utilizing creative processes such as emergence and collective intelligence will be priorities.
Yes, but… we also need collective wisdom and collective free will, two matters about which we do not know nearly enough.
Through humanity, the evolutionary process on Earth will have become conscious of itself, and will have acquired the capacity to advance itself intentionally and consciously.
And some are saying that comic forces are at work.
The emergence of intentional evolutionaries
As the transition begins, individuals are emerging who are choosing to dedicate their lives to advancing the evolutionary process… Their conscious participation in the evolutionary process is increasingly becoming the source of value and meaning in their lives.
The allegiance of conscious evolutionaries is not to what is, but to what can be.
The “adjacent possible” has become a meaningful phrase for me.
The goals of intentional evolutionaries
The goals and objectives of intentional evolutionaries are guided by a comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary processes that have produced life on this planet and that will determine its future. They are aware of how past evolution has shaped all aspects of their being—their bodies, motivations, values and thinking—and how it has shaped humanity’s economic, social and religious systems, as well as all the other living processes on the planet.
In my opinion, the story of evolution has been undervalued. I think that evolutionary psychology has considerable potential. Evolutionary spirituality has barely begun to emerge.
The direction of evolution
For intentional evolutionaries, scientific explanations have a major advantage. They identify the forces, processes and conditions that produce directionality. Scientific understanding can therefore be used to work out the kinds of interventions that will advance the process.
Yes but… a scientific approach is very incomplete.
Part 2. ADVANCING EVOLUTION BY ORGANIZING A COOPERATIVE GLOBAL SOCIETY
The trend to increasing cooperation in past evolution
The trend towards increasing cooperation is well illustrated by a short history of the evolution of life on Earth.
The future evolution of cooperation
Life on Earth is now at the threshold of the next step in this trajectory—humanity has the potential to form a unified, inclusive and highly evolvable global society.
Learning from evolution about how to organize cooperation
Cooperation emerges only when evolution discovers a form of organization in which it pays to cooperate.
Significant, in my opinion, is the fact that to date corporations have easily out-preformed cooperatives. To the best of my knowledge, no change to this dynamic is visible. A new form of organization needs to emerge.
The role of governance in organizing cooperation
…a major challenge for evolution at all levels of organization has been to prevent power from being used to further the interests of a minority at the expense of the organization.
It will also be essential for global governance to constrain the development and operation of artificial intelligence and any transhumanist technologies to ensure that they serve the interests of the society.
Yes but… currently, in 2022, global governance institutions and initiatives are weakening at a time when existential threats are growing.
Importantly, the emergence of a cooperative, sustainable global society does not require a fundamental change in human nature.
Of this I am uncertain!
Evolvability of the global society
…all the… peoples of the planet will know that they bring something indispensable to the global system.
Drivers of the emergence of a global society
However, despite the fact that it is in the interests of the majority, the emergence of a global society will be resisted by those whose interests it threatens.
The critical role of the evolutionary worldview in achieving a global society
…it will deliver the highly motivated support of the increasing numbers of people who are discovering meaning and purpose in advancing the evolutionary process.
The self-actualization of the global society as an intentional evolutionary
It will mean that life on Earth can speak with one voice. For the first time, there will be an entity that is at the same level as other planetary and trans-planetary societies.
Part 3. ADVANCING EVOLUTION BY ENHANCING EVOLVABILITY
The trend towards increasing evolvability in past evolution
The second major direction in the evolution of life is towards increasing evolvability. This trend is clearly evident in the past evolution of life on Earth. Life has gotten better at evolving. Evolution has become smarter and more creative at finding solutions to adaptive challenges.
In another major transition, organisms evolved the capacity to form mental models of their environment and of the impact of alternative behaviors.
For the first time humans have a powerful, science-based story that explains where they have come from, and their place in the unfolding of the universe.
The future evolution of evolvability
The focus of intentional evolutionaries is to identify the potential for further improvements in the evolvability of both individuals and collectives.
Humanity is now in a position to use the power of conscious mental modeling to understand these potentials and to identify how we might acquire the new psychological software needed to realize them.
Freeing ourselves from the dictates of our biological and cultural past
In large part, our key desires and motivations are those fixed by our biological and social past. What we take to be important and valuable is an illusion produced by evolution to control our behavior… we continue to pursue much the same proxies for evolutionary success as our ancestors… Our reason is a slave to our passions.
How our evolutionary past limits our future evolvability
…it stands in the way of the transition to intentional evolution.
Freedom from our evolutionary pas
To free ourselves from our biological past and social conditioning, we will need to develop an entirely new capacity.
In particular our emotional systems will provide us with energy and motivation to advance the evolutionary process… If organisms that reach our stage in evolution are to continue to evolve successfully, transcendence of their biological and cultural past is essential.
Enhancement of our capacity to understand complex systems
Our limited ability to understand complex systems is reflected in our failure to solve the difficult environmental and social problems we face… Conscious rational analysis alone can rarely work out how such a complex system will unfold through time.
Modeling complex systems
The role of thinking will be to scaffold models of complex systems. However, once the scaffolding is done, the role of thinking largely ends. The models operate silently, with little involvement of thought. The working of the model does not enter consciousness, only the outputs do. This is experienced as intuition, wisdom, flashes of insight, and understanding ‘at a glance’.
Thinking fills the limited capacity of consciousness, excluding other capacities
When we are embedded in thought, we have little access to skills, intuition, insight, wisdom and other forms of knowledge and intelligence that are not coded in thought.
We have limited conscious control over our thinking
We don’t have thoughts, thoughts have us… However, individuals who develop a capacity to stand outside their stream of thought and observe it soon learn that nearly all of it is unproductive, and much of it is also unpleasant and negative… We need to be able to consciously stand outside our thinking, and regulate its use.
The technology for improving our evolvability
The world’s religious and contemplative traditions are the main repositories of knowledge about how to improve our evolvability.
Until now, the emphasis on surrender and passive acceptance has made spiritual development less attractive to individuals who are orientated towards active engagement with the world…This will change rapidly as spiritual practices are used increasingly to improve evolvability.
Increasingly, agency-orientated individuals will use, modify and improve the practices originally developed by spiritual traditions. The practices will undergo the same explosive development as other technologies. In the process they will be shorn of all religious and mystical associations.
One of the few criticisms I have of John Stewart is that he seems to imply that all mysteries will be solved. I doubt it. In my view, we should celebrate Mysteries, what we do not know and perhaps can never know. But we should not attach other ideas to the Mysteries.
The capacity to be ‘in the present’
Being in the present also enables the acquisition of genuine self-knowledge. It is only when individuals are in the present that they can stand outside their thoughts and feelings and observe them objectively. Furthermore, because thoughts and feelings no longer jerk awareness around incessantly, being in the present is experienced as calm and peaceful—the peace that passes all understanding. A fully developed capacity to be present in the midst of daily life fundamentally changes the experience of being conscious. A new kind of human being comes into existence.
I know that I am not that new kind of human being. But I do observe that some human beings are beginning to imply this about themselves, that they are more evolved than others. I find such claims premature and I have a considerable amount of skepticism towards such people.
Training a capacity to be in the present
If disengagement is practiced only in restricted situations, the individual will not be able to be in the present in the midst of ordinary life. This is a major limitation for intentional evolutionaries and others whose objective is to enhance agency. It can be overcome by progressively extending the practice to all the activities of daily life.
Self-evolution
Continued use of the practice reduces attachment to thoughts, desires and emotions… As individuals free themselves progressively from their biological past and social conditioning, more and more aspects of their psychology become objects of consciousness. Eventually they will be able to adapt consciously every aspect of themselves, and will be a self-evolving being.
Making use of the capacity to be in the present
The development of a capacity to be fully present in the midst of ordinary life is only the first step… In particular, individuals might not go on to acquire the knowledge or wisdom needed to replace habitual responses with more effective behaviors.
I have observed this. I have been in groups where individuals seemed to be very good at being present but greatly lacking in knowledge and wisdom. They seemed to be practicing presence for the primary purpose of becoming better at practicing presence.
It is worth emphasizing again that for intentional evolutionaries, the development of a capacity to be fully present and conscious in the midst of ordinary life is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
AMEN.
The drivers of improvements in human evolvability
It is the next step in a long sequence of improvements in the evolvability of life. As always, evolutionary activists will take every available opportunity to promote the awakening of evolutionary consciousness across the face of the planet.
The significance of self-evolving beings
A new and superior kind of being will enter history and evolution.
Part 4. THE UNIQUE CAPACITY OF THE EVOLUTIONARY WORLDVIEW TO PROVIDE DIRECTION AND PURPOSE FOR HUMANITY
As we have seen, merely freeing ourselves from our evolutionary past will not complete the shift to intentional evolution. Sufficient individuals will also have to commit deeply to advancing the evolutionary process. Fulfilling their evolutionary role will have to become the source of meaning and purpose in their lives.
…the evolutionary worldview humanity… finds meaning solely in an understanding of the factual world.
Although I think grounding in facts is very important, I also think this is a weakness in the evolutionary worldview. It is not possible to use objective facts to establish the importance of objective facts. Consequently, philosophy inevitably enters the picture and the door opens to other worldviews and grand narratives.
Consistency of the evolutionary worldview with universal values
The most fundamental of these universal values is to favor life over death and oblivion.
Evolutionary consciousness is the culmination of a long developmental sequence
At each step of this developmental sequence the individual learns that its previous world was in fact only a small part of a much wider world… living into this wider context demands a revaluation of the strategies, values and goals that made sense in earlier contexts… Growing into the evolutionary context therefore causes the most radical reassessment of values—it changes everything.
Ineradicable mystery and uncertainty always accompanies finite existence.
Evolutionary epiphanies
But a profound intuitive and emotional response is unlikely to be evoked by a mere verbal description of the evolutionary worldview… this emotional and intuitive processing will occur largely without conscious thought… They will know many implications of the worldview that they have not deduced consciously.
True, but this opens the door to other approaches. Because of this, I see no way that an evolutionary worldview could ever become universal. Nor do I think that it is desirable to have only one grand narrative based on one dominant worldview.
Your epiphany
Often, evolutionary epiphanies will be triggered as individuals begin to actually experience themselves as part of the unfolding evolutionary process… These realizations are exhilarating and energizing and capable of providing a deep sense of meaning and purpose.
I am quite interested in the epiphanies of average and ordinary people which I believe need to somehow be aggregated. I believe this could be a path to collective wisdom. I believe something even better than an evolutionary worldview could emerge.
The universality of the transition to intentional evolution
…they will develop in themselves the capacity to free themselves from the dictates of their evolutionary past,
I believe that this is a very important objective.
John Stewart 6 June 2008
Whether or not those who read the Manifesto are prepared to embrace the new evolutionary worldview immediately, they generally agree on one thing: as a matter of urgency, the Manifesto should be widely circulated and subject to extensive discussion and serious consideration.
Yes. I am not ready to embrace an evolutionary worldview but I do think that it deserves serious consideration.
STRATEGIES FOR ADVANCING EVOLUTION
Because I sense that advancing an evolutionary worldview is not my work to do, I have not summarized the remainder of this book. I am more interested in advancing a metamodern worldview which contains several grand narratives. However, I think that an evolutionary worldview is worthy of being one of those grand narratives, part of Big History, and that the work of John Stewart is worth paying attention to.