Abstract.
This article seeks to give a general overview of some of the concepts related to evolution as presented on the 1PlusInifinity website. The general concept of evolution, as the process whereby existence continues its relentless progress in the present, is looked at from what is believed to be a slightly different viewpoint.
At the present stage of evolution there are seen to be two primary types of product in existence in the Physical Universe; these are the physical and the phenomenal products of evolution. The physical products are identified as energy, matter, particles, atoms etc. while the phenomenal products are identified as products of the mind, ideas, thoughts, concepts etc.
There are a number of properties that differentiate between the two; the physical products are physical, that is real, tangible, while the phenomenal products are non-physical; the physical products interact with each other in accordance with what is possible within the prevailing Condition of Existence in which they exist, while the phenomenal products are unrestrained by the limitations imposed by possibility; the physical products present, by their existence, truth of the existence of which they are a part, while the phenomenal products are prone to have a high probability of being in error, of not representing truth.
The Phenomenal products are seen as the creations of the mind as a result of the brains evolved ability to sense its own state and to cause modification of its own state as a result of the sensing process it undertakes. This is seen as leading to a major change in the way in which evolution is brought about. Before the formation of life forms and the consequential development of thinking-beings evolution is seen as the inevitable product solely of the interaction of the physical products of existence acting together in accordance to the prevailing conditions of their existence. The results are seen as inevitable and subject to singularity, only one outcome is possible for the condition of existence prevailing. The introduction, with the evolution of life forms, of phenomenal products is seen as significantly altering this early process by making possible the modification of Condition of Existence as a result of actions implemented by the existence of non-physical products of the mind. This introduces into the process of evolution the influence of increasing deliberate acts by life forms that will alter the course of evolution in ways that can be seen as deterministic.
The evolutionary flow of change in the wholeness of existence is seen as dependent on what is termed as the Condition of Existence as it exists in the present; put another way Condition of Existence is seen as the primary driver of evolution, it is effectively the prevailing state, in the present, of the currently evolved stage of existence, its prevailing condition, The Physical Universe, and it incorporates everything, both physical and phenomenal, that is currently in existence.
Article.
Firstly I believe whole-heartedly in evolution as the process by which existence flows into being. There may be a god or a thinking ‘stuff’ that existed prior to our existence[1], I am open minded, but for the time being my understanding is that existence evolves and creates its own being and certainly I believe evolution is the only process operating in the context of creating existence as we know it.
The 1PlusInfinity website is based around an understanding of evolutionary process as derived from, albeit, a very limited exposure to the knowledge currently available on the subject. This relatively limited exposure to the knowledge available has been used as the basis for forming a conceptual idea, a product of Phenomenal Universe, of the processes involved that in some respects differs from the currently generally accepted explanation of evolution.
The process of evolution continually brings into existence new and different forms that are based on the forms that preceded them. This is basically the ‘Law’ of Unity of Type. This process of ‘growth out of precedent’ means that everything that currently exists has it roots in what has gone before.
During the early stages of evolution but long after the ‘big bang’, if that occurred, and certainly before development of even the most primitive life forms, existence consisted of only matter based components, by this is meant physical products, energy, matter, particles, atoms, inorganic molecules, inorganic compounds. At this relatively early stage the evolution of existence would likely have been slow and methodical- as Darwin said ‘natura non facit saltum’ – and, more importantly, would have been governed NOT by Natural Selection but by the prevailing Condition of Existence. The conditions under which the components of the existence found themselves would have dictated how they responded to each other, how they reacted together in the formation of new products and the resultant state of the new prevailing Condition of Existence. This process still holds true and will continue to remain true for the way in which the physical products of evolution interact. As with all stages of evolution, the introduction of a new stage does not preclude the continuation of already established changes, only that such continuation does so with the new stage as a component of the resulting whole, which in turn becomes the new Condition of Existence under which all of existence continues to evolve.
At this point it becomes very important to understand the significance of uniqueness. Uniqueness, in my mind, is one of the principle aspects of evolution and the reason why Condition of Existence is the driver of the process of evolution. For me, one of the best ways to understand it is to mentally position yourself in Space surrounded by all the other components of existence and then to realise, a touch of Goethe’s approach here, that from your position relative to all those other components, from your viewpoint, that you are the only one experiencing what you are experiencing in the way that you are experiencing it – you and your position are unique. At this point, another aspect of primary importance to the process of evolution, that of sense, makes its ‘presence felt’, so to speak. It is not difficult to realise that what you are experiencing relates to what you sense of the presence of the other components and that what you sense and what they sense of you are unique, especially when you visualise the whole scenario in the light of ‘wholeness’. This uniqueness of your own position is easily seen to hold equally well for all the other components of existence.
This becomes even more revealing when time is brought into the scenario for it then becomes apparent that not only is your position unique but it has never existed before and it will also never to be repeated, in other words your position and that of everything else in existence, in the present, is uniquely unique. Condition of Existence is always uniquely unique. This, again to my mind, is highly significant and forms the very basis of what evolution is about but it must be clearly understood that it in no way implies determinism. The fact that every part of existence is in a constant state of uniqueness means that, as evolution progresses, it remains impossible to say, or for the condition itself to know in advance of the present, exactly how the prevailing Condition of Existence came into being and what the outcome of its physically evolved state will be; although, retrospectively, it is perfectly reasonable to identify a logical route that explains what has come about. Science does this all the time and because it can identify a logical sequence of events it assumes that that was how things came about. The difference appears subtle but is in fact highly significant, the evolution of physical existence does not obey laws, it complies only with the inevitability of its own prevailing uniqueness. Significantly this is not Natural Selection – a process that does not come into effect until evolution sees the introduction of life forms and the dependent development of brains and minds. It perhaps seems to relate to Darwin’s other description of evolution ‘Decent with Modification’ but more by chance than design for Darwin was primarily concerned with changes occurring within life forms.
The statements in the above paragraph were made with specific reference to the physical products of evolution, the significance of this will become clearer later in this article. However, for the moment suffice it to say that the evolution of sensory systems and subsequently brains, as present in many life forms, created the possibility of introducing, as a result of actions taken by the life forms, modifications to the Condition of Existence and consequentially to the subsequent course of evolution that could be considered as initially influential and subsequently purposeful in nature. It follows that from the time that life forms came into being there has been an evolving potential for them to be seen as introducing elements of determinism into the subsequent course of evolution. At our present stage of evolution this translates into there being the possibility of taking actions that will have an impact on the course of evolution but at the same time of not being able to precisely anticipate how evolution will respond to the modifications that result from those actions. At this point it ideally becomes extremely important to maximise knowledge, ensure that it is knowledge based on truth, and to act only after extremely thorough investigation of the conceived consequences of the actions we plan to take has taken place, all within the limitations that available knowledge permits us. Not an easy task when it is realised that it is not until the present has past that we know the reality of the action!!
Scientific search for truth can be seen in this light as being an absolutely vital component of the process of expanding knowledge, principally because it primarily functions in direct contact[2] with the physical components of the Physical Universe, a reality that gives it the highest probability, though not surety, of achieving knowledge of truth. The lack of surety arises out of the necessity of processing scientific data in the only way we know possible, that being with our brains, helped of course by all those evolved products of our brains, a process that is complicated by its reliance it places on interpretation of representational states of the brain’s structure.
With the above in mind and moving on quickly in evolutionary time, takes up to the stage in the process of evolution at which we see the emergence of organic modules and the creation of the life forms destined in some cases to become the thinking life forms mentioned in the previous paragraph. This brought with it significant changes as to how sense and sense related products evolved. In my terms and in relation specifically to life forms sense is the base criteria on which conscious functionality and consciousness is evolved and relates to the ability for evolving life forms to capture in their evolving structure states that reflect their past exposure to existence. In very simple terms they start to develop the ability to capture in their physical structure, and this is very important, states that are representational of aspects of their history. This has significance with respect to epigenetics.
Once this relatively early stage of the process has come into being it is not hard to envisage the evolutionary development of more advanced processes in which the representation state captured in the structure of the life form is that of a pre-existing state set up in the life form at an earlier stage of its life cycle. This can be envisaged as being a repetitive process, which over a relatively long period of time, at least has the potential to evolve into a highly structured and sophisticated functionality of the life form in which it evolves. My contention is that this is the process that basically underlies the evolution of sensory and nervous systems at the core of which exists the brain. Again recognising that such systems along with the body that surrounds them form a ‘whole’ with each and every component as dependent on each other as the whole is dependent on them all; the same applies for the body and its relationship with existence.
Key in what is to follow is the importance of understanding the significance of the meaning of representational when applied to the states set up in the structure of the life form as a result of its exposure and experience of existence. (As an aside it is worth mentioning that there is considerable importance also to be placed on the meanings of both exposure and experience but these will not be discussed here). The fact that states are set up that are representational introduces into the process of evolution, and this may have started to take effect prior to the evolution of life forms, an element of uncertainty. While the modification of the cells exposed to an experience will have taken place, its response to that exposure will only have been as a result of secondary and tertiary forms of stimulation and cannot therefore represent the experience as it actually was but only in the way that the cells are able to respond to it – the modification is therefore only representational. This introduces into the process of evolution the potential for subsequent error but importantly it is not the modification of the cellular structure that is in error, this has taken place to a physical product in the Physical Universe and remains the result of inevitability arising out of the uniqueness of the Condition of Existence. The potential for error lies in the way in which the modified state of the cell, in its purely representational form, will later be interpreted by subsequent repetitive processes associated with experiencing of the cell’s state.
The process of response by cells and cellular structures to external stimulation such that the cell and its associated structure is altered can, in the light of uniqueness, be expected to result in the alteration of the structure at least being uniquely specific to the stimulation received, and it is reasonable that the same will also be true of the individual cells themselves. Indeed uniqueness would guarantee this.
It should be noted here that in this context the term external stimulation would be expected to apply across the ‘whole’ system of which the cell is a component; for the individual cells this means that other cells must be considered as external and in the case of the brain that different sections of the brain are external to each other; the concept is in fact generally applicable. At this level the external stimulation is seen as specific physical stimulation of physical components, hence the body of a life form, through interfacing with other physical products of evolution, can be envisaged as receiving varying types of external stimulations, e.g. heat, light, vibration, sound, smell, texture, through the bodies secondary sensory organs – the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin.
The process of physical stimulation continues within the body itself as a result of what is effectively a chain reaction of external sequential stimulation and modification occurring between adjacent cells. In this case the stimulation is more of an electro-chemical response to variations in the cells, caused initially by the sources of external stimulation acting on the varying body cells and cellular structures, but subsequently dependent on electro-chemical changes with in the cells. This can be seen as having an impact on all the components of the body involved, wholeness, and changing how all those components of the body respond and feel both as a result of the stimulation received and in response to the change that will also be evident in the components surrounding them. This is a highly complex interaction between components that is in a constant state of flux – hardly surprising; they are just participating in the process of evolution! The implication here is that some of the effects will be the result of direct exposure to the process of stimulation transfer[3] and not just as a result of secondary reaction to response initiated, where this organ exists, in the brain; in romantic terms the response of the heart is only to be expected[4].
It is at this stage that it begins to become apparent that evolutionary development of sense based systems starts to show elements of what is termed consciousness, whereby there is a hint of there existing evolutionary products that, while remaining dependent on the physical products of existence, have themselves a non-physical form.
This concept manifests itself most obviously in connection with the brain but may be present, as already hinted at, in less sophisticated evolutionary products. In terms of the brain the contention of the 1PlusInfinity website is that the brain is the current evolving product of a sophisticated process that has evolved out of the ability of cells within a cellular structure to respond to changes in the representational state of associated cells. This process of creating representational states in cellular structure is the product of both external and internal processes of stimulation and, in the case of internal stimulation and response, is dependent solely on the structures own propensity to perform. By this is meant that activity with in the cellular structure, the brain, is seen as being self-fulfilling, in other words the more the cells function, the more they will function. Somewhere, in the repetitive and cyclic process of modification that is set up as a result of cellular activity in the structure of the brain, occurring on a cell by cell and cellular unit by unit basis, that causes it to sense its own state and to modify its own state as a result of that sensing process, a point is reached at which mind is created and the evolutionary products created cease to be physical products and become non-physical. Non-physical products are seen as occupying a different evolved state of the universe of existence, the Physical Universe, to that of the physical products and this new state is termed the Phenomenal Universe. It is a product of and therefore forms a part of the Physical Universe but its products are quite different. These non-physical products are generally termed: – concepts, thoughts, ideas, notions etc. and are unlimited, for so long as they remain in the Phenomenal Universe, by the restraints of possibility that control the behaviour and interaction of physical products.
This is not an easy concept to grasp and the jump from physical state of a cells structure to the creation of phenomenal products existing in the mind is certainly one that is perhaps easier to imagine than to prove – one of the advantages of the unrestricted nature of activity within the Phenomenal Universe.
To summarise, in simplistic terms the brain is seen as the primary sensor at the centre of the body’s nervous system. This nervous system incorporates the secondary sensors which respond to varying forms of stimulation received from the ‘outside world’ and is then responsible for transmitting sensations generated by the sense organs, which are again only representative of the original type of stimulation, to the brain. Brain cell modification then takes place in the part of the brain to which the sense organs are connected that is again only representative of the stimulation received by the sense organs affected. This process is continually on going for as long as the life form remains alive, the brain’s cellular structure is constantly performing progressively ‘higher level’ self sensing of its own state and consequential modification of its own cellular structure. In effect this is the repetitive modification of cells, based on response to modifications of cellular state, at what are effectively lower levels in a hierarchy of progressive evolutionary change occurring in the present of the life form. This process is complex if thought of in terms of response to even a single cell but becomes unimaginable when it is realised that it actually applies to the entire structure of not only the brain but also the body of the life form as it is exposed to the unceasing stimulations of existence from both sources external to itself and from within and as a component of the greater whole.
In the light of this complexity it perhaps becomes less surprising that in the process the mind becomes an evolutionary product of the brain in which the non-physical products of the Phenomenal Universe are created.
The successive ‘layers’ of hierarchical self-sensing and modification can be looked at as being interpretive layers. Each layer effectively forms a new representational state based on what has preceded it and on what is going on around it and the cell, through modification of its state both internally and in connection with its surroundings, could be said to form an interpretation of the information available. What is important is to realise that the probability of the processes occurring being an accurate representation of truth is very low. So low in fact that were it the only process ongoing in the brain it would be impossible to think of it as having any real value at all but, of course, it is not the only process.
While the Phenomenal Universe is a product of the Physical Universe, once it had come into existence, it also became a mutually interactive component of the Physical Universe, the ‘whole’ of existence, with the result that activity ongoing in the Phenomenal Universe cannot take place independently of the Physical Universe, indeed such activity is an integral part of it. The processes of hierarchical modification leading to the creation of phenomenal products cannot occur without influencing the way in which the life form possessing the brain in which it occurs behaves; the behaviour is physical in nature and interacts with the other components of the Physical Universe. This is also true in reverse but with the proviso that there is the potential for the Phenomenal Universe to create products that the functioning brain is able to keep, at least to some extent, isolated from the influences of the physical components of existence and their interaction with the body, whose brain performs the isolation. This is potentially very dangerous because it allows error potentially inherent in the products so treated to remain present and uncontrolled.
This interaction between the Phenomenal and Physical Universes, which as stated can be seen to primarily take place as a result of the behaviour of the physical life forms with brains, is a critical component in the processes of learning, attainment of knowledge and identification of truth. Effectively the non-physical products of the Phenomenal Universe can be tested, through the ingenuity of thinking-beings, by assessing the effect of their actions as implemented in the Physical Universe and experienced by the thinking-beings exposed to them and the consequences they produce. This interfacing process between the two universes is seen as critical for the successful reduction of error inherent in the non-physical products of evolution. Without this potential for reduction of error and the resultant potential increase in the relative truth content held in the mind, there is an increased likelihood that the influence of subsequent actions taken by thinking-beings will be potentially harmful to the very Condition of Existence that supports the all important physical products of evolution on which the Phenomenal Universe is totally dependant.
Finally it should be understood that the Phenomenal Universe is comprised of the content of all the minds in existence and in this respect the concept of a Collective Mind takes shape. The Collective Mind is the accumulation of all the non-physical products of the Phenomenal Universe as stored in the minds of life forms with brains that has the potential, through systems of communication, to ensure the continuity of knowledge and understanding independently of the necessity for individual life forms to remain alive. It also significantly increases the amount of interfacing that can be achieved between the physical components of existence and their non-physical counterparts in the Phenomenal Universe, thereby the increasing the potential accumulated knowledge of truth, however, this does not follow automatically and is very dependent on how the life forms utilise their highly significant asset. In simplistic terms this might be categorised in terms of ‘common sense’ and like ‘common sense’ could be thought of in terms that might be metaphorically comparable to the rise and fall of a stock market over time. Where truth is represented by the overall stock index as plotted against time and is seen as rising and falling over shorter intervals with a generally conceived potential of showing a generalised rise over the long term.
Attention is drawn to the significance of systems of communication in terms of the functionality of the Collective Mind. Communication and the consequential systems of communication that have resulted have evolved out of the behavioural responses in thinking-beings as inspired by the non-physical products in their minds, products existing as components of the Phenomenal Universe within the Physical Universe. These systems have in some ways mirrored the very functionality of the processes taking place for life forms within the physical Physical Universe that gave rise to the Phenomenal Universe in the first place. It has become possible to store learning, understanding and knowledge of truth by moulding the physical products of existence into forms that by their state become representational of the information life forms, primarily humans, wish to retain, capture. This is significantly comparable with the activity ongoing in the brain where representational states are set up in the brain by modification of the cellular structure of which the brain is composed. At our present stage of evolution our systems of communication have not yet achieved the level of sophistication necessary to achieve that stage of evolution for the mechanical creations of thinking-beings that is comparable to the Phenomenal Universe as it relates to the brains of life forms. However, for the time being the Collective Mind has access to a significant component of its content in forms related to and dependant on the systems of communication that have been created and additionally has the increasing ability to utilise these systems to significantly speed up the process of analysing, interpreting, the content of these systems as created in the physical Physical Universe. Interestingly the derived analytical processes involved have in some ways already exceeded the functionality of the minds that created them both in terms of speed and capability; as a result the rate at which the search for truth is undertaken can potentially be expected to be significantly speeded up; providing of course that the representational states on which the analysis is performed are truly representative of what matters. The systems of communication? In ‘some sort of evolved order’ these might be identified as: – behaviour, mannerisms, groups, tribes, signs, symbols, sounds, words, speech, stories, songs, societies, science, art, religions, organisation, writing, scrolls, legislature, travel, nations, industry, culture, books, libraries, centres of knowledge, centres of learning, printing, transport systems, telegraph, radio, television, computers and the internet etc. etc.
Interfacing between and within the Phenomenal and Physical Universes has resulted in the evolution of many systems of communication that have allowed the transfer of ideas, the non-physical products of the Phenomenal Universe, between thinking-beings and has allowed the learning associated with the testing of those ideas in the Physical Universe to be broadcast out into the Collective Mind. It is an ongoing process, an evolving process that will result in new and presently unimaginable evolutionary products of the future. It is the contention of the 1PlusInfinity website that this magnificent process of evolution works hand in hand with Condition of Existence which is seen as the driver of the whole process. At the same time and in conjunction with the process of evolution the nature of Condition of Existence is itself seen to be evolving, initially the Condition of Existence is seen as being one in which the evolving products of evolution depended entirely for their outcome on the entirely unique and unpredictable state of the prevailing Condition of Existence, with evolutionary time and development this has to some extent significantly changed.
The physical products of evolution are still totally dependant on the prevailing Condition of Existence and the inevitability of the singularity of possibility that exists for them in that prevailing state but for the non-physical products, while they are dependant for their existence on the Condition of Existence and the physical products of existence, there is no inevitability, no singularity of possibility that controls what form they take. This has resulted in a change in the way in which the processes leading to the prevailing evolved state on Condition of Existence work. The change has come about as a result of the minds, as existing in the brains of thinking-beings, having the ability to access mental states representative of the history of existence that gives them the power to think in terms related to time and to consequentially imagine future effects that their actions, as initiated by their behaviour, might have. This introduces into the evolutionary process the previously unavailable option of being able to make changes with consequential impact on the futures states of the Condition of Existence. At our present evolved state of evolution this is in relatively early stages of development but it has distinctly deterministic connotations and the days of evolution being without purpose or design are over.
This deterministic influence currently does not have associated with it the necessary knowledge of truth and understanding that would be needed, were this to be even remotely possible, for the prevailing Condition of Existence to have defined results. However, in terms of concepts of the likes of chaos theory, it is imaginable that the extent to which the actions of thinking-beings in general and of mankind in particular might produce predictable results in at least some areas of existence in Space-Time as a result of deterministic influence on the products of existence that will determine the future state of a prevailing Condition of Existence will increase significantly with the progress of evolution. This makes the pursuit of truth, knowledge and understanding of paramount importance if we are to successfully continue as a part of the evolving Physical Universe.
[1] The website presents and discusses the concepts of the Physical and Phenomenal Universes. The Phenomenal Universe is seen as having the potential of introducing degrees of determinism into the whole process of evolution and the scenario is hinted at that this may have already have occurred during evolution of another or earlier stage of evolution and that, consequentially, existence as we know it may be a product of prior intervention into the course of evolution of previous products of evolution with deterministic input – it is just a thought but not an uninteresting one!! While I continue to regard such a possibility as one based on evolution and not the creation of a god, were it to be true then the existence of evolutionary products within more advanced states of the Phenomenal Universe than our own becomes an interesting probability. This line of thinking is, of course, just a product of the present stage of our own, though potentially small, part of the Phenomenal Universe!!!
[2] Awareness of the importance and significance of direct contact with the physical Physical Universe that is with the components of existence that are real are physical, is vital for thinking-beings in their pursuit of truth. The only way to control the non-physical products of the Physical Universe as created in the mind as a result of activity in the brain, the products of the Phenomenal Universe, is for the life forms creating them to implement actions, based on these non-physical products, in the Physical Universe that involve the physical products of that universe. The resultant representation states set up as a result of experience of the events initiated by the actions implemented form the new focus points for subsequent interpretative processes in the brain and the creation of new and modified ideas in the mind. It is the behaviour of these thinking-beings that introduces the non-physical products of existence in to the physical part of Physical Universe.
[3] Such forms of stimulation and response can probably be related to less advanced developments of the sensory systems present and still active in life forms as a result of the processes of interaction between the physical components of their structural make up. This is not surprising and is interesting in evolutionary terms because it relates to one of the questions that cloud the concept of Natural Selection. Why are the evolutionary forerunners of today’s evolved species not more obviously still in existence at the present stage of evolution? I would suggest that in relation to ‘sense’ this is a primary property of matter, its evolution into higher levels of sensory ability does not remove or change the underlying property that is inherent in the base material of existence, it only means that as evolution progresses more products have progressively advanced sensory systems based on the core property of ‘matter sensing matter’. In the case of the evolutionary advance of life forms under the influence of Natural Selection, the onward flow of new forms better adapted to survival in the prevailing Condition of Existence and selectively concentrated by the process of Decent Through Modification means that the pre-existing forms no longer have a route for survival and become extinct, they effectively become obsolete. There is no obsolescence to be found in connection with ‘sense’ as a primary property of matter.
[4] This is an area in which the concept of Condition of Existence can be seen as taking on a broader perspective. In what might more generally be thought of in scientific circles as fantasy, the response of the cellular structure, not specifically identified as the brain, in ways that might be regarded as producing a response that is other than purely physical in nature is interesting and actually relates to what humans frequently refer to as ‘feelings’ – ‘I felt in my heart’, ‘a gut reaction’, ‘my hair stood on end’, ‘a chill came over me’ etc. etc. In terms of Condition of Existence where condition as all important in relation to how anything responds and in the light of sense being the source of consciousness (see the article on Consciousness in the Secondary Topics section) the probability of such response existing would appear at least to be higher than for the opposite to be the case. When looked at in this context the so called alternative therapies, medicines, medical practices etc. also take on a specifically less fanciful air; while human understanding (as phenomenal products) may differ from the actuality of their workings certainly the impact of their implementation as a modifiers of condition might well be seen as instrumental in bringing about beneficial responses when applied with the benefit of inform experience.