Idealism and Evolution: any theory making the connection?

[Marco Masi]

I'm looking for some theoretical framework in the light of philosophical idealism or non-physicalist philosophies that account for the evolutionary aspect of life from a more metaphysical perspective. As far I can see neither cosmopsychism nor the theory of BK does this beyond positing a 'Schopenhauerian' World as Will. I'm not talking of something like an 'intelligent design' movement, but am looking for a more comprehensive and elaborated idealistic theory and metaphysical framework of evolution that could go beyond a strictly materialistic neo-Darwinian conception based on purely mechanistic process of natural selection and random mutations. Is there some theory in modern philosophy that does that?

[AshvinP]

I'm looking for some theoretical framework in the light of philosophical idealism or non-physicalist philosophies that account for the evolutionary aspect of life from a more metaphysical perspective. As far I can see neither cosmopsychism nor the theory of BK does this beyond positing a 'Schopenhauerian' World as Will. I'm not talking of something like an 'intelligent design' movement, but am looking for a more comprehensive and elaborated idealistic theory and metaphysical framework of evolution that could go beyond a strictly materialistic neo-Darwinian conception based on purely mechanistic process of natural selection and random mutations. Is there some theory in modern philosophy that does that?

I get the feeling this won't be exactly what you are looking for, but I offer consideration of my essay on Metamorphoses of the Spirit, available on this forum (3 parts so far). The final part should be ready within a day or two. It discusses the evolution of conscious activity especially with focus on thinking activity (used interchangeably with "spiritual activity"). It is a thoroughly monist-idealist account. Under such an account, we must realize that the question of exterior life forms and their development cannot be considered properly until the question about the metamorphic progression of interiority is answered.

Part 1 - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=312
Part 2 - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=314
Part 3 (first part) - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=325

[Lou Gold]

I'm looking for some theoretical framework in the light of philosophical idealism or non-physicalist philosophies that account for the evolutionary aspect of life from a more metaphysical perspective. As far I can see neither cosmopsychism nor the theory of BK does this beyond positing a 'Schopenhauerian' World as Will. I'm not talking of something like an 'intelligent design' movement, but am looking for a more comprehensive and elaborated idealistic theory and metaphysical framework of evolution that could go beyond a strictly materialistic neo-Darwinian conception based on purely mechanistic process of natural selection and random mutations. Is there some theory in modern philosophy that does that?

The work of Humberto Maturana has been described as a middle ground between materialism and idealism. I'm not qualified to comment on it but perhaps it may contain some relevant insights?

"Living systems are units of interactions; they exist in an ambience. From a purely biological point of view they cannot be understood independently of that part of the ambience with which they interact: the niche; nor can the niche be defined independently of the living system that specifies it."


Also, I find his notion of 'autopoiesis' or 'self-organization' as intuitively appealing. I don't know if this is or is not an example of 'Schopenhauerian' Will.

[JustinG]

The work of Richard Prum might be of interest. Although not an idealist, his book the Evolution of Beauty (https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Beauty ... 0385537212) looks at the role of subjective preferences and aesthetic choices in evolution (through the mechanism of sexual selection). He calls this aesthetic evolution.

Prum restricts aesthetic evolution to animals with nervous systems, a restriction that would not necessarily be relevant to idealism, so his work could potentially serve as a basis for developing idealist conceptions of aesthetic evolution.

[JLPratt]

You might also consider the Zhuangzi for an explanation of how idealism accounts for the evolutionary aspect of life. The last paragraph of Chapter 18 of the Zhuangzi, in particular, depicts the transmutation of species and characterizes it as a qualitative evolution involving a conscious return to the Dao. The Dao, or as this message board might say Consciousness, is in everything, albeit at varied levels of sophistication. Inorganic organisms like rocks, for example, are close to the Dao and naturally accord with it but at the same time do not have the opportunity to become fully Consciousness of the Dao and are thus far away from the Dao. Human beings, on the other hand, are both far from the original Dao and closer to fully realizing the Dao.

As you may be attempting to reconcile, a problem with some idealist theories now is that on the one hand they are arguing idealism and on the other hand they are stuck in a biological, but really physicalist, account of evolution, as in Spencer's "survival of the fittest." Daoism, perhaps along with the other wisdom traditions, explains that evolution involves primarily consciousness and only secondarily matter. In other words, physical evolution is only for conscious evolution; or, to word it the other way around, conscious evolution takes place through ostensibly physical forms.

In this respect, Daoism, perhaps again along with the other wisdom traditions, explains the evolutionary process as driven primarily by an internal force (a la Lamarck) rather than other bodies (again, a la Spencer), although the self and the other are certainly interrelated. In the East, this force is called Qi or Prana, while in the West it is named Spirit.

At the end of the day and even on a day-to-day basis, reality is a whole or wholeness, not simply so many disparate parts necessarily in conflict with each other. The purpose of individual existence is the realization of this wholeness.

How about this ancient sensibility for a connection between idealism and evolution? Some of the wisdom traditions may have been interpreted as describing a fractured and conflicted world but looked at from a different perspective also may be understood as offering a consistent idealism.

[JLPratt]

To add to the above submission, if you haven't already, you might also want to consider Teilhard de Chardin, of course another French scientist. In The Phenomenon of Man, he discusses evolution within his idealist vision. With respect to Lamarck and Darwin, in Chapter 3 "Demeter" he footnotes:

In various quarters I shall be accused of showing too Lamarckian a bent in the explanations which follow, of giving an exaggerated influence to the Within in the organic arrangement of bodies. But be pleased to remember that, in the 'morphogenetic' action of instinct as here understood, an essential part is left to the Darwinian play of external forces and to chance. It is only really through strokes of chance that life proceeds, but strokes of chance which are recognized and grasped--that is to say, psychically selected. Properly understood the 'anti-chance' of the Neo-Lamarckian is not the mere negation of Darwinian chance. On the contrary it appears as its utilization. There is a functional complementariness between the two factors; we could call it 'symbiosis.'

In the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, might even the Genesis creation myth be an archetypal if not pragmatic account of transmutation, with Adam and Eve representing human beings, the species with special dominion and in the image and likeness of God? Paralleling Genesis, the Daoist classics written down in the same age as Genesis emphasize not only the special position of human beings (see again, Zhuangzi, Chapter 18), but also the layered relationship among God (Dao), Heaven, Earth, and Humankind (see, e.g., Dao De Jing, Chapter 25). On the one hand, it's remarkable how similar the accounts are; on the other hand, perhaps an idealist account could not be any other way?

[AshvinP]

To add to the above submission, if you haven't already, you might also want to consider Teilhard de Chardin, of course another French scientist. In The Phenomenon of Man, he discusses evolution within his idealist vision. With respect to Lamarck and Darwin, in Chapter 3 "Demeter" he footnotes:

In various quarters I shall be accused of showing too Lamarckian a bent in the explanations which follow, of giving an exaggerated influence to the Within in the organic arrangement of bodies. But be pleased to remember that, in the 'morphogenetic' action of instinct as here understood, an essential part is left to the Darwinian play of external forces and to chance. It is only really through strokes of chance that life proceeds, but strokes of chance which are recognized and grasped--that is to say, psychically selected. Properly understood the 'anti-chance' of the Neo-Lamarckian is not the mere negation of Darwinian chance. On the contrary it appears as its utilization. There is a functional complementariness between the two factors; we could call it 'symbiosis.'

In the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, might even the Genesis creation myth be an archetypal if not pragmatic account of transmutation, with Adam and Eve representing human beings, the species with special dominion and in the image and likeness of God? Paralleling Genesis, the Daoist classics written down in the same age as Genesis emphasize not only the special position of human beings (see again, Zhuangzi, Chapter 18), but also the layered relationship among God (Dao), Heaven, Earth, and Humankind (see, e.g., Dao De Jing, Chapter 25). On the one hand, it's remarkable how similar the accounts are; on the other hand, perhaps an idealist account could not be any other way?

Great quote! I also mention Teilhard de Chardin in Part 2, Incarnating the Christ. We should remember mythology is always taken from sense-perceptible phenomenon. In that sense, the literalists who say Genesis is an accurate account of what actually happened are correct, but they have no idea why they are correct. It is precisely because what we now call "psychic" was also 'externally' perceived in that epoch. It has become so abstract for us we can scarcely imagine how such psychic processes would appear to them. Creation accounts such as those in Genesis 3 are always related to the descent of Spirit into 'material' world to the extent that there develops awareness of the ego-self - "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked."

It is about the "knowledge of good and evil", because once we know that our various bodies are vulnerable in certain ways, we also know that other people share those vulnerabilities. None of that is at odds with the natural evolutionary account, as Teilhard de Chardin indicates, only with the materialist evolutionary account which only focuses on outer forms and not on the "Within in the organic arrangement of bodies". Self-aware consciousness truly becomes the dominant selection 'mechanism', although "mechanism" is not a great term because it implies mechanical procedure rather than organic fluidity of the Spirit. Similarly "evolution" carries much materialist baggage, hence the substitution for "Metamorphoses".

[JLPratt]

To add to the above submission, if you haven't already, you might also want to consider Teilhard de Chardin, of course another French scientist. In The Phenomenon of Man, he discusses evolution within his idealist vision. With respect to Lamarck and Darwin, in Chapter 3 "Demeter" he footnotes:

In various quarters I shall be accused of showing too Lamarckian a bent in the explanations which follow, of giving an exaggerated influence to the Within in the organic arrangement of bodies. But be pleased to remember that, in the 'morphogenetic' action of instinct as here understood, an essential part is left to the Darwinian play of external forces and to chance. It is only really through strokes of chance that life proceeds, but strokes of chance which are recognized and grasped--that is to say, psychically selected. Properly understood the 'anti-chance' of the Neo-Lamarckian is not the mere negation of Darwinian chance. On the contrary it appears as its utilization. There is a functional complementariness between the two factors; we could call it 'symbiosis.'

In the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, might even the Genesis creation myth be an archetypal if not pragmatic account of transmutation, with Adam and Eve representing human beings, the species with special dominion and in the image and likeness of God? Paralleling Genesis, the Daoist classics written down in the same age as Genesis emphasize not only the special position of human beings (see again, Zhuangzi, Chapter 18), but also the layered relationship among God (Dao), Heaven, Earth, and Humankind (see, e.g., Dao De Jing, Chapter 25). On the one hand, it's remarkable how similar the accounts are; on the other hand, perhaps an idealist account could not be any other way?

Great quote! I also mention Teilhard de Chardin in Part 2, Incarnating the Christ. We should remember mythology is always taken from sense-perceptible phenomenon. In that sense, the literalists who say Genesis is an accurate account of what actually happened are correct, but they have no idea why they are correct. It is precisely because what we now call "psychic" was also 'externally' perceived in that epoch. It has become so abstract for us we can scarcely imagine how such psychic processes would appear to them. Creation accounts such as those in Genesis 3 are always related to the descent of Spirit into 'material' world to the extent that there develops awareness of the ego-self - "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked."

It is about the "knowledge of good and evil", because once we know that our various bodies are vulnerable in certain ways, we also know that other people share those vulnerabilities. None of that is at odds with the natural evolutionary account, as Teilhard de Chardin indicates, only with the materialist evolutionary account which only focuses on outer forms and not on the "Within in the organic arrangement of bodies". Self-aware consciousness truly becomes the dominant selection 'mechanism', although "mechanism" is not a great term because it implies mechanical procedure rather than organic fluidity of the Spirit. Similarly "evolution" carries much materialist baggage, hence the substitution for "Metamorphoses".

Good observations, AshvinP. Bernardo in a podcast also talked about how "the knowledge of good and evil" is related to descent and dissociation. Again, paralleling Genesis, the Dao De Jing's second chapter talks about a dissent into "the knowledge of good and evil," though translations of the text often obscure this point.

In the Judeo-Christian context, does this descent represent a quasi-absolute descent into contradiction or merely the possibility of a descent into a contradiction-of-opposites logic, along of course with an over-identification with the separate self and certain pride? In other words, is humankind necessarily fallen or is this descent only one possibility of everyday existence?

If the latter, is a misguided relic of such a descent the false duality of even the metaphorical versus the literal? As you point out, the literalists are in some respects right about Genesis. Unfortunately, however, the literalists themselves are stuck in polarized thinking--they normally don't think Genesis is metaphorical. And of course they don't think any sort of elevated state is possible in ordinary life, albeit for a few saintly people.

Then, could the solution to this conundrum--as in an ordinary "ascent," or return to an ideal, harmonious day-to-day state--be to use complementarity-of-opposites thinking and terminology? Instead of "metaphorical versus literal," would it better to use, "archetypal and practical" or "archetypal and pragmatic"? The Daoist texts often go one step further, juxtaposing everyday concepts like "action," "name," and "form" simply with "emptiness."

Finally, could most people, whether of a scientific or religious inclination, appreciate this complementarity, as opposed to recognizing wholeness and unity as something that simply transcends an otherwise contradictory world, a la Hegel, for example? If idealists now want to move society or even accord with idealism in their own lives, do we need a subtle shift in logic, from say the Aristotelian dialectic to the YinYang?

As far as how this point relates to the evolution of human life, Teilhard de Chardin following a long line of Christian thinkers was bridging the ideal as in religion and the real as in science, seeing the two aspects as necessarily complementary. He lived and worked in China for long spans, but did not think Chinese culture had influenced his own thinking very much (and indeed, it need not have). In any case, his ideas are very much in line with traditional Chinese thinking.

[JLPratt]

To add again to the previous submission, Marco, Teilhard de Chardin certainly understood the challenge he faced in bridging idealism and realism, his religion with his science. In the epilogue of The Phenomenology of Man, he states:

It is relatively easy to build up a theory of the world. But it is beyond the powers of an individual to provoke artificially the birth of religion. Plato, Spinoza and Hegel were able to elaborate views which compete in amplitudes with the perspectives of the Incarnation. Yet none of these metaphysical systems advanced beyond the limits of an ideology. Each in turn has perhaps brought light to men's minds, but without ever succeeding in begetting life. What to the eyes of a 'naturalist' comprises the importance and the enigma of the Christian phenomenon is its existence-value and reality-value.

Despite his knowledge of Chinese culture, Teilhard too did not see a solution to getting from some sort of ultimate reality to everyday reality and back again. As discussed in the thread "How Bernardo's Theory Deals with Logical Challenges to Idealism," the ancient Daoists appear to have done so. Their process may have been purely intuitive but the logical consistency of their explanation also indicates they understood exactly what they were saying.

[AshvinP]

To add to the above submission, if you haven't already, you might also want to consider Teilhard de Chardin, of course another French scientist. In The Phenomenon of Man, he discusses evolution within his idealist vision. With respect to Lamarck and Darwin, in Chapter 3 "Demeter" he footnotes:

In various quarters I shall be accused of showing too Lamarckian a bent in the explanations which follow, of giving an exaggerated influence to the Within in the organic arrangement of bodies. But be pleased to remember that, in the 'morphogenetic' action of instinct as here understood, an essential part is left to the Darwinian play of external forces and to chance. It is only really through strokes of chance that life proceeds, but strokes of chance which are recognized and grasped--that is to say, psychically selected. Properly understood the 'anti-chance' of the Neo-Lamarckian is not the mere negation of Darwinian chance. On the contrary it appears as its utilization. There is a functional complementariness between the two factors; we could call it 'symbiosis.'

In the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, might even the Genesis creation myth be an archetypal if not pragmatic account of transmutation, with Adam and Eve representing human beings, the species with special dominion and in the image and likeness of God? Paralleling Genesis, the Daoist classics written down in the same age as Genesis emphasize not only the special position of human beings (see again, Zhuangzi, Chapter 18), but also the layered relationship among God (Dao), Heaven, Earth, and Humankind (see, e.g., Dao De Jing, Chapter 25). On the one hand, it's remarkable how similar the accounts are; on the other hand, perhaps an idealist account could not be any other way?

Great quote! I also mention Teilhard de Chardin in Part 2, Incarnating the Christ. We should remember mythology is always taken from sense-perceptible phenomenon. In that sense, the literalists who say Genesis is an accurate account of what actually happened are correct, but they have no idea why they are correct. It is precisely because what we now call "psychic" was also 'externally' perceived in that epoch. It has become so abstract for us we can scarcely imagine how such psychic processes would appear to them. Creation accounts such as those in Genesis 3 are always related to the descent of Spirit into 'material' world to the extent that there develops awareness of the ego-self - "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked."

It is about the "knowledge of good and evil", because once we know that our various bodies are vulnerable in certain ways, we also know that other people share those vulnerabilities. None of that is at odds with the natural evolutionary account, as Teilhard de Chardin indicates, only with the materialist evolutionary account which only focuses on outer forms and not on the "Within in the organic arrangement of bodies". Self-aware consciousness truly becomes the dominant selection 'mechanism', although "mechanism" is not a great term because it implies mechanical procedure rather than organic fluidity of the Spirit. Similarly "evolution" carries much materialist baggage, hence the substitution for "Metamorphoses".

Good observations, AshvinP. Bernardo in a podcast also talked about how "the knowledge of good and evil" is related to descent and dissociation. Again, paralleling Genesis, the Dao De Jing's second chapter talks about a dissent into "the knowledge of good and evil," though translations of the text often obscure this point.

In the Judeo-Christian context, does this descent represent a quasi-absolute descent into contradiction or merely the possibility of a descent into a contradiction-of-opposites logic, along of course with an over-identification with the separate self and certain pride? In other words, is humankind necessarily fallen or is this descent only one possibility of everyday existence?

If the latter, is a misguided relic of such a descent the false duality of even the metaphorical versus the literal? As you point out, the literalists are in some respects right about Genesis. Unfortunately, however, the literalists themselves are stuck in polarized thinking--they normally don't think Genesis is metaphorical. And of course they don't think any sort of elevated state is possible in ordinary life, albeit for a few saintly people.

Then, could the solution to this conundrum--as in an ordinary "ascent," or return to an ideal, harmonious day-to-day state--be to use complementarity-of-opposites thinking and terminology? Instead of "metaphorical versus literal," would it better to use, "archetypal and practical" or "archetypal and pragmatic"? The Daoist texts often go one step further, juxtaposing everyday concepts like "action," "name," and "form" simply with "emptiness."

Finally, could most people, whether of a scientific or religious inclination, appreciate this complementarity, as opposed to recognizing wholeness and unity as something that simply transcends an otherwise contradictory world, a la Hegel, for example? If idealists now want to move society or even accord with idealism in their own lives, do we need a subtle shift in logic, from say the Aristotelian dialectic to the YinYang?

As far as how this point relates to the evolution of human life, Teilhard de Chardin following a long line of Christian thinkers was bridging the ideal as in religion and the real as in science, seeing the two aspects as necessarily complementary. He lived and worked in China for long spans, but did not think Chinese culture had influenced his own thinking very much (and indeed, it need not have). In any case, his ideas are very much in line with traditional Chinese thinking.

JL,

Those are very good questions. I like the idea of substituting "archetypal and practical" for "metaphorical vs. literal". The term "metaphorical" has less and less meaning the farther we go back into human history. I know it seems like a cop out, but I really don't think the "solutions" will be found at any intellectual level of thinking and terminology. It is fundamentally a spiritual question, so I think we will need to involve the individual capacity for imaginative and intuitive thinking in any suitable answer. Such an answer must involve experience of the spiritual reality which gives rise to the polarities in the first place. As for the bolded part, though, Scott's "mumorphic logic" could be very helpful with communicating these ideas.