WHAT IS CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION?
Conscious Evolution is the intentional effort to drive forward our individual and collective evolution.
It is consciously leading our lives, and designing our societies to unleash our evolutionary potential.
“We are evolution become conscious of itself.’
– Julian Huxley
For most of human history we had no idea that we were evolving.
It’s like we have been sitting in a moving car with our eyes closed. We had no idea where we had come from and no idea where we were going, and certainly no chance of being able to steer. We didn’t even know that we were moving.
And so human history has been one catastrophe after the next as we veered from one side of the road to the other, only capable of changing direction when we hit an obstacle or a pothole.
But now, slowly, as the evolutionary worldview percolates through our culture, our eyes are starting to flutter open. Suddenly we realise: we are moving! As our eyes adjust to the light we can begin to see the road behind us, to understand the journey that we’ve been on, and to get a sense of where we are going.
But most importantly, we can start to place our hands on the steering wheel.
Welcome to the dawn of Conscious Evolution.
“You take hydrogen gas, and you leave it alone, and it turns into rosebushes, giraffes, and humans.’
- Brian Swimme
The blindfold is off. For the first time we can take in the whole sweep of evolution from mere matter, to simple replicating life, through to vastly complex and beautiful creatures and finally to the creation of minds capable of apprehending this entire process.
On this epic journey evolution has been through a series of novel emergences; evolutionary transitions in which more has come from less, when evolution has acquired new powers, where the process of evolution itself has evolved, accelerated.
First we had the emergence of life from primordial soup. Then came the transition from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction, and with it a flourishing of diversity and adaptability. Then came the emergence of language and the transition to cultural evolution: the birth of human history.
Likewise human history has been punctuated by a series of transitions as human consciousness and culture has evolved through a series of stages or worldviews.
Through all these successive layers of evolution a clear direction can be discerned: despite plenty of wobbles and setbacks, the evolutionary process is characterised by ever wider circles of cooperation, an increase in agency, evolvability, and creativity, and higher and higher forms of consciousness.
We are on the cusp of just such a transition: the next step in the evolution of life on this planet, the next evolutionary mechanism to emerge, is the ability to use our capacity for self-reflection to free ourselves from the deterministic influences of our biological and cultural heritage, and to use our understanding of the arrow of evolution to align our individual lives and redesign our societies.
Just as the birth of sexual reproduction unleashed the latent potential of biological evolution, Conscious Evolution will unleash the latent potential of human cultural evolution.
“We are moving from unconscious evolution through natural selection to conscious evolution by choice.’
– Barbara Marx Hubbard
Conscious Evolution calls on each and every one of us to take responsibility for our moment in history, to place our hands on the steering wheel, and to use our lives to help drive evolution on its way from matter back towards spirit.
For the first time on earth we have the opportunity to become conscious agents of our evolutionary future. That does not mean that we become all powerful. Nor does it mean that we can entirely disregard the constraints which biology and culture place on our behaviour. But it does give us an extra measure of autonomy. And our understanding of evolution gives us a compass.
Having a theory of our own evolution is a bit like a mouse who suddenly realises that it’s in an experiment, and can now choose which door to run through or which bit of cheese to nibble. The mouse goes from being a blind participant in the experiment to having the ability to consciously determine the outcome.
Rather than being unconscious parts of the evolutionary process on this planet, we now have the potential to become conscious stewards of and agents for the whole.
It is through us that evolution became aware of itself on this planet. And it is through us that evolution can make the change from stumbling through blind trial and error with all the pain and suffering that entails, to striding forwards with awareness, foresight and purpose.
‘In a concrete sense there is not matter and spirit. All that exists is matter becoming spirit.’
- Teilhard de Chardin
If evolution is characterised by ever widening circles of cooperation (love), more and more freedom and creativity and higher and higher forms of consciousness, then I invite you to extrapolate the process.
What is the most loving, most creative, most conscious entity that you can conceive of?
Evolution is the Western equivalent of the Chinese Tao, what Robert Pirsig calls Dynamic Quality, it is God in the process of being born in the material world.
Aligning yourself with that force is our life’s purpose, and the way to true fulfilment.
“God does not remain petrified and dead;
The very stones cry out and raise themselves to Spirit.’
- Hegel