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Spirituality
A Few Thoughts on Human Evolution
Is there a distinction between biological and spiritual evolution?
Posted August 9, 2013
‘Evolution’: the word itself comes from the Latin ‘e’ (‘out’) and ‘volvere’ (‘to roll’) – thus signifying the ‘moving on’ in life from one biological stage to the next: a process which, is generally taken to imply a progression in the nature and capabilities of the human species from the past to the present. One of the questions evolution poses is whether we are destined to continue ‘rolling forward’ to attain some ultimate stage of ‘humanness’ – one that will then become a permanent condition? Or might the whole operation stop at some point before this state is reached…. when we could start to regress…. move into a process of ‘Devolution’?
Progression…. leading to Permanence or, possibly, Regression… And I would suggest that it is the starkness of the contrasts offered by these three possibilities that brought us to practice the mental discipline we call Philosophy. That is, to develop thoughts and theories concerning the meaning or purpose of human life – in the face of nature’s seemingly automatic control over the process.
Yet how are we to define the standard by which we judge our ‘progression’ or ‘regression’ in this evolutionary business? Well, simply put, I would say that it is represented by the degree of humanness we have managed to attain at any point in our history. And ‘humanness’…. what does one mean by that? (I have written extensively about this in book called ‘What the Hell Are the Neurons Up To’, so anything I say here in a short essay is going to be pretty cursory.) But here goes.
There are two sides to humanness. On the one hand, to be ‘human’ is to possess imagination and wonder…. think and feel creatively in the arts and sciences; preserve and enhance all the ‘values’ we have come to recognize; save lives rather than destroy them; nurture the ability to love, to feel compassion for fellow human beings and strive to improve their lot; and work for the greater good at all times. On the other, it is also ‘human’ to be unable to feel or think in the ways mentioned above; to have no moral compass; to kill and destroy without compunction or remorse; and to be seemingly devoid of that psychical force known as the ‘human spirit’.
Nevertheless, here we are…. all individuals of a species subject to the same evolutionary process. So how are we to explain the presence of two such opposing ways of life?
I remember asking our biology teacher if the objective of evolution was to ultimately produce the perfect human being. He replied by saying that nature knew nothing about ‘perfection’…. that it was a completely abstract human concept; that evolution was an organic process ultimately ensuring the survival of the fittest by natural selection…. ‘separating the wheat from the chaff’, as he put it. Which left me wondering, even at the age of 18, how to account biologically for the fact that some of us become psychologically sensitive to the dictates of a moral code – at the very least those telling of ‘right’ and ’wrong’, ‘love’ and ‘hate’…. while others don’t.
Many years later, after being demobilized from the R.A.F. at the end of World War II…. I asked the poet and philosopher Sir Herbert Read the same question. ‘It’s not a biological issue’, he said. ‘The quality and level of humanness depends on the psychological development of the spirit-forces that drive imagination and empathy.’
In 1964, Sir Julian Huxley the eminent English biologist, wrote the following: ‘Though undoubtedly man’s genetic nature changed a great deal during the long proto-human stage, there is no evidence that it has in any important way improved since the time of the Aurignacian cave man…. Indeed, during this period it is probable that man’s nature has degenerated and is still doing so.’
This is a somewhat surprising comment by a noted scientist at that time: for the ‘hard’ evidence to support it was not discovered until the archaeological explorations in the caves around Aurignac, in Southern France, revealed the presence of artists whose work was perceptually acute, most skillfully executed, and possessed of great expressive and symbolic power. And, in one instance at least, petrified flute-like instruments suggesting that some form of music accompanied either ritualistic or more communal occasions. The most recent discovery of this sort was the Chauvet Cave in the Ardeche Valley in 1994 and radiocarbon tests found them to be over 30,000 years old – just about twice as old as the animal paintings found at Lascaux, which hitherto represented the ‘gold standard‘ for the culture of the late Paleolithic Period.
Music, art, and a spirit-sensitivity to animals and life would be three of the ways I would define humanness. But how much further might such sensibilitie it be pushed back in time as archaeological exploration continues? The Chauvet Cave is already pretty close to so-called Neanderthal Times.
But now comes the strange part. What kind of insight could have led to Julian Huxley’s declaration? For he died in 1975, years before Chauvet – the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of archaeology – was discovered. And, if we leave out the incredible advances made in science and technology, what a ’put-down’ for the rest of contemporary culture his remarks imply.
Could it be that the eminent biologist was making a distinction between biological and spiritual evolution? I was speaking recently to a researcher from Microsoft about such issues when he asked, ‘Does modern man need a soul now he has the computer?’ Well…. ‘Progression’ or ‘Regression’? I leave it to you….
