A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to the ancient worldviews of Materialism and Idealism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's also a Theory – of – Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
Post 136.August 5, 2024
Holism and Creative Evolution
Mechanism vs Teleology
Before he gets into the events that led to the evolutionary emergence of living organisms, Bergson begins with the entity we know best : the Self. “The existence of which we are most assured and which we know best is unquestionably our own”. Then he discusses Evolution : “Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose. For I speak of each of my states as if it formed a block and were a separate whole”. Yet, “The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change”. For modern scientists, Change is typically imagined as a cause & effect Mechanism, but Bergson seems to view Darwinian evolution as a kind of Teleologyor Entelechy¹ . The primary difference may be that the isolated elements of a mindless mechanism have only local effects, while an integrated unitary system is motivated by self-serving goals. Only a holistic mechanism (organism) can be motivated by long-term selfish purposes rather than proximate selfless energy exchanges. Immanuel Kant defined his Ethic in terms of treating purposeful humans as Ends rather than Means. To paraphrase : do unto purposeful others as you would have them do unto intentional You.
The title of this post is derived from my personal correlation of Bergson’s 1911 Creative Evolution with Jan Smuts’ 1926 Holism and Evolution. Athough Smuts was familiar with Bergson’s work, he contributed a unique term for the creative impulse of evolution : Holism, not a mechanical Force, but a cohesive systematic interrelationship of elements. Bergson had referred to that creative causation variously as “elan vital”², “life impluse”, or “genetic energy”. Both writers seem to deliberately avoid terms related to “spirit” or “soul”, because they wanted to be taken seriously as scientists. Yet both are introducing novel philosophical concepts that go beyond the pragmatic limits of Materialism. Following their example of technical terminology, I have coined a portmanteau word to combine the notions of Creative Evolution with Causal Energy and Morpho-genetic³ Activity : EnFormAction⁴ .
Both are discussing complex questions of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis that are assumed, but not directly addressed, in Darwin’s theory. Both view natural Evo-lution as Creative instead of Mechanistic⁵. More like teleological Artificial Breeding {image at right} than blindly groping Natural Selection. So their evolution is progressive rather than random meandering⁶, aggressive instead of coasting. The Mechanistic interpretation of Darwinism may result from the 19th century formulation of physical Thermodynamic laws. Which empha-sized the deteriorating effects of Entropy over the obvious increases in complexity & organization right here on Earth, and the teleological results of artificial evolution of domesticated crops and animals.
1. Teleology & Entelechy : Telos means 'end', 'goal' or 'purpose'. Entelechy is the realization or actualization of what is otherwise potential.
3. Morphogenetic : Literally, Form Causing. Relating to or concerned with the development of normal form or structure especially as controlled by the growth, differentiation, and movement of cells and tissues. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morphogenetic
4. EnFormAction : Evolutionary Causation Energy + Form + Change. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy, including living organisms and thinking beings. https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
5. Creative Evolution : The theory presented an evolution in which a free emergence of the individual intelligence could be recognized. It was thus wholly distinct from previous deterministic hypotheses that were either mechanistic or teleological and represented evolution as conditioned either by existing forces or by future aims. https://www.britannica.com/topic/creative-evolution-philosophy
6. Progressive vs Conservative Evolution : Darwin saw clearly that, although natural selection remains the best explanation for progressive evolutionary trends, it does not guarantee such trends, nor are there any other evolutionary factors that would make evolutionary progress inevitable. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/50/5/451/264248
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Before he gets into the events that led to the evolutionary emergence of living organisms, Bergson begins with the entity we know best : the Self. “The existence of which we are most assured and which we know best is unquestionably our own”. Then he discusses Evolution : “Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose. For I speak of each of my states as if it formed a block and were a separate whole”. Yet, “The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change”. For modern scientists, Change is typically imagined as a cause & effect Mechanism, but Bergson seems to view Darwinian evolution as a kind of Teleology or Entelechy¹ . The primary difference may be that the isolated elements of a mindless mechanism have only local effects, while an integrated unitary system is motivated by self-
