One of the observable fundamental qualities of existence is the presence of the Evolutionary Inquiry. Through playful arising, the dynamic of form emergent both through time, (i.e. Big Bang, heat, hydrogen, gases, celestial bodies, etc.), and space (i.e. quantum fields, quantum particles, atomic structures, molecules, etc.) expresses itself as an inquiry into accelerated experimentation of novelty and dynamic recombination.
Within this dynamic emerges the phenomenon of “consciousness awakening to itself.” This expressive dynamic allows the evolutionary inquiry to not only recombine its external aspects and qualities, but now to organize processes of internal “third order”/”nature of being” into self-reflective transformational expressions of the fundamental natural inquiry.
So what?
Three whip smart gentlemen recently gathered in Merton College at Oxford to delve into an inquiry around the Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis. The underlying theme of inquiry of this discussion, as I understood it, has fundamentally to do with asking, what injunctions are practical, possible, and skillful at scale to support us (it’s largely framed as Civilization, though I prefer the frame of Species) to meet our existing evolutionary and existential thresholds in a way that is wise (life-affirming and effective.)
The conversation seeks, as do I each and every day, what recognizable elements of design criteria can we establish to develop an intelligent view of a practicable strategic response to the metacrisis.
One of the primary themes that emerges is the recognition that the only “human designed” structures shown to impact collective direction at the scale currently demanded have been those of religion.
Using the language of Mr. John in the discussion, let me bump this term religion towards its archaic root, “religio, — the sense of binding that carries with it a sense of profound meaning.”
Indeed, it is this underlying sense of binding that has shown itself not only to move entire cultures/civilizations, but also to be an expansion of a capacity for self-aware wisdom within the transformational movement of existence at its core. (In the latter, I’m referring to Mr. Daniel’s assertion that human culture as far back as 40,000 years may have reflected and rebound itself in response to the apparent loss of megafauna.)
We can see throughout history that attempts to cultivate a unifying religion, though built upon seeds of real sacred value, primarily leads instead to vast population somnambulism at best, and more likely large-scale warfare and other divisive forms of disregard for life, world, and well-being.
So if not religion… What is it that allows for the equitable transformation of entire cultures, civilizations, and possibly even an entire species?
Strange attractors.
Daniel has made a well elucidated and in-depth case for why our modern (almost) species wide ontologies terminate as an extinction level event. Indeed this is the fundamental challenge of the metacrisis, what are the depth changes necessary in our collective identity paradigm to minimize the possible damage of, and preferably reorient from this trajectory. I will not attempt to re-argue that point concisely here.
Instead, let me point to one of the fundamental features of this “modern ontology,” that I think is ripe for revision.
From a certain point of view, our existing global civilization paradigmatic ontology is based on “static objects.” These objects take the form of “verifiable” rational and objective truth assertions. Scientific facts, polling data, predictive game theory, dollar-based economic theory, etc. are some examples of the objects making up these stasis based ontologies.
Our collective praxis has for a few centuries now been built on the predominance of valuing these objects and attempting to organize them (ostensibly) into a global human social flourishing. (Never mind the obvious difficulties with that frame — that most species, indeed probably most humans would disagree with the characterization of this as flourishing in any robust sense of the term.)
Indeed this search for a rational objective truth practice has been one of the fundamental drivers of bringing us to the current vital thresholds.
What does religion have, and do, that our modern secular paradigm fails to achieve?
By placing the highest value authority in the hands of an explicitly non-definable divine, or otherwise essentially mysterious condition, judgment becomes, paradoxically, profoundly democratized. In contrast, the modern secular structure establishes a particular domain of “truth” assertions that mistakes its relative utility for objective reality.
“Reality” is comprised of a multiplicity of perspectives; what is often referred to as first-person (subjective,) second person (intersubjective,) and third person (objective) points of view. The accelerated condition of the metacrisis can be seen as a result of depreciating the first two constructions in favor of the third. Yet none of these spatial-temporally-limited perspectives reveals an actual and empirical static truth condition, not alone, not together.
The experience of living organisms, such as we can know, appears to be a matter of evolutionary utility. In other words, that which we perceive and call reality is really just that which serves a Darwinian kind of fitness, not a direct cognizant recognition of full contact unity with the fundamental ground of being.
Static object ontologies therefore have been a useful evolutionary construct, but have met their threshold of utility, waxing from overuse into domains more destructive than fruitful.
The persistent ontological world space of flourishing life conditions, has been and remains instead, strange attractor object ontologies. Not so much finger, not so much moon, but living act of pointing. Life lives.
From within the human view, that which may be said to exist as a fundamental ground of being can only be seen for its ephemeral nature. To the degree that we believe we are alive (true), and that that condition is good and desirable because it holds for the individual organism some aesthetic of attraction (beauty), this is the intersection of the three fundamental perspectives.
In essence, life is strange, mysterious, possibly even divine, but in the eyes of the living, of value, and so worth protecting. This is the source of law. Deep ontological law as well as the confused the law so often used to negotiate surface (and perhaps superficial) conditions.
I cannot protect a fact. I cannot live a fact. I cannot even observe a fact, except in the most fleeting senses of the construct. Indeed, those things which we have taken to be facts may be nothing more than temporary interplay of quantum fields. Static ontological objects are, at essence, nothing more than useful fictions; they are not the building blocks of any meaningful eternity, and therefore cannot rightfully be expected to hold still while we build the foundations of an enduring species expression of the evolutionary inquiry upon them.
Rather life, indeed existence, is fundamentally a dynamic relational process bound, not by hard guardrails and clear roads, but rather by fascinating, enduring, mysterious but somehow “real” strange attractors.
Where increasingly close inspection of the hydrogen atom (static ontological metaphor) finds the object infinitely retreating from view into subtler and subtler quantum interactions, increasingly close inspection of something like love (strange attractor ontological object) reveals the object coming ever more into refined and practicable clarity.
What does it mean for a species wide identity to grow an internalized awakening to the elements of its own evolutionary nature, its own vital wisdom for an enduring flourishing as a part of its holonic living context?
I’ll bring this long train of thought to a close here by, perhaps, making an offered assertion of design criteria for an intelligent strategic and scalable response to the metacrisis.
Design Criteria For a Wise and Skillful Human Response to the Metacrisis
(draft sketch, not verified, not exhaustive.)
Must not be dependent on centralized, nor top-down “solutions.”
Must be practicable by humans at any scale.
Must be dynamically plastic for both spatial and temporal fit to context.
Must be constructed of “living” objects capable of responding relationally in real time.
Most effectively resist capture by exploitative system dynamics.
Must be of a substance suitable for constructing durable conditions, but also decomposes well into raw nutrient.