June 10, 2006

Life

Mathematical laws exist (presumably in a mind or Spirit) . . .

Then, 8,000,000,000 years ago, a ABig Bang@ and a universe comes into being.

The earliest material plasma obeys the mathematical laws already in place.

3,850,000,000 years ago, life, as represented by prokaryotic cells,

Appears spontaneously from pre-biotic organic molecules.

By 3,000,000,000 years ago, microscopic organisms swarm in the water.

They would spend the next 200,000,000 years turning the ferrous iron

Which saturates the seas into ferric oxide, and only when this Aoxygen sink@

Is partially filled, would the oxygen they produce begin to fill the atmosphere.

By 1,800,000,000 years ago, the oxygen level in the atmosphere is one percent.

600,000,000 years ago, the first animals evolve in the seas. They are soft-bodied

And flat. By 540,000,000 years ago, the supply of free oxygen in the atmosphere

Is near the 21 percent level we have today. A strong ozone layer now exists

And screens out short-wave, ultraviolet radiation. The land becomes habitable.

450,000,000 years ago, the first land plants appear. Land animals would soon follow.

100,000,000 years ago, flowering plants. 75,000,000 years ago, the Age of Reptiles.

4,000,000 years ago, the earliest known hominids B bipedal man-apes (Australopithecus).

2,000,000 years ago, the first humans B Homo habilis, and then Homo erectus.

300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens B humans, with a cranial capacity like ours today.

250,000 years ago, man is not conscious of himself. He does not differentiate

Between himself and his environment. He has no concept of either time or death.

200,000 years ago, ANeanderthal Man@ differentiates his body from his surroundings.

A Aself-in-here@ (which is still a body-self) must be defended against Athe world-out-there.@

50,000 years ago, ACro-Magnon Man@ has language which includes intentional calls,

Modifiers, commands and nouns. Soon he will gather and live in settled communities.

10,000 B.C.E., humankind discovers farming B and hence also discovers the future. Man=s

New temporal consciousness transcends his body. The locus of his new Aself@ is his mind.

5,000 B.C.E., civilization begins. Man=s sense of self, his identity, is derived from

The role he fulfills in a fixed, hierarchically conceived, oppressive social order.

2,500 B.C.E., the ego B the sense of the self as a unique individuality emerges. Man=s past,

His history, which he immortalizes in writing, is a chronicle of his own power-laced feats.

500 B.C.E., the Greeks differentiate three areas of knowing B Athe Beautiful@ (self-expression), AThe Good@ (the inter-subjective, morals, ethics), and Athe Truth@ (objective truth, science).

1,700 C.E., the Enlightenment B Western man uses his mind, to map the world. The basis of all

Knowledge is science, and the goal of science is to represent the world B accurate map-making.

2,000 C.E., humankind teeters on the brink of self-annihilation. Conservatives, who often

Subscribe to a concrete, literal religion rejected by science, and who are certain that only

Their own world view will lead to the good life, are pitted against Liberals who are equally

Certain that their own rational mind knows best what is good for them, and are intent on

Keeping away from politics all internal domains B which are outside the purview of science.

The conflict would not be life-threatening, were it not that science (the domain of the

objective truth) has given both camps ways and means to kill all life on the planet

Several times over, either slowly and painfully, or abruptly and even cataclysmically.

Missing from the discussion is the question of where we were going before this impasse.

Evolution is an irreversible increase in wholeness, unity and functional integration.

Our evolution has been from matter to life to mind. Presumably, mind is not our

Final destination. We are (or were) headed most probably for yet a higher integration B

One closer to embracing, enveloping within our minds or souls, the whole universe and

All its diverse inhabitants, reaching yet a higher, deeper self. Soul and Spirit beckon.

And this is why we must structure compassion into our world

(Athe Beautiful@)

and care into our Kosmos

(Athe Good@).

Dedication

This poem is dedicated to the microscopic organisms which labored almost 2,500,000,000 years to give us the oxygen we are breathing today (from 3,000,000,000 to 540,000,000 years ago).

References

Hall, Francoise,

2005a. AAsk the Mosquitoes,@ March 19 (13 pages, unpublished), pp. 3-6. The article is a summary of:

Wilson, Edward. 1992/1999. The diversity of life. New York: W.W. Norton.

2005b. AA Transpersonal View of War B War as a Substitute for Cosmo-centrism and Immortality during the Egoic Stage in the Development of Consciousness,@ November 5 (103 pages, unpublished), pp. 23-42. The article is a summary of the following books:

Wilber, Ken.

1977/1993. The spectrum of consciousness. 20^th Anniversary Edition. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.

1980/1996. The Atman project B a transpersonal view of human development. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.

1981/1996. Up from Eden B a transpersonal view of human evolution. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.

1983/2005. A sociable God B (1983 subtitle: a brief introduction to a transcendental sociology), 2005 subtitle: toward a new understanding of religion. Boston: Shambhala.

1995/2000. Sex, ecology, spirituality B the spirit of evolution. 2^nd edition, Revised. Boston: Shambhala.

1996. A brief history of everything. Boston: Shambhala.

2000/2001. The eye of spirit B an integral vision for the world gone slightly mad. Boston: Shambhala.

2005c. AThe History of War (with a Critique of Lloyd deMause=s Position that harsh Child Rearing Modes are the Cause of War),@ December 11 (42 pages, unpublished), pp. 1-25.

2006. AThe Integration of World Cultures,@ May 31 (26 pages, unpublished). This is a summary of:

Wilber, Ken. 1998. The marriage of sense and soul B integrating science and religion. New York: Random House/Broadway Books.

(See p. 20 for the data that the very earliest material plasma obeyed mathematical laws that themselves did not come into being with the Big Bang but must have existed previously Ain the mind of some eternal Spirit@).