Over the last fifty years or so cosmology and astronomy have crafted a radically new cosmic vision that begins with the explosive manifestation of our universe (probably part of a multiverse) and proceeds through a process of evolution through ever greater degrees of complexity. The relatively new sub-discipline of ‘big history’ has weaved together the findings of numerous disciplines from the physical, biological and human sciences to outline this new ‘creation story’, as it calls it. It emphasises eight thresholds that start with the creation of the universe (cosmology) and then on to the creation of increasingly more complex phenomena: from stars (astronomy) to chemical elements within stars (chemistry) to our solar system and planets (geology) to life on Earth (biology) to three eras of human history (paleolithic, agrarian and modern).
This new story can be interpreted in a number of ways, and the new axial vision deploys a complex integral realism, axiality, and recent developments in science to trace a ‘new axial creation story’. It traces not only the increasing complexity of exterior (physical, material) evolution but also the increasing depth of interior (consciousness) evolution that accompanies it. It argues that since consciousness eventually emerged out of matter it must have been present as potential from the start. It begins in a latent or proto form in the physiosphere, emerges as a rudimentary self with the capacity for self-other distinction and end-directedness in the biosphere, and deepens its subjectivity until reaching full self-consciousness with human beings in the noosphere.
This interior evolution of consciousness is accompanied and supported by an increase in both organisational complexity – e.g. from homeo/thermodynamics (maximum entropy) to morphodynamics (‘self’-organisation) to teleodynamics (end-directedness and the emergence of a true self), to use terms from Terrence Deacon’s work – and structural, material complexity: atoms to molecules to cells to neuronal organisms to ever-more complex neural-cerebral apparatus. And as consciousness and cognition becomes more sophisticated it is accompanied by a corresponding cultural evolution and form of socio-economic organisation – one that is arguably moving, in a tendential, messy and non-linear manner, towards a eudaimonistic society.
As to what drives evolution, we can point to natural selection and genetic mutation, self-organisation, emergence and organisational dynamics, and teleology (end-directedness). And a new axial vision suggests some additional forces that may be operating at a deeper underlying strata, including physis (nature as active, creative organisation) and a deeper absolute realm of nonduality that underpins and sustains the relative realm of duality.
Whatever it is exactly that has propelled the universe from the Big Bang to where humanity is today, there is a great deal of evidence that suggests the existence of a creative, generative force that has been operative since the word go – a force that can reasonably be conceived as being in some way connected with an underlying spiritual infrastructure. Such a vision provides the basis upon which to see ourselves, others and the world in a new light, one compatible with science and more conducive than the existing materialist / mechanistic worldview to the construction of a more meaningful and eudaimonistic society.
For a more detailed account of the new axial creation story see my book and our Foundational Programme. For a pictorial representation click here.