Obviously, by evolution I'm not talking about an objective, UR-quadrant view of naturalistic biological processes as conceived by most biologists. I'm talking about a belief that biological evolution is one angle on a wider process that involves subjective awareness and intersubjective knowledge as embodied in concrete social/political modes of economy. That wider process is "spiritual evolution." The history of evolutionary philosophy includes thinkers such as Friedrich Schelling, Hegel, and Aurobindo...Still there are those who respectfully disagree. But I wonder why they are so confident. If you're going to assert that YOU are right and those who disagree are wrong, as Daniel Gustav did recently with "It's a mistake to think of evolution as progress or development in a necessary sense..." from For the Turnstiles, then I think the burden of proof is on you. In response to Gustav, I wrote [in rougher prose]:It seems you are doing a lot of asserting that there is NO TELOS to evolution rather than actually providing reasoned arguments, evidence, etc. Providing a single analogy when there are other analogies that could very well suggest an opposite conclusion isn't persuasive. If you are taking the NO TELOS as your base metaphysics or meta-narrative of unarguable first-principles, then fine. Say so. But your belief that accepting a telos is "a mistake" seems well beyond and not compelled by anything you've said here so far. Also how do you propose to back up your claim that "evolution is dependent on biology" against an opening-salvo Wilberian counterattack that you are demanding up front that evolution be conceived primarily an Upper-Right quadrant affair (i.e., basic flatland reductionism)? I'm not getting your line of thought yet, and certainly not getting the "integral" fully yet, Gustav...Labels: belief, evolution, spirit posted by Joe Perez at 12/11/2006
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