DC Salon Explores Mysteries of Evolution and Spirituality

Here in DC we engaged last night in a Salon led by Robert Heinzman and Ingrid Sonesson. Initiated with a look from the latest WIE into both the Mystery of Evolution and the Evolution of Spirituality the discussion carried us into the complexity of the Evolution Debate and challenged our already-known notions into expansion and awe.

For instance, ponder the implications of this mind-blowing hypothesis from James Gardner in A New Dawn of Cosmology:

 

WIE: Then you have this new force of intelligent life that was created by the evolutionary process that can also see the process objectively and can therefore contribute further to the larger scheme of its own development.

Gardner: Right. But that act of contribution is essential. It has to occur in order for the process to move forward. It's just like DNA. ... It's like when an embryo begins to develop, every step in that development is not specified in advance by the DNA sequence. What happens is that the embryonic development reaches stage one, and then the tissue complex—that is, the embryo—starts sending signals back into the DNA, which modulate further expressions of the gene into new tissue. So it's a feedback loop, and the informational complexity inheres in that feedback process, not simply in the nucleotide sequence. That's truly the extraordinary miracle of it. The process of embryogenesis is exquisitely programmed to actually take account of the state of its own ongoing development and to use the succeeding stages of development as a sort of augmentation to the basic instruction manual, which is the DNA contained in the genome.

WIE: So are you saying that humans play that same role in the cosmological, universal evolutionary process? Do we in some way represent that feedback loop for the universe itself?

Gardner: That's what I've hypothesized. Because there simply wouldn't be enough informational content in the physical laws and constants alone to lay out an architectural diagram of life and mind.

WIE: Then the universe needs intelligent life; it needs that conscious feedback loop in order to take evolution further. It can't really do it on its own.

Gardner: As one of my readers says, “I think what you are saying is that intelligent life is the reproductive organ of the universe.” And that's precisely right. That's exactly what my hypothesis asserts—that cosmic replication is the essential role of intelligent life.