#23. Ontogenetic Development

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I called my previous post (#22) "The Other Half of Person" to stress the point that there's more to the mystery of our selves than our individual consciousness.

The focus of many of my earlier postings has been the evolutionary and neurological perspectives of contemporary science which allow us to see that our individual consciousness is not something separate from, but an integral part of, the evolving universe-- and that each of us, as an utter unique expression of the cosmos process, is called to make a personal contribution to it.

In each entry I've also tried to show how I see these scientific findings about ourselves as individuals converging with some of humanity's core religious values.

Now I want to expand the context to include the social, communal and relational aspects of the mystery which we are, the "other half" of our reality as persons.

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Some readers may feel that seeing ourselves in a cosmic and evolutionary context is already a big enough challenge.

But that immense transition in human self-understanding, which began at the end of the 19th century and is essentially a shift from the static worldview of past centuries to the evolutionary perspectives of modern science, also includes the shift from a personal and private to a social and communal self-understanding.

Just as the words "science" and "religion" mean something more nowadays than they once meant, so does the word "person." So I want to look now at another area within the Biogenetic Structuralism perspective, one which especially helps us to understand the social and communal aspects of ourselves: cultural anthropology.

When we see person in the broadest possible scientific perspectives of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution, the resulting communal and social aspects of our self-understanding allow us an even richer sense of the convergence of contemporary scientific perspectives with the insights of humanity's core religious insights than we have if we are looking only at the individual aspects of the mystery of person.

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But the findings of cultural anthropology are even less familiar to the general public than those coming from contemporary brain and nervous system studies.

I'm often asked, for example, by persons who know of my interest in evolution whether I think evolution is still going on in human beings. When I answer, "Yes; it's called culture," I usually get blank stares. So the transition I'm making now in these blog entries, from an neurological to an anthropological focus, may not be clear to readers.

The problem is that we're just not attuned to thinking in terms of culture, let alone thinking of humanity's cultural development as a continuation of the cosmic evolutionary process that produced stars, galaxies, plants, animals and ourselves. It's tough enough for many to grasp the fact that human consciousness has emerged from the cosmic process; seeing cultural development as also part of the cosmic process is even more challenging.

But as I said in the previous post, it's only when we can see that the social-relational nature of personal consciousness is also a part of evolution of the universe-- from the Big Bang and the formation of galaxies and stars to the emergence of life on Earth and the development of the primate brain-- that it becomes clear why culture is such an important concept in the converging perspectives of science and religion.

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In moving from an neurological to an anthropological focus we need to keep in mind the distinction between the primal emergence of conscious awareness among our animal ancestors several million years ago and the growth and development of individual consciousness as it takes place in every human being today.

That first kind of conscious emergence is called "phylogenetic." It's what happened in that group ("phylum," in a broad sense) of mammals out of which primates and eventually humans arose. It's the transition from the second to the third stage of complexity in the cosmic process as it takes place on Earth.

To make sense of phylogenesis we need to think about primate brain structures in terms of things like the cognitive extension of prehension and cognized environment, and I have talked about those concepts in many previous blog entries. The key idea is an understanding of the neurological structures of the primate brain which allow for the adaptation of the individual and the species to the external environment.

Biogenetic Structuralist researchers use words like "assimilation" and "accommodation" to describe what's happening in the brain of individuals as they take in and/or adjust to what's encountered in their world. And they note that it's always for the sake of survival.

The second kind of conscious emergence, which the Biogenetic Structuralists refer to as "ontogenetic" development, has to do with the normal pattern in the development of self-awareness in individual human beings. ("On" and "ens" are Greek and Latin for "being.") It's this ontogenetic development-- ontogenesis-- that's a principal focus of cultural anthropology.

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While the findings of neuro-physiology help us to understand the phylogenetic emergence of human consciousness, the perspectives of cultural anthropology help us to understand the emergence and growth of self-awareness as it occurs in every human being.

That phylogenetic emergence was a transition from the second to the third level of complexity in the cosmic process, which first happened, probably in Northeast Africa, about two and half million years ago. In contrast, the ontogenetic development of human consciousness begins with the embryological development of every human child and continues throughout the life of each of us.

Biogenetic Structuralism sees three distinct stages to the ontogenetic development of consciousness. And, as I've said earlier, it's here-- in our perception of the growth and development of the "other half of person"-- that the convergence of understandings from the human sciences and from global humanity's religious insights begins to take on an even richer and fuller sense than previously.

So my focus in the next few blog posts will be on cultural anthropology, especially on how the Biogenetic Structuralist researchers see the development of human consciousness in terms of social and communal relationships taking place in three separate stages.

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To get a good sense of our communal and relational aspects we need to see something of how personal consciousness develops in each individual, of what ontogenesis is all about.

As I've said, the Biogenetic Structuralist perspective sees it taking place in three stages. And even from the brief descriptions of these stages which follow it becomes immediately apparent that they are of great significance in terms of global humanity's religious perspectives.

It might be better to call the stages "phases" since, while they are sequential, there's also a great deal of overlap.

And of course, as with everything connected with Biogenetic Structuralism-- or indeed with any specialized branch of science-- there's a lot of jargon to deal with. "Ontogenesis," as a term for the growth and development of personal consciousness, is a good example. And you may remember from earlier postings that these researchers like to use the Greek term, gnosis, for consciousness itself. They also use the term neuro-gnosis to emphasize that it's the structures and functions of the nerve cells in the brain which are the basis for our conscious gnosis.

So our topic here is ontogenetic neuro-gnosis-- or even neuro-gnostic ontogenesis. (It's no wonder these scientific findings haven't filtered down to the popular level!)

And even finding simple and clear names for the three stages seems to have been a problem.

Biogenetic Structuralists refer to the first phase of ontogenetic development as "received gnosis" but they also talk about it as "beliefs." The second stage of personal conscious development is simply called "experience" or "personal experience." And the third phase is referred to as "transpersonal" or "contemplative" experience.

Needless to say, that word "contemplative" will rings bells for anyone interested in religion and spirituality. I hope it can serve for now as a hint, at least, of the extent of the convergence of the perspectives which I think can be found in Biogenetic Structuralism's understanding of cultural anthropology and humanity's religious traditions.

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I will describe those stages or phases in the ontogenetic development of our personal self-awareness within the cultural context in the next few posts.

Meanwhile, I want to step back a moment to emphasize that we need to keep in mind that we're trying to see that ontogenetic development of each human individual in the very largest context possible: nothing less than the entire cosmic process as it takes place at three levels of increasing complexity.

I spelled out that long view in post #8 (Background to Biogenetic Structuralism) and more specifically in post #16 (Our Own Inner World). Here's a quick review.

The first level is that of matter: from the Big Bang and the evolution of galaxies, stars and planets. The second level is that of life: the emergence of life on Earth several billion years ago and the development by way of fish, reptiles and mammals, of the primate brain. And the third level of complexity is that of mind: the emergence of personal self-awareness several million years ago.

As I've said above and stressed in the previous blog entry, we also have to take into account the fact that there's an "other half of person," what we call it "culture"-- our social, communal and relational side.

And we need to keep in mind that, from the anthropological perspective, "culture" means whatever humans do that's not controlled by our genes and instincts.

It includes anything and everything that needs to be "passed on" from more experienced persons to the younger and less experienced for the survival of life: all the learning, skills and information which need to be passed on precisely because they are not part of our instinctual or genetically-based behavior.

My purpose in reviewing this "largest possible context" for human cultural development is to make the point that it's only when we can see ourselves in this very large cultural context that we can understand our place in the scheme of things specifically in terms of dealing with our contemporary concerns. I have in mind things such as equality, peace and justice issues and environmental problems.

The issue is still life's survival, just as it was in the original phylogenetic emergence of consciousness several million years ago.

When Al Gore acknowledged the Nobel Peace Prize, he observed that the ecological crisis is a spiritual issue. "It is," as he said, "a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

I couldn't find a better example of the need for an understanding of the contemporary convergence of scientific findings and humanity's core religious insights.

sam@macspeno.com

#20. Resurrection of the Dead

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I was especially delighted when I discovered the efforts of the Biogenetic Structuralists to understand our human condition in light of the scientific findings of cultural anthropology, neurophysiology and biological evolution because it brings together the two big interests in my life, science and religion. And it's a non-dualist perspective: it does not put humans in a unique category outside the rest of the natural world but sees us, rather, an integral part of the evolution of the universe. And it doesn't dismiss religion and ritual, as rationalist science does: it understands them to be a natural part of human life.

The Biogenetic Structuralist concept of cognized environment especially caught my attention because, among other things, it sounds much like what the Russian Sophiologist, Sergius Bulgakov, has to say about the relationship of personal consciousness to the external world.

Bulgakov was talking in the context of a theological understanding of the early Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, so it's an unlikely combination, to be sure. But I found it a remarkable convergence. In this blog post I want to share the two understandings. I'll just put them side by side, and you can see what you think.

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I've mentioned the Biogenetic Structuralism concept of cognized environment in many previous posts and it is the focus of entry #13. Unfortunately, these research scientists did not come up with better names for their ideas-- names which would be more clear-- and we have to deal with their scientific jargon.

The main idea of cognized environment is that personal consciousness, when understood in terms of the functions of the brain at the third level of the cosmic process, is seen to be nothing less than the matter of the Earth become alive and self-aware.

The great value of seeing the human spirit from this neurological perspective is that it doesn't separate us from the rest of the living world, as religious and rationalist dualism does, but helps us to see that the human spirit is rooted in the Earth and the cosmic process-- that the human mind and heart is, indeed, "the universe become conscious of itself."

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Here's a quick review of the main point. In trying to respond to the question, "What's going on in the brain?" the Biogenetic Structuralists distinguish between the operational environment and cognized environment. Operational environment is their jargon term for the external world outside ourselves: the physical universe as the environment (the world) in which we exist-- and within which, of course, our brain operates.

In contrast, they use the term cognized environment to refer to the inner world which is continually being created by the structural activities of the brain. That inner world is our personal awareness. These research scientists like to call it "neuro-gnosis", meaning personal awareness-- "knowledge" in a broad sense-- which arises from the activity of the brain's living cells.

We need to keep in mind that, as the most complex thing in the dynamic universe, our brain's neural cells and networks are a dynamic field of electro-chemical reactions, and that neuro-gnosis-- our personal consciousness-- is the result of that dynamic activity of the neuro-gnostic structures.

It also helps to remind ourselves that we're talking about the third level of complexity in the cosmic process.

Since we're not used to thinking in terms of levels of complexity, here's an easy example: At one level, the letters of the alphabet are only bits of colored ink on a piece of paper, or dark marks on a computer screen. When joined together in various combinations, however, meaning emerges even at a very simple level of complexity: the letters D, G and O, for example, can be put together to mean "dog" or "God." It's clear that meaning emerges via complexity. We can, of course, put those words together to make sentences and put the sentences together to make stories, so that at greater levels of complexity ever greater levels of meaning emerge.

Living things, including ourselves, work the same way. Chemical compounds make up cells, cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs, organs make up systems, and organ systems combine to make up a whale or a maple tree. At each level of complexity, something "more" emerges.

In our brain-- the greatest level of complexity known to us-- the "more" that emerges is what Biogenetic Structuralism calls "neuro-gnosis"-- and the rest of us call conscious awareness.

The rudimentary gnosis-structure we're born with results from natural selection and the cosmic evolutionary process, and as we grow and develop, our personal consciousness grows by corrections and modifications based on data coming in from the operational (i.e., external) environment.

It's an evolutionary survival mechanism. The main idea is that the brain's primary function is to construct an internal version of the external environment, which it does in order to moderate input from and response to that external world. It allows us to recognize what's potentially hurtful or helpful in the operational environment.

It provides an evolutionary advantage because the sense data is processed in terms of how it fits with previous information already stored in the brain and nervous system. From a biogenetic (evolutionary) perspective, neuro-gnosis is the "informational content" of the neurological structures, and the neuro-gnostic structures are the media of nerve cells and their networks in which this information is "coded" and by way of which it can be modified.

And as I've said before, all this wouldn't sound so strange if it wasn't ourselves that we're talking about. But the point of it all is that personal consciousness is the "environment, cognized." Our consciousness is the world, internalized. We are the cosmos become conscious of itself.

And ours is the first age in humanity's cultural development in which we can understand ourselves this way, based on objective data from scientific studies of brain and nervous system. The main thing I want to emphasize here is that the mystery which we are as persons is the result of the physical matter of the universe; at the third level of complexity in the cosmic process, we are the matter of the cosmos showing itself as persons, each of us utterly unique in the history of the world.

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In his discussion of the resurrection of the dead, Sergius Bulgakov says something that sounds very similar. A little background will help show why what he has to say is important.

Bulgakov was born in 1871 into what was still the medieval culture of Central Russia. He became an atheist in early adolescence, studied law at the University of Moscow and eventually became a noted Marxist economist. At the age of twenty-four he began a religious conversion. It's of great interest that his conversion was not occasioned by any church-related experience but by an experience of nature: his first sight of the Caucasus mountains while he was driving with friends in a sleigh across the southern steppes of Russia.

In his autobiography, The Unfading Light, he says, "Suddenly and joyfully in that evening hour my soul was stirred. O mountains of the Caucasus! I saw your ice sparkling from sea to sea, your snows reddening under the morning dawn, the peaks which pierced the sky, and my soul melted in ecstasy.... The first day of creation shone before my eyes. Everything was clear, everything was at peace and full of ringing joy. My heart was ready to break with bliss." He describes this was "my first encounter with Sophia-Wisdom." (The autobiography is not yet available in English, but quotes from it can be found in Christopher Bamford's forward to Bulgakov's Sophia, The Wisdom of God: An Outline of Sophiology .

He eventually rejected Marxism for the idealist philosophy of the famous poet of the divine feminine, Vladimir Soloviev. After he was ordained he was exiled from his homeland by the Communists and he spent many years as dean of the Orthodox seminary in Paris. He was well aware of the scientific developments of his day, had a special interest in cosmology and anthropology, and was on good terms with religious thinkers in the English-speaking world, including the United States. He died in 1944. He is considered by many to be the greatest Orthodox thinker of the 20th century.

His most famous and comprehensive work is his book on the nature of the church, The Bride of the Lamb. Because of his educational background in law and economics, he wrote in a heavy Germanic philosophical style-- and originally in Russian-- so his work is not easy reading. Only in the last few years has it been published in English.

He helped to recover the sapiential religious thought of the first thousand years of Christian history. It differs from the static, dualistic and rationalist worldview familiar to western Christians in that is sees the universe as one dynamic process, moving from creation to fulfillment. This includes our personal development and the persistence of our relationships. If he were writing today, Bulgakov would say something like: We have to see that there is a fourth stage to the evolutionary process, the final completion and fulfillment of all things.

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What Bulgakov has to say about the resurrection of the dead is found in the Section III, Eschatology, in his book on the church, The Bride of the Lamb. Eschaton means "last" or "end" or "final things."

He begins by noting that there are no defined dogmas concerning the eschaton, although four statements concerning the Last Things are familiar from the ancient creeds: "He will come again in glory... Of his kingdom there will be no end... We believe in the resurrection of the dead ... and life in the world to come."

Much of what Bulgakov has to say is commentary on the many scriptural passages which deal with these four articles of the creed. His first point is basic and he makes it strongly: the “end of the world” does not mean that the universe will be annulled but that it will be renewed: it will be transformed and transfigured. “It will be, but in a new way.” Our world and the world to come are one and the same world, but it will be in a different state. This, he insists, is what scripture means by a “new heaven and a new earth.”

Bulgakov notes that our language is “helpless in trying to describe the reality” of the New Creation. He nevertheless has a good bit to say about it, and much of it is commentary on various eschatological passages in the New Testament, especially in the Book of Revelations. Of these, Bulgakov says clearly, “the images of this symbolic language are not to be taken literally.”

The resurrection of the dead and the presence of Christ at the Second Coming are one identical thing; Bulgakov emphasizes that “All rise in Christ.” Just as our one human nature shared by multiple persons was assumed in the Incarnation, so it is resurrected in the Universal Resurrection. Here, once again however, Bulgakov acknowledges that we can’t get any “real ideas about all this on this side of death and resurrection.”

At the same time, he reminds us that the essence of the Christian faith is that the body will be restored and the person will be changed. This is “the hope” without which, as St Paul says, “our faith is in vain.” This means, says Bulgakov, that the risen body “will be proper to each person.” It’s our body. At the same time, he says, it will also be “the one universal corporality which is the entire natural world.”

His heavy language can get in the way, but what he's saying is that each of us will have the entire transfigured cosmos as our own risen body, and that it will be held in a way that it is personal and unique to each of us.

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Both Bulgakov and the Biogenetic Structuralists are speaking from within an non-static and non-dualistic context. And while the scientists are talking about one thing (a neurological understanding of consciousness) and the theologian about another (the "new way we will be" at the eschaton of the world), they both share the same insights within that evolutionary and post-rationalist perspective: that human beings are the universe become aware of itself and that each of us is a unique manifestation of it.

Bulgakov says, "The risen body will be the entire natural world, held in a way that it is proper to each person." The Biogenetic Structuralists say, "Personal consciousness is the external world uniquely cognized by each of us."

I find the convergence of these insights remarkable.

However, considering that we're just coming out of several centuries of rationalist positivism, it's understandable that even many New Cosmologists are somewhat reluctant to deal with the idea of a "fourth level of the evolutionary process." But if I'm understanding the neurological data correctly, as I mentioned in blog #8 about the functioning of the brain's neocortical lobes resulting in our need for endings as well as beginnings: "it would seem that our hope for a final outcome to the cosmic process is generated by the cosmic process itself."

And in that context, the promised resurrection of the dead doesn't seem so unreasonable.

sam@macspeno.com

#15. Re-view and Pre-view

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Biogenetic Structuralism's combination of biological evolution, cultural anthropology and neurophysiology makes for a heady mix. But I find it delightful. As I've said a number of times in these blog postings, I think I was born into it.

In any case, it's definitely not trivial. Thanks to the dynamic world view of modern science, especially to the data about the workings of the brain and nervous system coming from contemporary neurology, we can see ourselves differently now from how we have seen ourselves in past centuries.

But holding together the different perspectives of evolution, anthropology and neurology isn't easy. This seems a good point in these blog entries to review what I've had to say so far and to preview what I hope to be describing in the next few postings.

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In contrast to the old static worldview, the contemporary evolutionary perspective allows us to see that matter, life and mind are three distinct developmental stages in the cosmic process.

We can recognize that life is a more developed stage of the world than water, rocks and clouds. And we can see that mind (soul, human consciousness) is the epitome of the development of life: that humanity is the "terrestrial head," in Teilhard's words, of the entire cosmic process.

This is the context which we now have to understand ourselves. It allows for a deeper understanding both of humanity's relationship with the rest of the physical universe (the anthropos-cosmos relationship) and of humanity's relationship with the creative source behind the physical universe (the anthropos-theos relationship).

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In recent entries, I described my understanding of several major points with regard to the relationship of humanity and the material universe.

The first, which I spelled out in postings #11 and #12, is that we simply don't need any more to hold to that separation of mind and matter which results in religious and rationalist dualism. Thanks to modern science, we now can understand that the human spirit is free not because it is alienated from, but precisely because it is rooted in, the Earth.

A second major point with regard to the relationship of humanity and the rest of the universe, described in posts #13 and #14, is that we can better understand ourselves not as an entity or substance but as a dynamic process. We can see that each person is a dynamic process precisely because each of us is the dynamic universe, internalized ("cognized").

These are major aspects of what has come to be called the New Cosmology and they have profound implications for our self-understanding.

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One of the most fascinating findings the neurological perspectives uncover for us is that we each have our own inner world. It's something we experience all the time but rarely give any attention to. I plan to spell out some of the details of this understanding in the next blog entry and to follow it up with several postings dealing with its specific religious implications.

Two of those implications have to do with how we are related to the rest of the universe, with what I've called, above, the anthropos-cosmos relationship.

One is that each of us not only has our own inner world, we also make that inner world. We create ourselves.

The other is that, in creating ourselves, each of us is making a personal and unique contribution to the evolution of the universe.

It's my view that, of all the various aspects and implications of the modern scientific worldview, this idea-- that each of us has a personal contribution to make to the world's development-- will be the most significant in the long run. I think it will have the greatest impact on how we live our human lives in years to come because it's the opposite of meaninglessness and despair. To know that we have something to offer the world, to know in the innermost depths of our being that we count, we matter-- that our existence isn't meaningless-- is a tremendously empowering perspective.

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Two other significant implications of the insight that we each have our own inner world have to do more explicitly with the anthropos-theos relationship: they have to do with how humanity, as part of the created universe, is related to the creative source of the universe.

Western religion begins with the idea that we exist to "know, love and serve God." Modern science helps us to better understand how we do that. In an evolutionary context, we can see that we serve the Divine Mystery precisely by contributing our personal self to the cosmic process.

It's a challenging idea, to be sure. But the second explicitly religious implication of the fact that we each have our own inner world is even more challenging. It has to do with an ancient religious doctrine-- older than Christianity and Judaism but enshrined in the earliest Christian creeds still used by countless persons and groups today-- the doctrine of "the resurrection of the body."

I'm sure even the most good-willed readers of this blog will raise their eyebrows at that last statement. All I can say is that I'll spell out my thoughts as well as I can, and you can see what you think.

I started this blog to share with interested readers my thoughts about the convergence of science and religion. It doesn't seem surprising, to me at least, that if we have a new understanding of matter and life, thanks to the modern scientific worldview, then that understanding should have some impact on age-old religious teachings as well. So why not on a teaching that declares the physical body to be of great value to the universe?

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Besides religious ideas, the findings of modern science also offer new insights into religious practices: what nowadays is sometimes called "following a spiritual path." We can expect that the data of biological evolution, cultural anthropology and neurophysiology will also have an impact on how we are religious; that is, on how we live out our inner life as the cosmos become conscious of itself.

My discovery of the Biogenetic Structuralists' perspectives was personally so exciting precisely because these scientific researchers in the field of cultural anthropology were using insights from evolutionary biology and neurology to understand better global humanity's religious practices.

Just knowing, for example, that cultural anthropology can trace a contemporary spiritual practice back to our Paleolithic ancestors of 70,000 years ago, and that it makes sense in terms of what's going on in the brain today, can make those who were bought up in the rationalist worldview a bit less uncomfortable with the inclinations they may find in themselves to engage in religious activities.

Knowing that the religious impulse is in our genes makes it easier to move away from the rationalist prejudice that every kind of religious practice is simply superstition. Ironically, it's the prejudices of scientific rationalism which, thanks to contemporary science, can be recognized now as uninformed superstitious views.

As I said, the "combination of biological evolution, cultural anthropology and neurophysiology makes for a heady mix." What I find most delightful about it is that it brings together my life-long interests in biological evolution and religious ritual.

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From an evolutionary perspective, we are neurologically wired by the cosmic process itself to be conscious. Biogenetic Structuralism calls this the "cognitive imperative." We seek not only to know and understand the world, but also (as they put it) "to understand understanding."

Because their basic starting point is the human sciences, specifically Cultural Anthropology, the work of Biogenetic Structuralists also is open to the fact that consciousness operates primarily by way of story, myth and symbol. Much of this is spelled out in their second book, The Spectrum of Ritual: A Biogenetic Structural Analysis, by Eugene G. D'Aquili, Charles D. Laughlin, Jr. and John MacManus (Columbia University Press, 1979).

It was references to these ideas-- which I discovered in second generation researcher Andrew Newberg's book, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (Fortress Press, 1999)-- that originally opened the door to, and hooked me on, Biogenetic Structuralism.

It "hooked" me for two reasons. It's clear in this context that ritual activity is a primary means by which our most intimate personal development is nurtured. But beyond that, it's also clear that because we are the universe become conscious of itself, religious ritual is the primary means by which the cosmic process itself proceeds at the human level.

My two life-long interests come together in this radical convergence of science and religion, where sacred ritual is seen to be the very means by which we enter into and are empowered by the universe to participate in the dynamic process of cosmic evolution.

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So that's where I'm coming from in this blog adventure, and a preview of some of the thoughts I hope to be sharing in the next few postings.

Meanwhile.... The noosphere is a global reality. Thanks to the Internet, it's at our fingertips. Please don't be intimidated by the mechanics of sending suggestions, comments and questions about these blog postings. You don't need a Google account: just click on "Comments" at the bottom of this post, and when it opens click on "Other" to use your regular e-mail. Don't hesitate to share what you're thinking and feeling with other readers. Thanks!

sam@macspeno.com