The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth

Book Review: The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth by James Lovelock

(Bantam Books 1988, 1990)

This was a fascinating read by the main proponent of the Gaia Hypothesis. It was his second book about Gaia. Lovelock is a keen scientist and seems a sensible fellow. The details of what Lovelock calls ‘geophysiology’ are explored. The earth paired with life can be regarded as a self-regulating system and life as a self-organizing system. Life seems to regulate several cyclical chemical systems throughout land, ocean, and atmosphere. Lovelock is also an inventor and prides himself in being an independent scientist. One of his main ideas is that evolution is more closely coupled to the environment than previously acknowledged. In more recent times, biologists have verified this idea through acknowledgement of evolutionary mechanisms like “niche construction,” (organisms alter environment to increase survival chances) which may be as important to evolution as natural selection. Gaian science is a systems view, with the goal being to promote the overall health of the system, thus planetary medicine. Much of this book is about chemistry. He notes that intricate geophysiological regulation systems evolved without foresight or planning and followed the rules of natural selection.

Lovelock’s first inkling of Gaia theory was when working on instrumentation design for early NASA moon and proposed planetary missions. His background being in medicine and biology he was soon involved in the task of detecting life on other planets and proposed that the best way to do so was to analyze their atmospheres. Planets with life would have different atmospheres than planets without life due to the chemical cycles and metabolism between land, ocean, and atmosphere. Lovelock and his colleague’s conclusion that Mars was lifeless due to its atmospheric composition was not at first popular but turned out to be correct. In these analyses in the early 1960’s the atmosphere of Earth and the beginnings of determining how it developed was compared to that of Mars. The fact that life in its various forms developed and regulates our atmosphere through various chemical cycles led to the development of Gaia theory. Earth as alive was a component of ancient cosmology and earth as an organism also had scientific precedents such as those of geologist James Hutton and the Ukrainian scientists Korolenko and his cousin Vernadsky. Eduard Suess first coined the term “biosphere” in 1875 when studying the Alps. Lovelock asserts that geology and biology are so intertwined that they can hardly be studied separately. He uses the term “geophysiology” to study earth as a bio-system. Gaia theory is a theory of a living earth – but not in a comparable sense to a sentient earth in human terms.

He points out that the question: “What is life?” is not so easy to answer. An organism is a collection of living things, organs and tissues. Organs are composed of billions of cells. Our very cells are communities of microorganisms that once lived independently, their energy-transforming components as mitochondria in the case of animals and in the case of plants, mitochondria and chloroplasts.

“Life is social. It exists in communities and collectives.” Physics uses the term colligative to describe properties of collections. Properties like temperature and pressure are the colligative properties of collections of molecules rather than of a single molecule. The constant temperature of the human body, called homeostasis, is a colligative property. Can ecosystems and Gaia also have colligative properties, their own homeostasis? This seems likely. Lovelock notes that Gaia is not synonymous with biosphere. Biology and geology are intertwined. The biosphere is the place, or part of Earth where life typically exists. The properties of Gaia, like those of the human body, cannot be discerned through individual species or populations. The homeostasis of Gaia involves “temperature, oxidation state, acidity, and certain aspects of the rocks and waters are kept constant, and that homeostasis is maintained by active feedback processes operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota.”

The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics – the conservation of energy – is discussed in terms of entropy, negentropy, and the production and consumption aspects of life that transfer energy. Lovelock was influenced by Erwin Schrodinger’s What is Life? where he noted that life exists within boundaries yet transfers energy with environment beyond those boundaries. In a sort of hierarchy there are also the boundaries of earth (such as the atmosphere), the boundaries of ecosystems (forests, etc), of beings (skin, bark), and of cells (cell membranes). In response to critics from the climate and microbiology disciplines, Lovelock writes:

“Life has not adapted to an inert world determined by the dead hand of chemistry and physics. We live in a world that has been built by our ancestors, ancient and modern, which is continually maintained by all things alive today.”

Lovelock here mentions two criticisms of Gaia that he addresses. First is that it is teleological as Richard Dawkins and Ford Doolittle argued – earth does not really regulate life as it would have to do it consciously. Second is that biological regulation is only partial, as climate scientist Stephen Schneider argued. Lovelock notes that Gaia is a “tightly couple system of life and its environment…” He includes a whole chapter on his theoretical construct, called Daisyworld, an imaginary world where different colored daisies evolve as the only life on a planet and alter temperature by their color. He made this model to show that self-regulation could come about through simple evolution and energy transfer through feedback mechanisms without any pre-conscious intent. To me this suggests that he is saying that Gaia is alive but not conscious. Variables in the Daisyworld model are temperature, solar luminosity, diversity, and color of the daisies (to absorb or reflect sunlight in order to regulate climate). He compares his imaginary construct to mathematical ecology models. He notes the difference between his geophysiology and theoretical ecology is in the interpretation of perturbation:

“The geophysiologists see temperature, rainfall, the supply of nutrients, and so on as variables that might be perturbed. In their view the Gaian system evolved with its physical and chemical environment and is well able to resist changes of this kind. Forests of the humid tropics are normally well watered and shaded by their canopy of clouds; during their existence they are never subjected to prolonged drought as in a desert region. Theoretical ecologists, on the other hand, ignore the physical and chemical environment; to them the environment means the collection of species themselves and a niche is some piece of territory negotiated among the species, …”

This is important as geophysiology suggests that the natural link between ecosystem and environment is strong, such that if that ecosystem were replaced (say tropical rainforests cut down for agriculture) then such a perturbation would be more difficult to recover from than the natural climatic variations of the previous ecosystem through time. Homeostasis would be harder to achieve. This, he says, is in accord with the “punctuated evolution” ideas (rapid and abrupt periods of evolution) of Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge. Gaia theory simply notes that life and environment evolve together. Biologist Alfred Lotka noted that modeling a whole system would be simpler than modeling parts of it. It is apparently more functional to do so as parts of systems are more liable to exhibit chaotic, non-linear behavior and relationships, says Lovelock. He gives four points about the Gaian view: 1) Life is a planetary-scale phenomenon, immortal in this sense with no need to reproduce; 2) partial occupation of a planet is not possible to sustain life (naturally) as sufficient life is needed to regulate the environment; 3) Darwinian adaptation notions must be altered to include the environment, which is tightly coupled to life; 4) models of species and environment as a single system are mathematically stable and show that increased diversity leads to better regulation.

Next the Archean (4.5 bya to 2.5 bya) is explored. Life is thought to have begun on earth 3.6 billion years ago. He makes an interesting point about the ability of life to pass on information better than any other means, further and with less distortion.

“There is every reason to believe that we share with the first ancient bacteria a common chemistry, and that the natural restrictions on the existence of those ancient bacteria tells us what the environment of the early Earth was like. By transmitting coded messages in the genetic material of living cells, life acts as a repeater, with each generation restoring and renewing the message of the specifications of the chemistry of the early Earth.”

Of course, the message mutated through time. The Earth as a body likely came from an exploding star, a supernova. This likely happened around 4.55 bya as dated through the precision of radioactive decay.  Before life came about the planet was probably beset with violence in the form of multiple planetesimals and volcanic eruptions. Lovelock and his collaborators note that the atmosphere of a planet tells more about life than any other thing such as the rocks or the oceans. Certain components present together like methane and oxygen are related to life processes. The atmosphere has an immediate effect on the climate and chemical state of a planet. On earth the chemistry and climate were obviously favorable for the development of life. A cooler sun was offset by a thicker blanket of CO2. Lovelock does note that exact conditions in the Archean are unknown but much can be surmised about the atmosphere and its components. Much more frequent volcanic eruptions and reaction between ferrous iron from basaltic rock and water would make hydrogen gas. Hydrogen would have escaped from the atmosphere until biochemical reactions occurred with it in the ocean and later it reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere to form water. The dead bodies of the first microbes likely became food for the next ones as they were concentrated organic matter. It was also in the Archean that cyanobacteria, the primary producers, first learned to tap the sunlight for food by photosythesis. There were also methanogens, scavengers that rearranged the molecular products of the producers. In Lovelock’s scenario life came before Gaia. After microbes colonized most of the planet the regulatory processes affecting the entire biosphere could commence. Photosynthesizers used up CO2 but made oxygen which was immediately taken up by the oceanic oxidizers, sulfur and iron. The methanogens utilized organic material and made as waste products CO2 and methane but only in the absence of oxygen. Lovelock proposes that this may have produced a layer of methane smog very high in the atmosphere that had the same effect as the ozone layer does today – filtering ultraviolet light and stabilizing the stratosphere. He goes into much more detail about possible Archean atmospheric components but also cautions that his ideas here are quite speculative.  The end of the Archean about 2.3 bya is marked by a fall in temperature and a sharp rise in atmospheric oxygen and a disappearance of methane. Planetesimals may have killed off half of the life on earth many times during the Archean but in each case life recovered. He thinks the presence of life has led to Earth keeping the oceans. He talks about much more here: carbon burial, hydrogen sulfide, anoxic zones, anerobic organisms, denitrification, and free oxygen. He thinks the point where free oxygen became present in the air signaled the end of the Archean. Bacteria was the only life in those 2 billion years. It was both mobile and motile – a single organism throughout the world exchanging information “as messages encoded on low-molecular-weight chains of nucleic acids called plasmids.” This was the first known global communication network.

We now come to the Proterozoic period of the Precambrian era (2.5 bya to 570 mya). As in the Archean the earth was populated by the bacteria known as prokaryotes but in the now mildly oxidizing ocean emerged a new form of bacteria, the eukaryotes. “These are the ancestors of large communities of nucleated cells, like the trees and ourselves.” The boundary between the Archean and Proterozoic is not set in stone. Lovelock likes to see it as the point in time when dominance by electron donors like methane gave way to dominance by electron acceptors like oxygen – which made the overall environment predominantly oxidizing. Now, instead of an excess of methane there came to be an excess of oxygen in the air – the environment went from anoxic to oxic. The composition of the atmosphere changed. He speculates that a fall in the atmospheric concentration of methane may have led to a known period of major glaciation 2.3 bya. Free photosynthetically derived oxygen in the air may have caused hydroxyl radicals to oxidize atmospheric methane and new consumers may have fed on organic matter before it could reach the anoxic sediments, denying them of their fodder to make methane. These would be positive feedbacks for the development of an oxygenated atmosphere. Lovelock suggests that as oxygen was crucial to the geophysiological development of the atmosphere so was calcium crucial to the geophysiological development of the oceans. Oceanic limestone deposits are apparently an adaptive strategy to quarantine potentially toxic ionic Calcium. This was first done by bacteria in the building of stromatolites and is now remnant in bone and teeth. Biological calcium carbonate deposition may have powered the endogenic cycle – the slow cycling of elements from the ocean surface to the crustal rocks and back again. This may have even spurred plate tectonics from the basalt-eclogite phase transition near subducting plate margins. This is apparently a speculative idea not accepted by most geologists but if true it would be powerful evidence for regulatory activity by living things. Even today there is new research suggesting that life had regulating effects on atmospheric and chemicals cycles such as the following geology article that suggests burrowing animals stabilized oxygen and phosphorus. This is thought to have begun at the end of the Proterozoic – about 540 mya as burrowing animals evolved. They affected the rate of carbon burial and the amount of carbon buried affects oxygen production as Lovelock notes. This sounds a lot like one of Lovelock’s ideas:

http://www.geologypage.com/2014/08/burrowing-animals-may-have-been-key-to.html

Next he talks about salt regulation. It is interesting that the salinity of the blood of most living things is remarkably similar. Too much salt affects cell membranes. Most sea creatures have evolved internal salt regulating mechanisms. Next he talks about how vast limestone reefs serves to trap water in lagoons, water which eventually evaporates and deposits the salts. This is another way oceanic salinity is regulated. He notes that the evidence for this is strong. He does note that the links between biomineralization (like biological deposition of calcium carbonate), salt stress, and plate tectonics are tenuous – but he seems to favor the idea. The new Proterozoic eukaryotes were communities of cells that utilized the presence of oxygen. Cyanobacteria are ancestors of the chloroplasts of plants and trees. Chloroplasts occur in eukaryotes as part of the community within the membrane in what is called endosymbiosis. The need to transfer genetic information, easier in the single-celled prokaryotes, now required a new process – sex.  

Oxygen concentration affects growth of organisms  and growth of organisms affect oxygen concentration. Where the lines intersect is the point of regulation = ~21% atmospheric oxygen – which has apparently been remarkably consistent – the geology article above suggests that it was helped by burrowing animals at the end of the Proterozoic when oxygen levels were noted to have risen to this level.

He gives an interesting account of a place in southern Africa bout 1.8 bya where algal mats processed and concentrated uranium isotopes coming from deposits dissolved in a local stream – that served as a natural nuclear reactor! The uranium isotope, could only be soluble in the presence of sufficient oxygen which likely came about in that time period in that place.

We now come to the Phanerozoic which begins about 570 mya and goes to the present. Soft-bodied cell communities and skeletons came about just before this time. Reactions of free oxygen with other elements like carbon and sulfur would lead to acids in the air and increased weathering of crustal rocks, releasing more nutrients – another positive feedback , beneficial for life. Lovelock suggests that plants began to make lignin to detoxify oxygen by phenols reacting with it and locking it in – just as sea creatures made calcium carbonate to detoxify calcium. In both ways the poisons are captured and sequestered. In the case of calcium this made for vast cell communities – stromatolites, reefs. In the case of oxygen sequestering in these polymers, it allowed the development of plants and animals. Apparently, it has been shown that below 15% oxygen nothing could burn and above 25% oxygen it would burn everything – so about 21% is an interesting near-necessity for many forms of life. The presence of charcoal going back at least 200 mya shows that it was in this range. Fires themselves could theoretically also regulate oxygen by regulating carbon burial but there is apparently not enough charcoal in the rocks to account for this. He does speculate that it could have been regulated by more flammable trees with more complete combustion that don’t leave much charcoal

Next we come to the carbon cycle. Life certainly partially regulates carbon and carbon dioxide. It does this by speeding up the carbon cycle through increasing rates of rock weathering. Rocks are conveyed from plate margin subduction zones to mid-ocean ridges over millions of years in a continuous slow cycle. Life takes carbon dioxide from the air and brings it to the ground where it reacts with calcium silicate in rocks to form silicic acid and calcium carbonate which in turn are carried by streams back to the oceans to be used as shells then dropped on the sea floor to be subducted. Lovelock suggests that the most abundant vegetation occurs with the least atmospheric carbon dioxide - in periods of glaciation – which he suggests are the healthiest periods of Gaia. Some of these glacial periods have CO2 at the lowest level comfortable for plant life. In the Miocene, just 10 mya new plants developed that could tolerate lower CO2. These are called C4 plants and include some grasses. They tolerate the low CO2 periods of glaciation and are better prepared for the next glaciation. He thinks the glacial periods have the highest amount of life and the most efficient forms of life. The increasing heat of the sun and the effect of the Milankovitch cycles may trigger glaciation which he thinks is a regulating effect – the more normal earth-state with the inter-glacials like now being less healthy and abnormal. Lower sea level would mean more fertile ground exposed in the tropics to support tropical forests which would sequester more carbon and lower CO2. This is all speculative but very interesting.

Next he considers the sulfur cycle. Here Lovelock has done some key scientific work. Hydrogen sulfide was once thought to be emitted from the ocean in sufficient quantity to account for its uptake of sulfur among life but this is now known not to be the case. Lovelock invented a homemade gas chromatograph able to detect dimethyl sulfide and halocarbons (such as CFCs) in parts per trillion. This he took or sent on a few voyages across oceans to measure it. As an independent scientist he funded much of the research himself in the early 1970’s. The results of this research were published in the journal Nature. He found that halocarbons were persistent in the atmosphere. He also found that dimethyl sulfide and carbon disulfide were conspicuously present in the oceans. Dimethyl sulfide is emitted by algae as a result of their salt-regulating mechanism that involves betaines. The so-called smell of the sea is probably the smell of dimethyl sulfide. Lovelock’s Gaia theory suggested its abundance might account for sufficient atmospheric sulfur (as aerosols that eventually fall back to earth via air currents or rain) to account for the missing sulfur in the sulfur cycle and subsequent studies have proved this correct. He speculates on how this salt-regulating mechanism of algae came about through algae drying out, stranded on ebb tide beaches. Algae also release methyl iodide which carries iodine to the land which along with sulfur is essential for land life. The emission of sulfur by algae has also been proposed as an efficient climate regulating mechanism. Stratospheric sulfur gases from volcanoes are known to cool the climate as it forms sulfuric acid with water vapor around small particulate matter (also from volcanoes) that falls much slower. This cools the climate for a while until the aerosols drop. Some have suggested that the algae can emit dimethyl sulfide as a climate regulating mechanism but this is highly speculative. Apparently, it has been found that the sulfur chemicals related to salt regulation of algae are released eventually after their death and after it circulates  through the ocean – as dimethyl sulfide, particularly in the “desert” areas of the open ocean – and this makes the aerosols that react to make sulfuric acid nuclei to form clouds. This increases wind velocity which mixes the nutrient-depleted surface zones and the nutrient-rich deeper zones of the upper part of the ocean – so the algae benefit themselves. The rain also washes out nutrient-rich land dust out of the air. The clouds also filter ultraviolet radiation. The atmospheric oxidation product of dimethyl sulfide is methane sulfonic acid which has been found in ice cores to correlate to global temperature which suggests that cloud cover and low carbon dioxide acted in unison to cool the earth.

Next he seeks to look at the problems of Gaia from the perspective of a planetary doctor. Some of this material is just a bit outdated. He gives an account of global warming from a late 80’s perspective. He talks about acid rain and how the problem is with dosage as some is natural. It also depends on where it falls – if on already acid land it brings the pH too low. He notes that perturbations caused by humans can upset the Gaian regulatory systems. Acids and other components from nitrate fertilizers and raw sewage also affects ecosystems, oceans and forests. Then his discusses ozone and CFCs. As stated earlier he invented an extremely sensitive gas chromatograph to detect CFCs in parts per trillion. These had thinned the ozone layer. More problematic is that they are intensely potent greenhouse gases. Lovelock originally thought that CFCs were harmless – he calls it a great blunder. He got caught in the politics and notes that the dangers of ultraviolet radiation are variable and with CFCs as with many other things the dose makes the poison. It was once thought that unfiltered ultraviolet light was lethal but experiments have shown that life has ways of adapting. He also discusses nuclear radiation and ecology. He notes that oxygen kills us the same way as nuclear radiation does by metabolizing oxidizing free radicals. Thus, oxygen is a mutagen and a carcinogen that confers on us a lifespan and we fight the same battle as was fought by life at the end of the Archean when oxygen began to increase. We evolved antioxidants like vitamin E, and other chemical neutralizing mechanisms like superoxide dismutase, catalase, and others to mitigate problems related to oxygen toxicity. He does note that our vast population of humans has given us the potential to cause harm on a much greater scale than previously. If there were only a billion people instead of 7 billion there would be less global warming, less pollution, etc. He derides “bad farming” as one of the biggest threats to Gaia. By this he means such things as deforestation for agriculture, intensive monoculture, and extensive grazing that minimizes diversity and carbon sinks.

In one chapter he examines imaginary scenarios of making Mars habitable for life. This is all very speculative and he does think that Mars is probably too dry to support life even with magnificent engineering feats like making a greenhouse atmosphere by manufacturing CFCs and unlocking the ice deposits for water – though those ice deposits may be much less than thought. He suggests that the only way for it ever to happen is to make it habitable for life and have life do it through its regulatory mechanisms over millions of years. This is all so very unlikely that even reading about it is a bit over the top.

The last section is titled God and Gaia. Since he was often asked much about his religious beliefs he included this chapter. He states that he was raised among counrty folk, witches, and Quakers. Though he admires religious festivities he is no religionist but a scientist. He does see Gaia as both a religious and a scientific concept but not in terms of any prevailing dogma. I suppose he enshrines mystery a bit, maybe similar to how Einstein stated it. He sees himself as a positive agnostic. As a Gaian he does seem to like the idea of a nature goddess, perhaps like the Virgin Mary is venerated among rural Europeans. He invokes William James and declares the scientist as inquisitive natural philosopher as religion enough, without the dogma. I like such a view. Lovelock acknowledges that we are the polluters, we demand and consume the products and resources that pollute. He has been accused by environmentalists as pro-industry but he says he is not. He simply thinks that Gaia is more powerful than what we can do to her. In extreme circumstances we could destroy our species and many others but the Gaia will recover.

He compares ideas of a deterministic and mechanistic universe and those of a self-organizing universe. He clearly favors the latter:

“It is concerned with the thermodynamics of the unsteady state of which dissipative structures such as flames, whirlpools, and life itself are examples.”

He sees the debate as a continuation of older debates between reductionists and holists and notes that reductionism will not fade away as a superb method for understanding and working with the components of things but seeing holistically can also solve problems and lead to deeper perspectives. He sees science being unnecessarily polarized by these one or the other views. Reductionism is key to the scientific method and needs to be free of subjectivity, yet we tread into areas where it breaks down and holism offers better ways of knowing. Systems are more than the sum of their parts, he notes. He notes his awe at chaos and non-linear systems:

“In our guts and in those of other animals, the ancient world of the Archean lives on. In Gaia, also the ancient chaotic world of dissipating structures that preceded life still lives on. A recent and relatively unknown discovery of science is that the fluctuations at every scale from viscosity to weather can be chaotic. There is no complete determinism in the Universe;”

Apparently the study of the thermodynamics of the unsteady state suggests the presence of a self-organizing universe.

In the epilog he talks about his home with his wife and pets in the country between Kent and Cornwall, the changing of the local landscape to promote industrial farming and remove troublesome wild critters, and the accompanying habitat destruction.  It is the same in many places.

Lovelock thinks that if we see the world as a living organism which we are a part, then we will live in harmony better with it – rather than seeing ourselves as dominant over it or as a mere tenant of it.

  

The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God

Book Review: The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God by Rupert Sheldrake (Park Street Press 1991. 1994)

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake is a brilliant thinker and I think he is on to something important with his ideas of formative causation and morphic resonance. I find his scientific ideas quite fascinating. I definitely do not agree with his preference for religion over secularism but he does make some fair arguments. I argue much below against his case for preference of religion over secularism. In other matters, his comparison of ancient thought and modern science is rather fascinating as are his ideas about biology and the memory of nature.

Sheldrake notes this book as fulfilling a personal quest and emanated from many conversations at conferences and centers for human thought around the world. He notes being taught in academia that direct, intuitive knowledge of plants and animals is unscientific (though one can hardly deny that such knowledge leads to scientific discoveries). Much of this book argues that nature is alive and animated rather than mechanical, that it is more organic and intelligent than appears. Our lack of “belief” in a living nature is like a psychological split that threatens to harm us and the planet. Traditionally (pre-17^th century mechanistic science), nature is alive and feminine. He seems to see mechanistic science as a competing school of thought – another orthodoxy – similar to competing religious philosophies, but I think he takes this just a bit too far. My own take is that science (often in this so-called mechanistic form) is the best means we have of both understanding and agreeing on the structures and functions we encounter. Mechanistic science is successful because technology is successful. Thus it has weaved itself into the fabric of economic success as well as he says, as “a kind of religion.” But deterministic science is being refuted more and more, says Sheldrake, as ideas like Chaos Theory become more useful to biology.

The machine metaphor for nature has walked side by side with technology but the mother metaphor is quite intuitive and not easily forgotten. Sheldrake recounts the history of veneration of the Great Mother, from the Paleolithic/early Neolithic cities of abundance, and likely peace, to the development of the goddess of agriculture and the symbiosis with and eventual conquering by nomadic pastoralists with male sky gods = the feminist mythological model, many aspects of which can’t be denied.

Sheldrake seems to blame the Protestant Reformation as the source and main support of mechanistic science and the turning away from a feminine nature. He also sees the mechanistic scientific worldview as the source of atheism, which he seems to disdain. While I don’t appreciate atheism as a dogma I do like it as a saner counterbalance to the religious extremism that is so rampant these days. It is true, as Sheldrake notes, that it was the Reformation that further established the Father as supreme in its Christianity and promoted the suppression of the Cult of Mary as Mother of God, which protestants likened to paganism. This was the beginning, he says, of the desacralization of nature. He seems to despise secular humanism as the heir to the mechanistic science dogma. While I might agree that the humanistic part is often taken too far, the secularism has done much for us to promote freedom of belief and to ward off dominance by irrational religious thought. He does not acknowledge this. While the Reformation may well have enabled an increase in dominion over nature as a worldview I would call it lucky that it later inadvertently led the greater acceptability of atheism as a worldview. If science had to be accompanied by some spiritual belief I think this would be problematic.

Sheldrake does recount the desacralization of nature beginning with the Hebrew suppression of local agricultural goddess cults by the pastoralist Yahweh cult. The whole triumph of patriarchal monotheism over pre-existing polytheistic cults can be seen in a similar manner. Sheldrake’s argument is that there was enough of polytheism and the cult of the Great Mother preserved within Christianity to be functional – many of us would disagree. He does note that the Protestants likened the sub-cults of Catholicism to idolatry but he also sees secular humanism as the ultimate desacralization of nature where any belief in the supernatural is likened to a form of idolatry. Personally, I would rather have secular humanism (in a non-dogmatic form) be the standard against which beliefs are measured than to have some dogmatic religion as that standard. Sheldrake likens the conquest of nature to a takeover by a “scientific priesthood.” While this is true to some extent, is it not better than having religious bullies running things? He does note that it was not only Judeo-Christianity that championed the conquest of nature, as many culturizing hero myths of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Rome, and other cultures were also celebrated. He sees the metaphor of Faust – first written about in 1587 – as indicative of the bargain made by conquering nature and accepting technology. This is apparent in Goethe’s Faust, written in 1808. Along with Goethe’s Faust, there is also Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus, as a metaphorical story where quest for power (over nature) becomes all-consuming and megalomania ensues. Sheldrake marks Francis Bacon as perhaps the greatest proponent of the conquest of nature by humans and as the originator of the scientific priesthood. Bacon was a lawyer, brilliant at logical argument. He distinguished “natural knowledge” from “moral knowledge.” Basically, he was able to divorce science and religion to some extent, and distinguish facts from values – for which I am grateful but apparently Sheldrake is not. I think it is a bit unfair of Sheldrake to consider Bacon as an originator of humans’ destruction of nature by making these distinctions. Simply trying to understand nature without religious dogma is not akin to announcing our right to destroy the world. It is true that Bacon re-interpreted some of the myths of the past to coincide with the rationalistic quest for knowledge and technology and his utopian tome, New Atlantis, depicted a group of scientists making key decisions for humanity – I would prefer it over superstitious religious dogmatists. But Sheldrake is correct to point out that the scientists have their own dogma. I just think it is more open and flexible than the religious sort. Sheldrake depicts Bacon as some sort of power-hungry demon, operating in the secretive Royal Society of London to plot a power grab. This may have been true but the secrecy was necessary to prevent the vengeance of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant.  He argues well that the philosophy of nature before the advent of mechanistic science was animistic and that the existence of souls gave way to notions of a mechanical universe. Man as microcosm to nature as macrocosm was de-emphasized. I agree that such ideas as this as well as animism in general are intuitive and need not be rejected. The problem is that the animism is often animated with “particular” dogmas so that one belief system becomes dominant. In the case of Christianity there is a long tradition of intolerance to other belief systems to the point of violent suppression. While Sheldrake might point out remnants of pagan beliefs that became incorporated into Christianity in various ways, other pagan beliefs were extinguished by torture and death.

Sheldrake goes on to depict the mechanization and objectivity of science, through the likes of Copernicus, Newton, and Descartes, as somehow unnatural. While I am no advocate of Cartesian science I think Sheldrake’s depiction of these fellows as selfish and power-hungry serves to demonize them to prove his own point. The depersonalization of science he rails against is arguably a good thing and may well have led to great discoveries. Of course, science should not function without some form of ethics but those ethics need not be in terms of religious dogmatism. Success is the proof of mechanistic science as a method. Sheldrake seems to confuse the method as inimical to moral philosophy when it is merely independent of it as a method, not as a competing philosophy. He is right that such methods are a “partial way of knowing.” He sees the conquering and suppression of native peoples of the American West, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as consequences of the worldview where the conquest of nature is paramount. He calls it a “mentality of domination” that developed from the worship of technological progress through mechanistic science. While that may have been true in the past, there is no necessary division of science and ethics in today’s world. It does occur of course, but secular scientists are no less ethical than religious ones.

There is discussion of how nature and wilderness have been depicted and seen through time up to the conflict that developed between economic development and conservation that began in earnest in the 19^th century. Sheldrake sees in the conservationists and the American Transcendentalists, the poet in the scientist. Nature was found to inspire with wonder rather than simply be a domain to be dissected. He explores “the hidden goddesses of Darwinism” in the form of the fortune, fate, and chance of evolution. I do agree with Sheldrake that strictly objective mechanistic science is missing a key component – the subjective, emotional, and probabilistic aspects.

He notes that with mechanistic science, an animistic and active nature became inanimate and passive. He also notes that science would come to re-animate things beginning with Newton’s study of gravitational attraction. Earlier notions held that nature was animated by the world soul, anima mundi. Newton could calculate gravity but still believed in the anima mundi to explain it. His belief was that spirit moved matter according to mathematical laws and ultimately according to God’s will. Mechanists (such as Voltaire) did not like Newton’s use of the word “attraction” to describe gravity as it implied the animism that was ousted. Later, Einstein’s theories would show that the gravitational field is space-time itself. Here Sheldrake gives an interesting section comparing “souls” and “fields.” Ancient philosophers like Thales considered magnets to be operated/animated by souls. In the 19^th century electromagnetic and related gravitational fields came about and in the next century various quantum fields. In 1600, William Gilbert, the father of modern magnetism, proclaimed that the earth itself was a large magnet. Descartes and others sought to discredit this animistic explanation by proposing a new subtle form of matter called effluvia that conveyed magnetic attraction and repulsion. Maxwell also considered Faraday’s explanation of the electromagnetic field to be propagated in an “ether” but no such mediums were found, only the fields themselves, explained mathematically, and later harnessed. Faraday saw fields as patterns of forces. Einstein concluded that the electromagnetic field is a state, not of matter, but of space. Quantum particles are defined as patterns of vibration in their field, ie. a proton vibrates in a proton-antiproton field and an electron vibrates in an electron-positron field. Atoms were found to be not things but “structures of activity.” Fields have become the basis of physical reality. The concept of energy was adopted in physics in the 19^th century and the laws of thermodynamics are rather fundamental. Einstein showed that matter itself is at its root a form of energy so that now we could say that all reality as we know it is composed of fields and energy. In the 20^th century, along with quantum mechanics and relativity, we discovered the science of chaos, that many physical systems and processes are indeterminate, non-linear, unpredictable, and chaotic. This, along with the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics set back the determinism of mechanistic science and possibly as Sheldrake thinks, provided “the matrix for evolutionary creativity.” He also notes that “attractors” in chaos science imply internal goals or teleological purposive behavior (however crude) even if towards a goal that is “chaotic.”

Sheldrake also notes – the mystery of dark matter, which he likens to the vast unconscious of the universe:

“The magnitude of this mystery is staggering. The great majority of the matter in the universe is utterly unknown, except through its gravitational effects.”

Fields have subsumed souls as the self-organizing mechanism of the universe. Purposes are modeled in terms of attractors. Thus, he says, animism is returning to our conceptions of nature in newer and better ways.

Next he considers three theories of life and nature: vitalism, mechanistic theory, and holistic theory. Vitalism considers life to be animated with a life force as many ancient peoples believed. Mechanistic theory considers organisms to be inanimate matter governed by the laws of nature - there are no laws of nature specific to life and no purpose of life. Here he quotes Richard Dawkins who calls organisms “throwaway survival machines” made by the selfish genes so they can survive within them. Sheldrake sees the selfish gene idea as an extreme of anthropomorphism. While I am not a big Dawkins fan I do think his style of extreme atheistic science is a better standard to measure against than religious extremism as in general it is less extreme and more based in science. Holistic theory, or systems theory, or organismic theory, treats all nature as alive. It goes further than vitalism to attribute all of nature to a single system and to systems within that system. It is an upgraded animism.

Now come the more interesting parts of the book. The mystery of development and regeneration is examined. Mechanistic biology has been most successful at explaining the physiology of adult organisms. Adult organisms may be structured like and function like machines but development and regeneration are purposive processes, presumably evolving and shaped by natural selection, that are not machine-like. The growth and development of organisms is called morphogenesis. Genetic programs can be described as “inherited, purposive, holistic organizing principles” and in that sense resemble vitalism (as vital organizing factors) which has been discredited among mechanistic biologists. There is still much unknown about how organisms develop and regenerate. In the 1920’s “a number of biologists independently proposed a new way of thinking about biological morphogenesis: the concept of embryonic, developmental, or morphogenetic fields.” They were thought to exist in nested hierarchies, ie. organ fields, tissue fields, cell fields. Their purposes could be modeled in terms of chaotic attractors. When an organism develops, the attractors representing the initial forms change to the attractors representing the final forms.

Now we come to Sheldrake’s Formative Causation theory which suggests that morphogenetic fields develop from a kind of collective habit-memory of previous versions of the same form. He developed this theory in his two books of the 1980’s – A New Science of Life and The Presence of the Past:

“… self-organizing systems at all levels of complexity – including molecules, crystals, cells, tissues, organisms, and societies of organisms – are organized by “morphic fields.

Morphogenetic fields are just one type of morphic field, those concerned with the development and maintenance of the bodies of organisms. Past forms influence present forms through a process he calls morphic resonance. There is transfer of information but no transfer of energy. This idea remains controversial in biology. His work with the crystals of newly synthesized organic chemicals offers scientific support of this hypothesis. Thus novelty affects probability of recurrence. In Sheldrake’s biology, organisms inherit not only genes but also morphic fields. Morphic fields are inherited non-materially, through all members of the species rather than only through direct ancestors. If this is true, then it strengthens our relatedness to one another. Instinctual behavior can be explained by morphic resonance:

“Instincts are the behavioral habits of the species and depend on a collective unconscious memory. Through the morphic fields, patterns of behavior are drawn toward ends or goals provided by the attractors.”

Learning from experience implies memory and even simple organisms do it. The mystery of memory can also be explained by morphic resonance. Neurobiologists have yet to find “memory traces” and one researcher noted that memory seems to exist “both everywhere and nowhere in particular.” According to Sheldrake’s theory, even the current “self” is subject to morphic resonance with the recent past self as well as with the distance past self (with less potency). Damage to the brain that can sometimes remove memories may simply be damage that can impair one’s ability to “tune-in” to the past forms. In comparing to Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious as an inherited collective memory he notes that:

“The hypothesis of morphic resonance enables the collective unconscious to be seen not just as a human phenomenon but as an aspect of a far more general process by which habits are inherited throughout nature.”

The mystery of social organization of eusocial species and superorganisms can also be explained by morphic resonance. These organisms develop holistic goals that often supersede individual goals. The synchronization and coordination of schools of fish and flocks of birds could also be explained. Human social habits and tribal customs might also be explained. In closing the chapter he notes that holists, or organicists, have transcended the vitalist-mechanist controversy by stressing the holistic nature of organisms. Proposing new causal mechanisms such as organizing fields, though often rejected by mechanists, may be a way of demystifying the souls concept of vitalists while also mystifying the field concept. Sheldrake sees laws of nature as habits maintained by morphic resonance.

Sheldrake asks whether the laws of nature are also evolving, changing through time, rather than eternal, as mechanists insist. He explores the paradigms of eternity and evolution and their interplay – that everything is governed by eternal laws and yet changes. In an evolutionary universe, God too would have to be evolving, he says. His hypothesis of formative causation simply says that the more something happens, the more it is likely to happen again. This is in line with Eastern notions of habit-energy and karma, though he does not mention it. The present rides in the grooves of the past and the future in the grooves of the present. He offers three ideas of the regularity of nature: eternal, unchanging laws, new laws coming into being as nature evolves and becoming universal, and nature as always evolving as the laws are actually habits built up through time.

In exploring evolutionary physics Sheldrake notes that notions of a primal unified field at the beginnings of the universe are very similar to Platonic conceptions of a world soul that is the source of all other souls. He examines and compares the weak anthropic principle and the strong anthropic principle of cosmologists. The question is whether the universe is purposive, and if so, how purposive. Sheldrake seems to prefer the strong version and beyond, which assert strong purpose and propose design and a creator. Such ideas are, of course, controversial among scientists, and many a religious fanatic would be at the ready to tell you how God did it all according to literal dogmas. A less dogmatic form of God is one possible answer among many possible answers.

Survival requires being in harmony with environment. Such survival takes advantage of nature’s habits and increases survivability even further. Thus, he says, natural selection is due not only to genes but also due to morphic resonance of successful memory-habit-patterns being passed to offspring and fellow species members. Instincts, memories, and growth and development show the influence of habits, possibly inherited. Embryos show evidence of ancestral species through their development – they mimic previous forms (tails, gills, etc) until they grow and transcend into adults. Most new mutations are recessive – the habitual or “wild” type is dominant to the new mutant form. When they become more common through natural selection they become dominant, possibly by becoming more habitually present. Sheldrake gives several examples where morphic resonance working with genetic variation can help explain evolution. He notes that Darwin thought that the spread of new habits could become hereditary but this has been rejected by mechanistic neo-Darwinists. In more recent times the acknowledgement of epigenetic phenomena suggests that Darwin was correct. Sheldrake suggests that such new habits can be passed on through morphic resonance. I am not sure how this pairs with development in genetics of the last 20 years such as niche construction and epigenetics. It may be that morphic resonance is a precursor to epigenetics (where flexible genes can be activated and deactivated according to environmental pressures) which is a precursor to genetic adaptation.  

Next we come to re-emergence of the idea of a living earth. James Lovelock’s and Lynn Margulis’s Gaia Theory is the main manifestation where the earth is seen as a self-organizing and self-regulation system or series of systems. Their evidence involves various atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial chemical cycles tied to biological organisms. Sheldrake sees this as a new animism though Lovelock and especially Margulis may have favored a more metaphorical version. The Gaian view is a systems/holistic/organismic view. He puts forth weak and strong forms of the Gaia hypothesis similar to the anthropic principle. Like Gilbert, Sheldrake seems to see the gravitational and magnetic fields of the earth as a kind of world soul. Morphogenetically, he compares the poles of the earth to the poles of plant seeds (root and shoot) and animal eggs. Interestingly, he asks if the evolution of Gaia is moving toward an attractor and what part humanity plays toward this end. He speaks of the morphic field of Gaia indicated by regulatory processes. It is interesting but quite vague.

Next he examines special times and places, particularly where sacred and mindful activity occurs. Seasonal festivals and places of awe and ceremony tie us to the cycles of nature. He examines the rituals of society in terms of morphic resonance. Many of these are re-enactments that try to preserve the elements of the original rites or myths as much as possible – to conform to the original format. One can see this fitting as a kind of morphic (form) resonance. The past becomes the present and one enters mythic time, creation time or dreamtime. He mentions the differing qualities of time and the German concept of the “spirit of the time”, or zeitgeist. Next is the spirits of places. The spirit of place, aka genius loci, refers to the psychological feeling of a place that people often agree about. One idea, first put forth by T.C. Lethbridge, is that nature spirits are kinds of fields about places, perhaps morphic fields, says Sheldrake. The very word “field” refers to a chunk of land, a place. This is all a bit vague and speculative but interesting. Psychics and psychometrists like to think they can tap into the memory-fields of places. Venerating sacred places, living in harmony with places according to principles (ie. geomancy, feng shui, etc), and the practice of pilgrimage are other ways we tap into the power of place. Pilgrimage involved mindful or sacred intention, while tourism is much more casual.

Ecological movements have influenced various religious traditions to reassess their policies and beliefs about our relationship with nature to some extent. He notes that James Frazer and other anthropologists showed that Judaism and Christianity are very similar to other ancient pagan and tribal traditions in their beliefs in animism and magic. The anthropologists pointed out that they are equally superstitious, rather than one being more sophisticated than another. They all arose from previous shamanism and can be interpreted somewhat on the basis of shamanism. But he does not seem to be at all put off by the insistence some religions claim, of superiority over others and seek to discredit and denounce them as immoral devils. In other words, he does not address the inherent intolerance but simply praises the shamanic roots of the Judeo-Christian traditions. The Virgin Mary is seen as Queen of the Forest in South American ayahuasca cults. Other hallucinogenic plant cults such as the Native American Church are imbued with Christian elements. Thus, there is syncretism of Christianity with animistic beliefs. The Virgin of Guadalupe is modeled after the Aztec mother goddess, Tonantzin. The Cult of Mary was rooted out by Protestantism as a form of idolatry but is being restored somewhat, as in the Anglican Church, which I think is Sheldrake’s particular practice.

He notes that according to formative causation each new pattern of organization in nature develops a new kind of morphic field based on previous ones and since the evolutionary process happens through time it is cumulative. This is due to the habit-memory of nature. He gives three theories of how creativity works: the mother principle – from within (immanence), the father principle – from without (transcendence), and the interplay of the two. He suggests that

“… a view of nature without God must include a creative unitary principle that includes the entire cosmos and unites the polarities and dualities found throughout the natural realm. But this is not far removed from a view of nature with God.”

I am not sure I like that statement as it makes assumptions and has the intention of defining God as a unitary principle, possibly to seem in accord with religious dogma. He goes on to explore religious creative trinities such as the Tao (yin and yang within the circle), Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, and the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He discusses panentheism where God is both immanent in nature and transcendent above it. He notes that:

“New forms of theology have recently been developing in an attempt to conceive of the God of a living, evolutionary cosmos.”

This is a radical break with tradition and a good one for religionists as long as they don’t practice the intolerance that many do. Sheldrake makes the assumption that we need to make a choice as to our beliefs about the nature of reality. I disagree. We can suspend judgment about such things. It is the making of such choices and especially adhering to them against the choices of others that causes much of the problems in the world. We can simply be kind to one another, learn what we can, and try to keep an open mind about mysteries rather than adhering to beliefs. We need not make a choice.

Sheldrake and others have put forth the argument that humanism, or more specifically anthropocentrism, and its offspring, mechanistic science, have separated us from nature. He advocates a shift from humanism to animism, or one might call it ecocentrism. Ecosystem needs are becoming more important and rivaling human needs in the green movements. He mentions a spirit of repentance developing for the way we, as anthropocentrists, have been treating the environment, so that people are making effort to change the way we are living to be in better harmony with the environment. He compares the prospects of eco-catastrophe with Christian apocalypse, as many have, but I think trying to fit real events to prophecies can be problematic as it reinforces dogmatic beliefs. Do we need a collective spirit of repentance, as he says, or do we just need to work harder and make more effort to be “green”? Oddly, many Christians use the bible and their religion as means to avoid environmental responsibility, using such absurd arguments like – ‘God takes care of the climate so humans can’t really affect it.’ The attitude Sheldrake advocates would be a welcomed change. Sheldrake mentions overly pessimistic environmentalists and their gloom (he quotes Bill McKibben) as disempowering. I tend to agree as they tend to place blame on everyone but themselves, the ultra-radicals. Nothing else is good enough and this often backfires as their greener-than-thou-ism sparks resentment. We are all to blame, not just a few of us.

Finally, he discusses mystical experience, particularly nature experiences. He notes that awe-inspiring childhood memories are often of this sort and that mystical experience is perhaps more common than realized. We may remember having periods of an intuitive connection with nature, particularly as children, he notes. E.O. Wilson has noted that often scientific innovation is rooted in childhood experience and Sheldrake notes that he has interviewed some of his science friends and noted that childhood experiences have often influenced their choices of scientific specialty, himself included.

This is a very good and fascinating book, an important book, even though I don’t agree with parts of it. I look forward to reading more of Sheldrake’s work.

Tales of Uncle Tompa: The Legendary Rascal of Tibet

Book Review: Tales of Uncle Tompa: The Legendary Rascal of Tibet  - compiled and translated by Rinjing Dorje (Stanton Hill Arts 1997)

Here is a selection of tales involving this rather odd trickster character. He uses trickery to get vengeance, make money, and get sex. Some of the tales are hilarious. Others are oddly silly. Uncle Tompa does not usually represent the typical Buddhist ideals of Tibet, but perhaps a more fundamental human folk hero ideal. Sometimes he is on the side of justice but at other times he is on the side of his own selfish nature. Sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses but he is always the prankster!

Apparantly, Uncle Tompa’s exploits were/are often the subjects of Tibetan bards and storytellers. These stories are part of an oral tradition. Amidst long cold winters and isolation, many villages were visited by these travelling bards, called Lama Mani. Some think Agu Tompa (Uncle Tompa) was an actual character who lived in Central and Southern Tibet in the 13^th century while others see him as purely legend. Some even consider him as an incarnation of Chenrezik, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Even though he seems a simpleton his cleverness often saves the day. Many of these tales can be interpreted as simple comic relief. Sexual themes and politically incorrect behavior are common in the stories.

Uncle Tompa proves the bane of the miserly, the rich, and the gullible. Some of his stories resemble those of the “mad” yogi, Drukpa Kunleg, who travelled around Bhutan and parts of Tibet in the 1500’s, though Drukpa Kunleg was a deeply practiced Buddhist yogi whose stories offer profound teachings. But he also indulged in sex, drink, and much unconventional and ribald behavior. Uncle Tompa, on the other hand, wiled his way into food, drink, sex, and leisure. He is a hero to the common man.

Some of his trickery revolves around language and double meanings. In that sense, the stories can be compared to those of the Mulla Nasruddhin and Native American Coyote.

Uncle Tompa was said to be a former monk, and so was literate, which gives him a certain advantage in a nomadic culture where literacy was not common.

In one story he tells a tale to wile momos (dumplings) from his master. There is a hilarious one about Uncle whose name was “penis” to some and “vagina” to others.

The tale where he sells penises at the nunnery speaks of hypocrisy, the just-as-real human urges of monastic people, and more hilarity. But beware the magic penis, as it will find a hole, and if that’s the only one you got, well too bad!

Uncle Tompa appears in a stint disguised as a nun in a nunnery, making nuns pregnant! In another he becomes a transvestite using a sheep’s lung as a fake, but apparently functional, vagina – so that he acquires jewelry from a rich man.

Uncle Tompa’s victims often do not fare too well. He is rather a lecherous and greedy scoundrel using his wile and charlatanry to satisfy his needs. Quite a con man is he.

The story of the “miracle shit” was hilarious.  A king was punishing him by confining him to the roof without clothes. He took a shit and gradually covered it over with lime that he found so that it froze. Then he carved mysterious writing into it and dropped it through the roof hole onto the king’s lap as the king was meditating. The king was baffled and recalled Uncle Tompa from the roof to interpret the writing. He noted that it was special lucky shit from heavenly realms and convinced the king to eat a piece for blessings!

Other accomplishments of Uncle Tompa include making a king bark like a dog at New Year – apparently an inauspicious act in Tibet and gaining control of the promiscuity of his promiscuous second wife through trickery. He manages to talk his way in and out of various predicaments with his cunning lies.

In a more heroic manner, Uncle Tompa manages to trick a stingy king into giving a large three-day feast to all his subjects – by making up a story about a Naga queen living in a well who offers jewels.

Three other stories are also given that do not involve Uncle Tompa. One is about a village fool and another about rather naïve nomads. The last story is one about Kyakug, or “Dumbshit,” a rather gullible fellow.

I suspect this small book is just a sampling of the tales of Uncle Tompa and other Tibetan folk tales. Perhaps other collections will preserve more of the oral tales as old Tibetan culture gives way to Chinese and Tibetan-in-exile cultures. Uncle Tompa sure was a peculiar character willing to do bizarre things to make ends meet or to get laid. One can only imagine what he would do for Klondike bar!

Dawn of the Akashic Age: New Consciousness, Quantum Resonance, and the Future of the World

Book Review: Dawn of the Akashic Age: New Consciousness, Quantum Resonance, and the Future of the World  - by Ervin Laszlo and Kingsley L. Dennis (Inner Traditions – Kindle Edition 2013)

This book was good but also redundant in some ways. There are some good insights within. I enjoyed Laszlo’s Science and the Akashic Field but this book was far less about science and more about politics, sociology, and the future, with somewhat of a New Age-style emphasis. Much of the terrain has been covered previously in other places, it seems. It also seems everyone wants to define the age and predict the future. That is fine but there is much variation. I am in basic agreement to most of their suggestions of what we should begin to do as a species but who knows if and when the needed positive changes will occur.

Akasha, or space, is the fifth element in the Vedic/Indian system of thought. It is said to be more fundamental and all-pervading, pervading all the other elements. Possible synonyms are cosmic matrix, nu-ether, Unified Field, and physical space-time continuum. This idea of the ‘Akashic Field’ emphasizes the interconnectivity of all matter and life. This book is a speculative exploration of the fall of old systems of thought and action and the arising of new ones. The hope is for a “sustainable global civilization” to come about.

It begins with an examination of the evolutionary history of humans. One turning point was our control of fire. This allowed us to be protected from large predators and to extend the “shelf-life” of meat foods. Later domestication of plants and animals allowed us to live settled lives and for population to increase. But like the story of Prometheus, the authors ask whether we have really mastered fire. The Industrial Revolution and cheap fossil fuel energy allowed exponential population increase. Nuclear energy can destroy much of us if we are not careful and fossil fuel energy may be slowly destroying the livability of the planet.

The authors state that understanding the nature of humans and the nature of societies can predict the future and make things better, so biological evolution and sociocultural evolution are examined. Dawkin’s “selfish gene” idea and E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology (whereby individuals seek to maximize their evolutionary “inclusive fitness”) are examined. Thus, our lives are influenced by the interplay of individual fitness and group fitness. Genetically designing optimum humans on this basis would not be possible for several reasons. We could mutate naturally but trying to create that mutation through actual selecting could be dangerous if not impossible. We do not know if any accidental biological mutation would be beneficial or detrimental. But we can attempt to form a “socially, culturally, and civilizationally new human.” These are nice thoughts but it is all very vague.

Deterministic and probabilistic models of predicting our future are considered and they think we are entering an Integral Age they refer to as the Akashic Age, where different scales of society, such as the local, regional, and global, become more integrated. They compare this to a systems view and to nonlocality, presumably to the concept as used in quantum physics but they are not very clear about this. Systems sciences are more probabilistic than deterministic, more chaotic and non-linear than linear. They mention the six stages of human development according to cultural historian William Irwin Thompson:

1. Homonization: 4,000,000 – 200,000 BCE
2. Symbolization: 200,000 – 10,000 BCE
3. Agriculturization: 10,000 – 3500 BCE
4. Civilization: 3500 BCE- 1500 CE
5. Industrialization: 1500 CE – 1945 CE
6. Planetization: 1945 CE – present

We now have planet-wide interconnected networks of several types: energy, communication, transportation, etc. Cheap energy drives economic growth but there is a limit to both that we may see soon enough. The authors see new “bifurcations” coming. These are changes due to shocks on systems that are fast becoming obsolete. One interesting thing they mention is a change from notional wealth (paper wealth) to real wealth (knowledge and people skills). Another prediction, shared by Jeremy Rifkin and many others, is a shift from top-down (vertical) hierarchical models to collaborative (horizontal) social models that are democratic and participatory. A shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy is another rather obvious necessity. Fossil energy is finite and even renewables have limitations due to needed components. Infinite economic growth and ever-expanding population are simply not possible. The end of growth economies is probably near so different approaches are going to be required. Society may become fragmented, or show some collapse features. Two things are needed, say the authors: collapse preparedness and new technologies. Resource depletion will grow as a problem as the more energy-dense fossil fuels become more rare and expensive. Energy is likely to adopt more local and distributed forms as we seek to reduce transport infrastructure waste and inefficiencies. Abundant fossil fuels allowed a situation where a small percentage of people could produce food for all. The authors suggest that this may be changing and more people will be required in agriculture in the future. They also note that the Arab Spring was also caused by escalating food costs and that will be a recurring issue in the future. Water access is another issue but I believe the problems will be confined to areas with scarce water supplies. Urban water needs will increase. Desalination will increase, but it is energy intensive. Declining supplies of metals, particularly the rare earth elements, will be issues in the future. The authors see financial crises and austerity measures becoming more common as growth economies implode.

They think the processes begun in the 2008 economic downturn will continue to get worse around the world, although things seem to have stabilized momentarily. They think a radical overhaul of the world economic system is needed and is immanent. Urban population continues to rise. Refugees continue to rise due to conflicts, currently mostly in the Middle East. Larger urban populations are also more susceptible to economically damaging natural disasters. The authors suggest that with coming disruptions immanent there are covert actions currently being taken by various governments to secure things like food, energy, water, and land. Geopolitical relationships will shift, they say.

The authors suggest a shift from materialistic, individualistic, short-sighted values and beliefs to more communal, conservationist, and sustainable values and beliefs. The reality of resource limitation needs to be dealt with. The unfairness of the competitive fitness notions of Social Darwinism should be limited. Social and economic justice should be available to all. Income disparity is imbalanced and unsustainable. Free Market dynamics and ideologies cannot solve all problems, we should realize. They say that:

“Market fundamentalism is a lethal cultural belief.”

While free markets do stimulate economic activity and innovation they also have led to economic disparity and unfair advantage and disadvantage for different peoples. Consumerism is also becoming obsolete as people come to realize that happiness is not composed of possessions and those possessions create much unnecessary waste and pollution. Another dying paradigm suggested is that of Militarism, or peace though war.

There is a chapter about Quantum Resonance that puts forth a new physics paradigm whereby space, as the akashic field, is seen as more real than what is in it or passes through it. The analogy given is that the sea is real but the waves are less so – just passing through. Waves travel across the sea but the water does not so the motion of waves is an illusion, not what it appears to be. Similarly, all things are part of the matrix of space. Thus, all things are inseparable from the matrix of space and their separation is an illusion. This akashic paradigm sees the world as a whole. It is a holistic view whereby all things are connected and related into a coherent whole. Quantum nonlocality strongly suggests this coherence, which can be seen as a fine-tuning. The authors think that recognizing our inseparability and coherence is paramount to our solving of world problems:

“Incoherence in a system is unsustainable. It is at the root of the unsustainability of the human world in our time.”

Maintaining such coherence on the human level, where it often becomes temporarily unbalanced, calls for widespread cooperation and collaboration. Systems that are coordinated and finely tuned, ie. coherent, are the most successful. The authors argue that the idea of coherence is fundamental to systems. It can be argued quite convincingly through systems theory that we are not merely individuals. We are also one with our species, the biosphere, and the cosmos.

The authors think that of necessity the future will become more local. Local collectives and co-operatives centered around basic resources like food and energy will become the norm. Local self-dependency will become more important. Greater connectivity is predicted and the need to collaborate will trump the need to compete. A more participatory consciousness due to our online social connectivity will lead to more egalitarian and less centralized social structures. Modern social media is decentralized. They predict empathy as a future core value of social life that is now emerging. Sharing of online content is vast and intricate as we are connected in so many ways. The internet model is horizontal and distributed, and non-hierarchical. The authors point to the democratization of information and communication. Transparency and whistle-blowing make the unfairness of old models more apparent. The new model is based on shared interest rather than self-interest. Throughout this book the authors emphasize the crucial importance of this decade to 2020 in determining our new future.

New ‘Akashic’ models are explored. Regional federations of countries are becoming the norm and initiating projects so that democratic multi-country projects are happening. Economies may become more distributed with participatory capitalism replacing ‘big player’ capitalism. Collaborative funding helps some projects get going, so-far mostly in the arts and creative product realms. This is a more localized, distributed form of venture capitalism. New and local currencies are explored. I am a bit skeptical so far after the recent Bit Coin fiascos. Socially responsible entrepreneurs have initiated some useful projects and hopefully that trend will continue. Philanthropy seems to be in a conflict state where some want to prop up the old models and others want to build new ones. There is much waste along these ideological lines. Those who subsidize sustainable practices also subsidize the future. Fossil fuels will become gradually less profitable and renewables will become gradually more profitable until parity is achieved and then renewables will really take off. Efficient utilization of all energy sources is required now. Distributed energy sources will be a part of that efficiency as localizing energy where it is needed cuts losses through transmission. Smart grids and demand response will also increase efficiency. These investments will pay off, even now. There is great potential in Africa and in developing countries, to build localized renewable energy projects. New educational models are explored. Online learning favors more interaction and diversity in some respects. Apparently, there are actually several on-line universities, some free. This accords with the authors’ idea of a model of distributed peer-to-peer learning. This is a bit different than traditional teacher-student models where one relies solely on the authority, the teacher. Education should also become more transdisciplinary, rather than focusing on single disciplines.

The rest of the book explores making the world of 2030 and includes essays from many different people who are exploring the future. Some of these essays are quite interesting. They predict that between 2012 and 2020 will be a time of social protests, civil disobedience, and austerity measures. So far it has been quiet since Occupy and Arab Spring (much of which has devolved into squabbling). By 2020, they think things will begin to settle as new aspirations take root and by 2030 a more stable world will be operating under new models. New designs for cities may come about where individual transport is banned and public transport expanded. Interestingly, they predict a stabilization of population at around 7.5 billion in 2030 rather than the 9 billion predicted by 2050. They predict standards of living to improve in Africa and Asia. Civil society will replace militaristic society throughout the world as problems are solved by global forums. They predict a sort of people’s council to succeed the United Nations that will include business people and NGOs.

“Global-level coordination is a precondition of successfully restoring the viability of the environment.”

They also predict a World Environmental Council to function as an arm of the United People’s Council. They also predict a global financial restructuring and a global currency, the Gaia. While much of these predictions may sound sensible and useful I find it hard to believe that things could change much at all, let alone this drastically, with humans still wanting to recreate and enforce things like ancient and medieval religious and behavioral codes. A big missing piece from this big picture is the issue of human rights in developing and dogmatic countries that lag far behind. Even social justice among socio-economic classes in developed countries has a ways to go. Women’s rights are another immense issue. These will have to be worked out before any great global coordination of societies can take place. They put much faith in the younger generations, in so-called Generation Y and what they call the Phoenix Generation, to make change. I hope they are right but it seems the old paradigms keep getting passed along. This Phoenix Generation they think will be hyperaware. Personally, while I think many young folks are quite sharp, I have not seen any evidence of this – but maybe I don’t get out enough. I hope they are right in suggesting that a new-wave of thinking is creeping into the social structures as these sharp, aware, and empathic youngsters enter the professional workplaces. The authors give a Manifesto of New Consciousness which emphasizes our connectedness to one another, society, biosphere, and planet.

Now we come to the 2020 world visions of others’ varying perspectives, and indeed some of these are more interesting and useful than others. First up is John L. Peterson with – A New Human…And A New World. He talks about a spectrum ranging from Great Disruption to Rapid Evolutionary Change. He gives four possibilities of possible futures based on two perspectives: hard and rough difficulty and enlightened engagement. On the Enlightened Engagement side there are two possibilities: Joyous Birth as a reaction to Rapid Evolutionary Change and Armageddon Cheated as a reaction to Great Disruption. In Joyous Birth there are no major disruptions so transitions can be smooth. Hard and rough response to Rapid Evolutionary Change is called Old World Fights Back and hard and rough response to Great Disruption is called Dark Before Dawn. I did not find this essay very useful – too speculative and inundated with New Age optimism about consciousness change. Next is The Other Side of the Shift by Nicolya Christi. This one explores the shift that was thought to occur in Dec. 2012. This article is also full of New Age optimism and hope for breakthroughs in consciousness. She does speak of the need to heal the psychological split caused by centuries and generations of human conflict and warfare. I do not disagree with her prescription of cultivating positive attributes such as empathy, inclusiveness, compassion, understanding, equality, mindfulness, etc. in order to be more spiritually authentic but other than that not much was said.

Next is: The PostGrowth Economy by Charles Eisenstein. This one is interesting. He compares ecosystems, humans, and civilizations as all going through a stage of rapid growth before settling into a mature steady state of stability.

“The ecological limits to growth are by now well-known: peak resources and the biosphere’s limited capacity to absorb our waste.”

An end to growth would be disastrous in “an interest-based monetary system.” The choice is whether to continue the old-style economy or switch to a de-growth economy. A successful de-growth economy would have to be based on principles of ecology such as waste-recycling. His predictions by 2020 are interesting: 1) green taxes (not only a carbon tax but taxes for tapping into any ecosystem services such as topsoil depletion and habitat destruction. 2) Payments to less-developed countries and regions for ecosystem services. This means such things as paying those who are destroying rainforests (for profit) for not doing it. Recently, I heard that the value of global ecosystems was calculated at 150 trillion dollars which is double the GDPs of all the countries of the world together. Currently, there is profit in developing ways to more efficiently extract energy and materials, but that will begin to change soon, he says. Money will change into a system based on ecological values, he says. Defining economies in terms of values like GDP will become less meaningful as a quantitative to qualitative shift occurs. A de-growth economy need not be one of scarcity. Much of the value due to scarcity we pay today is artificially induced scarcity, an artifact of our monetary systems. Without our conventional monetary systems there would be a need to make some sort of “social wage” based on one’s level of contribution to society. Such an idea may be inherently difficult due to both stigmas against “socialism” and how to determine one’s value. There may be a choice whether to consume more or work less. The current monetary system favors – consume more – since it is a growth model. He predicts upcoming radical movements for economic democracy. He mentions some ideas like a demurrage-based monetary system to undo the effects of interest so that through negative interest money decays, mimicking the decay in an ecological system. The old economic paradigms of concentration of wealth, short-term thinking, and growth, will have to fade away.

Next essay is: A New Superpower: An Earth Voice Movement by Duane Elgin. Our systems- economic, ecological, energy, climate, etc are all connected and when one breaks down it affects the others. System-wide problems require collaborative unity to solve. The new superpower mentioned is simply the collective voice of those who see the necessities of change and how to bring them about. With the advent of better cloud computing and faster online interaction, there is opportunity for new technologies (maybe an example is – the internet of things –stuff like home climate control) and more detailed services. These improvements also allow more people to communicate instantaneously and simultaneously. This may foster collective voices, says the author. The internet has served to enhance transparencies so that injustices are harder to hide. Emotional intelligence and collective maturity may be required to find this voice. New times may require humanity to become more of a collective species, reducing waste and balancing the interconnected systems. Different levels of networking may become refined. He mentions local Community Voice associations that have two roles: to listen to the concerns of the community and to have electronic town meetings to discuss those concerns and vote on policies. Sustained and meaningful dialogue is the goal.

Next is: Well-Being and Well-Having by Marco Roveda. He mentions redefining our perception of well-being away from materialism and consumerism. The slowness of humans to change may have to do with our habits and instincts. He interestingly notes that the internet and social media has freed us from trends, channels, and agendas. We have more freedom of choice. The idea of media and information control is losing its grip, although there are other insidious things like hoaxes and replication of misinformation. There is greater ideological and technique diversity. People, Planet, Profit – is the mantra. People are the subject, planet the theatre of existence, and meeting survival needs is the root of profit. The corresponding principles are ethical, ecosustainable, and equitable. The development and flowering of social entrepreneurship may come about by 2020. Those with controlling power over large companies will be required to help the public good, not through the charities of their choice , but through re-structuring their companies toward sustainable and social well-being goals. Better, safer, and more environmentally-friendly practices and processes with be required in all industries.

Next is Social Accupuncture: How Facilitating Integral Philanthropy is the Future of Impactful Humanitarianism by Joshua Raymond Frenk and Mary Ann Thompson Frenk. Globalization has enhanced our interconnectedness. Our psychological, sociological, and spiritual systems must adapt to the interconnectivity of our technologies. Environment, economy, and human rights are inseparable as parts of the same interconnected system. Regarding philanthropy, the authors note that humanitarian efforts will have to become more efficient and effective, with some organizations merging or forming alliances with more cooperation and collaboration among non-profits. Because of the current allocations of wealth mainly in business, there will also be important collaborations between non-profits and for-profits. Such would be an example of what they call – integral theory of philanthropy. Environmental and social problems require collaboration. They say traditional philanthropy treats symptoms while their integral philanthropy is more holistic. Being able to facilitate collaborative behavior based on shared connections is what the authors call social acupuncture.

Next is: The Way to the Solar Age by Hazel Henderson. Breakdowns lead to breakthroughs as old systems are replaced by newer and better ones. We as humans are one species who all share the same earth. NGOs and larger orgs like the UN helped to bring systems thinking into the worldview and into academia. Green standards, ecosystem assessments, and various footprint calculators have come from such orgs and their conferences.

Next is: Thrivable Education by Alexander Laszlo and Jean Russell. Here we learn that more systems-oriented educational models will be more applicable in the future. Some models include lucid learning through gaming. Our systems need to be optimized to preserve and repair our environment and social equity. Thrivability is basically optimized sustainability whereby the system thrives. They give the ‘coherence domains’ of thrivability as: personal thrivability, interpersonal thrivability, thrivability in one’s relationship with nature = ecosystem or transpersonal thrivability, and evolutionary or integral thrivability.

Next is: From the Vantage Point by Scott Noppe-Brandon. He emphasizes our responsibility to be sustainable. The value of imagination in solving problems is underrated. It enhances creativity and innovation. Imagination is involved in empathy. As futurists and contemplators of better futures, it is our responsibility to imagine better futures. We all have the seed of imagination to work with.

Next is: The Evolution of Leadership Consciousness Through 2020 by Jefferson Cann. He gives the three dimensions of leadership: space, time, and being. Time has to do with being in the present moment as much as possible to be responsive to needs. Leadership in space relies on self-leadership, the ability to lead oneself successfully in the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual realms. Such discipline can only be an aid to leading others. Within our great interconnectivity, all conscious and evolved leaders should be ready to “lead the world.” In the “being” dimension, a leader is aware, connected, and able to transform. As we develop leadership consciousness, we minimize ego and selfish pursuits.

Next is: If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It by Toyoma Nonaka. She is a Japanese businesswoman who was CEO at Sanyo for a while and came up with product line and research known as Think Gaia. After a while the products got nixed due to less profit but she believes that was a mistake. She has come to see the dangers of fossil fuels and of nuclear energy after Fukushima and sees creative renewable energy as the future. Her rallying cry is – if you can dream it, you can do it.

The afterword states optimistically that we can develop a holistic and integral worldview and base our actions on it.

“Our diversity is strengthened through our connections, collaborations, and shared consciousness. Our unity is enhanced through our empathy, compassion, and shared sense of responsibility and destiny.”

“For the first time in our history as a human species, we will be making a conscious decision to create a shared future for ourselves as a planetary society.”

It will become a more primary responsibility to develop humanitarian, ecological, and equitable systems. Our consciousness may well develop along with these systems as we develop new ways to work and act in the world.

“The new Akashic paradigm recognizes that the coherence of the whole is a precondition of the functioning of the parts.” “… it gives us a coherent view of ourselves, of nature, and of the cosmos.”