Do you ever wonder where evolution fits into these turbulent times? A time of fragility when it’s not just a single obstacle we can point to as our problem, but more like waves splashing onto our shores. They just keep coming. The environment. Marketplace meltdowns, and pandemics. Economic inequality and now global stagflation promises to be with us for awhile. Whoops, I forgot war. The war in Ukraine is over democracy. Something we’re all going to have to fight for very soon. All of these things are coming closer to our home everyday. Is this a reflection of what we’ve evolved into?
It’s like we as a species is moving towards an outcome here. The current trajectory of the environment alone, is going to change who and what we are permanently. Very soon by the way. It looks like we’re just animals. We evolved into a species that shared it’s animal characteristics with it’s newfound cognitive ones, but right now, there’s very little evidence of much thinking going on. It looks like we’re still animals.
Some of the things we witness these days. The day Russia invaded Ukraine, an older Ukrainian man is driving somewhere, and a Russian tank drove right over top of him. Swerved to hit him. Could you call the man driving the tank human?
While things like this are happening, we sit back and watch. Unfortunately, the trajectory of the violence is heading our way, yet we still sit and watch. We’re like the Wildebeest. We scatter in the face of danger, not realizing that if we fight as the heard, we will fight off the lion, and every other lion that crosses our path. We choose flight in reaction to life’s violent challenges. No thought, just reflex, as unthinking animals. We are not applying cognition and rational, which we should be because this is our location on the evolutionary ladder. Why do we ignore the potentials we have gained through the evolutionary process? By now we should understand that numbers defeat the enemy, and you always lose people when you take flight.
I wrote a little poem/meme thing here to describe in a few words how I see evolution working. Please note I believe evolution is recursive. This means every evolution brings with it refinement. With recursion, you never lose anything. You gain something that helps you along your way.
For Whenever you Fall or are Broken, including at Death
You are a Leaf. Connected to the roots, trunk,
branches, and at your own little juncture, where you have become a leaf.
A unique identifier, but part of the whole. After a leaf develops, a bud
forms at it’s stem. Everything you; the roots, trunk, branches,
are in the bud, as is connection with the leaf, The leaf will
fall, but nothing will be lost. All that was part of the bud, and it’s
destined to become a branch. Someday your connection will become
stronger than a leaf, and you will branch
out with your own unique potentials and perspective.
This isn’t made up. This is an evolutionary process that occurs with a tree every season. There’s recursion here. The leaf never dies it transcends. Just the husk dies. The identity; it’s soul is as much a part of the bud, as it was a part of the leaf. Nothing is ever lost in recursion. A refinement is gained. You gather information as a leaf, and you keep it with you when you leave that part of you behind. Everything that is you lives with the life force in the bud. You the individual and the source live there, and a new and greater bonding occurs before you branch out as something new, with much greater structure and strength. The tree evolves, as does the unique perspective of the leaf.
Evolution is a process. A system. It never changes the way it does things unless we interrupt it. We can take the process and potential found in recursion and apply it to anything. Take what we already have and intervene to make it better. One day, as a species, civilization, and individuals, we will let the leaf fall on the environment. It will be time to branch off in a new direction. We’ll quit holding onto the way we have been doing things so far. We’ll just drop it. The talk, the leaders, the inadequate response, will be immobilized and ignored, as we, the herd intervenes. This is about to happen. The leaf dropped with team Thunberg.
With the perspective of recursive evolution, part of who and what we are is evolving into something better. Both as individuals and as a species, we adopt new potentials when we evolve. When this happens the potentials are not just floating around out there waiting to be discovered. We’ve accepted them as part of our being, and incorporated them into our lives.
The movie ‘Money Ball’, illustrates beautifully another perspective of evolution that shows us how we discover new potentials. Note this not a physical evolution. It’s abstract in it’s movement and acceptance. You have to think a little to use this evolution, but everyone’s heard about it, and it’s available to all of us. What happened in ‘Money Ball’, is there’s these two guys who come together and evolve the game of baseball. One’s the manager of the underfunded Oakland A’s professional ball club, that can’t quite engineer the leap to the next level with the resources he’s been given. The other one is a number’s guy. He studies the statistics of the game.
These two guys hook-up, and the number’s guy tells the manager, ‘Well, there’s this dude out there, who’s taken baseball statistics into the realm of science, and now with computers, you can compile a lot of number’s, and those numbers will predict the future. Not just give you an educated guess on something; they will actually predict the future of your managing decisions. We will know the degree of certainty of these choices, and from that we can predict our success. Actually, he didn’t say it quite like this, but it’s been a long time since I watched the movie, and this sums up the story.
Anyway, they determine, it’s not snazzy pitchers, or guys that hit home runs who win a ball game. It comes down to getting on base, and if a player can steal a base or two after that, it’s a bonus. So they go after all these guys that the other teams had written off for one reason or another, but who statistically could get on base. Well, the scouts and the coach wouldn’t hear of having these losers on their team, but the manager, overrides them, and eventually the team starts winning. In fact, they broke the American league record of 19 consecutive wins, and went on to win the American League West. They finished first in the Western division, not only that year but the one following as well. Bam! Big number’s at work.
The world discovered a microcosm that demonstrated how big number technology can transform an existing environment. Like a meme, people figured out they could apply this same technology to anything, and produce accurate predictions, which produced the ability to act based on big number certainty. The tech companies were on it, harvesting as much information as possible. Everyone in the business world jumped on it. Logistics use it. Anyone can use this technology. It open source; public doma1in. It’s an evolution in the way we process information, and the key to greater knowledge. It spreads like a meme, but it’s an Archetype like Jung spoke of. It always existed; just waiting to be discovered once we caught up to it. Did you know mathematicians can’t tell for certain if we invented math or it was already here waiting to be discovered. On top of that, in it’s expansiveness it becomes a language that unfolds as we gain understanding. Math; even simple math, can build a universe. It’s the language of God, and God’s been speaking to us all along. Waiting patiently to be discovered.
Big number ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’, is the next big thing to enter our new world of ultra processing. When the majority of us decide something needs to change, it does, and not only that, it’s always the right decision. We see how it works with the ‘Me Too’ event. You have your microcosm, representative of all of society, and enough of society comes to right a wrong. When this happens punishment is meted out far beyond judicial proceedings. Justice is found in every nook and cranny. When the majority decides enough is enough, look at the tsunami of regulation that comes to the event. It was like a bomb went off, and not one bad guy got away.
Big number Wisdom of the Crowd is found in other places too. The day trader’s used it successfully against the Goliath’s of investment trading. Another explosion, and this huge impregnable and unethically self-serving institution was rocked to it’s core. Bam!. Another group of bad guys took a beating to the tune of billions of dollars.
This is our next discovery. Our next evolution. Knowing that if we act together in righteousness, based on the majority, we can create profound change to our reality. Let’s agree on this and turn our attention intentionally to the environment. Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on with guys like Elon Musk. Let’s really put the magnifying glass on what China and Russia are up to, and discover just how fragile democracy is right now.
It’s time to become responsible to our purpose. Our purpose is to keep going. Keep living. Keep building a stronger branch to sustain us. The tree is much bigger than we think it is. It’s everlasting, and our role here is to strengthen the chord, not severe it one strand at a time, as we are doing now.
There’s so much to this world, that we don’t even see. Let’s fulfill our recursive mandate. Turn our backs on who brings war, famine, and plagues, Demand accountability as the Wisdom of the Crowd, and discover the potentials that wait to unfold before us. When we decide to manage this world, we will. We will manage it beyond the limitations of conquest, and into one that focuses on the bounty of human potential, and everlasting life. This tree never dies, nor do you. Your actions today, determine the strength of the branch you build.
Sites I visited to write this post: