Conscious Evolution

Discussion in 'Philosophy and Religion' started by Tsurugi_Oni, Apr 5, 2009.

  1. Tsurugi_Oni

    Tsurugi_Oni Member

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    Well yesterday I was thinking about evolution of humanity. Basically, it's my idea that evolution was always continuing, although not consciously. Most animals are not self conscious in the same way that we are. But humans, due to our unique brain, are able to consciously evolve. That's why we vary by such a high degree.

    Basically, it starts off with small clans of people. To help unify people and further their collective potential vocalization becomes more complex. We turn from hunter-gatherers to sedentary people when we learn agriculture and animal husbandry. When we can eventually supply a surplus, we get the various divisions of labor. I think is pretty much where we stopped evolving, since we have haven't developed a good system on how to deal with profits from selling surplus.

    We still use a very primitive exploitative system. We go from egalitarian fair socities, to one where tribal chiefs look after the affairs of the whole. Then we move towards having a king benevolently or malevolently ruling a population. We move towards the feudal system where the majority of the people work the land of people who own a lot of land and can violently enforce this system. Then we move towards a mercantile system, based on mostly colonialism, slave trade, economic slavery, and mass exploitation. Then we go to a capitalist system, where much of the modern world is at today.

    So it's my thought that we haven't evolved as a society to a point where we can effectively move forward peacefully. Politically we developed a system called a democracy, which was one evolutionary step that governed how we deal with society. But our economic system is one which is based off of profit, 99% of it coming from exploitation. People who own the means of production are separate from the labor. And obviously this hinders our democratic process, and heavily influences it. The next chapter in our evolution IMO is a new economic system (Karl Marx).

    What do you guys think? Do you guys believe that evolution is generally seen as happening on an individual level, or a societal level? Are the varieties of societies the expression of evolution of mankind , or have we stopped somewhere along the line? Do we consciously evolve, or do things evolve by chance or mutation?
     
  2. kaminoishiki

    kaminoishiki Member

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    Politics
    Democracy
    Economy
    Society

    Let's make solid foundations on a bed of quicksand.
     
  3. xexon

    xexon Destroyer Of Worlds

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    In creation, all things have a cycle.

    So it is with my membership in this forum.

    I was accused of being a racist and banned for a week.

    Out of protest, I am leaving.

    I wish you all well on your respective paths.

    Goodbye.



    x
     
  4. gdkumar

    gdkumar Member

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    Hare Krishna!

    From Xexon...

    In creation, all things have a cycle.

    So it is with my membership in this forum.

    I was accused of being a racist and banned for a week.

    Out of protest, I am leaving.

    I wish you all well on your respective paths.

    Goodbye.



    Dear Xexon,

    I really don't understand this, I, definitely, missed out something.

    If you are banned, then how we are escaping the stupid axe ? Let the governing body do a good scanning, so many will properly qualify for banning and you will surely and miserably fail.

    However, request give a second consideration and stay back.

    Love,

    Kumar.
     
  5. SvgGrdnBeauty

    SvgGrdnBeauty only connect

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    Dear Tsurugi_Oni,

    I have a friend who is a socialist and we have this discussion all the time... my issue is not that I do not think egalitarianism could work...in theory ideas such as those of Karl Marx are nice (though I think he was unfair in his overall judgement of religion since he was judging the organized mess in his surroundings, but that's another discussion)... however, the reason communism didn't really work...imho ... is one of human base-selfishness. As nice as it would be for people to to use only what they need and no more... it is beyond the reality that people (I use the term broadly, of course) always want more. Its a problem of desires and the ends to which any certain individual would go to satisfy said desires.

    Not that I think our present system (the US in specifics) is any better...esp. because of the widening stratified society created where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and there seams to be little chance for social mobility. I personally believe we need to mix and match from the future and the past in order to get something that will work out best for everyone... there may never been a perfect societal order though (I believe they call that utopia...haha)...however, we can improve if and only if any and every person stops being so gosh darned attached to any particular ideology. Just as religion, any attachment to a particular political ideology can also break a person as they develop tunnel vision.

    I think working together is a state of conscious evolution we can all benefit from (whether or not its a product of an ongoing social evolutionary scale I cannot say)...however with our country accusing President Obama of socialism (which what he is doing is not even remotely close), China flexing its muscles, and North Korea launching rockets.... I don't know how close we are to detaching from our own ideologies and working together...
     
  6. Tsurugi_Oni

    Tsurugi_Oni Member

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    I didn't mean to promote Communism, Marx really wasn't preaching that. But it is true that capitalism will lead to degredation of the working masses's wealth, until it gets so poor that eventually they'll have to revolt in a violent revolution. We have a system which promotes capitalism (private property, patents, etc.). Surely there must be SOME way to deal with profits in a more fair manner. Not that there couldn't be free trade, but a system that makes the means of production more public.

    We have a system that can give one person power over millions of acres of land. Just because it is the "system", we follow it. There has to be another way, we just haven't gone far enough down that path..... Anybody familiar with any philosphies as such?
     
  7. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Ken Wilbur contends that humans evolve in four areas:

    Upper-Left
    Quadrant (UL)
    "I"
    Interior-Individual
    Intentional
    e.g. Freud


    Upper-Right

    Quadrant (UR)
    "It"
    Exterior-Individual
    Behavioral
    e.g. Skinner


    Lower-Left

    Quadrant (LL)
    "We"
    Interior-Collective
    Cultural
    e.g. Gadamer


    and



    Lower-Right

    Quadrant (LR)
    "Its"
    Exterior-Collective
    Social
    e.g. Marx

    From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

     

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