Conscious vs mechanical evolution: transcending biocentrist social ontologies

Abstract

This article expounds a new theory of humanity that problematizes the discrete, biomaterialist and materially rational individual of Modernity through sensitivity to the human potential for Conscious Evolution [evolution of the ‘invisible self’, which is to say the cultivation of reason, free will, intuition and the other ‘high epistemological faculties’ that allow humans to actualize the potential for self-mediation of the biological desires and animal (irrational) passions]. After defining Conscious Evolution, comparing it with Mechanical Evolution and providing a brief overview of the epistemological processes involved in Conscious Evolution, we examine the ways in which Modernism axiomatically, logically and practically negates the potential for Conscious Evolution and self-mediation as well as the manifestations of this negation in Modernist epistemology and Modernist social systems like Economic Theology or ‘the police’ that, due to their biomaterialist understanding of humans as discrete, biological, materially rational individuals, aim to mediate biological desires and animal passions through external, forceful, hierarchical domination rather than the cultivation of Conscious Evolution and subsequent actualization of the potential for self-mediation. This critique of epistemological and social systems that seek to create order through external, forceful, hierarchical domination sets the stage for a follow up paper titled “Conscious Evolution, Social Development and Environmental Justice” that critiques contemporary Planning Theory and Practice and calls for planning of social systems from a theoretical perspective where seeking to cultivate Conscious Evolution and the actualization of the social order implicit in the self-mediation made potential by Conscious Evolution is possible (which is to say that (r)evolution of theory must precede (r)evolution of practice).