Can Evolution Be Conscious? 1 Can Evolution Be Conscious? Introducing a Collection of Commentaries Published on This View of Life evolution-institute.orgwww.evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 2 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 3 Table of Contents Contributors 03 Contributors Can Evolution Be Conscious? 05 by David Sloan Wilson, Mel Andrews, Maximus Thaler David Mel Maximus Liane Cultural Evolution, Insight, and Fundamental Theories of Consciousness Sloan Wilson Andrews Thaler Gabora 08 by Liane Gabora The Origins and Evolutionary Effects of Consciousness David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Mel Andrews is a Maximus is a PhD candidate Liane Gabora is Professor Distinguished Professor of philosopher of mind, at Binghamton University of Psychology at University By Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg 15 Biology and Anthropology biology, and cognitive studying cultural evolution of British Columbia - at Binghamton University. science and a graduate of (Wilson Lab). His work Okanagan. Her research The Evolution of Consciousness Enables Conscious Evolution He is also President of Tufts University. Alongside focuses on the organismality focuses on creativity, how it 18 by Steven C. Hayes the Evolution Institute her friend Maximus of intentional communities, arose in the hominid lineage, and Editor in Chief of This Thaler, Mel runs an online in collaboration with the and in what sense culture Welcome to the Noösphere View of Life Magazine. course on new topics in Federation of Egalitarian evolves. 26 by Alice Andrews evolutionary theory. Communities. The Consciousness of Detachment and the Detachment of Consciousness 31 by Lenny Moss Can Evolution Be Conscious of Itself? Yes, It Can! 34 by Joe Brewer One Culture, Two Cultures? How Many Cultures, How Long? 37 by Kurt Johnson Massimo Eva Jablonka & Steven C. Alice Pigliucci Simona Ginsburg Hayes Andrews Can Evolution be Understood as a Conscious Process? 40 by Stanley N. Salthe Massimo Pigliucci is a Eva Jablonka (right) is an Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Andrews teaches psychology Why Teleology is the Elephant in Evolutionary Theory’s Room blogger and author, as evolutionary biologist Foundation Professor and evolutionary studies at well as the K.D. Irani working in the Cohn at the Department of the State University of New by Felipe A. Veloso 43 Professor of Philosophy at Institute for the History Psychology at the University York at New Paltz. She is a the City College of New and Philosophy of Science of Nevada. His career has founding member/council York. He writes regularly and Ideas, Tel-Aviv. focused on an analysis member of the Applied at platofootnote.org and Simona Ginsburg (left) is a of the nature of human Evolutionary Psychology howtobeastoic.org. neurobiologist who retired language and cognition Society as well as the from the Open University of and the application of founder and former editor- Israel, where she headed the this to the understanding in-chief of The Evolutionary MA Program in Biological and alleviation of human Review: Art, Science, Culture. Thought. suffering. evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 4 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 5 Lenny Joe Kurt Stanley N. Moss Brewer Johnson Salthe Lenny Moss holds doctoral Joe Brewer is a complexity Dr. Kurt Johnson is Stanley N. Salthe is degrees in Comparative researcher, innovation professor of comparative Professor Emeritus in the Biochemistry (Berkeley) and strategist, experience religion at New York’s Department of Biology at Philosophy (Northwestern), designer, and serial social Interfaith Seminary, a Brooklyn College of the is the author of What entrepreneur who brings a former monastic, and City University of New Genes Can’t Do (MIT) and wealth of expertise to the co-author of the influential York, is a Visiting Scientist is currently a professor of adoption of sustainable book on world religions, The in Biological Sciences at philosophy at the University solutions at the cultural Coming Interspiritual Age. Binghamton University. of Exeter (UK). scale. Can Evolution Be Conscious? Felipe A. By David Sloan Wilson, Mel Andrews, Maximus Thaler Veloso If you had a conventional biological education, Baptiste Lamarck and Herbert Spencer. You Felipe A. Veloso has an engineering background but then you were taught that evolution is not a would be wrongfully invoking orthogenesis. You his passion and research conscious process. Giraffes that stretch to reach would be thinking in terms of teleology, when interests quickly developed high foliage do not mysteriously cause their you should be thinking in terms of teleonomy. towards fundamental offspring to be taller. Instead, their offspring biology. In 2018, he left academia and continues are both taller and shorter and it is differences How very 20th Century. doing research in theoretical in their fitness that cause the giraffe population biology while working as to become taller over time. More generally, you As we approach the one-fifth mark of the a freelance inventor for a were taught that genetic variation is random with 21st Century, the concept of conscious Chilean start-up biotech company. respect to what is selected by the environment, evolution is becoming respectable again. which makes evolution blind rather than conscious. Before proceeding, let’s demystify the concept of “conscious” by listing some of its synonyms: If you were so foolish as to think otherwise, you deliberate, intentional, purposeful, calculated, would be guilty of errors associated with Jean- planned, volitional. All of these words imply evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 6 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 7 directionality in the actions of an agent, who up with different solutions, just as different Moreover, even genetic evolution can be more evolutionary scientists and philosophers. works toward a goal rather than behaving populations of bacteria subjected to the directed than previously thought. For example, Each will be published individually over the randomly with respect to the goal. same selection pressures respond by genetic an environmental change might trigger an next few weeks and the collected links will evolution in different ways, based on different increase in mutation rates in genes especially appear below. All mechanisms of inheritance To see how an evolutionary process can be mutations that arise by chance. In short, while relevant to adapting to environmental change. will be featured, including genetics, directional, consider genetic algorithms in an evolutionary process has a component that This kind of directed genetic evolution is (or epigenetics, forms of social learning found in computer science. Some problems, such as is random with respect to what is selected, it should be) uncontroversial because it can many species, and forms of symbolic thought how a traveling salesman should minimize the can also have components that are directed, easily be shown to evolve from an undirected that are distinctively human. In addition, length of his path through different cities, are such as the target of selection and variation process of genetic evolution. authors were chosen who could speak to the notoriously difficult to solve because there are that is decidedly non-random with respect to practical implications of regarding evolution so many combinatorial possibilities. One way the target of selection. To make the concept of conscious evolution fully as a conscious process, in addition to basic to proceed is to represent different options respectable again, TVOL is pleased to feature scientific implications. Each author was asked (i.e., each path through the cities) as a string These two examples of conscious evolution this collection of commentaries by leading to address the following questions: of information, like genes on a chromosome, are so clear-cut, at least in retrospect, that and to select them on the basis of path length. you might think I am misrepresenting the Then variation is created by mutating the orthodox view, which treats the concept of strings and recombining them with each other, conscious evolution as a heresy. In a sense, Is conscious evolution a legitimate concept? emulating the process of genetic recombination. I am, because the orthodox view confines Numerous “generations” of this process do itself to genetic evolution. Yet, this by itself is If so, what are some examples? a good job of finding the shortest paths. The highly problematic. Darwin defined evolution whole process is consciously (= intentionally) in terms of variation, selection, and heredity, How does the concept of conscious evolution change our designed to solve a specified problem, but it still which is a resemblance between offspring basic scientific understanding of evolution? counts as an evolutionary process. and parents caused by any mechanism. Once genes were identified as one mechanism of How can we use the concept of conscious evolution to Or take conscious human decision-making as inheritance, they rapidly became treated as accomplish positive change in the real world? a second example. There is a clear objective the only mechanism, as if the only way that for evaluating alternative options, which is offspring can resemble their parents is by the target of selection in evolutionary terms. sharing their genes. This is patently false. The variation part of the evolutionary process Only toward the end of the 20th century did Hopefully, this collection will go a long way includes both a directed and undirected evolutionists start going back to basics by toward returning the concept of conscious component. We don’t suggest options at defining evolution in terms of heredity, not just evolution to normalcy. random; typically, we are guided by one set genes, and by identifying other mechanisms of of expectations or another. On the other heredity, such as epigenetics, forms of social hand, some options do appear to “come out learning found in many species, and forms of nowhere” and these are often the ones of symbolic thought that are distinctively that are chosen. That’s what brainstorming human. If evolutionary biologists previously is all about.