eThoughts : Intelligent Design, Volitional Evolution, Language and Reality

(For a more detailed look at the principles of volitional evolution go to: Chapter 24: Resetting The Compass. For a look at thoughts about assessing the energy in our lives and the Big Rip instead of the Big Bang, go to: Chapter 55: The Best Answers Arise In The Space Between Thought And Deed. For further thoughts about the nature of energy as both mutable and immutable, go to: Chapter 59: The Mutable Immutables.)

Well, it appears the educational oficionados in Kansas are busy again with the concept of evolution. The call, as I understand it, is to teach “intelligent design” versus Darwinian theory, albeit along side each other. Gee, I wonder which way the wind is blowing?

First of all we might need a definition. Whether Darwinian or the Kansas version, the idea that the concept somehow means life is inherently intelligent to begin with or that it just keeps getting better, whether by design or randomness, is fraught with difficulties. For one thing, increasing complexity doesn’t necessary mean higher and/or clearer awareness, much less intelligence. Having a greater conglomeration in structure is not the same as having better ethical insight or the moral high ground. In fact it could mean just the opposite—as in might makes right, whether that might is intellectually or physically based. For another, I’m not so convinced we can look around at all of the needless killing and dying, much less the grand push for accumulating stuff, including power and position, and hold it up as an example of “intelligent design.”

Second of all, why is it intelligent design versus Darwinian theory? Are these two really on opposite sides of the coin? Of course, the constructed dichotomy likely means that someone has an idea about which is the “right” choice. More intelligence or evolution at work I suppose.

As I understand it, Darwin himself did not seem so fond of his theory at the end of his life—only because it was not sufficient to explain the complexities of evolution. His idea works in some ways and not in others. That doesn’t mean we have to throw out the baby with the bathwater, even if we don’t like being descended from lines we consider yucky (that doesn’t have to be apes, it could also mean those immediate ancestral bozos whom we may not consider so evolved or designed so intelligently).

Lurking around in the background of this battle is a supreme creator versus clunky, mechanical, chancy, development. It’s the Randomness versus Enlightenment fight for human attention, and an implied better path. If the basis is really “intelligent design,” I wonder how randomness ever got a foothold?

I guess we’ve got to have some separation, be it church and state or good and evil. As a famous psychologist once said (more or less), having an enemy is an economical way to have an identity. So is having a hierarchy. Somebody knows best, even if it’s not dad, mom, or educators.

I kind of lean toward Volitional Evolution. That doesn’t necessarily mean intelligent, it just means we’ve got a hand in it—it’s not always random mutation and natural selection or intelligently designed. And I kind of lean towards energy as a basis of it all. Furthermore I lean towards that energy as being a positive thing overall, even in the face of so much negativity. After all, when I think about what I really have at the core of me, I can find only energy, awareness, and a smile (no, the smile is not an interpretation, the “I like it” is)—the rest of “me” is built of expectations and interpretations, what we tend to call experience. And as another famous psychologist once said, our interpretation of experience is more important than the experience itself. Of course, it is not just about the “me” as the creator or seer of reality, as one can readily tell if they run into others—not to mention cars, tree limbs, or rabid dogs.

In any case, when I just “go empty,” without the mind chatter, expectations, or interpretations, all of what is “me” (energy, awareness, and a smile) seems free—there are no strings (maybe that’s the intelligent design part). Admittedly I don’t notice that until I come “back” from “emptiness.” But in the emptiness, there is no great fight, no epic battle, no great resolution that is bearing down on me—there is just being: energy-based awareness with a smile.

Is there anything to do with that? Is that “intelligent design,” Darwin, or volitional evolution in action?

Well, a look around us obviously reveals that energy, awareness, and smiling manifest in degrees—one doesn’t have to be favoring any particular view to see that. We might be debating the issue about creators, random mutation and natural selection, or volitional evolution, but I’m guessing cockroaches are not.

What’s our contribution in this manifestation? Well, perhaps we can volitionally polish our energy, awareness and smile (notice emptiness and have fun in duality) as opposed to our propensities to fight the good and righteous fight or to feel like flotsam and jetsam in the cosmic stream.

All right, all right. Yes we have duality. Besides running into cars, tree limbs, or rabid dogs, we have a lot of people interested in conquering or being conquered by one thing or another. And that can and does mean a lot of heads getting eaten. Not-so-by-the-way, that state of affairs obviously exists—whether we favor intelligent design, Darwin, or volitional evolution (though one would have to wonder about the intelligence design of such a reality).

And yes, I kind of lean towards the importance of language in it all. After all, how does one convince a heap of others to go and wield swords all about in support of Causes, or convince ourselves how hopeless it all is? But language, perhaps our most important stewardship in duality, exists only in duality. Energy, awareness, and a smile exist in both emptiness and duality. Sometimes language creates things and sometimes language explains what is, regardless of whether we created it or not. But language did not create energy, awareness, or a smile, even if language can affect them all—along with such Causes as wielding swords or hopelessness.

That seems to make it easy about where to start. Let’s go with the Great Common Denominator—that which exists regardless of experience or interpretations or axes to grind, as well as that which exists in experience, interpretations or ax grinding. But the fight for one thing or another is an exclusive land, needed (perhaps) if we live in that exclusivity, but largely unnecessary if we are journeyers across both kinds of lands (emptiness and duality). In other words, if we know the landscapes, as opposed to just the landscape, it would be impossible to eat any heads. And it just might be possible to have a lot lighter heart and a bit more intelligence, whether our ancestors did or not, or whether our neighbors in whatever neighborhood, state, or country do or not.