Louisville Process Theology Network

A Giant Mind

Nov 03, 2009

From Page 297:


?“Edward O. Wilson has suggested that the ?‘evolutionary epic?’ serve as our binding myth in the modern scientific age ?– a myth not in the sense of untruth, but in the sense of a story that explains our existence and helps us orient ourselves to the world.

?‘Every epic needs a hero,?’ he writes. ?‘The mind will do.?’ In a sense, yes; the human mind represents the triumph of our lineage against great odds; its survival by pluck and luck, as countless others perished; its ascent towards comprehension of itself and its creator, natural selection.

At the same time, there is cause to pay tribute to another mind: the ?‘mind?’ that mediates natural selection. It is the relentless burgeoning of this creative biosphere, the self-accelerating growth in its innovation, which set the stage for our triumph.

This giant mind has all but ensured that, whether or not the human species finally reached a reflective intelligence, some species would.?”