Guest guest Posted November 6, 2008 Report Share Posted November 6, 2008 Dear All, We concluded with: " Matter and form are the two basic principles then and the whole universe evolves through the interplay between them. Part of the dynamic is that matter always tends to dissipate itself, to disintegrate, to become disorganized. Consequently at the very beginning of the universe there was an explosion of matter such that matter was thrown outwards in primordial expansion. It is believed that this principle of expansion is still operating and that the galaxies are expanding all the time as matter pushes itself out in that way. But at the very time that matter expands and tends to disintegrate, another force, the force of form, comes into play and begins to structure matter, organising and controlling it. The understanding is then that there were originally photons, electrons and other basic particles coming into being and dissolving, and then gradually forms began to be structured and the simplest atoms, those of hydrogen and helium, came into being. From that origin of organisation matter became increasingly more organised as the two forces were continuously operative, matter disintegrating and moving outwards and form drawing within, concentrating and centring the matter. (p.257) So with the galaxies the matter expanded enormously while the forms began to structure it, forming the stars, the galaxies and eventually suns, moons, and planets, including earth. We can understand then that the whole cosmos comes into being by the interaction of these two forces, one working on the other. " A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith) Chapter 12, p.255-257 Here now, is Part 2. Enjoy, violet Synthesis: Towards a Unifying Plan - Part 2 (p.257) It is important to realise that matter is always in a state of disequilibrium. If it were to come into equilibrium it would become simply passive. It is always in disequilibrium as it moves out into a new phase, and from that a new form emerges. It is thought that this is how evolution takes place. There would be a particular form, a chemical, a plant or animal or whatever, and then something in the environment disorganises that structure and it has to reconstruct itself. In so doing a new form comes into being. In this process certain structures have been identified which Ilya Prigogine calls dissipative structures. Dissipative structures are found even in chemicals and still more conspicuously in plants and animals. These are structures which tend to dissipate their energy, destructuring themselves and then restructuring again somewhat differently. This, it is thought, is how development takes place, always a disequilibrium tending towards the organisation of a new structure. Rupert Sheldrake has suggested that what, following Aristotle, we are calling forms, or formal causes, act as morphogenetic fields. These are fields in which matter is moulded into particular forms. Evolution proceeds in stages as a new burst of formative energy is released and this takes place on a large scale. Recent research has suggested that new species come into being not simply by gradual stages but rather by a kind of explosion. This indicates that the matter has been prepared for it by changes having been introduced which make it ready for this explosion of new species. This is at the moment by no means proved but it does seem to be the pattern which is emerging. There is then a gradual development. (p.258) Atoms develop into molecules, these develop into cells, cells develop into organisms, then to simple plants and animals, as organs are produced leading to the development of increasingly complex animal forms. All this is a continuous process. What is particularly interesting is that the elements of each stage, atoms, molecules, cells and so on, are each a whole in their own right and as they develop they integrate the other wholes within themselves so that the universe is composed of wholes within wholes. For instance, an atom itself is a complete whole, with its electrons, protons and neutrons and other elements. When that atom enters into a molecule it enters a new whole, and yet it retains its identity as, say, a carbon atom within the molecule, a smaller whole within the greater whole. Similarly, within a cell the molecules still retain their structure within the wider structure of the cell. And again the cells in the body multiply and grow and each is a whole within the greater whole of the tissue, the organ and finally the whole organism. So the whole of nature is composed of all these structures or processes built up one after another, one into the other, in such a way that nothing is lost. In the course of evolution most processes simply follow mechanical laws. Rupert Sheldrake puts this down to a kind of force of habit, in that once a certain pattern of organisation has occurred it tends to repeat itself and so it gets fixed to a certain extent. This pattern appears as a kind of mechanical law. But at the same time there are also continual chance variations and the new form that emerges from these apparently chance changes integrates the chance elements, creating a new structure. So form and matter, order and chance, are working one on the other the whole time. At each stage the organism becomes more complex and the organising principle more powerful and more structured. This is what Teilhard de Chardin calls the principle of complexification. (p.259) An atom of hydrogen is extremely simple, consisting of one proton and one electron. But then as there arise more and more complex atoms, and increasingly complex molecules and cells, at each level there has to be a more complex deep structure to hold it together and the energy within has to be stronger. This is Teilhard's point of the within and the without of things. Atoms, molecules, cells, attain their structure from the outside, as it were, with regard to their matter but at the same time a force is appearing within each one which organises and maintains the structure. Matter is without; form, the organising force, is within. And so the form organises each thing in a more complex way and becomes more manifest as it develops, leading to increasingly greater and more complex formal order. This process goes on continually, through plants and animals to human beings. It appears that the same forces which are at work in matter and sub-human life operate also in the human person and in human consciousness. The same principle of matter and form working together can account for the whole evolution of humanity. But what happens in human beings is that this organizing power, this form, begins to emerge into consciousness. We have seen that there is an organizing power at every level and this organising power has the character of a mind. Mind, it has been said, reveals itself as " a pattern of self-organisation and a set of dynamic relationships " . In this sense it can be said that mind is present in matter from the beginning. Form in Aristotle's sense of the word is a power of intelligence. It creates order. It causes the self-organisation of all organic structures and creates a set of dynamic relationships. So mind is present in matter, and in plants and animals, and that mind becomes conscious in us. And so, in a very exact sense, it can be said that matter becomes conscious in human beings. This process which has been going on from the beginning of time becomes conscious in us. (p.260) It evolves into consciousness. We are that stage of evolution at which the material universe is emerging into consciousness in each one of us. A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith) Chapter 12, p.257-260 Bede Griffiths Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois ISBN 0-87243-180-0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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