The significance of the Point Omega transition
................. This page is under construction. .....................
(For the time being see also: Point Omega / Mass enlightenment)
(*) This site deals in particular with a transition point in human history, equally important for us humans as was the agricultural revolution. All articles on this Wiki were set up and written to investigate and explain this phenomenon. That transition point is labeled as Point Omega. From the point of view of the whole of evolution this transition is even more important than was the agricultural revolution.
The agricultural revolution triggered the shift from a family or tribe-based societal structure towards the emergence and growth of large impersonal power structures controlling societies. This started only some 10.000 years ago and in most regions of the earth even less time ago.
Long before that time however, in the ancestors of Homo sapiens, the evolution of intelligence had already entered into an acceleration phase. This was only possible after the emergence of a specific novel faculty, namely the faculty to not utilize intelligence on any issues concerning the behaviour patterns of oneself. One could call this a "mirror block". It entails the switching off of intelligent faculties in front of a mirror, so to speak. Mirrors did not exist of course, but this is just to describe where such a block is functionally located within the behavioural system.
From a theoretical evolutionary point of view, the development of high levels of intelligence is impossible, unless such a "mirror block" of intelligence exists. See here(*) for an explanation of this principle. The evolutionary introduction of such "mirror blocks" and the subsequent acceleration of the growth of intelligence, occurred much earlier than the agricultural revolution, some half million to two million years ago.
Essentially, Point Omega therefore is in Human history the next most important step after the acceleration of the development of intelligence in our hominid ancestors. It is in fact the consolidation of the evolutionary emergence of intelligence and releases another, second acceleration phase of that development of intelligence. This latter acceleration phase develops because Point Omega finally removes the primordial blocks on the unlimited utilization of intelligence that resulted from an age-old reproductive premium on simplemindedness and a reproductive penalty on awareness. [add link ****] It is this same friction between two opposed evolutionary forces, working on the faculty of intelligence, that produced in our hominid ancestors the development of the above mentioned "mirror block" as a solution to the evolutionary problem of double requirements regarding the faculty of understanding (see: add link ****).
This situation that mankind has ended up in, may at first sight seem utterly strange and unfamiliar to us. We are an exceptionally intelligent species. We have changed the whole surface of the earth. We call this era as a consequence the "anthropocene". On the other hand we appear to be exceptionally blind for understanding our own behaviour and each other's behaviour. In those areas of life we rather behave like any other ape species. But, once understanding the working of it all, it is becoming clear that this strange and somewhat paradoxical situation is a natural and in fact inevitable phase in the evolution of intelligence. As shownhere in another article [add link ****] intelligence above a certain level in general is not an ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategy). That is because of the special relationship between proximate reasons for behaviour and ultimate reasons for behaviour. Finding intelligent short cuts to fulfill proximate reasons for behaviour in general may thwart the fulfillment of the ultimate reasons for behaviour. Since such a relationship between ultimate and proximate aspects of behaviour is necessarily and unavoidably a consequence of any behaviour developed anywhere (in the universe), a consequence of being a moving living entity, the evolutionarily emerging intelligences are initially all limited in their evolutionary development to that certain level of intellectual capacity, that just does not (yet) lead to functional conflicts between proximate and ultimate goals of the behaviours in question. However, in principle it should technically be possible that at some stage in evolution some species will escape from this usual upper limit to intelligence by "finding" the solution of a built in Self Blindness. That then makes the utilization of more intelligence possible, without the disadvantage of decreased procreation by fooling around intelligently with the proximate goals and targets.
Homo sapiens now is in a situation of technological revolution, enabled to establish that by its "escaped" intelligence, an intelligence that only could escape by its concomitant Self-Blindness. And during the past 10.000 years, after the agricultural revolution, the Self-Blindness was boosted extra by newly evolved tricks on the level of culture, because the power structures, that took over the lead in evolution, were able to take advantage of blinding mankind even further. However, it is built in into these cultural systems, software systems, that at some stage the intelligence will have advanced to the point that it will understand the general principles of intelligence an thus the principles of the evolutionary phases of any intelligence, having emerged wherever in the universe.
We may therefore regard Point Omega as the "coming of age" of intelligence, in which stage the intelligence starts to understand its own nature and its own evolution and development. At that stage the evolution towards ever more awareness and consciousness of the species in question, in this case Homo sapiens, will shift into a process of "conscious evolution". In that (next) phase intelligent understanding cannot be suppressed any more and there is no other option left than such a conscious evolution.
In short: Humanity at this moment in time finds itself at the most important switch in its entire evolutionary development, labeled here "Point Omega". It is the point where Intelligence comes to understand itself. For humanity that boils down to the end of classical history and the start of something completely new. This novel situation doesn't need to scare us. Basically, a multitude of emotionally very unpleasant mechanisms that always took care of the competitive struggle for survival will have lost their evolutionary usefulness and can safely be replaced by something that we like more. We will still have our disputes about the best routes to go, but those choices are choices of evolutionary targets and not blind and badly understood competitions for attempted mutual destruction. Because the latter is what usual evolutionary forces boil(ed) down to. Yes, we will still be inclined to fight, but on a different level, a level where the results will not any more be genocide, mass slavery, mass neuroticism, wholesale slaughter, torture and ethnocentric idiocy. The transition has started already and cannot be stopped any more. So, let's enjoy what is waiting for us just around the corner !
- Also include some information about the nature of the concept of "Happiness". The illusory character of it. The happiness- misery polarity is what makes us move.
What "real" thing comes closest to what we (erroneously) call "Happiness" ?
