Difference between revisions of "The significance of the Point Omega transition"

Revision as of 12:55, 8 July 2007

This site deals among other things with a transition point in human history, equally important for us humans as was the agricultural revolution. This transition point is labeled as Point Omega. From the point of view of the whole of evolution however, this transition is even more important than 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 was only some 10.000 years ago.

Long before that time, in the ancestors of Homo sapiens, the evolution of intelligence 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 subjects concerning the own behaviour patterns. 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 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. See [add link] 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 [add more precise info] half million to one and a half 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 problem of double requirements regarding the faculty of understanding.