Can Science Alone Advance the Noosphere? Understanding Teilhard's Omega Principle
Presented by Ilia Delio as part of Human Energy's 2023 N2 Conference at the University of California, Berkeley
Scientists have shown a renewed interest in Teilhard de Chardin's ideas on directed evolution. While principles of natural selection, epigenetics and complexity theory undergird direction in evolution, Teilhard de Chardin posited the Omega principle as an underlying factor of centration.
By tracing the human back to its origin in the universe, Teilhard identified a collective, the totum or whole, which influences the bottoms-up activity. This wholeness is centrated in a principle he identifies as Omega, which is both a scientific principle and a religious one. Omega is fully organic, independent of time and space, and escapes the collapse of forces with which evolution is woven; it is autonomous, actual, irreversible and transcendent. It undergirds the psychic, convergent universe with its openness to more life.
For Teilhard, Omega is deeply influential on nature’s propensity toward greater complexity and consciousness. It is the principle of cosmic wholeness and cannot be reduced to isolated elements. This talk will examine the meaning of Omega as a formative principle of evolution and discuss the significance of Omega in terms of causality. While science can identify mechanisms of evolutionary transition, it is insufficient to advance the Noosphere toward greater wholeness without the participative nature of Omega.
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