How Right Was Teilhard? (from a scientific point of view)

Presented by Robert Wright as part of Human Energy's N2 Conference 2023 at the University of California, Berkeley

Teilhard de Chardin’s conception of the noosphere was shaped by his Christian faith and, more generically, by a philosophical orientation that was fundamentally religious and spiritual. This orientation helps account for several features of his conception of the noosphere that have been criticized and sometimes characterized as inconsistent with a scientific world view:

1. Teleology: The noosphere, Teilhard believed, served a larger purpose, and its evolution was bringing that purpose closer to realization, moving humankind toward the “omega point”.

2. Moral directionality: Teilhard believed that, as the noosphere evolved, and came more and more to resemble a global brain, there would be a corresponding unification of humankind, facilitated by the further moral development of our species (including a growth in brotherly love that he considered a critical part of our movement toward omega).

3. The “interiority” of consciousness: Teilhard believed that all matter—even inanimate matter—had a “psychic” aspect in its “interior” corresponding to its physical “exterior.”

It’s true that some of Teilhard’s characterizations of these ideas are hard to reconcile with a modern scientific world view. But it’s also true that there are alternative formulations that preserve essential parts of these ideas and are easier to reconcile with a modern scientific world view. In this talk I’ll try to convey the broad outlines of these alternative formulations.

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