Part 4:12B Brief summary of the development of order of matter on Earth

As stated, the following is a very brief summary of the description of the development of order of matter on Earth that will be presented in Parts 8:2 and 8:3. It will provide a strong counterbalance to all the dishonest biology that will be presented.

As described in Part 4:4D and summarised in Part 4:11, self-sacrifice for the good of the whole—unconditional selflessness—is the glue that holds wholes together and as such is the very theme of the integrative process. Further, it was pointed out that the integrative limitation of the gene-based learning system is that it normally (that is, outside the nurturing, love-indoctrination situation) can’t develop unconditional selflessness because if an unconditionally selfless trait develops it doesn’t tend to carry on. The most selflessness that can normally be developed genetically is the selflessness that occurs in situations of reciprocity where a favour is given on the condition that it is returned, which really means that the selflessness is not selfless at all but selfish.

So again, while genetics has proved to be a marvellous tool for integrating matter—it produced the great variety of life that we have on Earth—it has this very significant limitation in that it normally can’t develop unconditional selflessness and thus full integration. Each sexually reproducing individual plant or animal can develop traits for reciprocity, because such traits are in essence still selfish—they don’t give away an advantage to other sexually reproducing individuals and therefore don’t compromise the chances of the sexually reproducing individual to reproduce—but they cannot normally go beyond that and develop the capacity to behave unconditionally selflessly.

That is really all straightforward. What now needs to be considered is just how this inability to develop unconditional selflessness played out as the integration of matter developed from atoms, to molecules, to compounds, to macro-compounds, to virus-like organisms, to single-celled organisms, to multicellular organisms, to the next larger whole of the fully integrated association of multicellular animals. It makes sense that at the level of integration where multicellular animals have been formed, the more those members of a species become integrated (or what has evasively been termed ‘social’, which basically means cooperative), the more competition for available food, shelter, territory and a mate intensifies. The more social or integrated sexually reproducing individual multicellular organisms become, the more competition develops between them, until it reaches a point where no further cooperative integration is possible. In the end, the selfish, divisive competition becomes so intense, in fact, that dominance hierarchy is the only way to bring some peace between the competing individuals. The benefit of dominance hierarchy is that, once established, the only time competition breaks out is when an opportunity arises to move up the dominance hierarchy; for the rest of the time there is relative peace. Dominance hierarchy is a sign that a species has developed as much integration as it possibly can. It is integratively ‘maxed-out’; taken integration to the limit; developed as much integration as it possibly can.

Due to the establishment of dominance hierarchies the intense competition that integration has led to in highly social/​integrated species is often hidden from view. It is only when an opportunity arises to move up the dominance hierarchy, or so-called ‘peck order’, that we see the real intensity of the competition that exists between members of a cooperative, or what we have called ‘social’, species. In my youth I remember feeding hens in our hen house and seeing a hen twist her leg and become temporarily crippled, at which point all the other hens immediately attacked her. In that instant it was suddenly apparent to me just how closely and intensely each hen was watching all the others for an opportunity to literally move up the peck order. The hen house was not at all the gregarious, peaceful community I thought it was; rather, it was a place of absolutely fierce competition! Charles Darwin recognised this truth about the real struggle in the lives of most animals when he wrote that ‘It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war of organic beings, going on [in] the peaceful woods and smiling fields’ (12 Mar. 1839, Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, Barrett et al., 1987, p.429). When we humans become free of the human condition we are going to be shocked by the agony of the animal condition; we are going to finally feel the distress that all the non-human animal species live under, where each member is fiercely and relentlessly having to compete with the other members to make sure it reproduces its genes.

So, as will be explained more fully in Part 8:2, this is where most animals are stranded, stuck in the ‘animal condition’ of forever having to compete and make sure their genes reproduce. That is the essential fact or rule or law of the gene-based natural selection process—genes are unavoidably selfish—but, again, that doesn’t mean the meaning of existence is to be selfish; it is simply the limitation of the genetic tool for developing the order of matter. All of which raises the question: had the development of order of matter on Earth progressed as far as it could go at this point where the intensity of competition between sexually reproducing multicellular organisms had become so great that dominance hierarchy had to be employed? Well, it makes sense that since the limiting factor is that each sexually reproducing individual has to ensure it reproduces, one possibility is to elaborate the sexually reproducing individual, make it bigger, develop it so that there is more integration of matter within each sexually reproducing individual. As will be more fully explained in Part 8:3, elaborating the sexually reproducing individual is how single-celled organisms were able to integrate to form multicellular organisms such as our bodies, and it is also how the completely integrated/​social/​colonial ants/​bees/​termites/​wasps/​beetles/​shrimps/​aphids/​mole rats, etc, were able to form the next level of order of the integrated whole of multicellular members of a species. In multicellular organisms, each organism, while composed of many individual cells, remains one sexually reproducing individual. Similarly with ant/​bee, etc, colonies, each colony, while composed of many ants/​bees, etc, remains one sexually reproducing individual, one organism. As the prominent American biologist E.O. Wilson came to acknowledge in his 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth, ‘The queen and her offspring are often called superorganisms, but they may equally be called organisms’; ‘the mother queen and her progeny together [are]…the target of selection’ (pp.144 & 146 of 330). In the case of bees (the other completely social colonial species also employ a mechanism for retarding sexual maturation), the queen bee feeds a ‘royal jelly’ that causes sterility in all of her offspring that she intends to be workers. To ensure the reproduction of their genes these offspring then have to, through natural selection, develop the ability to support the queen because she carries their genes.

Elaborating the sexually reproducing individual allows the members of the elaborated sexually reproducing individual to develop the ability to at least behave unconditionally selflessly, which, as has been explained, is fundamental for the development of the fully cooperative integration of members into a new whole. The reason our body works so well is because each part has sublimated its needs to the greater good of the whole body—each part behaves in an unconditionally selfless way. Our skin, for example, is constantly growing and dying to protect our body. As has been mentioned, the leaves that fall in autumn do so to ensure the tree survives through winter. Ants and bees readily sacrifice themselves for the colony. Importantly, however, our body’s skin, the tree’s leaves and the ants/​bees, etc, have only behaved unconditionally selflessly because their selflessness is not actually unconditional selflessness, it is not true altruism. This is because the self-sacrificing skin, leaves and ants/​bees, etc, are all indirectly selfishly ensuring that their own genetic existence will be maintained by supporting the body or tree or ant/​bee, etc, colony that carries the genes for their existence. Genetically—from the point of view of the genes’ unavoidable need to reproduce—they are selflessly fostering the body/​tree/​colony to selfishly ensure their own genetic reproduction. Their apparently unconditionally selfless behaviour is not actually unconditional and thus altruistic, but rather a subtle form of selfishness. As pointed out, such reciprocity can develop genetically because it doesn’t compromise the chances of the sexually reproducing individual to reproduce.

It now needs to be explained that large animals couldn’t employ this device of elaborating the sexually reproducing individual to develop a fully cooperative, integrated association or whole of their members because for them it involves too great a loss of the variability that all species need to be able to adapt to changes in their environment. For example, if a female buffalo happened to be born with a particular mutation that caused her to produce a chemical in her milk that retarded the sexual maturation of her offspring such that her offspring then had to have selected mutations that inclined them to protect her for their genes to be successfully reproduced by her, and this became a common practice amongst buffalos, with every queen buffalo having, say, nine protector sacrificial buffalos, then the genetic variety of a population of 1,000 buffalos would be reduced to just 100, a drastic loss of variability. In the case of ants/​bees, etc, they are so small in relation to their environment that they can afford to have many fully integrated colonies in their environment without any significant loss of variability within their species.

Since integration is the theme of existence, all species are trying to become integrated and, according to how much their circumstances allow it given the limitation they are operating under of genes having to reproduce, they will have become integrated to some degree. It turns out that a number of large multicellular animal species have been partially successful in becoming integrated by temporarily elaborating the sexually reproducing individual. Many bird species, such as the Australian kookaburra, postpone their own reproduction for a few years after they fledge to selflessly help raise their parents’ subsequent offspring; wolves, African wild dogs and meerkats do the same thing. However, to delay their chances of reproducing permanently would lead to too great a loss of variability in their species. Colonial mole rats are underground-living mammals that form fully integrated colonies of up to 300 members comprising one queen who uses hormones to inhibit the sexual maturation of nearly all the other rats who then act as workers and soldiers. A few sexual disperser caste are allowed to reach sexual maturity and these periodically escape their natal burrow to access other colonies and, in doing so, contribute to the genetic variety of the species. Significantly, mole rats are relatively small, typically maturing to only 8 to 10 centimetres (3 to 4 inches) in length.

What has been explained here is very significant for humans because it means that, as relatively large animals, we could not have employed the integrating device of elaborating the sexually reproducing individual either permanently, like ants and mole rats, or even temporarily, like wolves, to create the pre-conscious fully integrated state that I have asserted our australopithecine human ancestors developed through love-indoctrination, the instinctive memory of which is our moral conscience. Further, I have asserted that during that fully integrated, idyllic time in our past, our instinctive orientation was not reciprocity’s subtle form of selfishness that the parts of a multicellular organism and workers in colonies of ants/​bees, etc, practice, but to being truly altruistic, genuinely unconditionally selflessly behaved towards all of life; thus, even if we could have employed the device of elaborating the sexually reproducing individual it would still not come close to accounting for the origins of our unconditionally selfless, moral instinctive self or soul.

One last summarising point needs to be made about the stages of integration between multicellular members of a species to form the fully integrated larger whole of the Specie Individual. As was mentioned, all species are trying to become integrated, but the amount of integration they have been able to develop varies according to their circumstances. In particular it depends on how much selfless, cooperative behaviour they can develop before they reach the integration limit where they have to establish dominance hierarchy—and beyond that situation, on whether they can temporarily or fully elaborate the reproductive individual—and beyond that situation, on whether they can develop love-indoctrination. Many species have been able to develop a degree of selfless cooperation or socialness through developing some reciprocal selflessness (which is ultimately selfish behaviour and thus can be developed by natural selection); African buffalos, for example, form semi-cooperative, ‘social’ herds as the herd provides individuals, in particular newborn calves, with physical protection against predators. Grazing animals in general form semi-cooperative, ‘social’ herds because, for one thing, if you are a grazing animal and have to have your head down feeding most of the time and you are in a herd it is likely that at least one member will have their head up and see an approaching predator and give a signal to the others of the threat. These are examples of reciprocal selflessness because while on occasion a member happens to be the selfless buffalo that most directly confronts the predator, or the grazing animal that draws attention to itself by giving the alarm call, on average each individual herd member benefits more than they risk from others making the defence or giving the alarm. It has already been explained how temporarily or permanently elaborating the reproductive individual enables cooperation to develop. What is significant is that under the limitation of the gene-based, natural selection process, while a little integration can be developed through occasional acts of reciprocal selflessness (such as occurs in buffalo herds), and somewhat more integration can be developed through temporarily elaborating the sexually reproducing individual (such as occurs in wolf packs), and continuous and thus full integration can be developed through permanently elaborating the sexually reproducing individual (as occurs in ant colonies), the continuous and thus full integration of sexually reproducing individuals to form the Species Individual can only occur through love-indoctrination (as is occuring in bonobos and occurred in our ape ancestors).

This was a brief summary of the integration of matter on Earth, with particular focus on why and where integration has become stalled, as that will be particularly relevant in the discussions that follow. Indeed, since what has been explained here is pivotal to the coming discussions, if any aspect remains unclear then I would recommend you read the fuller presentation in Parts 8:2 and 8:3.