Chapter 5:3 The integration of sexually reproducing individuals to form the Specie Individual

As was explained in some detail in chapters 4:4 to 4:6, while the gene-based system for developing the order of matter on Earth is powerfully effective—it is, after all, responsible for the great variety of life we see on Earth—it has one very significant limitation, which arises from the fact that each sexually reproducing individual organism has to struggle and selfishly compete for the available resources of food, shelter, territory and the mating opportunities it requires if it is to successfully reproduce its genes. What this means is that integration, and the unconditionally selfless cooperation that integration depends upon, cannot normally develop between one sexually reproducing individual and another; which in turn means that integration beyond the level of the sexually reproducing individual—that is, the coming together or integration of sexually reproducing individuals to form a new larger and more stable whole of sexually reproducing individuals, the Specie Individual—can also not normally develop. Thus, it would appear that Negative Entropy’s, or God’s, development of order of matter on Earth had come to a stop at the level of the sexually reproducing individual. The integration of the members of a species into the larger whole of the Specie Individual could seemingly not be developed.

What this means is that only a degree of cooperation and thus integration could be developed between the sexually reproducing individual members of a species before the competition between them became so intense that a dominance hierarchy had to be employed to contain the divisive competition; and, in fact, that is where most animal species are stalled in their ability to integrate. They could become integrated to a degree (what has been termed ‘social’), but not completely integrated into one new larger organism or whole. Certainly each sexually reproducing individual could be either temporarily (in the case of large animals like wolves) or permanently (in the case of small animals like ants and bees) ‘elaborated’—developed to become bigger—thus allowing greater integration of matter to occur within the sexually reproducing individual. But those elaborated units (the wolf packs and the ant/​bee colonies) were, nevertheless, still engaged in competition with each other. It seemed that the integration of sexually reproducing members of a species and thus the full integration of the members of a species into a Specie Individual could not be achieved; Negative Entropy, or God, had seemingly developed as much order of matter on Earth as it could.

HOWEVER, this was not the case—the integration of matter hadn’t come to an end, because a way was found by Negative Entropy, or God, to integrate the members of a species into the larger whole of the Specie Individual, AND, moreover, it was our ape ancestors who achieved this extraordinary step. Yes, as Moses recognised in his account of the emergence of the human condition in Genesis, we humans did once live ‘in the image of God’ (1:27), we were once a fully cooperative, unconditionally selflessly behaved, completely integrated species. We did once live in ‘the Garden of Eden’-like (3:23) state of original cooperative, loving, innocent togetherness, then we became conscious, took the ‘fruit’ ‘from the tree of…knowledge’ (3:3, 2:17), and, as a result of being ‘disobedient’ (the term widely used in descriptions of Gen. 3), we ‘fell from grace’ (derived from the title of Gen. 3, ‘The Fall of Man’) because we became divisively behaved sufferers of the human condition, supposedly deserving of being ‘banished’ (3:23) from the Edenic state of original innocent togetherness (again, the definition of ‘Edenic’ being ‘the first home of Adam and Eve…​a state of innocence, bliss, or ultimate happiness’ (The Free Dictionary)). Our divisive, non-integrative, seemingly unGodly, psychologically angry, egocentric and alienated present corrupted condition meant that ‘Today you [God/​Integrative Meaning] are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence [humans will have to live in a disconnected-from-the-truth, meaningless, lost, extremely-distressed state of alienation, and as a result], I will be a restless wanderer on the earth’ (4:14)—but we can now at last emerge from this state because we can finally explain and thus compassionately understand why we had to search for ‘knowledge’ and suffer becoming corrupted.

So THE GREAT QUESTION is, how did Negative Entropy, or God, achieve this amazing integration; this ‘blessed’, ‘innocent and simple and calm and happy’ ‘pure’ state that Plato described (in par. 158), where there was no ‘war or quarrel[ling]’, and where we ‘dwelt naked…​in the open air…​and…​lay on soft couches of grass’ (see par. 170); the time when, as Hesiod said (in par. 180), we were a ‘golden race…with calm untroubled mind[s]…unbridled by toil…[and] all willing shared the gathering of…​[our] hands’? How did our human ancestors develop the fully integrated state of the Specie Individual, the instinctive memory of which is our unconditionally selfless, genuinely altruistic, cooperative, loving, moral self or ‘soul’, and the ‘voice’ or expression of which is our conscience? What is the biological origin of our species’ extraordinary ‘shrink from stealing or lying’, ‘got to save those kids’, selflessly prepared ‘to march into hell for a heavenly cause’ moral sense?