08.27.08

From World History And The Eonic Effect: Wallace’s Second Opinion

Posted in Third Edition, World History and The Eonic Effect at 9:09 pm by nemo

Wallace was able finally to face the reality that ‘Darwinism’ couldn’t explain man. We may not agree with his formulation, but the point is that scientist can’t explain a ‘human’ it doesn’t even ’see’.
A short selection from World History And The Eonic

Wallace’s Second Opinion

One of the strangest aspects of the emergence of Darwinism is the sudden appearance of Alfred Wallace on the scene, triggering the publication of Darwin’s Origin. The long delay in Darwin’s work here has always been something of a mystery, as if he remained unsure of the basis of his claims. And the odd story of the rigged priority episode upon receipt of the famous Ternate letter leaves still another ambiguity at the threshold of Darwinism. Any evaluation of Darwin and his theory should consider the motives of personal ambition at the onset. And any testimony to evolution should consider Wallace’s ‘second opinion’ on the subject of evolution.
Wallace’s Second Opinion Wallace could see no way to make the theory work after the fashion of Darwin and considered a broader alternative, his ‘Theory of Human Nature’:

1. Man is a duality, consisting of an organized spiritual form, evolved coincidently and permeating the physical body, and having corresponding organs and development.
2. Death is the separation of this duality, and effects no change in the spirit, morally or intellectually.
3. Progressive evolution of the intellectual and moral nature is the destiny of individuals; the knowledge, attainments, and experience of earth-life forming the basis of spirit-life.

Accept this or not, we should still consider that the first scientist to make public a theory of evolution took such views. Wallace is notorious for his later interest in spiritualism, in the tide of interest in the question, that is also evident in the work of Henry James. The attempts to proceed scientifically in this area seem ludicrous to us now, and yet the question will not die in so far as Darwinian thinking cannot produce a viable definition of the organism, certainly not of man. Is the organismic totality a purely space-time entity? Even such a simple question eludes easy answer. It founders at the limits of metaphysics.

Just So (Ghost) Stories It is ironic that the onset of one of the greatest critiques of metaphysics began with Kant’s Visions of A Ghostseer, sounding the caution that questions divinity, soul, and free will would prove intractable to scientific analysis. Darwinism gets itself in trouble on all three of these classic issues. We might smile at Wallace the table-rapper, but sound science can provide no proof against the reality of ghosts, a dismal circumstance. At least we can be sure that if such exist, Darwinism is falsified on the spot, the difficulty of ghostly forms adapting to their environment by natural selection being evident.

Wallace is an important, but neglected, figure in the emergence of evolutionary theory, and his views, whatever our perspective, are not refuted by anything in the spurious abuse of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Let us note, then, that one of the co-discoverers of selectionist theory later dissented on the question, as far as the descent of man is concerned. Wallace (who started as a super-selectionist) saw something that becomes obvious in light of the eonic effect, that is, the appearance not of adaptive traits, but of potential that emerges through self-realization (making the term ‘evolution’ ambiguous). His classic observation was that
…in creating the human brain, evolution has wildly overshot the mark.
An instrument has been developed in advance of the needs of its possessor…Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of the ape, whereas he possesses one very little inferior to that of the average member of our learned societies….
This sentiment springs to life once we see the way Wallace’s dilemma reflects on history. We are confronted with questions about the meaning of evolution, if history shows yogis exploring consciousness in traditions as old as the emergence of civilization. It is entirely possible man came into being as he is in times unseen in the Paleolithic, and that what we sense as ‘evolution’ is another process entirely, a kind of self-realization of potential. It is still evolution in our sense.

08.27.08

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