Connecting
...human thoughts now flow together luminously across the globe
...human thoughts now flow together luminously across the globe
John Twisleton reflects upon fulfilment of philosopher
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher and paleontologist, known for his theory that human beings developed both mentally and socially towards a spiritual unity. (1881, Sarcenet France - died 1955, New York City, U.S.)
50 years ago An obscure Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, set down 'Philosophical framework for planetary, Net-based consciousness - he called it The Noosphere.'
Blending science and Christianity, Teilhard declared that the human epic resembles “nothing so much as a way of the Cross.” Various theories of his, brought reservations and objections from within the Roman Catholic Church and from the Jesuit order, of which he was a member. In 1962 the Holy Office issued a monitum, or simple warning, against uncritical acceptance of Teilhard ideas, based on the alleged ambiguities and doctrinal errors, rather than his spiritual dedication. Later eminent Catholic figures, including Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope Francis, accepted some of his ideas.
Nobel laureate Christian de Duve claimed Teilhard’s vision helps us to find meaning in the cosmos.
What stirred such criticisms?
At the centre of Teilhard's philosophy, was the belief that the human species is evolving spiritually, progressing from a simple faith to higher and higher forms of consciousness, including a consciousness of God, and culminating in the ultimate understanding of humankind’s place and purpose in the universe.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Teilhard saw such evolution already in progress; through technology, urbanisation, and modern communications, with more and more links being established between different peoples’ politics, economics, and habits of thought in an apparently geometric progression. As a former scientist who used to work with plastics, I love the way he saw scientific investigation within this bigger picture of hopeful Connecting.
‘To a perfectly clear-sighted observer, who watched it for a long time from a great height, our planet, the Earth, would at first appear blue from oxygen in its atmosphere; then green from the vegetation that clothes it; then luminous - and ever more luminous - from the intensification of thought on its surface’.
In that one sentence he describes the evolution of earth from cooled lava beds to vegetation on to animals and humans - conscious beings - and then into the Connecting of thought. He imagined Connecting the human spirit in universal love. So real was the spiritual to him that, though devoted to investigating humans scientifically, he gave this warning to those on a spiritual quest: ‘You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience’.
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Our picture shows Teilhard working as a palaeontologist in China’s Gobi Desert. It was there that he and Henri Breuil discovered that the ancient Peking Man, closely related to the Java Man are both members of Homo erectus, was a so-called ‘faber’, (craftsman) of stones and controller of fire. Five expeditions between 1926 and 1935 helped Teilhard make a geological map of China.
Living in Sussex I am familiar with Hastings, where Teilhard first learned geology, chipping away at the cliffs whilst on placement for years there. He was as fascinated by fire in the earth’s interior as by the emergence of artificial fire upon its exterior, the flowing lava that shaped much of our land once it cooled. His image of earth growing in luminosity as conscious beings make fire and begin connecting up their thinking is most powerful.
Gaia hypothesis and human consciousness
Teilhard and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Vernadsky inspired the Gaia hypothesis: the global ecosystem is a super organism with a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. Developing further ideas Teilhard went on to imagine a stage of evolution characterised by a complex membrane of information enveloping the globe and fueled by human consciousness.
Many see the internet as the literal fulfilment of Teilhard’s vision through Connecting thought finally going global. The thoughts of human beings now flow together electrically if not luminously across the globe. Even today a few cyber philosophers are now mining Teilhard’s ideological source as they search for the deeper implications of the Net.
A 2018 internet posting from Asianet Broadband claims ‘around 7 billion’ users of wireless devices use internet technology. With about 7.7 billion people in this world and with limited use among those under 5 years of age, it’s almost safe to say that it now connects the entire humanity to the internet…
“The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Connecting the internet of people
Speculation that around 95% of all global information is now digitised on the internet, making knowledge freely available and social interaction; has led to a complete transformation in communication. However, as with all major technological changes, there are positive and negative effects of the internet on society too.
I love Connecting with digitised knowledge and social interaction on the internet and am happy to talk as Teilhard De Chardin did of that being ‘luminous’.
But there is dark Connecting, yes, and suffering linked to the internet as it allows money to flow exploitatively, sexual gratification that demeans rapid harm to individuals who put words in the wrong place or to the wrong people.
The globe, blue with oxygen, green with vegetation and luminous with thought - but now shaded with darkness, flowing thought transferences of human short fallings.
During Covid-19 lockdown I had to help an elderly lady distressed by a scam in which thieves broke through internet banking security to access and steal from her account. Whilst enjoying Connecting electronically as a family in lockdown unable to meet physically, it was distressing to see criminal abuse of Connecting online harming the most vulnerable of people.
Globally there is a rise in Connecting via the internet of people, but is countered by Cyber-nationalism which is nationalism active on the internet. This, though helpful to nations, contributes to international rivalry through action, which can disrupt another country’s political stability i.e. hacking into governments mainframes to affect results of elections.
This shadowy world of cyberwarfare with its secret digital weapons, is a key feature of current international conflicts. Lack of cyber rules about such conflicts, risks escalation born from aggressive Connecting online.
Teilhard De Chardin had firsthand familiarity with conflict, more traditional to humans. Mobilised December 1914, Teilhard served in World War I as stretcher-bearer in the 8th Moroccan Rifles. For his valour he received several citations, including the Legion of Honour. Teilhard became close to North African soldiers fighting for France who nicknamed him ‘Sidi Marabout’, respected local, acknowledging compassion and spiritual stature reaching across the cultural divide.
The dark side of luminosity
First hand experience of bloody conflicts and working alongside dying soldiers, affected Teilhard’s philosophy. He had provided a logical examination of the trajectory of evolution from inanimate matter to animation, then human self-consciousness, extrapolating on to the cosmos being made ‘incandescent’ with the glow of a single thinking Connecting envelope. His scheme goes with Darwinian theory up to a point, then radically diverges as he rejects the materialist vision of ‘survival of the fittest’.
Teilhard saw how the world was luminous from Connecting but also saw there were dark patches ‘from the suffering that grows in quantity and acuteness in time with the rise of consciousness as the centuries pass by’. His own personal Connecting with soldiers in agony on the battlefield affected his world view. He wrote of mystical experience linked to the memory of his looking into the eyes of dying soldiers: ‘I could not tell whether it denoted an indescribable agony or a superabundance of triumphant joy’.
Though optimistic about the Connecting of all things through evolution Teilhard De Chardin learned and taught that such Connecting is inseparable from reconciliation, facing unpalatable truth, allaying pain and righting wrong.
The darkness of human failure and conflict, he held, is not final, but the love evidenced in the ongoing Connecting of human beings across space and down through time is ultimate. ‘Nothing is precious save what is yourself in others and others in yourself’ he wrote. With an incorrigible optimism built on faith in Jesus Christ, Teilhard looked to the harnessing of the fire of love as the next big stage in evolution.
‘The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the world's history, we shall have discovered fire.’
Meet this week’s author John Twisleton
An ideas and people person, author and broadcaster. A Yorkshire Dalesman he has worked his way down England to become a Sussex Downsman living between London and Brighton in Haywards Heath. His doctorate in polymer science. was awarded by Oxford University where he switched careers to train as an Anglican priest serving in Doncaster, Guyana, Coventry, London and Sussex in parishes and as a diocesan adviser and college principal. John is married to Anne with three children and two grandchildren. His middle name Fiennes is a reminder of his connection with the famed Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes family. His passion is helping people find peace in turbulent times and get humanity better minded to serve the common good.
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