This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If causality has broken down and events are not rigidly governed by the pushes and pressures of the past, may they not be influenced in some manner by the pull of the future - which is a manner of saying that “purpose” may be a concrete physical factor in the evolution of the universe.
Events | Evolution | Future | Past | Purpose | Purpose | Universe |
We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands.
Man, the individual, has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and motive power of evolution and progress.
Evolution | Individual | Man | Power | Progress |
The period of time covered by history is far too short to allow any perceptible progress in the popular sense of Evolution of the Human Species. The notion that there has been any such Progress since Caesar’s time (less than 20th centuries ago) is too absurd for discussion. All the savagery, barbarism, dark ages and the rest of it of which we have any record as existing in the past exists at the present moment.
Absurd | Barbarism | Discussion | Evolution | History | Past | Present | Progress | Rest | Sense | Time |
Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth that in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?
What I mean by a religious person is one who conceives himself or herself to be the instrument of some purpose in the universe which is a high purpose, and is the motive of evolution - that is, of a continual ascent in organization and power and life, and extension of life.
Evolution | Life | Life | Organization | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Universe |
Directly stated, the evolution of the entire universe - stars, elements, life, man - is a process of drawing something out of nothing, out of the utter void of nonbeing. The creative element in the mind of man - the latency which can conceive gods, carve statues, move the heart with the symbols of great poetry, or devise the formulas of modern physics - emerge in as mysterious a fashion as those elementary particles which leap into momentary existence in great cyclotrons, only to vanish again like infinitesimal ghosts.
Evolution | Existence | Heart | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Nothing | Poetry | Universe |
Evolution... is comprehensible only if we admit that it is dominated by a finality, a precise and distant goal... telefinality orients the march of evolution as a whole and has acted, ever since the appearance of life on earth, as a distant directing force tending to develop a being endowed with a conscience, a spiritually and morally perfect being. To attain this goal, this force acts on the laws of the unorganized world in such a way that the normal play of the second law of thermodynamics is always deflected in the same direction.
Appearance | Conscience | Earth | Evolution | Force | Law | Life | Life | Play | World |
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
Our drive toward novelty is a tool of evolution and transcendence.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, born Mahesh Prasad Varma
Physics has discovered the edge of infinity; the wisdom of the ages takes us across the border, which is nowhere but in us. When each person rejoins the stream of evolution that upholds the galaxies ands sweeps life forward on the wave of eternity, human existence will cease to contain any suffering, and our real purpose in living - to create heaven on earth - will be realized.
Earth | Eternity | Evolution | Existence | Heaven | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering | Will | Wisdom |
We cannot leave behind us the sins of our past. We must not forget that nothing disappears. Everything is eternal. Everything that has been is still in existence. The whole history of humanity is the “history of crime”... Man must go back, seek for, and destroy the causes of evil however far back they lie. It is only in this idea that the hint of the possibilities of a general evolution can be found. It is only in this idea that the possibility of changing the karma of humanity lies, because changing the karma means changing the past... There will be no possibility of thinking of evolution of humanity, if the possibility did not exist for individually evolving man to go into the past and struggle against the causes of the present evil which lie there.
Crime | Destroy | Eternal | Evil | Evolution | Existence | History | Humanity | Man | Means | Nothing | Past | Present | Struggle | Thinking | Will |
The consciousness of each of us is evolution looking at itself and reflecting.
Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaption to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.
Error | Evolution | Nature | Perfection |
As light waves carry information to us we respond according to our harmonic evolution in the octaves of time … where the time continuum has existed throughout galactic space, the medium where galaxies are formed and have their being within the electromagnetic wave-form of eternal light … in which we are an integral part … as we attain the ability of positive thinking … which brings us into contact with the cosmic intelligence.
Ordinarily when we talk about the human as the advanced product of evolution and the mind as being the most advanced product of evolution, there is an implication that we are advanced out of and away from the structure of the exterior world in which we have evolved, as if a separate product had been packaged, wrapped up, and delivered from a production line. The view I am presenting proposes a mechanism more and more interlocked with the totality of the exterior. This mechanism has no separate existence at all, being in a thousand ways united with and continuously interacting with the whole exterior domain. In fact there is no exterior red object with a tremendous mind linked to it by only a ray of light. The red object is a composite product of matter and mechanism evolved in permanent association with a most elaborate interlock. There is no tremor in what we call the "outside world" that is not locked by a thousand chains and gossamers to inner structures that vibrate and move with it and are a part of it. The reason for the painfulness of all philosophy is that in the past, in its necessary ignorance of the unbelievable domains of partnership that have evolved in the relationship between ourselves and the world around us, it dealt with what indeed have been a tragic separation and isolation. Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist.
Association | Evolution | Existence | Ignorance | Meaning | Mind | Object | Philosophy | Question | Reason | Relationship | World | Association |
Instant, multidimensional correlations are coming to light between the parts of a living organism, and even between organisms and environments... [these] are nearly as 'entangled' as microparticles that originate in the same quantum state [such as EPR pairs]... What happens to one cell or organ also happens in some way to all other cells and organs... [also] what happens in the external milieu of the organism is reflected in some way in its internal milieu. Thanks to this coherence, the organism can evolve in tune with its environment... [Darwinian evolution and random mutation is not enough]... That our world is not populated solely by the simplest of organisms, such as bacteria ... is due in the last analysis to the kind of 'entanglement' that exists among genes, organisms, organism species, and their niches within the biosphere.” Furthermore, “the organism's coherence goes beyond the coherence of a biochemical system; in some respects it attains the coherence of a quantum system... Simple collisions among neighbouring molecules... must be complemented by a network of instant communication that correlates all parts of the living system, even those that are distant from one another. Rare molecules, for example, are seldom contiguous, yet they find each other throughout the organism. There would not be sufficient time for this to occur by a random process of jiggling and mixing; the molecules need to locate and respond to each other specifically, even if they are distant
Humans have the ability to act consciously, and collectively, [exercising foresight to] choose their own evolutionary path. In our crucial epoch we cannot leave the selection of the next step in the evolution of human society and culture to chance. We must plan for it, consciously and purposefully.
Ability | Culture | Evolution | Foresight | Plan | Society | Society |
Consciousness evolution is from the ego-bound to the transpersonal form. If this is so, it is a source of great hope. Transpersonal consciousness is open to more of the information that reaches the brain than the dominant consciousness of today. This could have momentous consequences. It could produce greater empathy among people, and greater sensitivity to animals, plants, and the entire biosphere. It could create subtle contact with other parts of the cosmos. It could change our world. A society hallmarked by transpersonal consciousness is not likely to be materialistic and self-centered; it would be more deeply and widely informed.
Change | Consciousness | Empathy | Evolution | Society | Society |