Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The world is round so that friendship may encircle it.

Summary

Fr Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) was a French Jesuit priest trained as a paleontologist and a philosopher, and was present at the discovery of Peking Man.

He saw Evolution as a cosmic process rising from the birth of the universe in ever increasing complexity through matter, life, and thence to humankind with its unique capacity for self-reflection.

As a scientist, Teilhard's vision anticipated what we now know as Systems Theory applied to the cosmos, Holism, Complexity Theory, and Emergence Theory.

His vision of an evolving, thinking and feeling global humanity is being realized by the growth of global institutions and communications like the World Wide Web.

He made essential contributions to the concept of a Biocentric Culture (see Vital Unconscious and Biocentric Principle).

Ideas

• Law of Complexity/ Consciousness (there is an inherent compulsion in matter to arrange itself in more complex groupings, exhibiting higher levels of consciousness).
  • His theory of evolution is in sharp contrast to the neo-Darwinian theory but shows remarkable similarities with the new systems theory.
  • Its key concept is what he called the Law of Complexity/ Consciousness
  • This states that evolution proceeds in the direction of increasing complexity, and that this increase in complexity is accompanied by a corresponding rise of consciousness, culminating in human spirituality.
  • Unity of All Things - Teilhard believed that each one of us is linked by all the material organic and psychic strands of his being to all that surrounds him,
  • Arrow of Evolution - Teilhard maintains that evolution has a definite direction, the increasing complexity of living beings, the focus of which is their nervous systems, more precisely, their brains.
  • See Evolution of Evolutionary Theory for more detail.

• Noosphere (Sphere of Human Thought) - As a result of human evolution the planet is covered with a web of ideas, for which he coined the term Noospere.
• Noogenesis (Growth of Consciousness)
• Omega Point (point where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity)