So I started reading this book called A Brief History of Everything, by Ken Wilber. Wilber published his first book when he was 23 after dropping out of graduate school and has been writing ever since. His areas of interest include pretty much all academic and religious philosophy, and A Brief History of Everything seeks to demonstrate the commonalities between all of these seemingly separate disciplines and viewpoints. I decided to take notes chapter by chapter so that I don't forget what I'm reading and can go back and use them for reference later. Seeing the slowing of activity on the blog, I thought I'd post my notes chapter by chapter for discussion. On a side note, I think his theory of evolution is very similar to Robert Pirsig's, and a lot of what I've read so far is basically saying the same thing in different words. So you can use the metaphysics of Quality as a lens through which to view Wilber. Here's chapter 1:

· The whole of existence is the Kosmos, a term used to describe the sum of its parts: matter or cosmos (physiosphere), life or the biosphere (bios), and mind or the noosphere (psyche or nous). Therefore, kosmos does not only describe the physical universe. You can also include the theosphere (theos, the divine domain).

· Autopoesis, the creation of life out of life, is a profound emergent, something “astonishingly novel.”

· The universe is composed of units called holons, a term borrowed from Arthur Koestler, units that are simultaneously part of something larger and made up of smaller units (holons). This is the first tenet out of twenty that Wilber laid out in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.

· If we look at what all holons have in common, we will begin to see what all stages of evolution have in common and therefore all of the Kosmos.

· There is a natural tendency towards agency and communion in all holons; this is tenet two. All holons are, of course, independent of each other, but also a part of a larger holon. This relationship is hierarchical, but not in a patriarchal or domineering sense. A molecule does not exert dominance over its atoms, nor the other way around. Pathological hierarchies occur when a holon loses its place or tries to exert control over other holons; these holons must be put in their place or risk dissolution. The alternative term proposed is holarchies/holarchy, which better describes the communal and cooperative nature of holonic hierarchies

· Holons also demonstrate vertical drive, either towards dissolution or ascendency. Ascendency is an emergent event that creates new holons. The idea of evolution as natural selection misses the point, as this only describes the process of “nature” selecting traits that have already emerged; it is not the process itself.

· Tenet three states only that holons emerge. The reductionist drive fails when we recognize that you cannot reduce mind to life, and life to mind; the deconstruction is discontiguous.

· Chance cannot be the mechanism for evolution. Scientists calculated that the time it would take to produce even a single enzyme is greater than the proposed age of the universe, 12 billion years. Therefore, the drive towards transcendence is present in all of the Kosmos.