Progressive Evolution 2.0 Position Papers

Last updated 11.12.24.

John Stewart is a leading proponent of progressive evolution. (At Universe Spirit, we often call progressive evolution "the Way of the Universe" to emphasize that progressive evolution in many ways is simply the most time-proven and deepest reoccurring patterns of successful action found within the 13.7 billion-year-old evolution of the universe.)

John Stewart has published extensively on the subject, as found below:

Stewart, John E. (2022), The Evolution and Development of Consciousness: The Subject-Object Emergence Hypothesis. Biosystems, 217: 104687.

Stewart, John E. (2020), Towards a general theory of the major cooperative evolutionary transitions. BioSystems, 198: 104237.

Stewart, John. E. (2019), The Trajectory of Evolution and its Implications for Humanity. Journal of Big History, 3, pp 141-155.

Stewart, John E. (2019), The Origins of Life: The Managed-Metabolism Hypothesis. Foundations of Science, 24, pp 171-195.

Stewart, John E. (2018), Evolutionary Possibilities: Can a society be constrained so the "the good" self-organizes? World Futures, 74, pp 1-35.

Stewart, J. E. (2016), The Evolution of Cooperative Organization and the Origins of Life. Presented at the OEE Workshop held at ALIFE XV, Cancun, Mexico, 4 July 2016.

Stewart, J. E. (2015), The Self-Organizing Society: A Grower's Guide. ECCO Working paper 2015-12.

Stewart, J. E. (2014), The direction of evolution: The rise of cooperative organisation, BioSystems, 123: 27-36 download

Stewart, J. E. (2010), The meaning of life in a developing universe, Foundations of Science, 15, pp. 395-409.

Stewart, J. E. (2007), The future evolution of consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14, pp. 58-92.

Stewart, J. E. (2001), Future psychological evolution, Journal of Dynamical Psychology.

Stewart, J. E. (2000), Evolution’s Arrow: the direction of evolution and the future of humanity, (Rivett, Canberra: Chapman Press).

Stewart, J. E. (1997), Evolutionary Progress, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 20, pp. 335-62.

Stewart, J. E. (1997), Evolutionary transitions and artificial life, Artificial Life, 3, pp. 101-120.

Stewart, J. E. (1997), The evolution of genetic cognition, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 20, pp 53-73

Stewart, J. E. (1995), Metaevolution, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 18, 113-114.

Stewart, J. E. (1993), The maintenance of sex, Evolutionary Theory, 10, 195-202.

Podcasts, Videos, Interviews, Discussions

For 9 YouTube Videos in which John Stewart talks about the evolutionary worldview and its implications for humanity, go to: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpotN6lpXPsYj_MVoznhE27lJ3RqyJ4L-

For example, see this discussion with John Vervaeke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NUb2HaElhA&t=6s

And here is a discussion with John Bunzl about the evolutionary imperative for humanity to move to a unified, cooperative and highly evolvable global society that is enabled by appropriate global governance:

The Global Governance Initiative

The "Global Governance Initiative" is an attempt to get evolutionary science to confirm that there is an evolutionary imperative for humanity to transition to a cooperative, sustainable and highly evolvable global society. This transition is essential if human civilization is to overcome the threats to its survival that are emerging in the form of the possibility of nuclear war and environmental degradation (including global warming).

As part of this initiative, the following four emails have been sent to over 700 evolutionary scientists whose work deals to some extent with the large-scale evolutionary processes that have shaped life on Earth and that will determine its future: first email; second email; third email; and the fourth email.

The third email contains links to separate emails that were sent to 15 leading evolutonary scientists in an attempt to get them to use their reputations to lead the initiative.

Another Global Governance Initiative

This is another strategy directed at assisting the emergence of a unified, cooperative and highly-evolvable global society. Such a society will need to be underpinned by global governance that is capable of aligning the interests of Nation States, corporations, individuals and other entities with the interests of the planet as a whole. When this is achieved, it will no longer be in the interests of governments, corporations and others to act in ways that degrade the environment or that produce wars.

The strategy relies on the fact that throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth, the emergence of larger-scale cooperative organisations has always first required the emergence of a source of power that can manage the organisation in ways that support cooperation and prevent free-riding etc.

It is highly improbable that such a source of global power could be achieved at this time through 'bottom up' processes e.g. by individiuals banding together in support of strategies that can institute a global system. Somewhat counterintuitively, a far more likely potential source of global power is a coalition of the extremely wealthy.

I have written two Sub Stack articles that draw on an evolutionary perspective to identify the feasibility of such a strategy and how it can be organised:

"Why there ‘must’ be a viable strategy for overcoming climate change and other existential threats”: A PDF of the article is here: evolutionarymanifesto.com/evolutionarycontext.pdf

"How ‘The One Percent’ can be Organized to Fix Climate Change": a PDF of this article is here: evolutionarymanifesto.com/theonepercent.pdf

Relevant non-academic articles and materials about the evolutionary worldview

2022, Materials, Practices and Technologies for Developing Higher Psychological Capacities.

2019, A short overview of the evolutionary worldview and its implications for humanity.

2017, Enlightenment and the Evolution of the Material World. Spanda Journal, 2017, Vol VII, 1, pp 107-114

2016, Review of Otto Laske's Primer on Dialectical/Metasystemic Cognition. Integral Leadership Review, August 2017.

2012, Does the persistence of bacteria, frogs and fish meant that there is no direction to evolution? Integral World.

2011, The First Planning Meeting for the Second Enlightenment.

2011, Evolución intencional, Athanor, 88 July/August issue.

2010, Is this the meaning of life?, an article for The Guardian's Science Blog

2009, The Ubermensch, in the online magazine Re-public: re-imagining democracy, Special Issue on Transhumanism.

2009, STRATEGIES FOR ADVANCING EVOLUTION, online here.

2008, Evolution towards global cooperation, Kosmos Journal, Vol VII, 2, pp 56-58.

2008, THE EVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO, online here.

2007, The Potential of Evolution, What is Enlightenment?, Issue 35, pp 40-42.

2006, Space and Humanity's Evolution, Beyond Earth: the future of humans in space, Ed: Bob Krone, pp 156-59.

2003, The evolutionary significance of spiritual development, Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science.

John Stewart's latest book has just been published.

This book identifies how individuals can scaffold metasystemic thinking in themselves and others. This level of cognitive capacity is essential if individuals are to fully understand the evolutionary worldview and to identify what they need to do to advance the evolutionary process on Earth. The book is titled Human Superintelligence: How you can develop it using recursive self-improvement. The Website for the book contains materials that will enable you to quickly and conveniently assess whether the book has relevance to your goals and interests. The Website is at HumanSuperintelligenceBook.com