Energy And Inertia

"...a universe that produces sophonts as casually as it produces snowflakes."

-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 7.

Reading about species as diverse as Terrans, Ythrians, Merseians, Wodenites, Cynthians, Baburites, Ikrankans, Ivanhoans, Didonians, Cainites, Diomedeans, Starkadians (two), Irumclagians, Talwinians (two) etc might generate some reflection on underlying evolutionary processes. See Speculution.

Everything that exists or happens is an interaction between change and resistance to change, energy and inertia. This universe began as concentrated energy which dispersed and partly solidified. As energy overcomes inertia, levels of interaction are progressively less static and more dynamic. Inanimate matter changes position, i.e., moves, but in mathematically predictable orbits. Animate matter resists change by change. Conscious organisms are mobile. Intelligent organisms actively change their environments, can become artistically creative and can also come to perceive everything anew at every moment, the most energetic level of consciousness, which however still needs inertia to maintain a natural and social environment.

However, the original energy did not intend this or any other outcome. Purposiveness originated only with consciousness. Before consciousness, change was random albeit eventually generating self-replication, mutation and natural selection. Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation. Then organisms not only absorbed nutrients but also wanted and intended to.

Some natural processes became conscious and purposive but could not have been purposive until they had become conscious. Yet many people project purposiveness back to the beginning.