18 - Eternism

Living Eternons

1 Life Everywhere
2 Particles
3 Atoms
4 Molecules
5 Emergence
6 Clays
7 Carbon
8 Macromolecules
9 RNA and DNA
10 Viruses
11 Protocells
12 Cells
13 Plants
14 Animals
15 Humans
16 Lamarkism
17 Darwinism
18 Eternism

18 - Eternism: Forest of Life

Imagine aliens landing on Earth and discovering our many means of locomotion: bicycles, automobiles, trucks, trains, etc. They notice certain common features of these vehicles and classify them into orders, families, and species. They collect fossils of various ages, such as ox carts or model T’s. They come upon the remote ancestor, a round stone in the shape of a wheel. They dig up rusted bodies and painstakingly reconstruct them. In museums, crowds of aliens are fascinated by these weird metallic carcasses.

The alien "locomologists" produce a brilliant theory of evolution. It shows how the gasoline engine improved over the steam engine, leaving extinct entire families of vehicles. It explains how the pedal, a fortuitous mutation, made the bicycle more fit for survival than the velocipede. There is nonetheless something quite wrong in the theory. The aliens have overlooked the essential element: the humans who, from Neanderthal to Sapiens, have raised their consciousness and worked diligently to produce this rolling world.

In many respects, our scientists are behaving like these fictional visitors. They ignore the consciousness at work in the evolution of nature. They overlook the Eternons. Consequently, neither Lamark's willful variations of parents, nor Darwin's random mutations of children, properly accounts for our multifarious environment. But Eternism does.

Species are so many and frontiers between the kingdoms of life are so blurred because Eternons have never set any boundary to their inventiveness. They have explored every alternative, constantly introducing new forms and new materials. The diversity of solutions proposed shows that many gifted Eternons have been involved in evolution. These architects of life have followed their own course all the while exchanging information. Hence, we must trace back all organisms not to a single primal cell born by chance, but rather to several "proto-cells" conceived by conscious Eternons. Hence, evolution is not a tree but a forest.

True, not all innovations have been a success and countless species have become extinct. But for Eternons, extinction does not mean a waste or the end. Experienced Eternons are always recycled in new structures.

Evolution makes no sense when reduced to the dreadful struggle of involuntary mutants. Conversely, it shines forth with all its brilliant intelligence when understood as the quest of Eternons for higher consciousness. We may rejoice: we are not fortuitous encounters of atoms. We are the fruits of a rational progression. We are the apex of a thoroughly conscious nature.

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