Cosmos and Culture by Steven J. Dick & Mark L. Lupisella

Author:Steven J. Dick & Mark L. Lupisella [Dick, Steven J. & Lupisella, Mark L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NASA, Cosmos
ISBN: 9780160831195
Publisher: NASA
Published: 2010-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

5. Summary

One way to think about the relationships of cosmos and culture is to explore whether each is important for the other, and if so, how. Unidirectional relationships suggest that the universe is important for culture, but not the reverse. This could be consistent with many worldviews such as a bioresistant, biotolerant, and biofriendly universe, as well as a “weak bootstrapped universe” worldview which suggests the universe has bootstrapped itself into the realm of value, but without any particular significance for the universe at large. Bi-directional relationships suggest that the universe is important for culture and that culture is important for the universe. This could include worldviews that can be characterized as a “strong bootstrapped universe,” teleological, pantheistic, and theistic—all of which could be consistent with cosmocultural evolution and/or the Cosmocultural Principle which suggests that cultural evolution is significant enough for the cosmos that it implies a kind of coevolution of cosmos and culture that should be considered in totality and holistically as single integrated evolution.

The new quality of value that has emerged in the minds of beings with interests, along with the phenomenon of culture that operationalizes value, has added a significant and arguably qualitatively different kind of evolution to the cosmic landscape. Bootstrapped cosmocultural evolution suggests that the universe has “bootstrapped” itself into the realm of value via physical processes that created replicators leading eventually to intelligence, mind, and culture—none of which were necessarily inherent in the universe per se (e.g., as a “cosmic imperative”)—but which now have a limited kind cosmic ontological significance, practical cultural relevance, and the perhaps unlimited potential to eventually transform the whole of the universe itself. This emergence of a new kind of cosmic property, value, along with cultural evolution that instantiates value and creates derivatives such as meaning, purpose, and other endless forms of value, has given rise to a qualitatively different kind of cosmic phenomenon that may have unlimited potential.

What we do with the potentially unlimited power of cultural evolution is a profound challenge—one that we face day-to-day on many levels, but that will increasingly be relevant on ever-widening scales as we begin to see ourselves in a long-term cosmic context and as cultural evolution begins to become a more cosmically relevant phenomenon. The forces of morality and creativity can give rise to a morally creative cosmos, a universe that goes beyond intelligence and technology, a universe that is deeply driven by the caring capacity of valuing agents and ultimately by a pervasive cosmic force of moral creativity—something to which all cultural beings might aspire.

Whether one thinks life and culture arose by chance or are instead a part of cosmic design, an argument can be made either way for the value of life, intelligence, and culture. Whether we are a kind of rare cosmic gem, part of a “cosmic fugue,” or perhaps a part of cosmic destiny, there is arguably some form of noteworthy significance we can claim for life, mind, and culture. Either way, we can see ourselves as precious

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