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(English translation by
Janice B. Paulsen*) *This translation into
English of the French draft entitled
"ESPRIT-MATIÈRE", is actually an early part
of an ongoing collaborative process seeking clarity
and convergence on its Teilhardian inspired thesis.
The bracketed numbers refer to the valuable
assistance, contributions, and comments offered in
the translation by Brian Cowan, and Dr. Alec
MacAndrew, as well as to added comments by the
author, as referenced in the APPENDIX. Dr.
Abbatucci is already in the process of developing a
much richer, fuller draft expressing Teilhard's
view of the "Conscious Spirit" in the light of
modern scientific thought. Teilhard eGroup members
are invited to post comments to our list as Dr.
Abbatucci has now joined us. Members who can read
French might also be interested in critiquing the
latest French draft of this paper entitled
"L'ESPRIT EXISTE". Contact any of us for a
copy. Why do I dare now venture
into such a subject? I beg my colleagues, notably
the philosophers, not to take me to task for
impertinently overstepping the limits of my
doctorate of medicine in order to talk like Gould.
In my defence, I will say that my speciality in
radiotherapy has given me a certain familiarity
with fundamental physics and add that one cannot
spend one's career as a doctor frequenting life and
death without being led to question the essential
elements of being. I am suffering from a
professional malady from which many others before
me have never been cured. In his famous essay,
"Chance and Necessity", speaking of the determinism
imposed upon the world, the Nobel Laureate Jacques
Monod [2] concluded that "The ancient
covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is
alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of
which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is
nowhere spelled out nor is his duty. The kingdom
above or the darkness below; it is for him to
choose." Like the majority of researchers in
various disciplines, Monod would seem to be making
the point that there is nothing inevitable about
the emergence of human beings. But what of the
emergence of the conscious spirit? I am struck by the fact
that in the numerous electronic discussion forums
about the evolution of the world, and in particular
about that of life, even quite often in settings
where theologians participate, no one ever evokes
the spirit. As if that went without saying, and
that we weren't concerned by the strangeness of our
position: we observe and we judge, but we do not
seem to be conscious of the fact that we are inside
the thing being judged. Our spirit is the observer
of everything. And yet our spirit cannot become
manifest without matter. That is what our
experience shows us. Isn't there a paradox in that?
But first, what in effect
is spirit? Its reality is difficult
to define [4]. Of course, I'm speaking here
of spirit as an "incorporeal and intellectual
substance" according to the definition of the
Littré, which, in addition gives more than
30 special variations [5]. To those of us not current
on modern physics, matter seems more directly
accessible to our understanding [6].
Roughly speaking, it is for us, simply, the
"reality", although we will see this presumably
"concrete" reality [7] becoming more and
more complex in the eyes of science. But what can we say about
thought? What is its nature? Some would like to reduce
it to synaptic exchanges between neurons, to a
chemical reaction through the intervention of
"neurotransmitters", in short an action of synapses
[8]. Isn't that conception a bit too much
of a reductionism? Indeed Roger Penrose , the great
Oxford physicist and mathematician, seems to think
so: "A scientific vision which does not integrate
the problem of the conscious spirit [9],
cannot seriously pretend to be a complete vision.
Consciousness is a part of our universe". As he
points out "thought is a strange phenomenon which
depends on matter but which can act upon
it." In fact, Teilhard had
expressed himself in very similar terms right at
the beginning of the last century : "A new science
of physics needs to be born", he said. "The moment
has come to realize that an interpretation, even
positivist, of the Universe must, in order to be
satisfying, cover the within, as well as the
without of things, --- Spirit as much as matter.
The true Physics is that which will succeed,
someday, in integrating the total Man in a coherent
representation of the world." But how define this
spirit? It has no dimensions, no weight, no
substance. What are its limits? Where is it
situated? What we do know, is that
our spirit is the one thing we can each be sure of.
I think therefore I am… Is spirit an
epiphenomenon? Or is it THE Phenomenon" That is the
question and Shakespeare's genius revealed
it. What would the Universe be
if we weren't conscious of it? Is it not really at
that point that we could term it empty and cold, as
Jacques Monod thought? What would matter be without
our spirit? Let us try to imagine a world with no
one to think it. Would it exist or would it merely
just be there? What does existence mean without the
consciousness that we have of it? Only our
conscious spirit allows us to state that matter
exists [10]. Now in all the scientific
description of the world, the presence of the
independent observer spirit (mind) goes without
saying. Of course one discusses conditions
necessary to its existence, which are quite
specific. The Nobel Prize winner Gerald M. Edelman
described recently in his admirable book "The
Biology of Consciousness" the infinitely complex
and precise processes which for millenniums had
been leading up to the evolution of the brain and
which have ended up in the current structures which
support thought. But even if we thoroughly
understand that the multiple neuronal patterns that
he describes are indispensable to thought, is man
nothing more than a bundle of neurons? Is this what
it means to exist? [11] Pierre Chaunu uses a
striking formula: "The brain is of the body but it
is not the spirit (mind) which without it, would
not be able to speak … Thought lacks physical
substance [12] in the same way as quantum
particles that are so like spirit that one
hesitates to call them matter". Reinforcing the mystery,
we note that if one agrees to situate the beginning
of the evolution of the first complex multicellular
eucaryotes about 500 million years ago, and the
first mammals appearing 125 million years ago,
eventually to succeed the dinosaurs 60 million
years later [13], the constitution of the
brain took place in a relatively limited period of
time with regard to the infinite complexity of
which it consists [14]. This increasing
complexity is illustrated by the fact that the
brain and all the organs and tissues of the body
are linked by interactive relationships, each of
them being useless without the others. They all
must evolve together, thus increasing the
evolutionary complexity. Now, let's take a look at
some of the essential qualities of
spirit. Spirit or mind can reveal
facts about what is real and can empirically
determine the way reality works. It permits the
ensuing formulation, based upon these discoveries,
of what we call laws. Innumerable great names of
discoverers mark the direction of the history of
science. Let us note in particular Galileo, Newton,
Einstein, Darwin … But many others with them,
in all domains, have brought to light laws
regulating the universe. Let us also note that
these laws came into being, the same as space and
time, a few fractions of a second after the Big
Bang [15]. Of course, they didn't rely on
the very recent emergence of Man in order to become
manifest. I insist on this point for I was
surprised to hear one day a scientist assert that
the laws were the work of men [16], whereas
it is now assumed that the universe behaves
according to certain "laws" inherent within
it. This discovery is still in
the early stages. Our knowledge is still very
incomplete. The frontiers of acquired knowledge are
expanding in geometric progression and constantly
opening new perspectives. Einstein found himself
infinitely small before the immensity of all that
remains to be discovered [17]. This means that it
combines natural properties that exist, due to the
fact of the laws of nature, independent of it but
from which it learns to draw. Utilising these laws,
spirit (mind) [18] invents tools, that is
to say, certain means that prolong and amplify the
physiological capacities of the human body. We can
cite some simple examples: the lever in order to
raise a heavy body, pliers to augment the strength
of the hand, a magnifying glass in order to see
better… With time and the progress of
knowledge, it goes further, very much further. It's
the steam engine, the mastery of energy, the atom.
It's the invention of electricity, of the means of
transportation, of the airplane. There are the
transmissions by electromagnetic waves,
radio-television, the Internet. It's also genetics
with, hovering in the horizon, eugenics. One cannot stop invention
and that which one calls progress
[19]. There are domains where
the spirit (mind) inspires the creation of
something that did not exist in the universe before
it. This is the case of works of art, and in a
particularly evident manner, that of music. The
inspiration for the relationships that tie together
notes would seem to belong to the ethereal domain
of abstraction [21]. They exist through the
spirit that creates them. But that is true also for
all artistic creations. The initial elements for a
painting, of a sculpture, of a monument, are not
gathered together by the artist utilising the laws
of physics, except in an accessory manner through
the necessary materials [22]. but come in
large part from inspirations of the purely
spiritual domain. It is the same, in a general way,
with intellectual works such as poetry, literature,
philosophy … Mathematics, however, appear to
me to be of the domain of discovery, for they exist
independently of man. In fact, they seem to be the
substratum of the universe, and laws are most often
written up in mathematical
language… According to certain
scientific works, as we have seen, we can be led to
conclude that spirit does not exist as a separate
reality [24]. Man [25] would be
merely a bundle of neurons [26] and thought
a series of synaptic exchanges. But is this what it
means to exist [27]? In fact, our existence
being the only indisputable point of reference for
each one of us, it would seem that spirit exists
entirely on its own. Otherwise, it may just be that
spirit somehow arises out of the matter from which
our earthly existence was created
[28]. It constitutes what is
tangible, measurable, quantifiable. It is Object
and consequently, it lends itself to objective and
rational analysis. From this fact, we can describe
the laws that govern it. But let us pursue our
reflections more deeply on this subject. Matter,
touchstone of "Reality", indisputable reference of
positivism, is the object of a new approach by
science itself, one that renders the concept very
abstract. Matter and Energy are
equivalent. We have known that quite well since we
learned to pass from one to the other in the many
domains of research and industry. But Matter is
also Information, that is, a grain of matter is
defined by the number of instructions it contains
and which are necessary in order to describe it.
Imagining the information contained in an atom
seeing the complexity of the formulae that
scientists must apply in order to describe it, we
would think that for a molecule, even more is
needed. The number of formulae increases with the
complexity of the structure
[29]. As Nicolescu has so well
expressed it, the organisational principles are
therefore at least as important for the description
and the comprehension of Reality as the
"fundamental objects". These objects are replaced
by a principle of energetic organisation that has
the virtue of being, at the same time, the
principle structuring the different levels of
Reality. The "emphasis" has been displaced from
"object" towards "event", from the substance
towards energy, from structure towards
organisation. Biological evolution
toward increasing complexity increases the
Organisation of matter [30]. This
hyper-complexity is accompanied by an augmentation
of the neguentropy, that is, by an augmentation of
the development of a higher level of
energy-information. But abstraction invades
the biological reality even more if we realize that
it belongs to the spatial plan at the atomic or
corpuscular level. At this level, the reality of
the body of the living being, of the body of a
human being, changes character. In the atoms of a
molecule an immense void at this level separates
the waves or strings [31] that constitute
the nucleus from the electrons that gravitate
around it. Matter becomes more and more an
abstraction. In addition, a notable
fact has just come to light about the reality of
the human body: it is constantly changing. No part
escapes this perpetual turnover, including the DNA
molecules that constitute the genes that define
heredity. On a larger scale, in the tissues
themselves, the cells have, in general, a life span
of about a week or a month. With the exception of
the cortical and retinal cells, and female germ
cells (eggs) that have the same life span as the
individual, a living being is a construction in
perpetual evolution. The only permanent element is
in the genes that encode and define the
organisational plan, and of which the substratum is
immaterial. That assures a harmonious equilibrium
of the vital functions from birth to old age
[32]. The code rests upon the interaction
of the atomic elements, an interaction of
electromagnetic nature that is thus in someway
immaterial, with the whole constituting a vast
field, that of our personality. It is interesting to note
what Teilhard said in 1919 about the nature of the
human body: "It suffices to have
searched only once to precisely designate what the
body of a living being consists of, in order to
notice that this entity, so clear when it remains
in the practical domain, "my body", is excessively
difficult to define and to limit in theory
[…]. We need to understand the body in
a different way than we have done up to now. ---
How? In the following manner, perhaps
[…]: The body (that is, the Matter
incommunicably allocated to each soul) is, as we
have stressed up to this point, a fragment of the
Universe, --- a morsel precisely detached from the
Rest and entrusted to a spirit which informs it
[…] The Body, let us say henceforth,
is the very Universality of Things, in as much as
they are centered on an animating spirit, in as
much as they are influencing it, ---in as much as
they are also influenced and sustained by it. For a
soul, to have a body is to be rooted [33]
in the cosmos." And in a very Pauline
spirit, Teilhard had already said in "The Priest",
in 1917: "From the cosmic element into which it has
inserted itself, the Word is acting in order to
attract and assimilate all the rest." Finally, in the
"Phenomenon of Man", he further clarifies: "To the
cosmic corpuscles, we would find it natural to
attribute a realm of individual action as limited
as their dimensions themselves. Now it becomes
evident to the contrary that each one of them is
definable only in the function of its influence on
all that is around it ---and reciprocally, each of
them defines itself only in the function of all
that surrounds it ---Whatever may be the space in
which we suppose it placed, each cosmic element
entirely fills the volume with its radiating
emissions. Thus, as narrowly circumscribed as may
be the "Heart" of an atom, its domain is
coextensive, at least virtually, to that of any
other atom. What a strange property we find
[…] right in the human
molecule!" The liaisons between the
elements therefore constitute the essence of the
universe, just as they do for the human body. The
interaction is universal. The evolution of ideas
following Einstein renders these discoveries more
evident. Space-time is a woven cloth that ties
together all the elements of the
universe. The relationships between
Matter and Thought remain largely unknown, though
MRI scans have produced powerful evidence of which
parts of the physical brain are implicated in which
types of thoughts. Through the progress of
science and particularly in quantum physics, Matter
takes on a nobility that had previously been
accorded only to Spirit [34]. For Nicolescu
"What distinguishes man from animal is his capacity
for communicating with symbols, his capacity for
the perception of an infinite number of levels of
reality. The symbol brings with it a progressive
neguentropy of language, an increasing order, an
augmentation of information and comprehension. In
scientific language, that would correspond in the
existence in nature to an infinite number of levels
of materiality." He observes the "placement into
'experimental and mathematical' evidence of a new
level of quantum materiality whose laws are
completely different from those which regulate
Reality at our own level. Reality is not in
dissolution but rather is progressively revealing
itself to us. Abstraction is a component of
Reality" [35]. He adds, "It's not just
some theological or metaphysical document that has
postulated the existence of such a quantum and sub
quantum scale, but science itself that has revealed
it, through the conjoint effort of an increasingly
more precise experimentation and an ever more
refined mathematical tool" [36]. Concerning the
materialistic simplicity that we attribute
spontaneously to the objects that constitute our
world, what becomes of it under the light shed by
modern theories that bring into evidence elementary
particles of miniscule strings each vibrating at
its own characteristic frequency? The "elegant
universe" described by Brian Greene , young world
specialist of the String Theory at Columbia
University, pushes us to meditation
[37]. A mathematical universe
reflects[38] our real universe. The harmony of the numbers
that regulate us becomes accessible when expressed
in the language of music or in gorgeous
images. In equal fashion,
information science, the complexity of which is
measured in numbered bits, is succeeding in
creating a virtual reality that is becoming ever
more present in our everyday life. Xavier Sallantin describes
how increasingly complex information arises on our
planet, and how the equivalent of a computer
program, put in place at the Creation, drives the
process of evolution, causing the elements that are
created in the Big bang and in stellar processes to
combine in ever more complex ways. Man, who is the
most complex product of evolution, is now creating
virtual beings that can themselves influence life.
Teilhard de Chardin ,
always, had the perception of the strangeness of
this world that reflects our reality: "All the
appearances of the inferior World remaining the
same (the material determinisms, the vicissitudes
of Chance, and the law of work, and the agitation
of mankind, and the threshold of death), he who
dares to believe enters a realm of the created
where Things, keeping their habitual texture, seem
made of another Substance. Everything remains
unchanged in the phenomena, yet all becomes,
however, luminous, animated, loving." In a mystical lyricism for
which some have reproached him, but which is also
the language of the inexplicable, he expressed his
famous Hymn to Matter , of which here are a few
extracts: "Blessed be you, mighty
Matter, irresistible march of Evolution, Reality
ever newborn, you who […] force us to
go ever further and further in our pursuit of
Truth. Blessed be you, universal
Matter, immeasurable time, […] you who
by overflowing and dissolving our narrow
measurements reveal to us the dimensions of
God… I bless you, Matter, and I
acclaim you, […] just as you reveal
yourself to me today, in your totality and your
Truth… I acclaim you, universal
power of reconciliation and of union, through which
the multitudinous monads [39] are bound
together and in which they converge on the way of
the Spirit." To summarise, we need to
consider whether spirit is actually an entirely
separate entity; or whether it may rather be that
matter also possess the qualities of spirit
[40]. It is this last eventuality that
Teilhard de Chardin had in mind when he chose the
term "spirit-matter": "Spirit-Matter: Property of
the stuff of the universe. There is not,
concretely, matter and spirit, but there exists
only matter in the process of spiritualization ."
For him, the stuff of the
universe is two-sided, and it is in that stage of
evolution toward increasing complexity that the
brain, the most complex element of the entire known
universe, has permitted the appearance of
reflective thought. Teilhard goes even further. He
interprets the whole of cosmogenesis as a
noogenesis, the emergence of conscious spirit
rising out of matter, in which spirit-matter would
be engaged in the great work of Creation along the
path towards spiritualization
[41]. One must recognize that
this hypothesis is in complete accord with that
which one observes concerning the evolution of our
earth. The upward thrust toward complexity
accompanies the development of thought
[42]. With man, thought takes an
active place among the directive elements of
evolution. It is "evolution become conscious of
itself", according to the words of Julian Huxley.
But it may also be the hand on evolution as
Teilhard had intuited it. Tools of every kind
invented by man have just become added to the
adaptive selection of acquired psychological and
anatomical traits [43]. These tools have
already become as indispensable to life as to the
development of thought. The noosphere encircling
our planet is weaving itself in a rapidly
increasing and possibly irreversible manner
[44]. If we don't lose our sense
of wisdom, up to what heights might we not go? And
if our wisdom fails us, to what depths might we not
plunge? [45] The real question, now
that we seem to have our "hand on evolution", may
just be how do we manage our responsibility for
this Creation, as the wisdom of Ecclesiastes warns,
before "the dust returns to the ground it came
from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it"?
[46] (Comments not specifically
attributed to Dr. Alec MacAndrew or Brian Cowan are
those made in the translation/editing process by
Janice B. Paulsen. Highlighted comments are those
added by Dr. Abbatucci after receiving the draft of
our English translation of his paper. Teilhard
eGroup members are invited to share in an online
discussion of the content of this paper. Dr.
Abbatucci has now joined our group.) 1. The possibility of
translating the title as " Mind&endash;Matter" was
considered, but Spirit does seem the best choice
for the apparent original purpose of this paper.
Dr. Abbatucci's chosen title "Spirit-Matter", would
seem to point to Teilhard's view that the
spiritualization of matter is the purpose of
creation. One would thus anticipate that this paper
would develop and support that Teilhardian view.
(See: "Esprit-Matière" in the extracts from
the "Nouveau lexique Teilhard de Chardin", par
Claude Cuénot, 1968, Editions du Seuil,
available online at
http://www.Teilhard.org/lexiquec.php : «
ESPRIT-MATIÈRE : Propriété de
l'étoffe de l'univers. Il n'y a pas,
concrètement, de la matière et de
l'esprit, mais il existe seulement de la
matière en voie de spiritualisation. »
(VI, p. 74.) ["Spirit-Matter: Property of the
stuff of the universe. There is not, concretely,
matter and spirit, but there exists only matter in
the process of spiritualization".]
OK 2. I have reworded this
paragraph in response to Alec's comment that, as
originally worded: This is unfair on Monod - he
doesn't see us as separate from the world but
entirely part of it - he makes the point however
that there is nothing inevitable about the
emergence of human being. Furthermore, by giving us
the original Monod quote (below), Alec has called
to our attention to the fact that Monod did not use
the 1st person plural personal pronoun "We" but
rather the 3rd person noun "man" when he concluded
that:"The ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows
at last that he is alone in the universe's
unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only
by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor
is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness
below; it is for him to choose". You are right.
I'll rewrite entirely that paragraph But the
meaning is fundamentally the same : man is
contingently here 3. The French "Esprit"
presents problems when translated into English,
where in many cases the term "mind" would be more
appropriate, and as will be noted also in paragraph
3 of this section, another prevalent synonym, in
both French (pensée) and English, is
"thought" . 4. Le Petit Robert, in the
4th definition of « Esprit » uses this
definition « La réalité
pensante, le principe pensant en
générale, opposé à
l'objet de la pensée, à la
matière. » [The thinking reality,
the thinking principle in general, opposed to the
object of thought, to matter.] Le Petit Robert
. Dictionnaire LE ROBERT. Paris. 1972. p. 619.
5. Littré is the
famed 19th century French lexicographer
(1801-1881). Dr. A quotes here from the Petit
Littré -.Édition Gallimard-Hachette
1959 For an online listing of synonyms for Esprit
in 2004, see the "Dictionnaire des synonymes"
<http://elsap1.unicaen.fr/cgi-bin/trouveclic2?requete=esprit>,
which gives 98 synonyms and 157 clickable synonym
links ! 6. I've added "To those of
us not current on modern physics" to the first
sentence of this paragraph ("Matter seems more
directly accessible to our understanding"), to
accommodate Alec's comments on the original first
sentence: From a physicist's point of view, this is
a very inadequate description of matter. To a
modern physicist, matter is hardly "directly
accessible" to our understanding, and we don't even
yet understand the elementary nature of most of
matter in the universe &endash; the Dark matter.
Yes, but in my paper I am speaking for the great
majority of people 7. To accommodate Alec's
question: Is this "reality" used in the same sense
as in the previous paragraph? , I have inserted
"concrete" before reality to denote the intended
context of "reality" under discussion in this
paragraph. OK 1- "nature" 2 "concrete
reality" 8. "a sort of secretion"
has been changed to "an action of synapses" to
accommodate Alec's comment: The action of synapses
can hardly be called "secretion". In French,
"secretion" may have also sometimes the figurative
meaning of production. I agree with
"action" 9. Again, the 4th
definition for Esprit from Le Petit Robert, comes
to mind: « La réalité pensante
» ---the thinking reality, as opposed to
matter, the object of thought. « le principe
pensant en générale, opposé
à l'objet de la pensée, à la
matière. » Le Petit Robert .
Dictionnaire LE ROBERT. Paris. 1972. p. 619.
OK 10. Alec comments: This is
a very Penrosian view, as in 'The Emperor's New
Mind'. OK 11. Alec comments: Not yet
anyway! …and this is somewhat of an
unsupported assertion - why cannot 100 billion
neurons in the human brain with 50 trillion
synapses not explain consciousness? Penriose has
some ideas about why this might be. Alec has added
in a later post: What I had meant to say is that
Penrose denies that, even with 100 billion neurons
and 50 trillion synapses, we can explain human
consciousnesss as a simple emergent property of the
physical brain. Penrose presents a densely argued
rationale for his position in The Emperor's New
Mind, but Dr Abbatucci simply asserts that mind,
consciousness, spirit cannot be explained by brain
without presenting a cogent reason for that
position. I want just to say : are we only a pack
of neurones, i.e. do we exist ? Janice adds Dr..
A's clarification by changing the last part of this
paragraph to read "…is man nothing more than a
bundle of neurons? Is this what it means to
exist?" 12. Though the French
Dictionnaire Hachette does give « esprit
» as a second definition for « cerveau
» (the French word for « brain »),
and « Centre intellectuel » for the 4th
(figurative) definition, [Dico Hachette en
ligne http://www.francophonie.hachette-livre.fr/ :
cerveau n. m. 1, ANAT Partie antérieure de
l'encéphale. ---Par ext. Substance nerveuse,
en son entier, contenue dans la boîte
crânienne 2. Facultés mentales, esprit
…4. Fig. Centre intellectuel ], Alec
suggests that, in English, this translation for
cerveau into English, can't be « brain »
as no-one can claim, in English, that « brain
» lacks substance. Janice agrees, and hence
has translated the second use of « cerveau
» to « mind », and inserted «
mind » in parentheses as a synonym of spirit
According to me Chaunu meant : thought lacks
physical substance. Janice adds: Note that in the
last sentence, as Dr. Abbatucci suggests, I have
now changed "The mind lacks physical substance
…" to "Thought lacks physical substance
…" 13. Alec has corrected
this portion of the paper's dating of the beginning
of the appearing of the first mammals to read: and
the first mammals appearing 125 million years ago
eventually to succeed the dinosaurs 60 million
years later. Alec has also given these important
Carnegie Museum references for the earliest mammals
: the Eomaia scansoria
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/research/eomaia/
and Sinodelphys szalayi
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/news/03-oct-dec/sinodelphys/
Retained figures were : -500 millions years for the
beginning of the first eukaryote cells, &endash;60
millions appearance of the first mammals. (I was
not aware of &endash; 125 millions) Thank you for
the interesting references 14. Alec comments: that
depends on the nature of the complexity which is
probably not built like a computer &endash; one
thing biological structures are able to do is
produce vast numbers of neurones with huge numbers
of synapses ---see note above on "secretions". I
have added now to my paper that brain and all the
tissues and organs of the body are linked by
interactive relationships, one of them being
useless without the others and that they must
evolve all together, increasing the complexity of
the problem. Janice comments: I have subsequently
added Dr. A's clarification above as the last
sentence of this paragraph. 15. Alec offers the exact
calculation: 1e-43 se sec, the Planck time. This
could be inserted in a footnote.OK 16. Alec notes: Well,
actually that is a moot philosophical and semantic
point. If by 'laws' one means such formulations as
E=mc^2 and F=ma, or even statements such as 'the
mechanism of evolution is mutation and selection',
then these are indeed human descriptions of
observations we have made of the way the universe
behaves, they are not necessarily exact and they
are always open to refinement and revision as more
precise observations are made. Take the Law of
Gravity - it describes the force due to gravity
between two bodies as an inverse square law. Except
that now we are looking for minute variations from
that 'law' to tell us something about the number of
hidden dimensions in the universe. So what most
people think of as scientific 'laws' are indeed
man-made. However, we assume that the universe
behaves according to certain 'laws' which are
inherent in the universe and have controlled its
behaviour since 1e-43 sec after Big Bang.
OK Janice notes: I have added
this part highlighted by Dr. A to the last sentence
of the translation as follows: …, whereas it
is now assumed that the universe behaves according
to certain "laws" inherent within it. 17. Alec comments: The
problem with this argument is that I can equally
well say: 'mind, which is an epiphenomenon of
brain, discovers, invents, creates etc etc'. This
paper is asserting that it's due to something
called spirit that has an existence independent of
matterous brain ---but without showing why this
should be That's the problem. If we had the answer,
we would be at the end of knowledge, may be at the
"Omega point"? 18. Alec notes: Or mind as
an epiphenomenon of brain. If so, are we existing
? 19. Alec comments: True,
but no clear explanation as to why this cannot be
as a result of the action of the human mind as an
epiphenomenon of the human brain --- and since this
is about tools we have to include other primates
here. Janice's reminder: Mind
and spirit are synonymous in French. My
(Teilhard's) central idea is that mind (or spirit)
is leading all the universe (including matter)
toward its achievement and that our duty is to
engage ourselves thoroughly in that commitment..
20. Alec comments: ditto
re mind and spirit. 21. Note that I have
inserted «inspires the creation » for "
creates" in the first sentence of this section, and
"inspiration for" and "would seem to" in the third
sentence in response to Alec comments: Well of
course music arises from and evokes powerful
emotions &endash; but the idea that music is pure
abstraction stretches the point a little &endash;
one only needs to look at an advanced text book of
musical theory to see the deep connection between
mathematics and music ---think of the Goldberg
variations. Cannot mind through spirit reach the
pure world of ideas ? 22. Alec comments: Well,
more than materials ---a monument will not stand
without engineering ; ditto a building ; music
relies on mathematical relationships between sounds
; ditto painting with regard to the electromagnet
spectrum. .OK 23. à part
entière OK 24. that is, does not
exist as "an abstraction considered as a
reality".Not just when it is produced by neurones.
Janice adds: For further clarification, I've now
changed "a separate entity" to "a separate
reality". 25. Would it be better to
say "Man's mind"? I intended man as an "
individual, unique, person" Janice: OK 26. Hachette Dictionnaire
Uuniversel Francophone:
http://www.francophonie.hachette-livre.fr/ :
neurone n. m. ANAT Cellule
qui assure la conduction de l'influx
nerveux neuronale adj. Ce qui
consiste de neurons OK 27. I have removed the
Hamlet reference (« This is still the question
that Hamlet proposed. ») as the result of
Alec's following clarification: Did he? He said
&endash; "To be or not to be?" This is not an
existential question but a question relating to
whether he should commit suicide or not. Not "Am I
or am I not?" but "To be or not to be, that is the
question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to
take up arms against a sea of troubles and by
opposing end them. To die, to sleep…" Thank
you. I was not aware that Hamlet meant "to live or
not to live". 28. Note that the last
portion of the original sentence "and that,
therefore, there exists but one single substance
spirit-matter", has been reworded because this
seems premature at this point, and as Alec
questioned: Rushing to a conclusion? OK
! 29. Wording changes in
this sentence « For a molecule, even more is
needed : the number of bits of information
increases with the complexity of the structure
» are due to Alec's question : How does one
measure the information content of an atom or a
molecule ? I don't know if it can be measured.
Nicolescu says :"according the number of formulae
which are necessary to describe it" Janice adds: I
have therefore changed "the amount of information"
to "the number of formulae". 30. Wording changes in
this sentence are due to Alex's comment: According
to Shannon, organisation reduces information.
OK 31. At Alec's suggestion
« particles » is replaced by waves or
strings. But Alec adds that this statement could
use further clarification as to what this implies,
etc. Matter becomes more and more an abstraction.
Janice notes that this clarification has been added
to this document. 32. This paragraph
probably needs to be reworked. I had at first
removed the last part of this sentence (and of
which the substratum is immaterial) as originally
written by Dr. Abbatucci, due to Alec's comment:
The plan is encoded in the genes which are
absolutely physical things &endash; molecules of
deoxyribonucleic acid &endash; the substratum is
not immaterial but is the basis for the organism
&endash; is the unit of inheritance &endash; all
modern biology rests on this. Between the atoms and
molecules interactions are chiefly electromagnetic,
thus in some way immaterial. Genes do not act
differently. Janice notes: In response to Dr. A's
clarification I have replaced his "of which the
substratum is immaterial" phrase, and also added
Dr. A's highlighted comments above. 33. Multiple synonyms
include « established, eternal, immortal,
… Dico des synonymes : http://elsap1.unicaen.fr/cgi-bin/trouvebis?requete=enracin%E9
? 34. Alec suggests: This
statement needs expanding and/or clarification. In
what sense does quantum physics lead to greater
nobility of matter ? Janice answers: I believe the
Teilhard quote from the Phenomenon of Man at in the
next to last paragraph of the preceding section
leads into this thought, and that it is further
amplified by the Teilhard quotes referenced in
footnotes 11 and 12 in this section. OK 35. Alec questions much of
this whole quote from Nicolescu's work « Nous,
la particule et le monde », asking: What is a
'new level of quantum materiality' ? Is it the
behaviour of matter at a quantum level &endash; if
so, how does this support the idea of increasing
complexity, symbolism and order? Why order? See 31.
I am sorry but to answer these questions one has
better read Nicolescu's book. Janice adds that in
the later "L'ESPRIT EXISTE" draft, at Alec's
suggestion, Dr. Abbatucci has added more extensive
quotes to support his argument. 36. Alec comments: Just so
&endash; but what has the quantum world to do with
spirit? The idea is not coming over to me. see
31 37. Alec comments: Well,
quantum theory and string theory describes a
universe very different from the classical universe
&endash; but why should it particularly inspire
meditation? Id Janice comments: Watching Brian
Green's presentation of the string theory
simulations and hearing his explanations on the PBS
Television Nova Program filled me with awe and
wonder. I wish I heard him 38. Both Alec and Brian
have suggested replacing the word « doubles
» by « reflects ».OK 39. For those unfamiliar
with this term, Alex suggests replacing "monads"
with atoms. For the French definition of monads,
see the Dico Hachette :
http://www.francophonie.hachette-livre.fr/ monade n. f. PHILO Pour Leibniz,
substance simple, irréductible,
élément premier de toutes les
choses. - Gerald Vann, in Hymn of
Universe used "monads", but atoms may be OK: Janice
notes: I have kept the term "monads" in this
translation because it best expresses Teilhard's
thought. In English the
Hypodictionary
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/monad
defines monad thusly: monad : [n] a
singular metaphysical entity from which material
properties are said to derive. One can say that a monad
is an entity gathering elements in one single unit.
TO JANICE (Littré)
: Unité parfaite qui selon les
pythagoriciens renferme l'esprit et la
matière sans aucune division : exactly our.
Subject. Janice adds: Yes, and those familiar with
Teilhard's "Writings in Time of War" might wish to
reread his "LA GRANDE MONADE"
<http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jacques.abbatucci/guerre.htm#monade>. 40. Alec seems to agree
with this, stating: Well, yes, of course &endash;
that is precisely my position &endash; that what we
observe as properties of spirit are emergent
properties of the physical universe. Teilhard
considers that matter and spirit are the same
entity and that emergence of consciousness is the
result of complexity combining atoms of
spirit-matter. 41. In view of the
insights in this paper, this part of the sentence
"a birth of spirit in which matter would be
engaged, like spirit, in the great work of
Creation" has been changed to "the emergence of
conscious spirit rising out of matter, in which
spirit-matter would be engaged in the great work of
Creation along the path towards spiritualization."
OK ! Janice adds: Note this
great convergence! 42. The last sentence of
this paragraph ("This is henceforth a given.") has
been removed due to Alex's comment: Well no, as
many scientists point out, that increasing
complexity is a necessary consequence of starting
simple. Is it an opinion? From this point on, I
suggest that this part of the conclusion may need
to be rewritten. If we humans have a "hand on
evolution" we'd better be careful how we direct it.
Obviously. The end of time is not already written.
This is the "grandeur" of man's freedom.
43. Furthermore, as Alec
comments at this point: Be careful here not to
confuse technological advance and biological
evolution &endash; they have VERY different
characteristics. Brian has 'challenged' this
claiming that Teilhard and he think that they are
somewhat different but not very different. &endash;
I don't have time to expand on this now but this
could form the topic for a detailed discussion at
some point on this list. This is in fact a point of
discussion Brian Cowan adds: I concur
that we may well have here a good topic for a
future discussion on-list. I believe I have already
made a contriribution to this discussion by
presenting some of Teilhard's views about the
continuity which he perceives as existing between
biological evolution and technological inventions.
I refer, in particular, to my submission entitled
'Constructing Evolution?' This submission was dated
October 23, 2003 and is contained in archived posts
5734, 5735, 5736, and 5737.I am anxious to get
these papers if possible In that submission, I
quoted some passages from the writings of the
French Jesuit which do seem to me to disclose his
opinion that technological invention is a
continuation, at the reflective level of life, of
natural innovation at the pre-reflective levels of
life. Some of the passages which I cited are the
following ones. Thank you for the
quotes! '... if our "artificial"
constructions are really nothing but the legitimate
sequel to our phylogenesis, invention also -- this
revolutionary act from which the creations of our
thought emerge one after the other -- can
legitimately be regarded as an extension in
reflective form of the obscure mechanism whereby
each new form has always germinated on the trunk of
life.' (1) 'To appreciate man at his
true zoological value, we should not separate
"natural" from "artificial" as absolutely as we do
in our perspectives, that is to say ignore the
profound connections between the ship, the
submarine, the aeroplane and the animal
reconstitutions which produce the wing and the
fin.' (2) 'In the world, nothing
could ever burst forth as final across the
different thresholds successively traversed by
evolution (however critical they be) which has not
already existed in an obscure and primordial way.'
(3) ' ... man is beginning,
with rational design, to take over the biological
motive forces which determine his growth -- in
other words, he is becoming capable of modifying,
or even of creating, his own self.' (4) 'From the cell to the
thinking animal, as from the atom to the cell, a
single process (a psychical kindling or
concentration) goes on without interruption and
always in the same direction.' (5) 'In the same beam of light
the instinctive gropings of the first cell link up
with the learned gropings of our laboratories.'
(6) In my view, all of the
above passages assert, or at least suggest, a
continuity between the natural (the biological) and
the artificial (the invented). There is also, I
believe, a claim being made that what bursts forth,
into full flower so to speak, at a later stage of
evolution could not do so unless it already
existed, in attenuated form, from the very
inception of evolution. So I do not think we can
deny that Teilhard saw a definite continuity
between pre-reflective innovation (e. g. the
natural evolution of winged creatures able to fly)
and post-reflective invention (e. g. the artificial
invention of a winged aeroplane able to fly).
To be sure, the Jesuit
scientist does not wish to suggest that there are
no discontinuities etween what we commonly call the
natural and the artificial. Quite obviously there
are such discontinuities and, of course, we need to
be mindful of them -- but, in his opinion, we ought
to be on our guard against exaggerating the
discontinuities at the expense of the
continuities. Man is more than an
animal. The power of invention has been given to
him to participate to evolution and tools evidently
have an influence upon evolution as well as
education, culture and so on. Specialists in
genetics admit the role of epigenesis in addition
to classical genetic way. Was Teilhard de Chardin
mistaken when he laid so much stress on the
continuity between natural innovation and
artificial invention? Well, no doubt, honest people
will honestly differ on this question. : - ) And,
as Alec suggests: "the issues raised by this very
question could constitute a good topic for further
discussion on-list". Notes: (1) 'The Phenomenon of
Man' (Fountain Books, 1977), p. 246. (2) 'Hominization', in
'The Vision of the Past' (Collins, 1966), p.
57 (3) 'Phenomenon', p.
77. (4) 'My Fundamental
Vision', in 'Toward the Future' (Harvest Book,
1975), p. 181. (5) 'Phenomenon', p.
188. (6) 'Phenomenon', p.
247. 44. Alec comments: There
is nothing irreversible about our technological
progress. It hangs on the thread of our cultural
heritage. Our genetic inheritance is much more
robust. Janice comments: I have prefaced
"irreversible" with the adjective "possibly". Note
that this portion of the draft is richly and
powerfully developed in the subsequent French draft
of this paper still in process and not yet
translated. 45. I've added here Alec's
question: "And if our collective wisdom fails us,
to what depths will we not plunge?" No
problem 46. Ecclesiastes 12:
7. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Latest translation version
completed, mailed to Dr. Abbatucci, and uploaded to
Teilhard eGroup online files 03 March 2004
11 February translation
version emailed to Dr. Abbatucci 13 February
2004 Added comments from Dr.
Abbatucci received 16 February 2004 |