Rilettura utile, capolavoro visionario

En esta obra, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin nos invita a un viaje único que combina ciencia, filosofía y espiritualidad en un intento por comprender el lugar de la humanidad en el vasto tapiz de la evolución cósmica. Escrita en 1955, esta obra visionaria propone una visión profundamente unificadora del universo, donde la evolución no solo explica el desarrollo biológico, sino también el crecimiento de la conciencia y la espiritualidad.

Chardin, paleontólogo y sacerdote jesuita, parte de la idea de que la evolución es un proceso universal que no se limita al ámbito físico o biológico. Para él, la materia, la vida y la conciencia están intrínsecamente conectadas en una trayectoria que avanza hacia mayores niveles de complejidad y profundidad. Este movimiento tiene un destino: el "punto Omega", una especie de culminación espiritual donde el cosmos alcanzará su máxima unión y conciencia. Aunque Chardin identifica este punto Omega con Dios, lo hace desde una perspectiva integradora, que no contradice los principios científicos, sino que los complementa. Según la obra que nos ocupa, el Punto Omega conlleva 5 características.

Uno de los conceptos más fascinantes que desarrolla en el libro es el de la noosfera, una capa de pensamiento colectivo que envuelve al planeta, creada por las interacciones humanas y que representa el siguiente nivel de la evolución. Según Chardin, esta esfera de conciencia colectiva marca el paso de la evolución biológica a una evolución mental y espiritual. En este sentido, la humanidad ocupa un lugar central en su visión del universo, no como un accidente cósmico, sino como un agente esencial en este proceso de convergencia hacia el punto Omega.

Lo que hace que El fenómeno humano sea tan único es su capacidad para tender un puente entre dos mundos que a menudo parecen irreconciliables: la ciencia y la religión. Chardin no ve conflicto entre el desarrollo científico y el crecimiento espiritual; por el contrario, los considera aspectos complementarios de un mismo movimiento evolutivo. Su visión optimista sugiere que, lejos de estar separados, el conocimiento racional y la búsqueda espiritual se necesitan mutuamente para avanzar hacia el futuro.

Aunque el libro ha sido ampliamente influyente, no ha estado exento de controversia. Algunos críticos consideran que mezcla ciencia y metafísica de manera confusa, mientras que ciertos sectores religiosos han cuestionado su interpretación no literal de la creación. Sin embargo, estas críticas no disminuyen el impacto del libro como un llamado a reflexionar sobre el significado más profundo de la evolución y el destino humano.

En definitiva, El fenómeno humano no es solo una obra para leer, sino para meditar. Es un libro muy muy denso, lleno de teoría y redactado en un estilo de tesis doctoral o tratado, sin lenguaje ambivalente ni florituras. Con su estilo profundo, Chardin nos ofrece una visión esperanzadora de la humanidad y el universo, en la que la ciencia y la espiritualidad no son opuestos, sino compañeros en un viaje común hacia lo trascendente.

Estas ideas han tenido su continuidad con Frank Tipler y sus obras, como La Física de la Inmortalidad. A pesar de que originalmente, las obras de Chardin estuvieron prohibidas por la Iglesia, al final tuvieron que aceptarlas, y hasta el Papa Ratzinger confesó que alguna de sus obras tiene influencia de este gran humanista francés.

¿Y qué hago yo leyendo esta obra? Fue al podcaster Jordi Llátzer a quien se lo escuché. Teilhard de Chardin establece una teoría que podría ser válida hoy en día, si asimilamos la noosfera como si fuera Internet y el punto Omega como si fuera la Inteligencia Artificial General. Creo que me ha merecido la pena leer el libro y conocer al autor, pero no he sido capaz de entender todas las implicaciones de la teoría de este autor, y ni siquiera ser capaz de seguir todas sus digresiones sobre la esencia humana, la biología y la ciencia. Creo que un formato más actual que su obra original hubiera estado mejor.

I've been meaning to read Teilhard for years. This book, considered his greatest work, is indeed an ambitious undertaking - a deep look at evolution from the very formation of our planet through to where he views we are heading (and already have at our center), the Omega of a united consciousness. While the science is dated, of course, it is beautiful to read such a fine mind at work, and here and there he comes up with some thrilling observations about what it is to be alive, to be conscious. I only give it three stars because while there is a lot of beauty in this book, it is a bit of a slog to make it through all of the science, especially complicated by the fact that the science is out of date. But it was still worth the read. It reminding me of Edward O. Wilson's Conscilience of Knowledge, and made me wonder if Wilson had read Teilhard. I bet he did. Also, his idea of universal consciousnesses seemed to me to be a close cousin to Jung's collective unconscious, and they seem good companions to one another.

read it 30+ yrs ago. it is still on my bookshelf and comes out to play at irregular intervals. that alone says a lot.

Hard to enjoy a book when you disagree with the fundamental principles.

Wow, this is definitely one of the most challenging books I have attempted but the positive message and theory of a spiritual evolution was so amazingly relevant that the effort was well worth it. Onwards to Omega!

Studied this 40 years ago in college. Still Interesting, but difficult. I think the problem is in the translation.

I’ll start this review by asking: How prescient can one person be? Completing this book in 1940, de Chardin could not have predicted the Internet, but if you read about his concept of the “noosphere,” you realize that if he were alive today (b. 1881; d. 1955) he would look at the Internet and say “That’s it! I knew it would be something like that!” If you read science books and have not yet read Teilhard, you know what you need to do. Right or wrong, De Chardin is one of the few scholars who have even attempted to come up with an answer to the unanswerable question “what is the goal of evolution?" Few books I have read attempt to deal with such BIG thoughts.



And rather than attempt to summarize all his thinking, I’ll just try to catalog some of the things that in my opinion he predicted or prefigured in this work:

The very modern idea of the “Anthropocene” – the idea that the most modern geological era is due to human influence. Most recently promoted by Erle Ellis and others around 2012. De Chardin had the scientific creds: he was trained as a geologist and paleontologist and worked in China on the then-newly-discovered “Peking Man.”

De Chardin saw “The End of Nature” coming -- Bill McKibben, 1989. We humans are in control now; we are the main geologic agent, and if an animal species or a forest survives, it’s because we allow it to do so. “We Are Nature,” frightening as that may be.

De Chardin basically lays out the Gaia hypothesis: James Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, Andrew Watson, 1989. Organisms don’t just evolve in response to their environment but help shape it. Writ large, the earth is evolving into a self-regulating organism. The analogy of black and white daisies regulating the earth's temperature -- aka “Daisyworld” -- is an example.

When I was in grad school there was much discussion of General Systems Theory, especially Von Bertalanffy’s 1968 work of that name. All about hierarchy and how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In particular de Chardin notes the million-fold increasing levels of hierarchical complexity from atoms to molecules; from molecules to cells; from cells to organs; from organs to organisms; from organisms to brains and from individual human brains to the emerging collective noosphere.

Some of his thoughts about the rise of the West parallel many of those in Jared Diamond’s 1997 work Guns, Germs, and Steel (which also parallels a lot of Ellsworth Huntington’s 1945 work, Mainsprings of Civilization, minus the racism and heavy dose of environmental determinism of Huntington).

De Chardin also proposes the idea that nothing can evolve that is not incipient in its precedents. An inescapable conclusion is that rocks have feelings and molecules have thoughts. Naturally a lot of scientists have no use for his work. More on that below. He also prefigures many modern ideas such as that there can be no such thing as complete scientific objectivity.

Teilhard’s main thesis, to the extent that it can be summarized in a couple of sentences, is that the divine-directed goal of evolution is the creation of a sphere of interconnected human thought that he calls the noosphere. “Sphere” is used in the same sense as atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere. The noosphere is a collective interconnected human psyche and it’s a humane human psyche dependent upon interconnectedness and caring for one another. Human behaviors such as suicide, hard -drugs and isolation are its antithesis.

So here is a Catholic priest, a Jesuit, writing all this stuff. Yet I do not recall a single mention of the word God or Christ in the body of the work. Instead he writes of the Omega Point. He does talk about how the work relates to Christian doctrine in a postscript. Naturally this did not meet with the approval of the Church. De Chardin was banned from publishing his work while he was alive and at times was banned from teaching and from writing at all. He had arrangements with friends to publish his work after his death (1955) so this work was published in France in 1955 and translated into English in 1959.

Yet, ultimately the work is deeply religious. He argues at one point – I’m paraphrasing – 'Don’t worry about things like disastrous climate change, nuclear war, or a stray asteroid wiping out civilization --- CAN’T HAPPEN.'

The Purpose of cosmogenesis is noogenesis and the Purpose of noogenesis is Christogenesis. Another paraphrase: It seems to me you can interpret his work to say 'Yes, there is a God, we just haven't finished creating that Being yet.' He writes that you will have a lot less anxiety if you accept this idea that there is a Purpose to all this. The reader can see that in writing such things (not to mention rocks and molecules having incipient thoughts and feelings) most mainstream scientists dismissed him as readily as the Church did.

I like the fact that de Chardin did not attempt to carefully walk a tightrope between science and religion. He said what he had to say and therefore went “splat” on the sidewalk on both sides of the rope with no apologies.

Agree, disagree; this is one of the most thought-provoking books I have read. Certainly the noosphere is a concept that deserves thought. Will we end up like those grade-B sci-fi movies shown at 3:00 am -- brains in jars connected by wires? No, because with wi-fi we won’t need wires! Every month it seems we read of a new development connecting thoughts to computer devices – for those controlling robotic arms, for example. Can it be all that long before we can choose to “share” our brain waves with others?

[Revised 5/14/23]



Top photo of the author from livingthequestions.com
The author on a Belgian stamp from manresa-sj.org

A nice look on life and human evolution, and on the evolution of reflection.

During the years I encountered many references to this book and its a author. While it's anthropological data seem to much for a casual reader, its hypotheses and conclusions made it worthwhile. It managed to bring up some of the most enduring questions and dilemmas that I struggled with over the years, and it brought interesting new points of view to the table.
While I was familliar with the general idea of the book, I was pleasantly surprised by its eloquence and clarity.
I am no anthropologist, but I think Teilhard de Chardin manages to prove his thesis with resounding success.

I cried. very beautiful

Teilhard de Chardin’s ambition is admirable- show that the evolution of human consciousness is the shape and purpose of the history of the universe. To do so he asks some probing questions about why life on this planet has taken the form it has, he uses scientific laws to analyze the early history of the universe and gaps in the scientific record- but he also takes some giant leaps. It seems the kernel of his inspiration and the shape of his system outweighed his need to fully interrogate some of his assumptions. Throughout the book, I was almost fully in his hands- he writes with a depth of scientific knowledge (geologic time, evolutionary science, anthropology, cosmology) without citing his sources - the kind of voice that precludes a certain mutual understanding of facts- so when he takes the time to explain the leaps he wants to make there’s little choice but to follow him- but normally with a reservation. Some aspects of his thought too seem outdated- his understanding of the confluence and influence of cultures at times reads as startling simple. Admirable in its attempt to twine the physical and the spiritual- to adapt science to Catholicism - to repair the broken cosmogony- and perhaps it needed to do nothing more than ask the question what is the evolutionary meaning of human consciousness.