The biologist William D. Hamilton entertained the notion. So can we.
The Meaning of Life Revealed!
Evolutionary theory answers one of the most profound and fundamental questions human beings have ever asked themselves, a question that has plagued reflective minds for as long as reflective minds have existed in the universe: Why are we here? The question was answered in 1859 by Charles Darwin, and the answer can be stated in just six words...
Is this the meaning of life? | John Stewart
John Stewart: Developments in evolutionary theory suggest we have a central role to play in the future of the universe
Genetic Information: A Metaphor In Search of a Theory
John Maynard Smith has defended against philosophical criticism the view that developmental biology is the study of the expression of information encoded in the genes by natural selection. However, like other naturalistic concepts of information, this “teleosemantic” concept is equally applicable to many non-genetic factors in development. Maynard Smith also fails to show that developmental biology is concerned with teleosemantic information. Some other ways to support Maynard Smith's conclusion are considered. It is argued that on any definition of information the view that development is the expression of genetic information is misleading. Some reasons for the popularity of that view are suggested.
The Scientist Who Scrambled Darwin’s Tree of Life (Published 2018)
How the microbiologist Carl Woese fundamentally changed the way we think about evolution and the origins of life.
How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology
“Bold and intriguing.”—Wall Street Journal • “Penetrating. . . . Provocative and profound.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) • “Offers plenty of food for thought.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Ball’s marvelous book is both wide-ranging and deep. . . . I could not put it down.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Song of the Cell and the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies A new, cutting-edge vision of biology that revises our understanding of what life itself is, how to enhance it, and what possibilities it offers. Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works—the idea of the genome as a blueprint, of genes as instructions for building an organism, of proteins as precisely tailored molecular machines, of cells as entities with fixed identities, and more—have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong. In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. Ball explains that there is no unique place to look for an answer to this question: life is a system of many levels—genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules such as the immune system and the nervous system—each with its own rules and principles. How Life Works explains how these levels operate, interface, and work together (most of the time). With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. As we discover the conditions that dictate the forms into which cells organize themselves, our ability to guide and select the outcomes becomes ever more extraordinary. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined. Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the life sciences, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.
Darwin the abolitionist
The theory of evolution is regarded as a triumph of disinterested scientific reason. Yet, on the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species," new research reveals that Darwin was driven to the idea of common descent by a great moral cause
Is Life Just Different? | Quanta Magazine
The idea of ‘biological agency’ — that life devises its own goals and behaves accordingly — complicates our understanding of what it means to be alive. But does it serve a scientific purpose?
Maximum power in evolution, ecology and economics
Ludwig Boltzmann suggested that natural selection was fundamentally a struggle among organisms for available energy. Alfred Lotka argued that organisms that capture and use more energy than their competition will have a selective advantage in the evolutionary process, i.e. the Darwinian notion of evolution was based on a fundamental, generalized energy principle. He extended this general principle from the energetics of a single organism or species to the energetics of entire energy pathways through ecosystems. Howard Odum and Richard Pinkerton, building on Lotka, extended this concept to ‘The maximum power principle’ and applied it to many biological and physical systems including human economies. We examine this history and how these ideas relate to concepts from other disciplines including philosophy. But there has been considerable confusion in understanding and applying these concepts which we attempt to resolve while providing various examples from routine life and discussing some unresolved issues. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Thermodynamics 2.0: Bridging the natural and social sciences (Part 2)’.
Meaning of Life – Evolution – Reason and Meaning
Below is an excerpt of comments from an astute reader of my book, The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Transhumanist, and Scientific Perspectives:
Survival of the Prettiest (Published 2017)
Darwin’s theory of aesthetics may be the sexiest, most dangerous idea in evolution.
Evolution and the Meaning of Life
In an aside to his contribution to our recent discussion of same-sex marriage (my contribution is here), Big Think’s Peter Lawler wrote that Darwinists agree with many religiously observant people […]
The sentient cell: the cellular foundations of consciousness
"All species, extant and extinct, from the simplest unicellular prokaryotes to humans, have an existential consciousness. Without sentience, the first cells that emerged some 4 billion years ago would have been evolutionary dead-ends, unable to survive in the chaotic, dangerous environment in which life first appeared and evolved. In this book, Arthur Reber's theory, the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC), is outlined and distinguished from those models that argue that minds could be instantiated on artificial entities and those that maintain consciousness requires a nervous system. The CBC framework takes a novel approach to classic topics such as the origin-of-life, philosophy of mind, the role of genes, the impact of cognition, and how biological information is processed by all species. It also calls for a rethinking of a variety of issues including the moral implications of the sentient capacities of all species, how welfare concerns need to be expanded beyond where they currently are, and critically, how all life is intertwined in a coordinated cognitive ecology. The Sentient Cell explores this revolutionary model, which updates the standard neo-Darwinian framework within which current approaches operate and examines the underlying biomolecular features that are the likely candidates for the "invention" of consciousness and outline their role in cellular life." --
Michel Bauwens on Twitter / X
This is the deeper motivation that inspires Caitlin's work:< " It is possible for the human organism to liberate itself from its habituated creation of the ego through the process commonly referred to as spiritual enlightenment. It is also possible for humanity as a species to… https://t.co/smsjPAnNFr— Michel Bauwens (@mbauwens) June 18, 2026
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker
In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding—and at ...
Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology
‘This Handbook is refreshingly different. While including requisite chapters on subfields within evolutionary psychology, it also includes chapters on evolutionary psychology’s influence on other disciplines (e.g., Anthropology, Criminology), and retrospectives on six foundational studies. And perhaps most innovative, chapters are written by an international collection of up-and-coming scholars who give their take on the current and future state of evolutionary psychology.’ – David F. Bjorklund, Florida Atlantic University, USA
JBS Haldane-A Dialectical Account of Evolution
THIS paper requires a preliminary apology. It is written in Spain, and as the writer is taking a very minor part in the defence of Madrid he is unable to consult many works of reference. Readers to whom practice is as important as theory will excuse any inadequacy in citations.