Chapter 8: Cosmocultural Evolution: The Coevolution of Culture and Cosmos and the Creation of Cosmic Value

Culture is something special. It has helped life on Earth, particularly Homo sapiens, survive and thrive in ways that sometimes defies belief. What human beings have created, what we are becoming, is utterly remarkable, inspiring, mind-blowing. But is it an illusion of sorts? Is culture merely an increasingly complex result of biologically driven self-interest, arising from the happen-stance of life? Is it merely a blind walk (or run?) of replicating memes - the cultural equivalent of natural selection?

While it may be true that much, if not all, culture might ultimately be explained directly and indirectly by Darwinian explanations of one sort or another, it may also be true that cultural evolution is beginning to break free of our biological heritage. Natural selection has been working on the experiment of life for close to 4 billion years on Earth, and what we witness now with human culture is so rich, so complex, so uncertain, that we have to wonder how it will evolve, and how it may be evolving elsewhere in the universe.

Other species on Earth arguably exhibit basic forms of culture, but those instances appear to be far less complex, and perhaps far less meaningful than what human beings experience. Our technology, art, and what we know of our world, is unspeakably exhilarating and terrifyingly dangerous. We are capable of powerful creations and complete annihilation. Our consciousness is uncontainable - to the point of agonizing awareness. Homo sapiens sapiens has a power unlike Earth has ever seen.

To some, this anthropocentric cheerleading will seem the worst sort of "speciesism" - a kind of blind, unethical delusion engendered by biologically driven affinities for one s own likeness. But exaltation of humanity in no way justifies unchecked devotion at the expense of others who inhabit our world and perhaps worlds beyond. Nevertheless, the evidence seems clear: human beings are running away with culture. And it may be running away with us. We get the prize - the Culture Prize. We deserve it. We've worked hard, made untold sacrifices. We are smart in a way no other animal is. And through us, if not others, the Culture Prize is bestowed upon the Cosmos.

It is in this context that I hope to 1) provide a basic framework for thinking about how culture and cosmos might relate - the primary notion being "cosmocultural evolution" and/or the Cosmocultural Principle; 2) briefly develop the notion of "bootstrapped cosmocultural evolution," including practical near- and longer-term implications; 3) suggest a long-term worldview, consistent with 1 and 2, that can be characterized as a morally creative cultural cosmos - a post-intelligent, post-technological universe that enters the realm of conscious evolution driven largely by moral and creative pursuits.