KEN RUEGG
VICTIMIZED BY MILLIONS
ON THE NATURE AND ACCELERATION OF MENTAL EVOLUTION
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       EVOLUTION has proceeded from matter and energy, to biological life, to mind. These might be termed "mega-stages".* The transition from matter and energy to life, is marked by the appearance of something more advanced than, and different from, what precedes it: life evolves from non-life.                                                                                                                                              BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION is significantly dependent upon geologic processes, which occur over enormous lengths of time, at a more or less constant rate.      These processes do not accelerate. Therefore biological evolution itself does not accelerate, because it cannot.                                                                                                                                                       THE TRANSITION from LIFE TO MIND, involves FURTHER ADVANCEMENT over, and DIFFERENCE from, what went before:                                                                                                                                                                                                               Just as amino acids in Earth's primitive oceans under specific conditions, prepared the way for life, mind in higher biological organisms, one species of mind in each biological species, prepared the way for the evolution of different species of mind in one biological species: Homo sapiens sapiens.                                                                                                                                                                                                               THE EVOLUTION OF DIFFERENT SPECIES OF MIND in Homo sapiens sapiens is ACCELERATING.                                                                                                                                                                                                         THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION REACHED A POINT, IN MAN, AT WHICH IT BEGAN TO ACCELERATE, and will continue to do so until Man's extinction.                                                                                                                                                 THE ACCELERATION BEGAN with the advent of Civilization, marking the presence of two mental species in Man, which I have termed "ape", "violent", "dysfunctional", or "criminal" mind, and "human", "civilized", or "non-criminal" mind. At this point evolution of different species of mind no longer depended upon evolution of different species of body. Evolution of mind broke free from the slow, constant pace of biological evolution.                                                                                                                                                       BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION is dependent upon a geologic environment in which change occurs at a slow, more or less uniform rate. Ecological considerations confirm this idea. Successful species require ecosystems, which in turn depend upon geologic conditions. Geologic conditions result ultimately from factors inherent in Plate Tectonics; from rare, very large meteorite impacts; and from the eruption of mega-volcanoes.                                                                                                                                                                                         EVOLUTION OF MIND as seen in Man depends upon an environment, Civilization, which Man himself develops at an increasing rate, using his mind to do so.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   CIVILIZATION and MENTAL EVOLUTION advance together, each dependent upon the other for further development, at an accelerating pace termed "PROGRESS".                                                                                                                                                                                                               ANY ESTIMATE of the length of time needed for the completion, by Humanity, of the "civilized" stage, with "criminal" mind going extinct, or nearly so, is unreliable, because mental evolution accelerates, whereas biological evolution doesn't. There is no way to measure or predict the rate of such change. See "morality over time", under "contact".                                                                                                                                                   A non-fiction book titled "Future Shock", in print in 1964, predicted a difficulty in adjusting, by more individuals during their lifetimes, to changes occurring in the world at an increasingly faster pace (several works of current fiction, by different authors, bear the same title. The original non-fiction work may be available at public libraries).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 "The only thing certain is change!"                                                                                                                                                                                                                             -President John F. Kennedy                                                                                                                                                   *speciation in stages involves occurrences not only more advanced than, and different from, but also inclusive of, modifying, and dependent upon those which precede them. This is true of all stages, including mega-stages:                                                                                                                                                                    Living organisms are based upon matter and energy, are inclusive of matter and energy, but modify them to support life. Human mind is likewise dependent upon both matter and energy, and life, and modifies them to support mental speciation. The mega-stages going from matter and energy, to life, to mind, exhibit this characteristic: that stages of development are based upon the completion of those which precede them.                                                                                                                                                                            Jean Piaget stated that learning aspects of mind occurs in stages, and that all stages prior to a given stage must be completed before that stage can be entered. The learning of a new stage depends upon the learning of all previous stages, upon which it is based. Piaget's theory of mental development, means that the completion of all previous stages provides the development of new mental capacities, which form an environment essential for further acquisition of more advanced components of mind.                                                                                                                                                                                                       Biological evolution demonstrates this same requirement for the prior completion of appropriate environments in which more advanced species may occur and flourish. Ecological concepts of the relationships between species and environments confirm this idea. The environments must be established if new, more advanced species, qualitatively different from their predecessors, are to appear and proliferate.                                                                                                                                                               This phenomenon is easily seen in the colonization of continents during the Devonian Period, by land-based vascular plants such as the Rhynia species, prior erosion of rock by physical processes providing the soil necessary for such colonization. There followed further development of vascular plants, and the appearance of non-plant species dependent upon such plants.                                                                                                                                                                                                             Note that prior erosion of rock provided soil necessary for the success of vascular plants: a necessary physical process preceded a life process.                                                                                                                             Also note that the formation of amino acids, the building blocks of dna, enabled the development of prokaryotic (bacterial), and then eukaryotic cells in Earth's primitive oceans. A simple chemical process, which can be duplicated under laboratory conditions, enabled the formation of life. Further development of life in oceans resulted in colonization of the land by such life as described above.                                                                                                                                                                 The interdependency of species in environments is illustrated by the occurence of Angiosperms, and of insects which pollenate them, while obtaining nectar for their own use, and by the example of species which require certain plants for the completion of their life-cycles.* Different species of birds often chirp their "songs" to establish territories on the upper, middle, and lower branches of certain species of trees.                                                                                                                                         For an overview of such relationships, in both the biological and mental realms, see "THE BIOPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL", under "about".                                                                                                                                       Species are dependent upon the conditions in which they occur. Species occurring in stages become part of their environments, preparing those environments to support even more advanced speciations.                                                                                                                                                 * "Wheat Rust", an organism which ruins certain crops, requires the Barberry plant to complete its life cycle. Importation of Barberry plants into the United States, and many other wheat-producing countries, is therefore forbidden by law.                                                                                                                                                                                               See "morality over time", "the wolf boy", "future evolution of mind", "variation in species", "Advancement as Intrinsic to Evolution", "The Conscious Advancement of Evolution by Man - What Aldous Huxley Did Not Know", and "Piaget's Stages and Man's Evolution of Mind as Collective Growth", under "contact", for more information.