What Flows Across Scales Where Evolutionary Theory Goes 1900-2025
Evolutionary theory has traditionally focused on individual change through mutation and natural selection as its main explanatory framework. Bergson, however, focuses on universal evolutionary directions that cannot be explained solely on such an "individual scale. For example, why organisms in different environments develop common organs (eyes, nervous system), or why the same stimulus causes similar evolution in completely different species - these cannot be explained by chance or the accumulation of individual conditions. Through his concept of "elan vital" (leap of life), he emphasizes the temporal impetus shared by the entire species, that is, the flow of life as a whole. The mechanism and objectivism on which modern science has relied cannot capture this flow. To understand evolution, it is necessary to read not the species as a set of individuals, but the history of life, which continues to transform over time, on a new scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment