What Comes Next? The Operator Theory as an Operationalisation of the Teilhardian View on Cosmogenesis

Abstract

The scala naturae represents the classical viewpoint that a basic tendency can be discerned in nature towards increasing complexity. This viewpoint has been vehemently challenged and loathed as romantic and unscientific by countless opponents. Yet, continental philosophers from Hegel to Sloterdijk have discussed the persistent drive towards complexity in terms of a vertical dimension of existence. In the context of discussions about the pro’s and con’s of hierarchical complexity rankings the Operator Theory constitutes a provocative gesture by recasting the scala naturae in a scientific form that is compatible with physics and biology. In this revised form, the idea of a scala naturae becomes partly compatible with the ideas of the French philosopher and priest Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard de Chardin’s body of work reveals a growing complexity in evolution from the geosphere and the biosphere up to the noosphere, a viewpoint which concurs in many respects with the stages and closures outlined in the Operator Hierarchy, while Teilhard’s ‘natural units’ can be likened to the operators. However, where Teilhard de Chardin assumes that we are heading for an Omega Point, the Operator Theory rather points in the direction of technical intelligence and robotics.