Key ideas
To understand the complexity of the present, the field of Big History looks back across the full spectrum of space and time. Moving from the Big Bang outwards, the universe unfolded in ever greater levels of complexity.
- The emerging discipline of "Big History" zooms into the smallest levels of existence and then zooms out to get a comprehensive picture of the universe and our place in it. Under
- Big History looks at eight major thresholds in the history of the universe. Starting from the Big Bang, and then takes us on a journey to the formation of stars, galaxies, and planets, to the emergence of life, and our increasingly complex existence.
- What do we mean by complexity? Big History tells us that complexity relates to the flow of energy through a system. It can be measured by a metric called "free energy density," which is the amount of free energy that passes through a certain amount of mass over a particular time.
- The greater the complexity, the greater the energy needs. To keep our highly complex societies going, we need vast amounts of energy. With these energy needs come energy challenges. Arguably, most of our complex problems arise directly or indirectly from this need for easily accessible energy.
Transcript
In recent episodes, we've looked at complexity and complex problems through the lens of interdependence from the Buddhist perspective. We looked at Taoist views on embracing not-knowing and doing non-doing as approaches to designing policy.
This episode will travel forwards and once again backwards in time, zooming in and zooming out, looking at complexity through the largest lens imaginable. The emerging discipline of "Big History" zooms into the smallest levels of existence and then zooms out to get a comprehensive picture of the universe and our place in it. To truly understand the present, it helps to understand the past. And no historical study seeks to understand more of the past than Big History. The field of Big History starts at the Big Bang. It takes us on a journey to the formation of stars, galaxies, and planets, to the emergence of life, and our increasingly complex existence.
And so here it goes. Big History looks at eight major thresholds in the history of the universe. The first threshold begins with a BANG!!!
With the Big Bang, the universe emerged. The fundamental forces of physics arose. United by gravity, particles coalesced into matter. In the second threshold, the first stars were born. Gravity brought together stars to form galaxies: hundreds of billions of stars in hundreds of billions of galaxies. The third threshold sees the increasing complexity of physical matter. Stars acted like massive forges, with their intense heat and pressure forming the elements of the periodic table. The fate of large stars is death by supernova: creating heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and iron. All this star stuff floating around set the stage for the fourth threshold: the formation of our solar system and planet. And, of course, countless billions of other planets throughout the billions of galaxies.
After a billion or so years, on our own rocky planet occurred the fifth threshold: the emergence of life. First, single-celled organisms arose deep in the seas. Then, a billion or so years later, multicelled organisms appeared. And on and on down the family tree, with each successive generation adding ever-increasing complexity. The ability for species to survive and pass on their genes hinges on their ability to adapt. When human beings emerged on the scene, they were just one of the countless mammals scratching out a living. But what we lacked in size, speed, strength, or sharp fangs, we made up for in brains. The sixth threshold looks at the adaptation that catapulted humans to the top of every food chain: our capacity for collective learning. The ability to pass on knowledge from one person to another and one generation to the next gave us a unique and ultimately unprecedented advantage.
This ability to share knowledge helped pave the way for the seventh threshold: the rise of agriculture. Shifting from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture meant staying in one place for long periods. Staying in one place and producing larger quantities of food meant that larger groups of humans gathered together. Larger groups meant greater sharing of knowledge and ultimately greater capacity for innovation. With every generation of humans, knowledge increased — and societies grew more and more complex. This steady growth eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, which fueled exponential growth in every sense. Growth in population, knowledge, and complexity. Not to mention the challenges that come along with all of that. The eighth threshold of Big History looks at the Anthropocene: a period of history in which humans have made such an impact on the planet that many consider this to be a new geologic age.
I've used the word "complexity" repeatedly in this tirade. But what exactly do we mean by complexity? Big History offers a compelling answer. Complexity relates to the flow of energy through a system. It can be measured by a metric called "free energy density," which is the amount of free energy that passes through a certain amount of mass over a particular time.
We can see this relationship as complexity increases through the eight thresholds. Stars are less complex than planets. Planets are less complex than life. Most life forms are far less complex than humans, with human society the most complex system in the known universe. Each transition from one threshold to the next sees an increasing need for energy to maintain that system. Stars and planets don't need to seek more energy to keep burning or moving through space. Life requires much greater energy per gram of matter per second. As such, life must find ways of obtaining more energy. Human societies, in turn, require more energy per gram per second to sustain themselves than any other known living system.
And therein lies the challenge. To keep our highly complex societies going, we need vast amounts of energy. Unprecedented consumption of energy. With these energy needs come energy challenges. Arguably, most of our complex problems arise directly or indirectly from this need for easily accessible energy. Climate change is perhaps the most obvious. We have naturally gravitated towards the easiest and cheapest form of power in the form of fossil fuels. These highly portable and efficient energy sources have driven unprecedented growth. But everything has a cost. In this case, that our emissions accumulate in the atmosphere, ultimately causing extreme weather, rising sea levels, and disruption of basically all of our societal systems.
But climate change is not the only adverse effect of rising complexity. To obtain food, i.e., energy to sustain our bodies, we have converted nearly every arable acre of land on earth for agriculture. This relentless agricultural expansion means vast tracts of forest are razed for cattle production, or endless fields of grass are converted to soy farms. And then most of that soy goes to feed the cattle that now occupy formerly forested land. All of which contributes to more climate change. Agriculture, i.e., obtaining energy for humans, also severely impacts freshwater supplies. Over 70% of the world's freshwater is used for agriculture. Increased demand for food strains water supplies, compounded then by droughts caused by climate change. Food and water insecurity then play massive roles in creating instability and conflict. As rival groups compete for scarce food and water, violence often follows.
And while there are no doubt many other examples of the challenges of sustaining our vast energy needs, we have to mention the impacts of exploitation. Throughout history, more powerful groups of humans have exploited less powerful groups to obtain their resources, i.e., energy to sustain their growing populations. This exploitation has taken many forms: slavery, indentured servitude, cycles of debt and poverty, and oppressive systems to marginalize and withhold fundamental human rights from entire groups of people.
It's all enough to make your head spin.
These problems are so complex and persistent that a simple explanation like "we need cheap and easily obtainable energy" is hardly satisfying. However, Big History's insight on the role of free energy density does provide a helpful perspective on what kinds of challenges our solutions must keep in mind. Another important insight from Big History relates to our methods to understand problems and design solutions. Given the range of impacts and interconnections between issues, no single discipline or field of study can capture it all. It's clearly not enough to simply study climate science or sustainable food systems or water resources management or human rights. Given the deep interconnections within these problems, often we need an integrated approach that combines insights from each of these and other fields of study. Big History is by its nature a transdisciplinary field, one that demonstrates the value of bringing together a wide range of specialists. We can learn a lot by examining a problem from many different vantage points.
And that's precisely what we'll continue to do in future episodes of this podcast. We'll continue to learn from science and policy, as well as the world's wisdom traditions and the humanities.
Join me next week for another episode in this light, exploring some insights from evolutionary psychology. Be sure to subscribe for more episodes. And please share this with a friend if you think it will be helpful to someone. Until the next time, be well!
References:
Podcast soundtrack credit:
Our Story Begins Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/