Week+1+-+Goldilocks+events+and+thresholds+of+increasing+complexity

Referring specifically to the transfer of heat, the second law of thermodynamics pursues, at its heart, a simple rule: energy by nature always moves from more concentrated to less concentrated. And each time energy is moved or transformed, it lessens to some degree. David Christian refers to this law of physics presumably, because as part of that rule, energy or matter would naturally gravitate from chaos to order, from complexity to simplicity.
 * David Christian refers to Goldilocks' events in his TED lecture. Explain in your own words (500-750) what you think he means by this and briefly comment on the major Goldilocks events he has selected or others if you think they have been missed.**

But it turns out, there are significant exceptions: Goldilocks events. Rare moments in the history of everything, where conditions are just so - not too hot and not too cold - for them to conspire and create something //more// complex than the predecessor. And this leads to a chain: From the slightly more complex, conditions once again present themselves within a thin band of variation and a second move towards complexity occurs, and so on.

Christian is excited as he describes these stages, suggesting they are magical because they “create the impression of something utterly new.” He calls them threshold moments. In the history of our universe he identifies a series of these thresholds of increasing complexity. Viewed individually, they appear to be disassociated, dispersed. But when seen on a timeline which compresses 13.7 billion years of the existence of everything, it is fascinating to note they actually appear as cluster events: closely related bursts of thresholds, where the increasingly complex seems to set off a chain of events leading to another and another.

The first ‘close’ cluster of three begins with the Big Bang; the moment where the universe first appeared. Though it started as something smaller than an atom, our universe rapidly expanded to include energy, gravity, electromagnetism and matter. In what could be viewed relatively as a blip in time but was around 380,000 years, this chain lead to the creation of electrons and then, stable atoms.

The second threshold occurred with the creation of stars and the third, the beginnings of new elements, created as stars began to die, evolving new types of atoms. This grouping was the first creation of the ‘seeds’ of life that would continue to evolve and much later germinate into unimaginable wonders.

Fast forward to a little over 4 billion years ago, and the fourth threshold was the creation of earth and our solar system. These relatively stable forms gave way to a series of successive thresholds because they afforded conditions for the emergence of life. And that’s exactly what happened: For the fifth threshold, the right amount of energy, a synthesis of chemical elements and the magic ingredient - liquid - allowed molecules to formulate living organisms.

Race forward in time once again and we arrive at recent history, when the sixth threshold of collective learning was quickly followed by seven - agriculture - and eight - the modern revolution.

Christian considers the appearance of //homo sapiens// 200,000 years ago a threshold moment because we are blessed with language which allows knowledge to be shared, transferred and stored. It seems we are the first species in 4 billion years to accumulate information from generation to generation - collective learning.

//Homo sapiens// learned rapidly. We migrated and adapted to new surrounds. We multiplied, created communities and developed technology to allow physical interaction first, and today, virtual interaction. Knowledge sharing is expanding exponentially. David Christian also adds that the discovery of fossil fuels in the past 200 years adds another element to our increasing complexity. Each of these thresholds represents a significant watershed across our complete measure of time. I would question however, whether there is one significant threshold missing from Professor Christian’s map: The emergence in humanity, of what we call ‘consciousness’.

At some point in our evolution, we made a monumental transition from life forms with animal-based realities, to sentient beings. Referred to as awareness or qualia, this was not merely the inclusion of burial practices or the practice of empathy within our species - such behaviours are present in several animals. This was a fundamental shift

But at some point, we became aware of ourselves as something more than just a body, more than a mind. Curiosity and the concept of spirituality are but a couple of manifestations of this consciousness. It is core to who we are and what makes us human - called “the most familiar yet mysterious” facet of our existence.

I distinguish this threshold from Christian’s ‘collective learning’ which focuses on language and learning, suggesting consciousness would be prerequisite to these complexities, therefore must be viewed as distinct.

It is not possible to pinpoint consciousness on the timeline - we simply do not know with certainty whether it took place precisely with the emergence of //homo sapien// or another predecessor. I would argue however, that this must be considered a major threshold of increasing complexity in its own right.