The Third Story sees the universe as self-organizing towards increasing complexity and consciousness, subsequently producing matter, life, mind, and society. It understands the fundamental mechanism of evolution as mutual adaptation between interacting systems, thus generating synergetic wholes that in turn interact, so as to integrate into even more complex wholes.
Such a narrative combines the most up-to-date scientific understanding of the universe as interconnected and evolving with a sense of meaning, value, and purpose that sees humans as actively involved in this evolution towards greater complexity, intelligence, and consciousness.
We need to cope with the challenges of the present VUCA world. Volatility necessitates long-term thinking. Uncertainty demands resourcefulness, adaptivity, and foresight. Complexity requires systemic thinking and an awareness of global interconnectedness. Ambiguity calls for sense-making, curiosity, and experimentation.
Our present predicament calls for a new system of values that can bring back a sense of coherence and balance. These values should not be limited to religious or scientific beliefs, but should be inclusive and speak to all people without creating division or tribalism.
Next to religious systems of meaning (the First Story), there exists a parallel narrative (the Second Story) where scientists, philosophers, and thinkers have presented an alternative framework for understanding the world.
The new scientific worldview that forms the basis of the Third Story can be summarized as the self-organizing universe. It sees the universe as evolving step by step from simple elements to complex, intelligent organization. The steps include the subsequent emergence of space and time (the Big Bang), particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, minds, and societies. That means that cosmological evolution is directional: there is a sense of “progress” in that the present is qualitatively different from the past.
As systems evolve, they tend to become both more complex and more conscious of their surroundings.
The well-known principle of the survival of the fittest. However, the “fittest” here should not be interpreted—as it often is—as the “strongest”, the most “dominant”, or the most “selfish”. A system is fit when it is adapted to its environment. That environment consists of other systems with which the first system interacts, typically by exchanging resources. Fitting in therefore means having good relationships with these others.
Synergy means that the different systems survive better together than alone (Corning, 1998, 2003). Their interaction is of the “win-win” type, which is also known as “positive sum”: the total fitness achieved when acting together is larger than the one they would achieve when acting each on their own.
When simple organisms become integrated with other organisms—like when cells form a multicellular organism or ants form a colony—their range of awareness expands. That is because the synergetic relationships that couple them together allow the propagation of information.
Consciousness grows not only in range, but in depth or quality. Evolutionarily more advanced organisms have a deeper understanding of their situation, which allows them to tackle more complex challenges. Thus, the growing ability to adapt is accompanied by growing intelligence and insight.
The different cells in a multicellular organism will not just blindly transmit information to their neighbors, they will selectively filter, reinforce, or aggregate pieces of information so as to create a more meaningful picture of the conditions. In animals, certain cells—the neurons—specialize in this information processing function. Interconnected neurons form a nervous system, eventually evolving into a brain, that can make sense of complex combinations of signals coming from the different sensory organs. Similarly, in societies the information gathered by individuals is distributed via a complex network of communication media, stored in books and computer memories, aggregated, and interpreted by experts, scientists, and specialized data processing software, so as to extract its deeper meaning.
The presently most advanced level of evolution is our planetary human civilization. Humanity, supported by its technological extensions and the ecosystems that it controls, can be conceived as a global superorganism.
Every day, massive amounts of food, resources, goods, energy, services, and information circulate around the globe, efficiently reaching consumers from producers, while supporting the people that most need it—e.g. in relief aid after natural disasters or vaccination campaigns to protect against infectious diseases. These activities are not directed by any central controller, world government, or Earth ruler. Like in all organisms and superorganisms, these activities happen in a largely decentralized, self-organizing manner, where local demand elicits a flow of supply that satisfies the demand. These flows use efficient channels, such as shipping routes, highways, pipelines, and electricity networks, to reach the place where they are needed. This network of channels along which matter and energy are distributed can be visualized as the circulatory system of the global superorganism.
The directionality of evolution is towards increasing complexity and consciousness through the development of more synergetic relations. However, evolution is not deterministic: it does not follow a prearranged trajectory and does not converge towards a fixed end point. It rather explores a space of possibilities, driven by the trial-and-error process of variation and natural selection. The number of potential variations is infinite. The number of those variations that would be fit enough to survive is much smaller, but still unlimited. Therefore, we cannot predict what the outcome of evolution will be.
The Third Story suggests that we should actively seek synergy, using our technologies, knowledge, and imagination to explore as yet untried but promising potentials for positive-sum interactions. Thus, we would be in a way helping or accelerating the process of evolution by means of our intelligence—an approach that has been called “conscious evolution.”