Important Footnotes On Progressive Evolution and its Definition

1. The principle of Progressive Evolution is derived in substantive part from evolutionary science.
2. The progressive evolution process steps are not always linear or in the exact sequence as listed above. There are many simultaneous and sometimes astronomically complex linear and nonlinear interactions and feedback loops occurring in and between the various process steps of progressive evolution. Additionally, progressive evolution has many dead ends, failed experiments, and regressions. At any point in the progressive evolutionary process steps:​
   
   1. expanding differentiation, complexity, growth, mutation, (creativity, novelty innovation,) autopoiesis, (self organization,) adaptability (choice, freedom,) intelligence, learning, integration, harmony, synergy, compression or centralization resulting in eventual unification into wholes of greater cooperation and scale, interdependence, consciousness, self reflection, reflection of the universe upon itself and its own processes through its self-reflective parts or eventually by itself as a totality,
   2. there can be dead ends where the process fails to evolve through the next level of increasing complexity and adaptability. There are also many things (parts or wholes/unions) in the universe on organic, biological, and cultural levels that do not proceed through all of the above progressive evolutionary process steps and levels of expanding complexity. They either stop completely at one level or another or develop so insufficiently they are limited in their development on following levels.
3. To get a better visual idea and overview of how the expanding complexity of progressive evolution develops and unfolds simultaneously on various levels, please see the following Four Quadrants chart by Ken Wilber by clicking here. This chart is meant to be a quick overview of the vast amount of progressive evolutionary complexity going on in the universe and provides some examples of all of the process levels and steps listed above. While there is contention on the placement of some items on this chart, its visual usefulness far outweighs ongoing research and dialog about its details.
4. Progressive evolution plays a major role in the Universe Evolutionary Worldview. Click here to learn more about the new Universe Evolutionary Worldview.
5. Although the above definition of progressive evolution has been based on parts of the works of the following individuals, the inclusion of their names does not imply any specific endorsement of this article or the information expressed within it by them. The following individuals have been mentioned in part to gratefully recognize their contributions to expanding the areas of cosmology, big history, progressive evolutionary science, and/or conscious evolution. This article is based in part upon the universe and progressive evolutionary science and theories expressed by Teilhard De Chardin, Erich Jantsch, John Stewart, Lawrence Wollersheim, Duane Elgin, Michael Dowd, Connie Barlow, Nancy Ellen Abrams, Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, Joel Primack, David Christian, David Ray Griffin, Sri Aurobindo, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and Ken Wilber, as well as numerous other evolutionary theorists, scientists, authors, and speakers.
6. There are some individuals and organizations who teach that all it takes to improve and progressively evolve the world is to change and expand consciousness---particularly spiritual consciousness. From the previous definition of progressive evolution, expanding consciousness is just one among many other levels of action processes and education that must take place for progressive evolution to be optimized. Although it is important, it is by no means the one single most important thing that will change everything else in the universe system. If there were such a thing, it would most likely be education, because all other skills and qualities could be improved with education.
7. The progressive directionality of evolution as described in the levels of unfolding complexity above is sometimes described as the impulse of evolution, the intention of evolution, or the intentionality of evolution. These personalizing concepts are not used above to signify that is the position of the science on progressive evolution. They are only included here to reference the wording now be used by many individuals coming from various spiritual backgrounds who do hold another more personal perspective on progressive evolution.
8. In a sense, the universe can be said to be reflecting upon itself first through its own self-reflective human parts and theoretically, eventually by itself as a totality (either through the synchronized and integrated linked consciousness of its networked human parts or, in the emergence of its own independent and unified new universe-reflecting consciousness). At this point, it can be said that either the universe has evolved self-reflective and universe-reflective humans to better assist itself in co-evolving itself (the universe) along progressive directionality or, that self-reflective and universe reflective humans can decide to become conscious partners with the whole process of universe evolution to better co-evolve by aligning their needs and actions to the overall existing progressive directionality of universe evolution.
9. Progress evolution unfolds within the space of the universe. Space fields have inherent qualities which condition the actions occurring within them. To learn more about those space conditioning qualities affecting the actions of progressive evolution, click here.
10. Another factor affecting evolutionary natural selection, which transcends the incomplete concept of survival of the fittest, is mutual consistency in ecosystems, which implies a continually dynamic balancing process. Mutual consistency further supports the survival of the most cooperative. Some of the ideas of mutual consistency are described here.
11. The algorithm of evolution is continually being expanded and refined by new science. The evolutionary algorithm is sometimes referred to by individuals of a spiritual nature as the God Algorithm. The Universe Community holds the expansion and refinement of the evolutionary algorithm as one of its special mission tasks.
12. Changing environmental conditions will always limit and qualify your ability somewhat to apply all of the patterns and principles within the evolutionary algorithm described above for optimized success.
13. Progressive evolution is the ultimate process mash-up and meshworks that exists. Everything at micro and macro levels evolves all at once in this moment. Progressive evolution is constantly fine-tuning adaptive solutions to every diverse micro and macro environment at all levels, steps, and stages simultaneously!
14. The above deep patterns of evolution, plus the Universe Principles of Sustainability derived from them, contain and integrate most if not all of the developmental meme values of the different levels of Spiral Dynamics.
15. The progressive evolution meta-principles are also the basis of the ethical code and the basic commandments of Religion 2.0 and Evolution Spirituality as found within the Universe Principles of Sustainability.
16. The above progressive evolution overview has been provided to Universe Spirit for use by Lawrence Wollersheim. Within the Universe Evolutionary Worldview, the simple definition for ethical behavior is "those behaviors that enhance the progressive directionality of evolution and life."
17. If you are a philosopher, you may want to see how the meta-principles of universe evolution defeat the arguments of the Naturalistic Fallacy. Click here to find out why and how the meta-principles of universe evolution legitimately create values and "oughts" and "shoulds" to improve our personal lives and world.
18. Very few current evolutionary scientists and cosmologists are willing to state what they know to be true about the directional trajectory and seeming "goals" and "values" of evolution as a universe-scaled whole system and process. We are not just talking about the increasing complexity as evolution continues, which almost all scientists will agree to as be fact. We are talking about much much more than Darwin's basic Evolution 1.0 and just increasing complexity. We are also talking about far more than E. O Wilson’s Evolution 1.5. We believe that most of today's evolutionary scientists and cosmologists are not willing to state more about the directional trajectory and seeming "goals" and "values" of evolution as a universe-scaled whole system and process because of their fears of strong and swift repercussions both in and outside of academia in our highly polarized and politicized society. We also believe that this reluctance to speak out on new and old facts of a far more comprehensive evolutionary directionality is also because of the past incorrect and inappropriate associations of these ideas with Social Darwinism, horrifying Nazi eugenics, or other common public misconceptions about what evolution's directionality (trajectory, goals, and values) actually is. The nonprofit organization that creates this website has the courage to boldly speak out about the issues of the directionality of evolution as found in what we call Evolution 2.0. On this website (and at few other websites and brave voices) you will find more information about Evolution 2.0 where the directionality, values, goals, and even the possible end results of universe evolution are discussed openly and promoted.  Here you will always find an open dialog on both what core recurring evolutionary processes and meta-principles are, as well as what these science-grounded principles and meta-processes mean to the future of humanity, human purpose, and to improving and evolving our governments, economics, societies, religions, and the deteriorating environment.
19. The meta-patterns and meta principles of universe evolution do not appear to hold perfectly uniformly levels of development applicability in every system, subsystem, or species. In fact, some individual species and systems that do not transcend into a new species or system variation reach near fixed levels of evolutionary development once their individual evolutionary potentials have been mostly exhausted within their current environment. The meta-patterns and meta principles of universe evolution apply most generally at universe scale. For individual systems and species, there may be meta-principle application variability at smaller scales.
20. The definition of progressive evolution used on this website is substantially different than the definition used at Wikipedia. We do not reject the theory of natural selection as the organizing mechanism in evolution and the theories of speciation of Evolution 1.0 or all other Evolution 1.5 science of the New Synthesis. Maybe we should have used the term progressive evolutionism which, according to the dictionary terms, might have better described the above perspective on the directionality of evolution beyond just increasing complexity.
21. If you are of a spiritual nature in the traditional sense of Religion 1.0 or Religion 1.5 and you would like to see how the above meta-principles of progressive evolution could relate to better understanding the nature and purposes of God, God's will, or even God's universal commandments, click here.

To continue learning more about the many features and qualities of Progressive Evolution, keep clicking the links to the left or right at the bottom of each page of this online booklet. At any time you can click the UP link as well. It will take you to the first page of this online booklet where at the bottom of that page you will find a link to every page in this booklet.