for - Major Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (METI) - Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI)

for - definition - endosymbiosis - to - explainer video on Major Evolutionary Transitions - https://hyp.is/zXozbCT8EfCSIF_rc_6riQ/www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUfNEHl44hc - adjacency - major evolutionary transition - endosymbiosis

for - youtube - Title: What caused life's Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET)? - Author: Stuart West - self-link - https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUfNEHl44hc

summary - This is a great explanatory video showing how human beings are the evolutionary end product of many former stages of evolution in which one autonomous organisms found such symbiosis that they began to replicate together - Our human body is the product of billions of years of evolution, embodying various outputs from each major stage of a Major Evolutionary Transition (MET). - We are a multi-cellular being, a colony. Yet,at the same time, we have living elements that at one time in history, were independent living beings which were NOT part of a multi-cellular colony! - We have genes, that were once part of autonomous living entities, - Mitochondria within our cells at one time were autonomous entities, and cells, which were also once autonomously existent eukaryotes. All three exist in transmuted form that is now integrated into our body.

for - potential disagreement - with - Bernardo Kastrup claim of unnaturality of normative self perspective - with - individual/collective gestalt - Major Evolutionary Transitions towards individuality

for - major evolutionary transitions in individuality - MET in individuality - https://hyp.is/3CqphlpHEe6yUmfDjm_p5A/www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1421402112

• for: MET, MST, MCT, FET, MET - information, MST - information, Amanda N. Robin, major evolutionary transition, major system transition, facilitating evolutionary transition

• Title:Major Evolutionary Transitions and the Roles of Facilitation and Information in Ecosystem Transformations

• Author: Robin et al.

• Date: 2021

• Abstract

  • A small number of extraordinary “Major Evolutionary Transitions” (METs) have attracted attention among biologists.
  • They comprise novel forms of
    • individuality and
    • information,

  • and are defined in relation to organismal complexity, irrespective of broader ecosystem-level effects.

  • This divorce between

    • evolutionary and
    • ecological consequences

  • qualifies unicellular eukaryotes, for example, as a MET although they alone failed to significantly alter ecosystems.

  • Additionally, this definition excludes revolutionary innovations not fitting into either MET type

    • (e.g., photosynthesis).
  • We recombine
    • evolution with
    • ecology
  • to explore how and why entire ecosystems were
    • newly created or
    • radically altered

  • as Major System Transitions (MSTs).

  • In doing so, we highlight important morphological adaptations that spread through populations because of

    • their immediate, direct-fitness advantages for individuals.

  • These are Major Competitive Transitions, or MCTs.

  • We argue that often
    • multiple
      • METs and
      • MCTs

  • must be present to produce MSTs.

  • For example, sexually-reproducing, multicellular eukaryotes (METs) with

    • anisogamy and
    • exoskeletons (MCTs)

  • significantly altered ecosystems during the Cambrian.

  • Therefore, we introduce the concepts of Facilitating Evolutionary Transitions (FETs) and Catalysts as

    • key events or agents that are insufficient themselves to set a MST into motion,
    • but are essential parts of synergies that do.

  • We further elucidate the role of information in MSTs as transitions across five levels:

    • (I) Encoded (Genetic);
    • (II) Epigenomic;
    • (III) Learned;
    • (IV) Inscribed; and
    • (V) Dark Information.

  • The latter is ‘authored’ by abiotic entities rather than biological organisms.

  • Level

    • IV has arguably allowed humans to produce a MST, and
    • V perhaps makes us a FET for a future transition that melds
      • biotic and
      • abiotic life
    • into one entity.
  • Understanding the interactive processes involved in past major transitions will illuminate both
    • current events and
    • the surprising possibilities that abiotically-created information may produce.

Indyweb / Indranet citations - Michael Levin, Roy Baumeister, Adam Omary youtube conversation - specifically, the question about whether a social superorganism of global human civilization / society / culture constitutes a new Major Evolutionary Transition of Individuality - https://hyp.is/rQgvZn2hEe6-TF8HFSS9mg/docdrop.org/video/UfoVTA0ilsY/

• Julian Huxley's biology work was to lay the seed of
  • how one individual organism transforms over many generations
    • into a new higher-level individual organism
  • he called this the "movement of individuality"
  • It has also come to be known as
    • major transitions
    • major evolutionary transition (MET)
    • evolutionary transitions in individuality
  • grandson of Thomas Huxley
  • brother of Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
  • wrote The Individual in the Animal Kingdom (1912)
  • advocated for closed, independent systems with harmonious parts
  • endorsed gradients of individuality
  • "closure is never complete, the independence never absolute, the harmony never perfect"

Other references for METs: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=major%2Bevolutionary%2Btransition

• Each = MET is a transition from many to a unified individual
• or from one superorganism level to a higher order superorganism level

This can be interpreted as an instantiation of the hero's journey, in the context of research that combines evolution with ecology as in the research paper: Major Evolutionary Transitions and the Roles of Facilitation and Information in Ecosystem Transformations (Robin et al., 2021).From this lens, cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) was first made possible through spoken language, then accelerated through written language. The authors claim that another Major System Transition (MST).is emerging, which they posit to be abiotic in nature involving Artificial Intelligence.

Faced with a self-induced civilization-scale threat, we may ask whether a major cultural evolution may be necessary to avoid catastrophe and whether it may constitute another MST. Could a rapid higher level global understanding of the epistemological dualism of self and other which undergirds normative alienation, othering and conflict, both with others of our own species, of other species and with the planetary system itself play a major role in the transition?