COMPLEXITY AND THE EMERGENT FEMININE:A COSMOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ROLE OF THE FEMININE IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE

摘要

The transdisciplinary science of complexity appears to provide a framework forrnrecognizing the many nuances of the archetypal feminine that have heretofore beenrndevalued or dismissed, but which need to be brought into parity with the more linear andrnarchetypically-masculinized metaphors of our post-modern, “Newtonian” worldview.rnSince Aristotle, Western culture has had a predisposition to describe existence in terms ofrnhierarchical dualisms—polar opposites in which preference is granted to one side overrnthe other. Aristotle presented a persuasive but distorted view of the feminine that wasrnparticularly deleterious. He portrayed women as deviations of the generic, “standard”rnmale, who had no active role in the generation of offspring. A woman’s womb wasrnmerely a vessel for the active, vital and divine male sperm. This attitude is not sorndifferent from the Newtonian view of the passivity of space or the Neo-Darwinian viewrnof the passivity of the biosphere. Nor is it that different from the attitude modern culturernassumes when it sees the earth as little more than a resource to be utilized in support ofrnhuman existence. In each case, a hierarchical duality is operative—i.e. activity/passivity,rncultureature, intelligible/palpable, creative/receptive—which can be identified with ourrnsymbolic renderings of the masculine and feminine. What is needed is a recognition ofrnthe synergy—that is, the functional consequences produced by cooperative phenomena—rnrepresented in these polar opposites. Synergy, as described by Corning (1995, 1997,rn1998, 1999) is evident everywhere in the natural world and is “an important source ofrncausation in the ongoing evolutionary process.” Since the relationship between male andrnfemale is fundamentally synergistic, it is essential that we rethink and recreate ourrncultural and symbolic understanding of the feminine and its relationship to the masculinernin order to more constructively align ourselves with the creative flow of evolutionaryrndynamics, thus increasing the possibility that the human species will co-create anrnevolutionary change that is advantageous for the entire biosphere. If we do not, we are inrndanger of bringing about our own extinction.