Recently, on a long drive through post-Deepavali Bangalore traffic, I started listening to a podcast by Swami Sarvapriyananda, on the Samkhyan theory of evolution. This post is a summary of my learning from this very interesting talk. I will provide a link to the talk itself, by the end of this post.
Samkhya is one of the oldest known philosophies to humanity, far predating the Vedas, dated to about 6000 years ago. One of the primary proponents of this philosophy is Sage Kapila, whom, Swami Vivekananda calls the "first philosopher of humanity".
Sage Kapila proposed a theory of causality that also had a theory of evolution as a part of it. In contrast to the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, Kapila's theory talks not just about the evolution of life-- but of the universe itself.
One of the most important arguments in Kapila's theory is the dual nature of reality-- comprising of the physical universe called Prakriti, and of consciousness, called Purusha. The theory that consciousness cannot be reduced to material causes is one of the defining elements of Indian thought, that has shaped this civilisation for thousands of years hence. Modern science in contrast, is deeply rooted in material realism and keeps trying to explain consciousness through material interactions-- without any success. This is famously called "The hard problem of consciousness" by David Chalmers.
While this post is primarily about the theory of evolution within the larger Samkhyan philosophy, the dual nature of reality becomes important in the way the Samkhyan theory of evolution differs from that of the now popular, Darwinian model of evolution.
As mentioned earlier, the Samkhyan theory of evolution is not just about the evolution of biological species-- but of the universe itself. The material universe is postulated to have begun from a single source (which is now called the big bang). Once the universe is set in motion, it is driven by causality-- at least the Prakriti part of it. Until this point, modern science agrees with this formulation. But Samkhya goes one step further and posits that causality is overridden when Purusha (or consciousness) intervenes in Prakriti with free-willed decisions.
Purusha does not have a material cause, and its influences as well, are only informational in nature, and not material. That means, the intervention of Purusha in Prakriti cannot create new material forms, but can only change the state of existing material configurations. This also means that all the material properties of the effect should be directly attributable to the cause. The example given here is that all the myriad colours and beauty of a peacock are all present in a seed form in the yolk of the peacock's egg and does not come from anywhere else.
The interaction between Prakriti and Purusha puts it in contrast with the theory of natural selection propounded by Darwin. Despite bring presented as the cornerstone of scientific thought, Darwin's theory has a "judgment day" ring to it, where, at the core of the evolutionary process, nature would come and judge phenotypes and decide who is fit enough to survive and who is not. Of course, later explanations of Darwinian thought define fitness to be the compatibility between a phenotype and its environment. When the environment changes, some phenotypes survive while others don't.
Despite the abdication of the "judgment day" paradigm in Darwinian theory, the theory still leaves several questions unanswered. Later theories by people like Richard Dawkins explain evolution as being primarily the game of the "selfish gene" that tries several different ways including cross-over, mutation, and reproduction, to keep on surviving. While this explains the "how" of evolution, it does not explain "why" does the gene do so-- bringing us to the core limitation of modern science-- that of machine hermeneutics that cannot differentiate between how and why questions.
In contrast, the Samkhyan theory of evolution does not have a concept of fitness, or judgment day. There is no overarching fitness function that judges evolution. One does not have to aspire for, or become something, to be judged favourably by nature and there is no selfish gene that keeps on manipulating nature trying to survive for as long as possible.
The core idea in Samkhyan thought is the differentiation between causality and evolution. Causality is basic physics that we see everywhere. A purely causality driven system-- we know from the second law of thermodynamics-- always tends towards higher disorder over time. Evolution on the other hand, seems to favour order over disorder.
According to Samkhyan thought, causality is Prakriti acting on its own, and evolution is what happens when Prakriti and Purusha interact. In today's terminology, when causality from the physical realm, interacts with consciousness from the informational realm, it results in a discontinuity in the causal process with the system jumping to a different configuration (from where, causality continues once again). From the Samkhyan perspective, life happens when Purusha and Prakriti interact, which is why for example, even though physics works everywhere in our solar system, it is only on earth that we get to see evolution, or "the greatest show on earth" (the term used by Richard Dawkins to describe evolution) in action-- this is where Purusha and Prakriti seem to be interacting (at least, at a much great rate than on other planets at the moment).
To take this argument one step further, Elon Musk's dream to convert Mars into a lush, green landscape like Earth, would be, if successful, an example of consciousness (Purusha) interacting with Prakriti and changing the course of its causal chain towards order (life) over disorder.
Evolution in Samkhyan thought is the emergence of more complex order from simple, orderly bases. For example, the emergence of a grand tree from its seed, or the emergence of a vibrant peacock from its egg. In addition to differentiating between causality and evolution, Samkhya also introduces yet another concept-- that of "involution" (this English term was proposed by Swami Vivekananda much later, in the 19th century CE). Involution is the process of packaging complex order into a simpler form-- much like a tree packing all its information into a seed for the next generation, or a bird packing all its information into its egg.
Samkhya argues that it is not just biological creatures, but the entire universe goes through several cycles of evolution and involution. The big bang was hence just one small part of the grand cycle of the universe.
In all these arguments, the key point to note here is the separation of consciousness from physical reality, and the vital role of consciousness in driving evolution-- without which, we will only have causality that leads to increasing entropy.
Darwinian theory lead to several social and cultural implications coming from interpreting the concept of fitness in different ways. For instance, some people interpreted fitness as physical fitness and started to promote gymming, while some others interpreted fitness as the ability to produce offsprings, and went off in a different direction. For some, the lion or any apex predator is an archetype of fitness, while for others the stubborn cockroach that survived in the same form since the dinosaurs, or the nimble rabbit that produces many offsprings at one go, are examples of fitness in action.
So, what were/are the implications of the Samkhyan model of evolution? Since evolution is driven by Purusha or conscious awareness-- adopting the Samkhyan model would mean to bring awareness into each and every aspect of our lives and to act with intention rather than on impulse or habit. Habit or impulsive behaviour is purely Prakriti in action. These actions are the result of causal pathways that are hardwired into our implicit memory (called Samskaras). In contrast, intentional actions are those driven by conscious oversight. Evolution is made possible by conscious, intentional, and deliberate action.
Samkhya also posits that every one of us is a source of awareness-- each of us have the Purusha/Prakriti duality that defines our being. Later philosophies in India went even a step further and said that while we may all have different Prakritis, there is only one Purusha-- consciousness is singular! There is no such thing called "consciousness-es". But those theories are beyond the scope of this post.
Here is the talk that started this chain of thought in my mind. Listen to it for more fascinating details:
