Conscious Evolution

[janos]

Although life on earth started about 3.5 billion years ago, complex, multicellular organisms appeared during the last 1 billion years.

Representing this time as a 24 hour day, all advanced life forms evolved during the last five or six hours of of this cosmic day, between 6.30 pm and midnight.

For most of the time, primitive microbial life subsisted on the chemical energy available in the warmish oceans of early earth. Then a big breakthrough came. Some of these microbes discovered how to harness the abundant energy of solar radiation. The technology of photosynthesis had been discovered.
Free and abundant energy at last!

Unfortunately, there was a serious drawback to this new technology. The highly reactive and corrosive oxygen atoms the process released rusted the whole plantary surface and then polluted the atmosphere. Life forms that flourished until then had to find oxygen free havens in the depth of the seas or deep underground. Thus the early bacterial communities that could not escape or adapt to this radical change of the environment suffered wholesale extinction.

But the great genius of life lies in its ability to turn waste from one species into a resource on which others can thrive. A new type of bacteria, the eucaryotes, responded to the challenge and larned to turn oxygen into a potent new form of energy. It not only thrived but, using this new abundance, began to form tight associations with fellow bacteria/cells to form the first multicellular organisms.

Remember, it is already evening in our cosmic day
Yet there are no organisms with nervous system or stomach, let alone bones. All the complex animal species appeared during the last five or six hours, between 6.30 pm and midnight

[janos]

Although life on earth started about 3.5 billion years ago, complex, multicellular organisms appeared during the last 1 billion years.

The story goes on. Plants invade dry land; animals invent brain and nervous system, skeleton, lungs to live on dry land; stand on two legs, develop language and imagination to embrace the Universe...

What is the purpose of it all? Some say "no purpose", and remain happy with that... Astonishing.

The essence of the story is that the more complex a life form, the less time it needs to evolve:
Hominid mammals appeared about 5 million years ago--40 minutes before now; and are the culmination of over 23 hours of preparation.

Thus, compound acceleration (accelerating acceleration) of development seem to be a law of evolution.

The other lesson from the story is the importance of technology for accessing and harnessing new sources of energy.

Bringing the story up to date

Let's agree to make the start of the industrial revolution (somewhat arbitrarily) the invention of printing and the democratisation of knowledge five hundred years ago.
This is the last one second before now

If this account is getting tedious for some readers... the essential message is that, on the evolutionary time scale, the next step-change in human evolution will take a second.
Roughly, three outcomes are likely:

humans become one of the many "dead ends" of evolution;

they become dead literally (extinct);

make the grade and step onto the next rang of the evolutionary ladder.

[janos]

[janos]