CONSCIOUSNESS FOR THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY
Zygon December 3, 2025 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.1991.tb00801.x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | “beinghood” Cultural evolution Spirituality Sensate Psychological selection Ideational |
| Key points | Argues that to counterbalance sensate materialism and secularism, spiritual systems must integrate sensate and ideational elements, incorporate the 'flow' state, and shift their worldview from humans to the network of beings. |
Abstract
Abstract. Human action and experience are the outcome of genes and memes. Not only are both of these represented in consciousness, but consciousness mediates their claims and thus governs our choices. Hence it is important how consciousness is ordered and where it is directed. Sorokin's typology of the sensate and the ideational (“spiritual”), and the dialectic between them, is relevant to this issue. In our period of history, the sensate factors of materialism and secularism need to be dialectically counterbalanced by the reinforcement of memes that value the spiritual intimations of the realm beyond the senses. As we approach the twenty‐first century, the memes that will undergird our spirituality will be those that resacralize nature and emphasize our unity as humans with all of universal reality, in an idea of common “beinghood.” Spiritual systems that accord with this trend in evolution will have to respect three conditions. They will (1) integrate the sensate and the ideational; (2) reflect the importance of the “flow” state of optimal experience, which matches ever‐complexifying skills with comparable challenges; and (3) move the fulcrum of their worldview from the human being to the network of beings and its evolution.