upon new levels of social holons in which the users of symbols and tools could exist and reproduce themselves, but the reproduction was now the reproduction of culture through symbolic communication [the noosphere] and not just the reproduction of bodies through sexuality. Kinship gave way to ‘cultureship’”.144 In other words, the physiosphere which had pushed forth the biosphere, in turn pushed forth the noosphere: the realm of mind. But as each first emerged, so differentiating itself from its predecessor, it brought with it its own particular pathologies. “Just as the biosphere was first emerging on Earth”, Wilber explains, “we can imagine all the fits and starts, all the dead-ends, that the first populations of cells tried out in their attempt to fit with the preconditions set by the physiosphere, whose territory the living cells were now invading. A false start – a start not consonant with the physiosphere – was simply erased. And throughout biological evolution, as the biosphere itself began adding layers and layers of new depth, each of these levels had to be brought into an adequate harmony with both its predecessors and its peers – no easy or trivial task, as the awesome example of the dinosaurs reminds us. … And just as the biosphere had to find its acceptable niche in (and beyond) the physiosphere, so too the noosphere had to find its allowable or harmonious place in (and beyond) the biosphere”.145 The noosphere evolved. But that, as Wilber goes on to point out, is where our problem begins:
144 145
SES, p106. SES, p109-110.
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