THE EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO OUR EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE: Another Permian-Triassic Extinction??

By David Anderson

CALL FOR A PHASE TRANSITION

Only an Economic Social Political Philosophical Religious Mind-Change

Can Save Us

How could the most clever and brilliant primate ever to evolve on Planet earth be bringing this extinction dilemma upon itself?

Do we biologically psychologically neurologically have the ability to remove our Neurotic Psychotic Imperfection and enter into a Phase Transition?

Then will we have the strength and cohesiveness cooperatively to move on into an integrative societal form that will assure our continuation on Planet earth?

For description of this societal form see Appendix # II Our Future??

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369413227

David Anderson

David Anderson lives in Minnesota with with wife Rebecca and their Teddy Bear puppy Buddy. An avid dog lover his whole life, David has translated that passion into his writing. Growing up on a farm, David was exposed to all sorts of animals; raising Cattle, Sheep, Hogs, Horses, and Chickens, as well as caring for his families dogs and cats. "Some of my favorite memories as a child involve running through the pasture with my dogs, and lazy summer days spent lying in the grass with all the animals" Anderson said. "As a young boy I really wanted to be a veterinarian, and while I eventually chose a different path, my passion for animals never wore off." That passion for animals continued as he graduated college and started to make his way into the world. Mr. Anderson launched LP Media, a company that is dedicated to promoting and educating the public about the joys of pet ownership. The company started small, but quickly grew and now helps over a million pet owners every month. Anderson continues to write and search for ways to help other people who are contemplating the decision to become a pet owner. "My work is never done" he said. "I love helping other people and providing great resources that they can use to help better their lives, and the lives of their pets. I plan on continuing to create great products that help pet owners for as long as I can!"

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Copyright © 2024 by David Anderson.

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Rev. date: 12/13/2023

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1     Our Planetary Problem

Chapter 2     Our Jeremiah Problem

Chapter 3     Our Biosphere Problem

Chapter 4     Our Cranial Problem

Chapter 5     Our American Problem

Chapter 6     A Lesson from Socrates

Part I Flash Of A Firefly In The Night

Part II When lies become truths

Part III Religious and Sophistic behavior

Chapter 7     A Warning from Sigmund Freud

Chapter 8     The Anthropomorphic God of Abraham

Part I Yahweh

Part II Dancing with the Devil in defiance of Cosmic Order

Chapter 9     Human Civilization – The Future

Part I Our Planetary Dilemma

Part II The Journey from Wasps and Ants to Apes, Chimpanzees and Bonobos to Australopithecus to Neanderthalensis to Homo sapiens

Part III Homo economicus we have all become

Part IV longue durée

Part V Thought Periods

Part VI Ecologically Destructive Institutions

Part VII The Bridge

Part VIII Survival

Part IX Collapse

Part X Tipping Points – Next Three Generations

Part XI The ecological threat to/from Islam

Part XII Freedom

Part XIII A New Axial Age?

Part XIV Egyptian reflections on our future

Chapter 10   A Clue from the Monastery at Nag Hammadi

Chapter 11   Back to Lascaux

Part I Co-Creation in the Dordogne

Part II Richard Tarnas – Nature’s unfolding truth

Chapter 12   The Sumerian Problem

Part I Scripture

Part II Beyond Scripture

Chapter 13   A Dangerous Zero Negative Sum Game—The Chicago School vs the Planet

Part I From Adam Smith to Milton Friedman to Alan Greenspan

Part II George Soros

Part III An Increase in the Emissions of CO2 and a Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop

Part IV An Economic Solution for the Increase in the Emissions of CO2 and a Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop

Chapter 14     Forging a New Global Ethic For Planetary Survival – The Tragedy of The Commons

Chapter 15     Reinventing the Sacred in the Age of the Cosmos

Part 1 Hebraic vs Hellenic Thought

Part II The Enlightenment

Part III Our industrial civilization

Part IV David Bohm’s Post Modern Gnosticism

Part V Our future

Part VI The war between the Rational and Irrational mind

Concluding Remarks by the Author

Appendix I

Appendix II

Sources

PREFACE

From our beginnings about two million years ago and then several hundred thousand years ago when we began moving to the North out of the wilderness of the African Continent we and our hominid ancestors had lived in harmony with Nature and all other life forms

With our movement to the North there was a small but gradual expansion of our population

Then over the last several thousand years an acceleration of that expansion

With that acceleration came a change from our being in oneness with Nature and all other life forms to our being in disharmony with Nature and all other life forms

Now we have become over eight billion rapacious hominid consumers living on a planet the same in size and resource availability as it was beginning those two million years ago and then as it was several hundred thousand years ago when we began moving to the North

And with no awareness of the need to comprehend planetary resource sustainability limitation

And with no understanding of the following planetary existential reality:

X From the depths of its Oceans to the height of its Biosphere Planet earth is becoming more foul every day

X There is again the possibly of near total planetary life extinction from Biosphere temperature acceleration (the result of Methane release as occurred during the Permian-Triassic Extinction)

CHAPTER 1

Our Planetary Problem

T HE ABOVE ALARMING statements from Sir Martin Rees and Craig Dilworth are only two of literally hundreds from prominent individuals made since Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published in 1962. Hers was the book that started the Green Revolution in America. At that time I was living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The city was surrounded by cyanide laden mini mountains deposited there from the gold mines. (Reduced in recent years as the price of gold made it profitable to retrieve gold from the waste)

Ecological thoughts were farthest from my mind. Nor were they on my mind after I left Johannesburg and during my many years of travel throughout the world. International economics and geo-political science was my thing; extending credit to foreign governments and banks and corporations - and getting paid back.

So it was not until years later that I became aware of a risk far greater than any I in all my travels had ever encountered. It had to do with the survival of our species on this planet. A steady flow of peer reviewed studies from the scientific community about the onset of a very large number of dangerous ecological tipping points bringing on increasing Biosphere degradation and even possibly the end of Homo sapiens were telling me that we have a problem far more serious than anything I had ever known.

At the same time as I was beginning my study I found among the general public in the world community some recognition, nevertheless an avoidance of planetary reality. Eat less meat, burn less gas, stop polluting the rivers and then all will be OK was the cry. There was world-wide obfuscation. And for some: who cares?

So I decided to confront this ignorance. I would first examine the reality of the crisis and then suggest a means by which we humans might extricate ourselves from it. My overall approach was to examine the validity of the information at hand and then the social, political, philosophical, religious and economic bias imbedded in our brains working against a solution.

Attendance at a number of conferences allowed me to meet with many scientists face-to-face. It was not long before I found that the hard core information was valid. And I found that I was becoming extremely pessimistic about the future of our species. It seemed that the problem had deep roots in our world culture. Society appeared to be in a state of confusion as to what actions needed to be taken to avert possible human disaster, and as many scientists were describing it; the possibly of our extinction.

I also came upon an observation. It appeared scientists were very good at presenting factual information, but not very good at getting the general public to understand it. Nor were they, and specifically the physical scientists, very effective in their explanations of just how we need to solve the problem. All were having difficulty not only communicating scientific fact but also thinking through non empirical explanations. With this came their inability to communicate and most notably from a religious/philosophical/political/cultural perspective,

And as for the economists, there was a near complete absence of understanding.

So I began, like many others, to feel that there was only a marginal chance that we as a civilization would be able to survive through the coming millennium or even for that matter beyond the next two or three hundred years. At this point the same very deep feeling of depression that many others were having also began to come over me.

Then I had an insight. It arose as I was viewing all of the ecological information I had been gathering. I began to see it in a somewhat different light. I began to see the information not as a predictor of the end of our species, but possibly the beginnings of a new Age; an Age no doubt to be preceded by enormous pain and suffering, yet a new Age leading to a new form of human understanding of our place on the planet and in the cosmos. This allowed me to view all of the information from a far broader perspective. It gave me a sense that in all of our awkwardness, we as a species may be moving into an Age of a higher level of understanding; one far removed from the present age of cultural dysfunction and self-destruction.

I then asked myself; can I go deeper than this? Could there be a positive outcome? Are there those able to see beyond the gloom of the everyday predictions? It was then I became aware of David Bohm (1917-1982), one of our greatest theoretical physicists. Bohm, a colleague of Albert Einstein, introduced the evolutionary idea of cosmic enfoldment and unfoldment. He also spoke and wrote in terms of an unbroken cosmic wholeness, with everything animate and inanimate having, as he described it; an inseparable quantum interconnectedness. He recognized a consciousness deep down of the whole of mankind. He recognized an intense heightening of this consciousness among many individuals who had shaken off as he called it the pollution of the ages (wrong worldviews that propagate ignorance). He saw this beginning to generate the immense power that will be needed for human survival.

Also I came upon the work of Ilya Prigogine, who won the 1977 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. His work on structures indicated that dynamic systems are engaged in a constant exchange of energy and that they can move not toward dissipative entropy but toward higher and higher levels of complexity. In chaotic conditions, systems choose between alternate paths; one fatally reverting to lesser complexity and the other to a higher order of complexity. This was a challenge to the law of thermodynamics that said all systems break down with the dissipation of energy. His reference was to all systems of all kinds from organelles as well as to empires, from traffic patterns to termite mounds, from deer antlers to cardiovascular systems.

This was the evidence I needed. We may be moving not backward toward extinction but forward toward greater complexity as a part of an emergent upward continuum. Given this new challenge to my perspective, I was able to sense the possibility of a new Age, one that countered the dire conclusions and general ecological pessimism found among so many today. I thought; perhaps we are a part of the holistic process described by Bohm and Prigogine and there is some form of direction leading us as a species not downward toward Anthropocene extinction but upward toward our becoming a part of new planetary order. We are in essence witnessing the coming together of science and a new form of theology.

This led me to begin reading authors like Stanislav Grof, Richard Tarnas, Joseph Kearns, Ervin Laszlo, Keiron Le Grice, Brian Swimme and others associated with the California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco and theologian Mary Evelyn Tucker of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, New Haven, also Emeritus scholar of Social Ethics Larry Rasmussen. They are all referenced in the following chapters.

Next, I decided to go back into our own biological bipedal hominid past. I found that very early on there were life forms on the surface of our planet very much like I am. Then, approaching this from a paleoanthropological view I found that we Homo sapiens among all those other life forms, having overcome every danger imaginable, emerged from the evolutionary birth canal superior in terms of more than just survival over the Neanderthals, the Hobbits of Flores, even those others like the mysterious Denisovans.

And I found that there were even more proto humans (by way of DNA carbon dated testing) over which we survived; a recent example being Homo naledi in South Africa. A burial site there indicates that they had the ability to think beyond instinct.

I found that Homo erectus with the ability to think beyond instinct began to possess this high level of human consciousness as many as two million years ago when its brain cage began to enlarge beyond that of other animal forms. This gave me a note of optimism. It told me that we may have a level of consciousness today that at this junction point gives us the possibility of saving ourselves from extinction. Here in this book it is described by way of an understanding of our weaknesses and our strengths, and most importantly an understanding of our psychotic/neurotic and out of body spiritual thought process.

In my studies I found that by 300,000/200,000 BCE Homo sapiens was demonstrating an extraordinary level of consciousness well beyond that of the earlier Homo erectus and possibly even a consciousness encompassing a spatial dimension beyond the cranial cavity enclosing their biophysical brains.

Archaeological evidence is now showing that we had by then become human as we today define being human. We had the same emotions, the same sense of family and tribal affiliation, the same feelings of love, the same desire to express our inner nature through forms of artistic endeavor and most unfortunately the same psychosis driving inner conflict. We had a dualistic teleological uniqueness that separated us from other forms of life.

A week in southern France visiting the caves there with a paleoanthropologist convinced me of this. I saw Cro-Magnon at the height of his acuity. My euro-centric eyes were opened! These humans survived a mini ice age that had brought the population in that area down to about 10,000. And they did not just survive! They advanced. The level of artistry in the caves is literally breathtaking. It is said that even Pablo Picasso was visibly shaken when he first entered the cave at Lascaux. Seeing this art work for myself; I concluded there is no question that among all other life forms, these human possessed an astounding level of intellectual creative ability.

So given the evidence, the question now arises; can we rest our case on the Bohm/Prigogine theory that nature inherently tends toward definite implicate determination and higher complexity? Can we make the assumption that our species here now on Planet Earth is moving progressively in a formation/destruction/re-creation direction toward a higher level (form) of consciousness and we among all species are singularly enfolding into some sort of inseparable quantum interconnectedness, moving away from the danger lurking around us? And if the answer is yes, can we then say it follows that we are for some reason a part of a unique and enduring hominid biological transcendental progression?

This leads to the big question; if so, for what reason? And, then it leads to an even bigger one; what if our thinking is too shallow, too egocentric and we will miss the mark? What if we are just another multibillion year cosmological Big Bang experiment leading like so many others to total extinction so as to make room for a next better life form superior to ours?

Clearly, a strength here described as a part of Bohm’s enfoldment gives confirmation of our tenacity. It was very well expressed by one of America’s greatest writers, William Faulkner, in his book The Sound and The Fury where he wrote:

I decline to accept the end of man. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

Faulkner’s view rose out of an era of extreme pain and suffering in the American South after the Civil War. Viewing this in a broader historical context, we can see that humans have been going through the same form of pain and suffering from the very beginning of the bronze/iron agricultural age. Our history has been horrific, with example after example of man’s inhumanity to man. Yet, as Faulkner reminds us; man (and woman) has prevailed. Yet, the question remains; can I/we trust Faulkner?

I decided that at least there was a chance that Bohm’s inseparable quantum interconnectedness and the observations of others could be explaining an underlying force in play and this combined with our tenacity to endure could possibly be the reason we are here today and may be here tomorrow. I also had the feeling that something else far deeper may be going on. We may be moving for some reason we do not know toward the realization of a greater purpose to our existence on this planet and in the cosmos.

Developments over the last fifty years may be giving us proof of this. Just the fact that there is a growing and persistent concern among so many throughout the world no matter how seemingly underrated and misunderstood this concern is at present, shows that something of enormous significance is happening. Many are beginning to sense growing insight into our raison d’être in a new age when there will be a reevaluation of everything about our lives; that is our religious beliefs, our institutions, even our biological DNA makeup; everything. My conclusion therefore was that we may be moving through what can be called a cosmic transition curve, one as significant as that when cellular life such as ours began to form 7/4 billion years ago. We may be at the very beginning of a new age unlike any in our planetary past.

In the light of this realization, the Bohmian/Prigogine/Faulknerian analysis did seem to make sense to me; nevertheless it did not materially alter the ecological time line I and many in the scientific community were seeing coming into view based on the ecological evidence forming. It is a scientific fact; we are entering an extreme planetary destructive period and once tipping points are reached, climatic and other, it will take thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years for the planet to readjust. The so called Gaia theory (the earth as an organism) will come into play. We are damaging the organism. The Planet, along with a new version of Homo sapiens at some future point in time will then have to regenerate.

If this does comes to pass, it will be preceded by enormous pain and suffering for Homo sapiens as well as for many other life forms. Unfolding events in the coming centuries will be devastating for billions of humans. There is ample evidence to make this observation.

Those who would deny it are living in a state of cranial/neurological dysfunction. Chapter 9 Part XIII A New Axial Age? speaks to this.

I quote from it here.

It will be too late to reverse many of the adverse ecological forces already set in motion. Drastic measures will need to be taken to sustain a limited population size (some estimates as low as less than one billion) on an increasingly inhospitable planet. Temperatures will be far higher than now. The coastal cities will all be gone. Acidification will have destroyed much of the fish and crustacean food stock in the oceans. Weather patterns will be extremely damaging to agricultural production. In order for humans to exist away from the harsh climatic and atmospheric conditions, self-contained enclosed structures such as Buckminster Fuller tetrahedron domes will need to be used on parts of the planet. Even space stations just above the earth housing humans capturing the Sun’s energy are a possibility although they remain in the realm of science fiction with inherent problems of their own. We must keep in mind the fact that biologically we are earth creatures gravitationally.

Can we avoid having to retreat to Buckminster Fuller’s tetrahedron domes or their equivalent? Possibly we can. As just described, we are seeing the very beginning of a breakthrough that could transition our species from its present state of planetary dysfunction and self-destruction into a state of at least some form of planetary accommodation. Many throughout the world are beginning to understand that our continuance on the planet will require far reaching change, and we defy that change at our peril. They are coming to the realization that this is calling for the abandonment of much of our past thought in every area; political, social, economic and religious.

Are we moving fast enough? That is the question. We fool ourselves if we think we can come up with a quick technological fix for each problem as it arises. That is materialistic deterministic thinking. It is the tragic end result of our Enlightenment reductionist mind frame. One can argue that it is the reason we are in the fix we are in.

So, where will we be 50/100/150/200 years from now? Public response continues to lag. Because continuing population expansion is taking place in tandem with the ecological breakdown, many tipping points, each with its own built-in momentum, will soon be coming upon us. The vast majority of humans on the planet will find themselves facing forces for which they are unprepared. Measured in terms of human suffering; reaching a New Age therefore will be far more painful than it was passing through the post Sumerian/Babylonian/Egyptian/Mesopotamian ones (Also known as the Late Neolithic Revolution). Therefore, there is a high probability that enclosed Buckminster Fuller tetrahedron domes described here in this book and/or their architectural equivalent will become a reality, as least for the remnant who are enabled to survive. The irony is that it may take such a sudden shock to force a needed critical mass of the world population to bring about the necessary rapid societal change. (I write about this as an historical phenomenon in Chapter 9 Human Civilization – The Future Part IV longue durée where I describe how difficult it is to speed up the process of cultural and institutional change)

Humans will be learning the hard way about a delusive flaw in their thinking that empowered their Axial Age; belief that the planet is something separate from them that they can exploit according to their own desires.

As for the present; signs of a lack of movement toward a New Age must not lead those who are aware to disillusionment. Slowly but surely progress is being made. A consensus is building.

It is going to be a difficult road. It will not be easy to abandon so much of the thought we had believed to be so sacred.

We who have a grasp of this must make our voices loudly heard. We need to meet the deniers head on. At the same time, we need to be training our children and grandchildren to prepare for the coming contagion. That is why I wrote this book.

CHAPTER 2

Our Jeremiah Problem

W E HAVE IN our human brains a dark neurotic psychotic destructive side. It was formed as we evolved over a period of three plus million years. It has now become our existential problem.

It was known to us early on:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

We brought it with us when we moved out of Africa into this Anthropocene Age. It can be observed over our history since then in the conflict between nations. Aberrant destructive human thought and behavior today in our interpersonal and international relations makes it obvious.

At the same time there was another side to us shown by our philosophical/religious thought. It spread from Egypt into the Levant and to Asia with the Hindu and the Upanishad and the Buddha and Confucius and Lao-tzu; the philosopher whose ideas became Daoism.

How critical is it to have a total examination of all sides of this Anthropocene evolutionary change? Very critical.

Codependency with Nature was left out of the equation. We abandoned our symbiotic relationship to Planet Earth and Planet Earth’s symbiotic relationship to us. We lost recognition of Nature’s transcendental power over us. That dark deceitful heart of ours paid no heed for such codependency. Nor Philosophical/religious thought. Neither paid attention to Nature’s transcendental power.

We separated ourselves from the reality that that all forms of life on Planet Earth are at one within its Biosphere; that we live in a state of complete biological codependency.

Today this brings us to our existential problem. With that transition we alienated ourselves from the Biosphere of our Planet without recognizing that like any organism within its Biosphere that alienates itself from its Biosphere, the end result is rejection.

Now we find ourselves suddenly faced with this rejection. Our reality is that if we continue to think the way we think and live the way we live, Nature will drive us to extinction.

Many scientists are now confirming this.

Yet Humanity refuses to acknowledge it or the need for change. Yes, a few enlightened individuals here and there and certainly most of the scientific community, but all with only limited influence. The general population continues to live in a cloud of optimism bias.

This irreverence toward Nature had been one of our evolutionary strengths allowing us to move forward without fear of harm.

Now it has become our enemy. We are ensnared in an optimism bias. Most of us are not able to grasp the fact that we humans have only limited control over Nature. For all our technological powers, we cannot escape from the reality that we are subject to planetary forces and they are beyond our control.

One reality we refuse to face is the possibility of a Methane Hydrate Feedback Loop in the Arctic. (Confirmed by the World Bank in 2012) Without quick action to curb CO2 emissions, we were warned that global warming is likely to increase by 4 degrees Centigrade (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and that is dangerously close to the temperature rise that initiated vast amounts of Methane release from the Arctic during the Permian-Triassic extinction 252 million years ago.

Another reality we refuse to face is that the South Pole is rapidly warming. Surface air temperatures there have been rising since the 1990s at a rate that is three times faster than the global average. The result: Parts of coastal Antarctic are losing ice. As oceans rise, there are disastrous implications for world population living in coastal areas.

Another reality we refuse to face is that we must reduce our population size. (now more than double what it was when I was in High School) Earth’s supplies of habitable land, fresh water, arable soil and mineral resources are not able to satisfy our needs.

Another reality we refuse to face is that ocean acidification is threatening much of the marine food web. Rising carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution have caused the oceans to become 30 percent more acidic. The estimate is 150 percent more by 2100.

Another reality we refuse to face is that Capital markets have grown to a size where they are energizing ecologically destructive parasitical forces of a magnitude never before seen in human history.

Another reality we refuse to face is that religious extremism on a global scale is releasing deadly psychotic neurotic behavior with wide destructive social ramifications.

And there are many others.

Where then do we begin? How much time do we have? Far reaching changes must take place over the next 25/50/100 years. They need to be of the magnitude that came with the beginning of our Anthropocene Age. All of human society has to change the way it thinks and the way it lives. The changes need to be political, social, religious, philosophical and economic.

And if there are no changes, what then? The suffering of future generations will be extreme. First, those billions of humans living on the edge of survival will perish. We are already seeing this die off in many parts of the world. (124 F. in Baghdad as of this writing) Then, the pain will move onto the rest of society.

Planet Earth is saying to Homo sapiens, using its evolutionary language of rejection; you must change the way you think and the way you live and you must do it now.

So here is the existential question of our Age Is there a way for us to break out of this downward spiral? The answer Yes, there is. But first we must examine many of those existing Anthropocene patterns of thought and behavior believed today to contain inherent truths that have become our enemy.

The task will be daunting. It will require us to reinvent much of what we have believed to be true and justified. We will have to change the way we think about everything; our lifestyles, our economics, our political systems, our laws, our social and religious systems, ourselves - Our "Raison d’etre" (reason for being)

Today’s patchwork of repairs and technological fixes will not suffice. A totally new societal design is called for; one leading to an entirely new societal structure, a structure whereby human activity can act in concert with Nature.

This new design cannot be implemented without first examining the core of our Anthropocene Age weakness; our dark neurotic psychotic side. It will require us to abandon this by CRISPR or other means and return to the horizontal transcendental symbiotic relationship with Nature that had successfully guided our two plus million year evolutionary development. It will require a metamorphosis of the human mind.

Can there emerge a higher level of human consciousness, redefining the cosmic and planetary purpose of our human species by way of a new form of insight? This is now the challenge of our Time:

Let me end with a quote from Albert Einstein

The problems in the world today are so enormous they cannot be solved with the level of thinking that created them.

CHAPTER 3

Our Biosphere Problem

T HE TERM BIOSPHERE defines the relatively thin layer of the planet’s air and water that can support life. It envelops the planet, extending down to the deepest layers of soils and ocean trenches and up to the highest oxygenated level. Metaphorically speaking, if you took a soccer ball and painted it with a thick coat of varnish, the depth of that coat would be in the same proportion to the ball as is the Biosphere depth to Planet Earth.

For humans the habitable fraction begins at sea level and extends upward a few thousand feet above sea level. We are born and live our lives in that narrow fraction. Other forms of life also exist in the Biosphere from top to bottom: squirrels, bears, cockroaches, sharks, Antarctic sea spiders, Plankton; and the list goes on.

Predecessors to cellular life, Prokaryotic bonds, began to form in the Biosphere several billion years ago. Predecessors to Homo sapiens began to form more than four million years ago. (Laetoli footprints proved that hominids walked upright as far back as 3.66 million years) We in our present form as measured by increased brain cage size began our journey about four hundred thousand years