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The Great Intelligence Divide: Prometheus v. Gaia 

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Published on Substack February 22, 2025

For millennia, humanity has grappled with its relationship with the natural world. We’ve been both awestruck by its power and driven to conquer it, often with disastrous results. This internal conflict is beautifully encapsulated in the contrasting myths of Prometheus and Gaia, two powerful archetypes representing fundamentally different approaches to intelligence and our place in the universe. Understanding this conflict – this “Great Intelligence Divide” – is crucial to navigating the challenges of the 21st century.

The Gift of Fire

Prometheus, the Titan who gifted fire (knowledge and technology) to humanity, embodies Promethean intelligence. This is the human capacity for relentless innovation, for pushing boundaries, and for reshaping the world to our will. It’s the brilliance that drives scientific breakthroughs, technological advancements, and artistic expression. It’s the fire that fuels human progress. But, as the myth reveals, this fire is a double-edged sword. Prometheus’s defiance of the gods brought him immense suffering, a testament to the potential for unchecked ambition and the unforeseen consequences of tampering with the natural order.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein serves as a chilling modern parable. Victor Frankenstein, driven by Promethean ambition, creates life but ultimately unleashes chaos and destruction. His hubris, his relentless pursuit of knowledge without considering the moral implications, results in tragedy. This cautionary tale highlights a critical flaw in Promethean intelligence: its inherent tendency towards hubris, its willingness to prioritize advancement over ethical considerations, and its inability to account for the dark side of its actions. The consequences of this imbalance are evident in our modern world: climate change, resource depletion, and widespread social inequality are all, at least in part, the result of a Promethean approach that values progress above all else. The Manhattan Project, detailed in American Prometheus, provides further evidence. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s creation of the atomic bomb exemplifies the immense power—and moral responsibility—inherent in Promethean intelligence. His lifelong struggle with the ethical implications of his creation underscores the critical need for a more inclusive approach.

The most dangerous form of Promethean intelligence today is present in the ecosystem of Silicon Valley and the neck-breaking speed with which its leaders want to develop and monetize Artificial Intelligence. The digital economy and all its peripheral expressions are the prime example of the binary nature of human intelligence that places itself above all other intelligences, ignoring the dark side of its own actions. In spite of calls to place a moratorium on further AI development, Silicon Valley has moved forward with impunity, ignoring the voices of reason and the greater ecology in which all human activity exists.

The gift of fire has ignored the curse of its own burning embers.

Transcending Human Intelligence

There’s another way of understanding intelligence, a way that stands in stark contrast to the Promethean model. It is Gaian intelligence. Gaia, the Earth goddess, personifies the wisdom of the natural world, the inherent balance and interconnectedness of all living things. Gaian intelligence isn’t about conquering nature; it’s about understanding, respecting, and working with it. It’s a holistic, systems-based approach that recognizes the inherent value of biodiversity, the cyclical nature of resources, and the delicate equilibrium that sustains life on Earth.

Where Promethean intelligence often prioritizes linear progress and reductionist thinking – breaking down complex systems into smaller, manageable parts – Gaian intelligence embraces complexity, recognizing the intricate web of relationships that connect every element of the ecosystem. It prioritizes interconnectedness over isolation, understanding that damage to one part of the system inevitably affects the whole.

The fundamental difference between these two forms of intelligence lies in their relationship with nature. Promethean intelligence views nature as a resource to be exploited, a canvas upon which to paint our innovations. It seeks to dominate and control, often disregarding the potential consequences of its actions. In contrast, Gaian intelligence views nature as a teacher, a source of wisdom and resilience. It respects the intricate balance of the natural world and seeks to harmonize human activity with ecological processes.

The current crisis facing humanity – climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion – is a direct consequence of the unbalanced emphasis on Promethean intelligence. Our relentless pursuit of technological advancement and economic growth has pushed the planet beyond its limits, leading to an ecological crisis of unprecedented scale. This is not to say that technological progress is inherently evil, but rather that our approach to progress has been fundamentally flawed, lacking the crucial perspective offered by Gaian intelligence.

Prometheus endowed with Gaian Intelligence.

Moving forward, we must find a way to integrate these two contrasting forms of intelligence. We can’t simply reject Promethean intelligence; technological innovation is crucial to addressing many of the challenges we face. However, we must fundamentally shift our approach, incorporating the wisdom of Gaian intelligence into our decision-making processes. This means adopting a more holistic, systems-based perspective that prioritizes sustainability, equity, and respect for the natural world. More importantly, at the center of every new scientific approach should be the question: What would Mother Nature do? This is the long-awaited leap in the evolutionary trajectory of science that will save us and the planet.

This integration requires a profound shift in our values and priorities. It demands a move away from a purely anthropocentric worldview – one that sees humanity as separate from and superior to nature – towards a more biocentric view that recognizes our interconnectedness with all living things. It means prioritizing long-term sustainability over short-term gains, embracing collaboration over competition, and recognizing the limits of human ingenuity in the face of the vast complexity of the natural world.

The challenge is not to choose between Prometheus and Gaia, but to integrate their wisdom. We need the fire of Promethean intelligence to illuminate our path, but we also need the wisdom of Gaian intelligence to guide our steps, ensuring that our progress is sustainable and doesn’t come at the expense of the planet and future generations. This integration demands a paradigm shift, a move away from a purely reductionist, extractive model of development towards one that is holistic, regenerative, and deeply respectful of the intricate balance of the natural world. Only through this integration can we hope to build a future that is both prosperous and sustainable.

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Second Sapiens, a Book Eight Years in the Making

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Eight years and four months ago, my late friend Don Beck and I sat in my living room discussing the future of humanity and how Spiral Dynamics, the development model he created can remain relevant in the face of so many existential problems. We both recognized two outsized systems that will define the future. The first was the post WWII architecture and the systems created by the modern mind going through different stages of entropy, and the second was our collective inability to address social and ecological collapse.

We had discussed these issues many times before as we both concluded that the basic mechanics of our model needed structural changes for it to remain on the leading edge of change. Between coffee sips that morning my friend inquired about any insights I might have had into the nature of these changes and my response was that it couldn’t be done without repurposing the leading edge of human intelligence known in the model as Second Tier. Just as he did in October of 2009 when he nudged me into writing the book MEMEnomics, that morning my friend was nudging into repurposing the leading edge of human intelligence. “You don’t have to call it second tier. Call it something else,” he said.

That was the moment that marked the birth of the concept of Second Sapiens.

Just like the wicked problems this book attempts to address, writing it was an eight-year odyssey full of setbacks, unpleasant distractions and sorrowful events. In 2017 I set my work aside for a few years to care for Elza. At the same time Don Beck became occupied with taking care of his wife Pat. It wasn’t until after I wrote the book The Light of Ishtar and Don’s passing that the space opened up for me to finish it. Then came the bankruptcy of the two publishers who had agreed to published it and the unexpected passing of my literary agent. By the time my new publisher was ready for release it, Elza passed away and the date was postponed one last time.

In hindsight, the earlier delays were a blessing in disguise as much of the science behind the research I had done before 2020 did not withstand the test of time. This fact alone became the crucible on which much of Second Sapiens concepts were built and from which will come the repurposing of the Spiral Dynamics-Gravesian model. Based on our failure to address macro and mega scale issues, the narrative builds a new theoretical framework that calls on us to transcend human intelligence and embrace the complexities inherent in Gaian intelligence.

The recent destruction in Los Angeles is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come that will lay waist to many human-built systems and render most of them obsolete. The present structures of FEMA and the insurance industry will be among the first to experience obsolescence.

Mother Nature is not mean. She’s just reaching homeostasis after human activity forced her past certain tipping points. We need to understand those dynamics and be in awe of them if humanity is to survive the Anthropocene epoch and thrive in the Gaian epoch. This is what Second Sapiens is all about.

The book opens the possibility that a new seed of knowing can be regenerated and nurtured in the Gaian epoch of the Second Sapiens.”

Marilyn Hamilton, PhD.

The book is dedicated to Elza, Don and Clare Graves, the three sapiens who set my mind and soul on fire. A big thank you goes to my friend and colleague Dr. Marilyn Hamilton for writing such a moving and insightful foreword. Marilyn walks the walk in being one of the few evolutionary leaders practicing at the Gaian scale. Her generous spirit and big Gaian heart are a testament to the transformative future of our species. For that, I am forever in her debt.

The few thought leaders who read an advance copy of the book consider it ground breaking work and a manifesto for the future. It is available from Amazon or any book seller. Please share this post widely, read the book, and let the epoch of Second Sapiens begin.

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Viewing Humanity from Jupiter

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This post was prompted by a recent debate in our developmental community about the nature of leadership needed in the Anthropocene. This is the human development stage that possesses full ecological awareness of Earth’s systems, but represents less than 3 percent of the world’s intelligence today.  It is one of two stages in the Gravesian bio-psycho-social conception that represent the second highest stage of human development, stage seven. The other, stage eight, represents less than 1% of human intelligence and is the highest stage uncovered by Clare Graves’ research. Together the two represent the values of the second tier, what is commonly referred to in the Gravesian – Spiral Dynamics community as the emerging values of humanity. (See model details here).

Much of the conversation in our community today points to the failure of the 7th level system to address existential problems, from political instability and war to environmental issues and everything in between. While that might be true to the way we understand the system’s leadership today, I don’t believe our problems are beyond Graves’ conception the way he envisioned it five decades ago. To me, what we’re witnessing today is part and parcel of the chaos and entropy of the entire First Tier that contains the lower six stages of human and cultural development we have gone through, what Graves called the values of a deficient humanity. Because of our failure to address higher order challenges such as climate change, ecological collapse, and loss of biodiversity at the right time, this stage has become a necessary sequence in the development process, a collective dark night of the soul, so to speak before we can move to second tier intelligence. It will be planetary in nature the way Graves envisioned it, an important theoretical aspect that was sidelined by the subsequent interpretations of Graves’ work, primarily Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory.

Graves had labeled these two most advanced stages of our development as existential in nature, charged with dealing with macro systems such as world population, environmental degradation and matters of scarce resources. Beck and Wilber watered down Graves’ second tier intelligence by limiting it to human-built systems, or in the case of Wilber, falsely using the model to create a third tier in order to transcend physical existence. It is the human-built systems that are in collapse, which are in turn causing the collapse of natural systems. This mega state of chaos and entropy is part of what I call the Great Obsolescence that takes up 3 chapters in my upcoming book expected to be released in early 2025.

Graves was calling attention to all issues existential in the 1970s. This was the time when systems thinking was born. His concerns were similar to those of Donella and Dennis Meadows, two of the authors of the landmark book Limits to Growth and to James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis the authors of the Gaia Hypothesis and many other systems thinkers like him at the time. Bringing back Graves original conception of these two stages is at the heart of my new work. It accounts for the changes in Life Conditions, which is half of the entire model that makes it dynamic and infuses it with advancements in systems thinking that have taken place over the last five decades. Over that period of time, his life long work has moved from what academics called works of prophecy, to where it is today; a confirmation of an undeniable reality.

Graves’ Second Tier is Existential because First Tier has destroyed our ecology, and in the process triggered the collapse of an exponentially higher order, non-human system; Nature.

My research into Graves’ archives has uncovered that the “Existential” label was driven by the urgency for us to understand the exponentially higher order dynamics driven by what I call “Natural Intelligence.” In essence, we have to mimic Nature in every fractal of existence, from politics, governance, commerce, and everything in between in order for us to have a chance at survival. This is the “reversal” that Graves spoke of; the reversal of much of what we have taken for granted since the first stage emerged 100,000-200,000 years ago. Graves’ trepidations about our ability to ascend to these existential values was captured in a conversation he had with his successor Don Beck in 1980 when he told him that he feared half of the world population will disappear before the world can be stabilized at second tier. Beck shared that prediction with me two decades ago, but only made it public in the 2018 book Spiral Dynamic in Action. According to the latest research, and in spite of all the technological advancements we made, it is believed that number is closer to 70% of today’s world’s population, which is almost double what it was in 1980.

It took me a while and much research into Graves’ archives to figure out why he labeled stage eight, the last known stage in his model as a restrictive existential system as well. If you can imagine what life would be like in a post-collapse scenario, or in what we have to do to successfully mitigate the effects of climate change, the survival of what remains of civilization has to follow an ecological alignment that way Mother Nature conceived it billions of years ago. The restriction is to that and not to some arbitrary ruler claiming the best interest of his/her constituents. It’s a conformity to the dictates of the exponentially higher intelligence of the natural world into which human nature must be subsumed. This scenario must be followed if we’re to ensure the survival of what species remain. In my new book, I call these new conformist values the Gaiametry Protocols and I spend another 3 chapters detailing them. 

In 2016, I had a conversation with Beck about the Marco and Mega systems problems we’re facing. At the time, I wanted to understand them as part of the VUCA craze, an aspect of the human intelligence that thrives on its own sense of exceptionalism and superiority. The issues fell into three distinct categories that have only grown in magnitude since. They were:

  1. The entropy of the post WWII world order driven by what is now becoming a universal fallacy of peace through commerce and the era’s now-outdated geopolitical and financial architecture. 
  2. The pervasive and systemic disruption brought on by the digital age and the rise of artificial intelligence. 
  3. Our utter failure to address climate change effectively. 

Beck’s response to my concerns was that I wasn’t zooming out far enough. “You need to see these existential issues from Jupiter” he told me.  It is by seeing these issues from Jupiter that I was able to articulate The Great Obsolescence.

As cruel as it seems to remain emotionally detached from the ravages of wars and environmental degradation, seeing these issues from Jupiter reminds me of my guru’s response to the death of 250,000 people in 2004 in the aftermath of the Indian ocean tsunami. When prompted for a spiritual meaning of what happened, he responded saying: “It’s Shiva and Shakti playing soccer on higher planes.”  While that death toll is far less than the 5.6 billion people projected to die because of our failure to address climate change and ecological collapse, we have to remind ourselves that this is Mother Nature’s way of restoring ecological balance and reaching homeostasis in the largest system we’ll ever be tasked to understand. It is that understanding of natural intelligence that operates outside human intelligence and is exponentially superior to it. This is what we must embrace. These are the Second Tier values that transcend human-built systems and preserve humanity and what remains of life on the planet.  

Credit for featured image “punic wars.” English Plus Podcast. https://englishpluspodcast.com

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