Human Energy: A metascience for evolutionary flourishing

What enables humanity to flourish? Surely, it is more than our biological survival as individuals, or even as a species. As a modern science, biology does not typically address the social, ethical and religious dimensions of human flourishing. Here I propose a transdisciplinary scientific framework for flourishing, rooted in evolvability: the capacity to increase the probability of an evolutionary outcome. I define human energy as a fuel for our evolvability as a species, reflecting a natural extension of biological processes that utilize dynamically structured, latent energy to anticipate the future. These processes of creative energy leverage serendipitous interactions within biochemical, neural, and social networks to constellate innovative pathways. As a result of this creative energy, organisms are more than literally “alive” (surviving) but are “meta-alive,” (flourishing and evolvable). Nonetheless, purely biological descriptions and investigations are insufficient to describe, let alone explain flourishing at the level of humanity. Humans imagine the future. We are nourished not only from metabolism, but through the energy of the arts, literature, and religion (the humanities). Mirroring prior major evolutionary transitions, human energy enables transcendence: moving from the biology of the individual to novel forms at a collective level. Human energy manifests this through imagination, compassion and what the poet Keats’ called, negative capability, a radical stance of not-knowing. Making sense of these energetic transitions requires a new metascience, a transdisciplinary bridge between the biological sciences and the humanities.