Human Energy: A metascience for evolutionary flourishing

Human flourishing is about more than our survival as individuals or even as a species. Since biology does not typically address the social, ethical, and religious dimensions of human flourishing, interdisciplinary frameworks are needed. This manuscript proposes a model of human flourishing grounded in evolvability: the capacity to increase the probability of evolutionary success. Central to this model is human energy, a distinct form of latent energy that powers psychological and social dimensions of flourishing. This model is developed across biological scales, by examining the role of energetics in living systems that utilize dynamically structured, latent energy to anticipate the future. Such processes leverage serendipitous interactions within biochemical, neural, and social networks to create emergent innovations. Nonetheless, purely biological descriptions and investigations are insufficient to understand flourishing at the psychological or social level. We are nourished not only from metabolism, but psychosocially nourished through the energy of language, compassion and imagination. Mirroring prior major evolutionary transitions, this human energy enables transcendence: moving from the biology of the individual to novel forms at a collective level. Making sense of these energetic transitions requires a new metascience and interdisciplinary collaboration between the biological, social sciences and the humanities.