The Evolution of the Living

The emergence of life from non-living matter is one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the universe. In a cosmos of pure physics and chemistry, something appeared that was capable of directing its own behaviour towards goals — nourishment, reproduction, survival.

This goal-directedness is the first sign of something like love in the universe: a primitive orientation towards what sustains and nourishes life, and away from what destroys it. The living cell already exhibits, in its most rudimentary form, the capacity for preference — and preference is the seed of love.

As life evolves — from single cells to multicellular organisms, from organisms to conscious beings — this primitive preference deepens and develops. It becomes attachment, then care, then love in the full human sense. And Universal Mechanics proposes that this development does not stop with human love: it continues towards ecstasy — love that has dissolved the boundaries of the self entirely.