Miguel Ochoa

Life and Conscience: a Hierarchical Perspective Miguel Ochoa

Life on Earth appears to be integrated by hierarchical levels from the most humble molecule of DNA, which is a collection of atoms, to multicellular organisms, including Man, who are made up of collections of cells. Each one of these levels appears animated by a conscience of its own. Is there any evidence of a still higher level of conscience belonging to human communities and therefore supra-human in kind?

The author believes that this is so and that cultural manifesta-tions, mostly language and scripture, exert in these communities the same role that genes in biological organisms, in other words, they are carriers of information. Cultural specifications, he affirm, could be used to predict societal dynamics, including the fate of economic and political systems.

The works include examples of the evolution of cultural traits in human communities as well as parallel evolutionary studies of human groups, a process that could be compared to evolutionary radiation among biological species.