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Road, each one of us to address these issues will have an impact on the capacity of mankind can play an important role in the future evolution of life in the universe. It is also likely to be changed, each one of us see ourselves, and we do with our lives, and the meaning and effect, we see that in our personal existence. Evolutionary sense to have the potential to fundamentally change the experience, as a person.           Conscious Evolution     The emergence of organisms who are conscious of the direction of evolution is one of the most important steps in the evolution of life on any planet. Once organisms discover the direction of evolution, they can use it to guide their own evolution. If they know where evolution is going, they can work out what will produce success in the future, and use this to plan how they will evolve.   ... Our growing understanding of evolution is providing us with the knowledge that will enable us to see that there are large-scale patterns in the evolution of life. And it is a short step from this to recognising the evolutionary significance of using these patterns to guide our own evolution. But this significant step will not be possible until we have developed a comprehensive understanding of the direction of evolution and of its implications for humanity. The development of this theory will itself be an important step in our evolution. Key issues that it will have to address include:   — What is the direction of evolution? Where is it headed? Is the direction of change progressive, in the sense that life advances and improves as evolution unfolds? If it does progress, in what way do organisms improve?   — Where does humanity fit in? Are we to be like the dinosaurs, better than what has gone before us, but soon to be replaced by something superior? Or can we play a significant role in the future evolution of life in the universe?   — What choices do we have? If we can see where evolution is going, is it possible for us to change to fit in with the direction, so that we can survive and participate in the next steps of evolution? Or should we ignore the direction of evolution, and live our lives in ways that might make us irrelevant to future evolution? Can we turn our back on the evolutionary processes that have produced us?   — What does this mean for us as individuals, here and now, for the way we live our lives and the way we organise ourselves socially? If we decide to do what we can to ensure that humanity participates in the future progressive evolution of life in the universe, what do we have to do, individually and collectively? Will we have to change our economic and social systems? Our psychology?   — Can deeper understandings of evolution and of its direction assist in answering the ancient questions that confront all aware human beings: where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going to? Is there a purpose to human existence?   ... Questions like these will face all individual organisms who become aware of the nature of the evolutionary processes that have formed them and that will determine the evolutionary future of their species.   The way each of us deals with these issues will impact on the ability of humanity to play a significant role in the future of evolution of life in the universe. It also has the potential to change how each of us sees ourselves, what we do with our life, and the meaning and purpose we see in our individual existence. Evolutionary consciousness has the potential to radically change the experience of being a human being.   Evolutionary awareness impacts on the individual in two main ways. First, it loosens our attachment to our existing motivations, beliefs, values and objectives. It calls into question the appropriateness of our personal characteristics, and the behaviours they motivate. Second, evolutionary awareness can provide us with new values and objectives, and a new direction to our life. It points to how we can live a life that contributes to the successful evolution of living processes in the universe, a life that is therefore consistent with the forces that are responsible for our existence.   ... We cannot help but ask ourselves some fundamental questions: as far as we can, should we manage and modify our existing motivations, beliefs and values so that they will support the behaviour needed to achieve future evolutionary success? Or should we just continue to serve our pre-existing motivations, knowing that they fail to do the job they are designed for? Can we continue behaviours that we know fail to serve their ultimate objectives? Once we have the ability to evolve through evolutionary mechanisms that have much greater foresight and intelligence than previous mechanisms, can we refuse to use them?         — John Stewart, Evolution's Arrow: The Direction of Evolution and the Future of Humanity, Introduction and Chapter 19 – The Evolutionary Warrior                     Indexes/15