Principles of universal evolutionism: the emergence of the concept and scope of application

The most common view of the origin of the doctrine of evolution is considered to be the theory of Charles Darwin, which he developed in relation to living nature, but did not clearly mention its applicability to man and human society. The fact is that even before the principles of universal evolutionism appeared in the doctrine of the types of Darwin, Herbert Spencer, in the article "The Development Hypothesis," proposed his theory of universal evolution, where the principles of universal evolutionism were formulated just as applied to society .

Spencer supported Darwin's idea of natural selection as one of the factors of evolution, and applied to man, transformed this term into the concept of "survival of the fittest"). According to Spencer, everything in the world has a common origin, but then, in the process of development, there is a differentiation of things. The reason for such changes may appear, in his opinion, heredity, a different degree of adaptation to the surrounding reality, the degree of activity of external factors. After all such transformations in the world, an ordered entity is established, which we perceive as a picture of the world. Such a picture is unstable in nature, its existence represents a path to a new cycle of "ordering" and thus the whole process acquires the character of cyclic infinity.

These conclusions led to the formation of the concept of evolutionism, which in our time has acquired quite a number of varieties and interpretations (synergetics, theory of chaos-order, VI Vernadsky's doctrine of the noosphere, and the concept of nonequilibrium thermodynamics of I. Prigogine).

The principles of global evolutionism, the origins of which we find in G. Spencer's theory, are generalized in the simplest form: all things in the universe can not exist outside the evolutionary process of variability, no matter what spheres of this being are considered.

The merit of G. Spencer is that he brought the application of the principles of evolutionism beyond the limits of elementary biology and proved their applicability in other areas of the universe, in particular, he substantiated how the principles of evolutionism manifest themselves in sociology (the theory of organicism).

The principles of universal evolutionism outside of biology and sociology were first accepted by representatives of physical science (the hypothesis of the origin of the universe as a result of the "big bang", the theory of the expanding universe, etc.). The further penetration of principles into science led to the emergence of an independent scientific trend - synergetics, within which the principles of universal evolutionism acquired the status of scientific methodology.

General provisions (principles) for universal evolutionism are:

• Recognition that all constructive and destructive processes in the universe are equivalent and equal;
• Recognition of the universality of algorithms of complexity and ordering in all systems, regardless of their particular characteristics and features of origin and development.

Applied to society, this means that the intellect and society also develop according to these laws. That's why another question is being solved within the framework of this concept: how is the transition from uncontrolled (chaotic) state of society to a managed one carried out? The answer is again within the framework of the concept of global evolutionism - it is the development of strategies for sustainable development (social entropy). The principle and condition of such a transition is that mankind should control the transition not only based on its "reflective" interests, but on the interests of global equilibrium (preservation of the environment, peace, survival conditions, etc.). This condition, quite logically poses the question of the state of mind and intellect, how they are ready not only to accept this condition, but also to implement this transition.

Thus, the concept of evolutionism solves the most urgent task of our time and tries to find a universal tool - the principle of global evolutionism, through which the current, non-equilibrium social system is transformed, to a higher, orderly form of self-organization.