Esta cartografía neural progresiva produjo la sensibilidad-conciencia (mediante procesos psicobiofísicos cuya ontología real todavía desconocemos) y sirvió para conectar la razón con las emociones de las especies a fin de fortalecer los valores adaptativos de la vida. Hoy en día la ciencia dispone, pues, de teorías complexivas que pueden explicar, en un marco naturalista, por qué la razón ha emergido evolutivamente y cuáles son las causas que permiten justificar esta emergencia a partir de la ontología unitaria del universo.

Performance evolution of a number of complex scientific and technical systems demonstrate exponential progress with time exp(+t/C) . An explanation of the characteristic exponential progress is offered.

Given human arrogance and the prevalence of progressivist ideology, it is commonly presumed that the emergence of Homo sapiens is the inevitable apex of evolutionary processes. Counter to this view, Gould argued that, although natural selection led to some degree of “progress” on short timescales in the limited sense that it dialectically adapted creatures to their environments, over longer scales of time there was no deterministic direction to the history of life. The fundamental importance of contingency in history was perhaps the most centrally important feature of Gould’s thinking.