To have a philosophy I must start again, as though from the beginning.

I begin by postulating that I am, and want to be - that there is also a world, in which I act - that I think - that I want to know the world and can know some of it - and that I have some freedom.

I seek knowledge of the world, of reality: I seek the truth, and the world teaches me. I learn that I am part of the world, that my existence is my life in the world, and that I therefore not only want knowledge, but must also, to continue to be, sometimes find it. Thus my life and the truth are my first values, and I must be ready to change any of my later ideas if I find that I have erred: and that I can err, this too the world soon teaches me.

In the world I find my fellow humans, and I learn that we can communicate to one another some of our thoughts. From them I learn of science, the way of seeking knowledge that requires that all ideas about reality be tested against reality: I accept it, for with it I learn more, and more truly. Now I find that my fellow humans and I are animals, part of the life on a planet which is in turn part of a vast and ancient universe. And, as an animal, I come to know that I had a beginning and will have an end: I accept that I will die - it will suffice if I die living.

Since I both think and am free, I can choose to guide my actions in an ethical way: by doing so, I accept my freedom, and so become responsible. To my life and the truth, which I find require it, I add my freedom as a value by which I will live. And I find that, to live, I must apply these values with consistency to what I learn to be my nature, that of a rational social animal. Then, as one person in a society of people, I put my values in their social context: my life, as extending to include others'; truth, as honesty and justice; freedom, as liberty. And in the social context, I learn that living consistently with my nature is the pursuit of that which is both the evidence of and the reward for life well-lived, happiness.

My quest for knowledge of the universe which is my home is not yet - nor will it be - done. Through science, the world continues to teach me, and I learn of my origin, as a product of evolution.

Evolution is one continuous and, to where I stand, self-sustaining process. It has different phases - the physical elaboration that begins with the condensation of primordial matter into the galaxies, the mutation and selection of the evolution of life, society's innovation and spread of ideas and ways of living together. But each phase naturally produces the next, and the tendencies to complexity and variety, to acceleration, and to synthesis, instability and diffusion endure.

And evolution is something more: for primitive matter tends not only to elaborate itself, but also to elaborate the uncertainty in its fundamental actions. Thus, of the entities of the universe, those which are in the stream of evolution have the causes of their actions come increasingly from within rather than from without - until some entities become able to consciously choose some of their actions, and freedom, which is self-control, comes to be. Uncertainty in the matter we consist of is not only conditional to our freedom, but also creates it.

Here I find the essence of evolution; it is the emergence, from uncertainty, of freedom. And yet that very emergence places its own future in our hands. For, as it makes us really and consciously, if finitely, free, it has come in particular to give us a real choice whether or not to continue to act so as to evolve.

Uncertainty is in all the primordial universe, and life surely is born on many planets. So I realize that my philosophy concerns not myself and my kind alone, but also all of humanity's fellow species. Wherever matter has produced life, life thought, and thought understanding, we are all persons and share, each species in its own moment of realization, the same conscious freedom and essential nature. And we share also the same awesome choice, for evolution on each of our planets beyond this moment depends on our deciding whether or not, and how, to continue it.

I face this choice myself, for humanity's moment is now. First, I seek to know what humankind's next evolution might be.

The earlier physical, biological and social phases of evolution are available to continue as tools; and it is possible for humans to use technology to start a new branch of evolution by building matter into self-aware constructs, a parallel to life. But in evolution up to humanity, each new phase has begun with the emergence of an entity made up by the entities produced by the phase before, acting in a new pattern with a potential for greater freedom. So, for humankind's own future, I think it best to look for the beginning of a new kind of entity in such a pattern among individual humans.

I find the pattern, in love, by which I mean the consciousness of unity. For in the joy of each human joining with a mate, in the trust and sharing of human fellowship, in the mystic experience, there is, fleetingly, the sensing of a real unity that is in each and more than each, and in which thoughts may be not just communicated in part, but sometimes shared. And great indeed is the potential for freedom in this unity made enduring and self-aware as an entity, and in this sharing of thoughts made into a oneness of mind unrestricted by individual limitations.

Human religion has already, I learn, given the emerging entity a name: God. Not the God first invented by humanity, for that God fades before knowledge of the self-sufficient and evolving nature of the universe, of mortality, and of the possibility of rational ethics: but the desired God to which this feared and implored God gives way, the God identified with love.

The human choice may be whether or not to become God, or perhaps Gods: or I may err - and this is only part of the risk, for to give in love always is to accept vulnerability to its unknown future course. And there remains also a task, for the emergence of God has only begun, and there is much that is unloving, much even that is against life, in humankind - the power of human thought is now needed, and the last, best use of the tools it has devised may therefore impend, in making of human beings better lovers.

Now I balance the promise against the risk and the task; and, in Earth's critical moment, faced by the freedom to add love to the values by which I live, and to take up the quest towards this vision - that humankind's next evolution can be towards the moment when from human love emerges, with the declaration, "I am God," humanity's successor - I accept.