• home
• about
• new
• essays
• AI
• book

Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Bobby Azarian's Meta-Naturalism

An Attempt to Put Purpose Back into the Univers

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Introduction: The next contender in the reconstruction of spirituality

In the previous two essays, we examined the growing movement toward spiritual and sacred naturalism and compared four important approaches: Ken Wilber's evolutionary metaphysics, Brendan Graham Dempsey's metamodern theology, John Vervaeke's cognitive-scientific account of spiritual transformation, and the Religious Naturalist Association's attempt to develop a religious sensibility grounded in science.

A fifth contender deserves particular attention: Bobby Azarian's meta-naturalism.

Azarian is especially interesting because he approaches the problem from the direction of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, complexity theory, and cosmology. Rather than beginning with religious experience or the traditional concept of God, he attempts to construct a worldview in which the natural universe itself becomes meaningful, purposeful, and potentially conducive to the emergence of increasingly sophisticated forms of intelligence.

His project is therefore more ambitious than a straightforward defence of scientific naturalism.

Azarian wants to retain the explanatory authority of science while moving beyond what he considers the philosophical limitations of conventional materialism. He seeks a worldview in which evolution, emergence, information processing, and cosmic development point toward something resembling an intrinsic directionality in nature.

This makes his project particularly relevant to the contemporary return of the sacred.

It also makes it vulnerable to a familiar criticism: the tendency to move from scientific descriptions of evolutionary development to philosophical claims about cosmic purpose without adequately establishing the connection between them.

The central question of this essay is whether meta-naturalism represents a genuine advance beyond conventional naturalism, or whether it introduces a new metaphysical interpretation of evolution that scientific findings themselves do not warrant.

1. What exactly is meta-naturalism?

Azarian's starting point is a dissatisfaction with what he regards as the overly reductionist interpretation of scientific naturalism.

In his view, the universe is not merely a collection of elementary physical particles interacting according to fundamental laws. It is a self-organizing system in which increasingly complex structures emerge through successive levels of organization.

Atoms form molecules, molecules participate in the emergence of life, living organisms develop nervous systems, nervous systems support consciousness, and conscious organisms create social and cultural systems.

The important feature is that each new level introduces organizational possibilities that were not present in the preceding level in the same form.

Azarian calls this process recursive emergence. Higher-level systems emerge from lower-level components and subsequently become building blocks for further levels of organization.

He describes his resulting worldview as poetic meta-naturalism. The term combines two ideas.

Meta-naturalism refers to a natural world containing multiple levels of causal organization, with new levels emerging through major transitions in complexity.

Poetic refers to the creative, recursive character of this process. Each new level produces novel organizational patterns that build upon, transform, and extend what came before.

This is not simply a poetic description of evolution. Azarian wants to make a stronger claim: the universe possesses an intrinsic tendency toward the emergence of greater complexity, intelligence, and eventually consciousness.

In his 2024 essay "Waking Up the Universe: A Teleological Vision for a Meta-Religion," he explicitly connects recursive emergence to cosmic purpose and proposes a meta-religion constructed from religious concepts that are compatible with this evolutionary picture.

His project therefore has three interconnected dimensions.

First, an account of the physical universe as a self-organizing system.

Second, an evolutionary interpretation in which complexity and information processing become increasingly important.

Third, an existential and religious interpretation in which humanity acquires a role in the continuing development of cosmic intelligence.

The third dimension is where meta-naturalism becomes particularly ambitious.

Azarian is not satisfied with explaining how consciousness emerged. He wants to explain why its emergence matters and what purpose it gives to human existence.

2. The scientific foundations: self-organization and thermodynamics

Azarian's principal advantage over more explicitly spiritual approaches is that he attempts to ground his worldview in scientific research.

His argument draws on several established areas of investigation.

Self-organization. Nature contains numerous examples of organized structures emerging without an external designer. From convection cells and chemical oscillations to biological organization, systems can spontaneously develop ordered patterns under suitable conditions.

Dissipative structures. The work of Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine demonstrated how systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium can maintain organized structures by exchanging energy and matter with their surroundings.

Evolutionary transitions. Biological evolution has produced increasingly complex forms of organization, including multicellular organisms, nervous systems, and cooperative social arrangements.

Information processing. Living systems acquire, store, and utilize information about their environments. This capacity becomes increasingly sophisticated with the development of nervous systems, learning, and intelligence.

Emergence. Higher-level properties can arise from interactions among lower-level components, creating new forms of organization and causal influence.

None of these subjects is inherently controversial. They are legitimate areas of scientific investigation.

The difficulty concerns the interpretation Azarian places upon them.

He argues that these processes collectively reveal a general tendency of the universe toward greater organization, complexity, and intelligence.

This interpretation draws particularly on the work of physicist Harold Morowitz, theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, and research into nonequilibrium thermodynamics.

One influential proposal in this discussion is sometimes called the fourth law of thermodynamics: under appropriate conditions, systems tend to evolve toward states that dissipate available energy more effectively.

But this is not an established fourth law comparable in status to the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

It is a proposed generalization concerning the behavior of certain complex systems, and its applicability and explanatory scope remain subjects of scientific discussion.

The distinction matters because Azarian's larger argument depends on more than the existence of self-organization.

It depends on the proposition that self-organization reveals a general evolutionary direction.

3. From local order to cosmic direction

The second law of thermodynamics is often invoked in popular discussions as evidence that the universe must inevitably become more disordered.

This is an oversimplification.

Entropy can decrease locally when energy and matter are exchanged with the surroundings, provided the total entropy production is consistent with the second law.

Life is an obvious example. Organisms maintain highly organized structures while consuming energy and exporting entropy into their environments.

The Earth receives energy from the Sun and radiates energy back into space. These energy flows provide conditions under which complex biological systems can develop.

There is nothing mysterious about this.

Azarian wants to go further. He suggests that the tendency of certain systems to dissipate energy and develop organized structures helps explain the emergence of increasingly complex forms of life and intelligence.

The central difficulty is the transition from a conditional physical tendency to a universal evolutionary trajectory.

Even if certain systems develop greater complexity through energy dissipation, it does not follow that the universe as a whole is destined to become increasingly complex or intelligent.

There are several reasons for caution.

Not all physical systems develop greater complexity. Many processes produce simpler structures or destroy existing organization. Evolutionary history includes mass extinctions, failed lineages, and enormous periods of relative stability.

Moreover, entropy production does not have a universally established relationship with increasing complexity. A system can dissipate energy efficiently without developing intelligence or anything resembling consciousness.

Consequently, the following propositions must be distinguished:

• Certain nonequilibrium systems spontaneously develop organized structures.
• Some evolutionary processes produce increasingly complex biological systems.
• Complex biological systems can develop sophisticated information-processing capacities.
• The universe as a whole is intrinsically directed toward intelligence and consciousness.

The first three have substantial scientific foundations, although their precise domains of applicability differ. The fourth is a much stronger hypothesis.

It is not established simply by demonstrating the first three.

This is the central philosophical problem of meta-naturalism: the tendency to move from scientifically documented processes to a cosmological interpretation that assigns them an overarching direction.

4. The teleological turn: does the universe have a purpose?

This is where Azarian's project moves from evolutionary science into philosophy.

In conventional evolutionary biology, natural selection does not operate with a predetermined objective. Organisms that reproduce successfully under particular environmental conditions leave more descendants. Evolutionary outcomes are contingent on historical circumstances, genetic variation, environmental pressures, and numerous other factors.

Azarian does not necessarily reject these mechanisms. Instead, he argues that they operate within a larger evolutionary process characterized by recursive self-organization.

The universe, on this interpretation, is not merely producing complexity accidentally. Its fundamental dynamics create conditions that favor the emergence of increasingly sophisticated forms of organization.

Life becomes a mechanism through which the universe develops the capacity to know itself. Consciousness is not simply something that happens to emerge in one small corner of the cosmos. It represents an important development in the larger evolutionary story.

This is an appealing narrative, and it has a long intellectual history.

One can find related ideas in Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary theology, Erich Jantsch's self-organizing universe, and Ken Wilber's conception of Eros as the driving force behind evolutionary development.

But the philosophical problem remains: what does it mean to say that the universe has a purpose?

There are at least three possible interpretations.

First, a statistical or physical tendency. Certain physical conditions make the emergence of complex structures more likely. This is an empirical proposition that can be investigated.

Second, an evolutionary directionality. Over sufficiently long periods, particular evolutionary processes tend to produce more sophisticated forms of organization. This is a broader empirical generalization, applicable only with careful qualifications.

Third, an intrinsic cosmic purpose. The universe is somehow oriented toward the emergence of intelligence and consciousness, and these developments constitute its ultimate direction.

The first proposition does not automatically establish the second, and neither establishes the third.

Azarian's philosophical ambition lies largely in the third proposition.

His argument is not necessarily supernatural. He does not need a divine creator directing evolution from outside nature. Instead, he proposes that purposiveness is inherent in the natural process itself.

But removing an external designer does not resolve the philosophical problem of teleology. It simply relocates the question.

What exactly makes the universe purposeful? What mechanism establishes that purpose? And how could we distinguish a genuinely teleological universe from a universe in which complex structures emerge through contingent natural processes?

Unless these questions receive satisfactory answers, cosmic purpose remains an interpretation of evolutionary history rather than an established scientific discovery.

5. The relationship with Ken Wilber: Eros without Spirit?

The comparison with Wilber is particularly revealing.

Both thinkers regard conventional evolutionary explanations as incomplete when considered as accounts of the entire history of the universe.

Both emphasize the emergence of increasingly complex levels of organization.

Both resist the interpretation of evolution as an entirely directionless process.

And both want to recover a sense of cosmic meaning without simply returning to traditional creationism.

But there is an important difference.

Wilber explicitly introduces Spirit as the ultimate reality of the Kosmos. His concept of Eros functions as an intrinsic evolutionary impulse toward greater depth and complexity.

Azarian attempts to achieve something similar without invoking Spirit.

His explanatory vocabulary is drawn from complexity science, thermodynamics, information theory, and evolutionary theory. Rather than postulating a spiritual force, he proposes that natural processes themselves generate increasingly complex organizational structures.

This makes Azarian's approach more scientifically grounded than Wilber's metaphysical account, at least in its starting assumptions.

However, the two projects share a significant philosophical vulnerability.

Both risk interpreting evolutionary complexity as evidence of an underlying direction toward higher forms of consciousness.

Wilber calls this Eros. Azarian calls it recursive self-organization and poetic meta-naturalism.

The terminology is different, but the philosophical question is remarkably similar.

Does the emergence of complexity require an additional principle that explains why nature develops in this direction?

In my view, it does not.

Self-organization and evolutionary theory already provide mechanisms for explaining many instances of increasing complexity. What remains unexplained in particular cases should be investigated scientifically, rather than automatically attributed to an overarching cosmic tendency.

Azarian's achievement is to replace Wilber's relatively unconstrained spiritual metaphysics with a more scientifically informed account of natural processes.

His limitation is that he sometimes appears to give those processes a metaphysical significance that their scientific descriptions do not establish.

6. The relationship with Brendan Graham Dempsey: evolutionary theology without traditional God?

The comparison with Dempsey is even closer in some respects.

Both thinkers are interested in evolutionary developmental narratives, emergent levels of organization, and the possibility of reconstructing spirituality through a post-traditional worldview.

Dempsey's DEPTH model attempts to develop an emergent and participatory theology. Azarian's meta-naturalism proposes a cosmic evolutionary narrative in which successive levels of organization produce increasingly sophisticated forms of intelligence and awareness.

Both seek to overcome the apparent conflict between scientific naturalism and religious meaning.

There is also a shared attraction to the idea that evolutionary development can provide a foundation for a new understanding of the sacred.

But their approaches differ in emphasis.

Dempsey is more explicitly concerned with the reconstruction of theological concepts, particularly the reality and development of God.

Azarian is more concerned with demonstrating that the natural universe itself possesses a directionality that can provide an existential foundation for purpose.

One might describe Dempsey as attempting to naturalize theology, while Azarian attempts to spiritualize evolutionary cosmology.

Both face the same underlying challenge: the transition from emergent complexity to objective purpose.

Even if collective human meaning-making produces emergent social realities, this does not establish the existence of an independently existing divine reality.

And even if evolutionary processes produce increasingly complex forms of organization, this does not establish that the universe has an intrinsic purpose.

The common mistake would be to confuse the emergence of something objectively consequential with the discovery of a cosmic intention.

7. The relationship with John Vervaeke: cosmic purpose versus human meaning

The contrast with Vervaeke is particularly important because it reveals an alternative way of addressing the same existential problem.

Azarian wants to explain why the universe has a purpose and how human beings participate in it.

Vervaeke asks how human beings can develop meaningful lives through better ways of knowing, relating, and participating in the world.

These are not the same questions.

For Azarian, meaning is connected to the larger evolutionary trajectory of the universe. Human intelligence is significant because it represents a further development in cosmic self-organization.

For Vervaeke, meaning is rooted in the ways living beings navigate their environments, develop relationships, construct identities, and participate in communities.

The latter approach does not require the universe to have an overarching purpose.

This is a major philosophical advantage.

Consider the difference between saying that humanity has meaning because the universe is evolving toward intelligence and saying that humanity can create meaningful lives because it possesses the cognitive, emotional, social, and cultural capacities to do so.

The first proposition depends on a controversial cosmological interpretation.

The second can be investigated through psychology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and philosophy.

Vervaeke's approach also avoids a potentially problematic consequence of cosmic teleology: the assumption that whatever contributes to the development of intelligence and complexity is therefore desirable.

Human intelligence is not automatically good. It can produce extraordinary achievements, but it can also generate increasingly sophisticated systems of exploitation, warfare, and ecological destruction.

A philosophy of human flourishing therefore needs independent ethical criteria.

Azarian's cosmic evolutionary narrative may provide inspiration, but it cannot by itself establish what constitutes a good human life.

8. The relationship with religious naturalism: a stronger claim about nature

Azarian is also closely related to the Religious Naturalist Association, but his ambitions are more expansive.

Religious naturalists generally want to develop a meaningful and ethically responsible relationship with the natural world without assuming supernatural realities.

The universe's evolutionary history becomes a source of wonder, reverence, and existential orientation.

Azarian shares this ambition but adds a stronger thesis: the natural universe is not simply an astonishing reality to which we respond. It is itself developing in a direction that gives human existence a larger purpose.

This distinction is important.

A religious naturalist can regard the emergence of consciousness as extraordinary without claiming that the universe was striving toward it.

Azarian wants to interpret this emergence as part of a larger process of cosmic self-organization.

His proposal therefore resembles a more explicitly teleological version of religious naturalism.

This can make his worldview emotionally compelling. It provides a narrative in which human existence is not an accidental interruption of an otherwise meaningless universe but an important development in the history of cosmic organization.

Yet it also creates a greater explanatory burden.

Why should the universe's capacity to produce intelligence be interpreted as evidence that intelligence is its purpose?

And why should the continuation of intelligence be regarded as a cosmic obligation?

Those are philosophical and ethical questions, not conclusions that follow directly from thermodynamics.

9. The problem of turning cosmic evolution into an ethical imperative

One of the more consequential aspects of Azarian's worldview is that he does not stop at describing the universe.

He wants to derive a philosophy of life from his evolutionary narrative.

If the universe is developing toward greater complexity, intelligence, and awareness, then human beings should organize their lives and societies in ways that contribute to this process.

Cooperation becomes preferable to destructive competition. Diversity becomes valuable because it increases the possibilities of complex organization. Knowledge becomes important because it improves our ability to understand and navigate reality.

These are often attractive recommendations.

But there is a philosophical problem with deriving ethical obligations from evolutionary directionality.

Even if evolution did possess an intrinsic tendency toward increasing complexity, why should we regard complexity as morally desirable?

A more complex society is not necessarily a better society. A technologically sophisticated civilization is not necessarily more humane. Greater intelligence does not automatically produce greater wisdom.

Indeed, some of humanity's most destructive activities depend on highly sophisticated forms of intelligence and organization.

The distinction between evolutionary success and ethical progress is therefore indispensable.

Azarian's emphasis on cooperation is particularly interesting. Cooperation is undeniably important in biological and social evolution. But competition is equally real, and both processes can operate simultaneously.

Nor does the evolutionary success of cooperation establish that every cooperative arrangement is morally desirable. Highly organized criminal organizations, authoritarian states, and exploitative economic systems can also depend on extensive cooperation among their members.

We need independent ethical criteria to distinguish beneficial cooperation from harmful cooperation.

The same applies to the proposed cosmic obligation to spread intelligence throughout the universe.

Why should the expansion of intelligence be considered an ultimate good? What about biodiversity, animal welfare, ecological stability, or the possibility that technological expansion could destroy the very conditions necessary for life?

Azarian's cosmic perspective may inspire a sense of responsibility, but it does not settle these ethical questions.

A universe that produces intelligence does not automatically provide an ethical justification for everything intelligent beings might do.

10. The forthcoming Our Cosmic Purpose: From evolutionary theory to cosmic religion

Azarian's forthcoming book, Our Cosmic Purpose: A Practical Guide to Waking Up the Universe, promises to bring these ideas together into a more comprehensive worldview.

According to its publisher's description, the book presents what Azarian calls a "Unifying Theory of Reality," combining information theory, thermodynamics, and evolutionary thinking into an account of a self-organizing universe that develops increasingly sophisticated patterns of organization.

The book also aims to translate this cosmological narrative into practical guidance for individuals and societies.

Its advertised themes include the existential purpose of life, the importance of cooperation, the role of human intelligence in cosmic evolution, and the possibility of overcoming the eventual heat death of the universe. It also proposes an integrative meta-religion capable of reconciling science and spirituality.

There is an important distinction here between what has already been established and what remains to be examined.

As of November 2026, the book has not yet been published. Its publisher's description gives us an indication of its ambitions, not a completed argument that can already be evaluated in its entirety.

Nevertheless, several of its advertised claims deserve particular scrutiny.

The suggestion that heat death might not be inevitable is especially ambitious. It raises difficult questions about cosmological expansion, available free energy, the thermodynamics of computation, and the physical limits of information processing.

Proposals for indefinitely extending computation or intelligence in a changing universe are interesting subjects for theoretical investigation. But showing that a particular cosmological scenario is conceivable is not the same as demonstrating that it is physically achievable.

Likewise, the possibility of continued cosmic intelligence does not establish that the universe is intrinsically directed toward that outcome.

I would therefore approach the forthcoming book with two separate questions.

First, how convincing are Azarian's scientific arguments concerning self-organization, thermodynamics, evolutionary transitions, and the long-term prospects for intelligence?

Second, even if many of those scientific arguments prove sound, do they establish his larger philosophical conclusions about cosmic purpose and meta-religion?

These questions should not be conflated.

The distinction between scientific feasibility and philosophical interpretation will be particularly important in that exercise.

11. A comparative assessment of the five approaches

We can now place Azarian alongside the four approaches examined in the preceding essay.

What makes Azarian particularly interesting is that he occupies an intermediate position.

He is more scientifically oriented than Wilber, more explicitly cosmological than Vervaeke, less conventionally theological than Dempsey, and more committed to cosmic directionality than many religious naturalists.

In a sense, he is attempting to accomplish something that all these movements are struggling with: to construct a scientifically credible worldview that also satisfies the human desire for existential meaning.

But the same fundamental distinction applies to all five approaches.

Scientific explanations of natural processes do not automatically establish metaphysical interpretations of those processes.

The emergence of complexity does not prove cosmic purpose. The emergence of consciousness does not prove that consciousness is the destination of evolution. And the psychological need for meaning does not establish that the universe possesses an objective meaning waiting to be discovered.

12. What would a genuinely convincing meta-naturalism require?

I would suggest five criteria by which Azarian's project should be evaluated.

First, scientific precision. Claims about thermodynamics, self-organization, information processing, and evolutionary transitions must be carefully distinguished from speculative extrapolations. In particular, proposed generalizations such as a fourth law of thermodynamics should not be presented as established physical laws.

Second, explanatory necessity. If ordinary evolutionary mechanisms and complexity science already explain a particular phenomenon, what additional explanatory work does meta-naturalism perform? A new worldview should contribute more than a new vocabulary.

Third, a defensible account of teleology. Azarian needs to explain exactly what it means for the universe to possess purpose. Is purpose a measurable tendency, an emergent property, or a philosophical interpretation? These possibilities require different arguments.

Fourth, independent ethical justification. Greater complexity, intelligence, and information processing should not automatically be treated as moral goods. Human flourishing, compassion, freedom, and ecological responsibility require their own philosophical foundations.

Fifth, openness to disconfirmation. A worldview that interprets every increase in complexity as evidence for cosmic purpose and every apparent setback as a temporary interruption risks becoming unfalsifiable. What conceivable observation would count against its central thesis?

These criteria do not presuppose that meta-naturalism is wrong. They establish what it would need to demonstrate to become a genuinely persuasive philosophical alternative.

Conclusion: A scientific romance or a new cosmic religion?

Bobby Azarian deserves attention because he is attempting something intellectually ambitious.

He wants to overcome the existential limitations of conventional naturalism without returning to supernatural religion. He draws on genuine scientific developments in thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, complexity science, and information processing to construct a worldview in which the emergence of life and consciousness becomes part of a larger cosmic narrative.

This is a worthwhile undertaking.

His account of recursive emergence provides a useful framework for thinking about the development of increasingly complex levels of organization. His emphasis on cooperation, knowledge, and the importance of long-term human flourishing also offers potentially valuable ethical insights.

But his philosophical ambitions go beyond what these scientific observations establish.

The central problem is the transition from evolutionary development to cosmic purpose.

Azarian wants to show that the universe is not merely capable of producing consciousness but is somehow oriented toward it. This is what makes his meta-naturalism more than a scientific description of self-organization.

It is also what makes it philosophically controversial.

In this respect, he shares an important ambition with Wilber and Dempsey: all three want to recover a sense of cosmic directionality that conventional scientific explanations do not necessarily provide.

The difference is that Azarian attempts to ground this directionality in natural processes rather than in an explicitly spiritual reality.

That is a significant improvement in methodological discipline, but it does not eliminate the need for additional argument.

My principal reservation is that Azarian appears to move too quickly from the observation that complexity can emerge naturally to the conclusion that the universe has an intrinsic purpose. The scientific mechanisms may be real, while the cosmic teleology remains an interpretation.

And there is no reason why rejecting cosmic teleology should force us into nihilism.

We can acknowledge that human beings emerged through contingent evolutionary processes while recognizing that consciousness, knowledge, compassion, and civilization are extraordinarily valuable developments.

We can create purposes without claiming that the universe created those purposes for us.

We can work toward a better future without believing that evolution guarantees progress.

And we can regard the emergence of intelligence as remarkable without assuming that the cosmos has been waiting billions of years for us to appear.

Azarian's meta-naturalism is most convincing when it explains how nature generates complexity. It is least convincing when it claims to know why the universe generates it.

That distinction will be central to my further examination of his scientific papers and forthcoming book.

Perhaps the real achievement of a mature naturalistic worldview would be to combine the scientific romance of cosmic evolution with the philosophical modesty to admit that the universe has not revealed its ultimate purpose to us.

We are capable of creating meaning, understanding our origins, and taking responsibility for the future.

That is already a remarkable cosmic development. It does not need a predetermined destination to become significant.