The Thermodynamic Pervert: Symmetry-Breaking, Code Formation, and the Evolutionary Jouissance of Becoming-Human.

The standard narrative of human evolution--that we ascended from apes through gradual adaptive refinement--obscures the traumatic kernel at its core. What if the emergence of Homo sapiens recapitulates, at the biological scale, the same catastrophic structure as cosmological symmetry-breaking? In my...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:International Journal of Žižek Studies Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 1 - 15
Autor principal: Todd, Ian George
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: International Journal of Zizek Studies 2026
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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Sumario:The standard narrative of human evolution--that we ascended from apes through gradual adaptive refinement--obscures the traumatic kernel at its core. What if the emergence of Homo sapiens recapitulates, at the biological scale, the same catastrophic structure as cosmological symmetry-breaking? In my previous work on coherence geometry, I argued that quantum collapse reveals not reality's failure but the obscene success of incompleteness itself. Here I extend this analysis to the evolutionary domain: Code formation--the emergence of stable symbolic structures from highdimensional coupling dynamics--represents not progress toward wholeness but the iterative deepening of an original wound. Symmetry-breaking in the early universe introduced lack into the Real; biological evolution perpetuates this lack through thermodynamic computation, producing consciousness as the jouissance of recognizing one's own dimensional inadequacy. Man evolves not despite entropy but through it, each increment of coherence purchased at the cost of deeper exile from the symmetric Real. The upright ape who discovers language, tool-use, and ideology has not transcended the animal kingdom--he has merely found new ways to enjoy his incompleteness.