Evolution of Evolution
Molecules were some of the first things to use evolution to do what it does. Random permutations of interactions between atoms found stable molecules and they stuck around because they could. By this same process, molecules evolved that could group together and be more stable than they were on their own. By this same process, molecules evolved that could help make stable ones and form complex structures and mixtures that could make more of itself, which led to first living stuff. At each step in the process, a higher level abstraction formed, and this seems to be the theme of evolution in the universe. Our brains evolved in an analogous way. At first they formed low-level abstractions using sensory information that controlled basic behavior in a somewhat direct manner. The brain probably came about because it could support a wide variety of these low-level abstractions using one medium: neurons. Human brains still have this low-level machinery going on, and it's things like edge detection, basic shape detection, automatic pupil dilation, and so on. We now abstract these thing at a much higher level to invariant classification of objects, invariant classification of actions and the many other classes in our language, the self, and all of these things, for the most part were not evolved in the low-level machinery of the brain but instead evolved in the domain of society. A society spends years preparing a child's brain to be a part of it, and now society is in the process of evolving other mechanisms by which these abstractions can be built by way of overlapping work in biology, chemistry, neuroscience, psychology, physics, electrical engineering, materials science, and computer science. Both separately and in combination with our biologically evolved abstractions the evolution of these abstractions are also happening in the machine. At each step in the process, a higher level abstraction forms, but it seems particularly interesting from our point of view now because it seems that from the level of abstraction on which we operate and create new abstractions, we are continually aware of all the lower levels and the higher levels we create.

Justin Curry pointed me to an interesting book by R. Buckminster Fuller called Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, which is a sort of guide for how we might want to direct our evolving efforts. Buckminster suggests that much of what has evolved in society and education makes us too specialized and gives a convincing account involving kings, pirates, big strong dudes, and trade of how this came to be. He suggests that specialized education came about as a means for control and for the few to maintain rule over the masses, and this extends to our whole education system now.