“Exactly what those laws and logic are, we will explore later in this and
the next chapter. For the moment, notice that Laszlo refers to the three
“great realms” of evolution: material, biological, and historical. Erich
Jantsch refers to them as cosmic, biosocial, and sociocultural. Michael
Murphy summarizes them as physical, biological, and psychological. In
popular terms: matter, life, and mind. I will refer to these three general
domains as the physiosphere (matter), the biosphere (life), and the
noosphere (mind).”
– Sex, Ecology, Spirituality
This is a great example of what Integral Theory does. It takes what might look like many claims and points out that generally, they are all making the same claims, with slightly different goal post placements. Ken is looking beyond the specifics of each claim and recognizing a similar underlying structure.
Ken then summarizes this into the physiosphere, biosphere, and noosphere. You can think of each as a layer of reality each transcending or rising above the previous but at the same time including it. The physiosphere was when the planet was nothing but rock and matter, or non-biological matter. The biosphere was when biological matter emerged and layered itself on top of the physiosphere. It transcended the physiosphere because it went a step beyond non-biological matter, but it also included the physiosphere. When biological matter emerged, non-biological matter didn’t cease to exist. Therefor the higher stage still includes the lower stages. Then life evolved to a point where intelligent mind emerged, which is the noosphere. This is the layer that contains everything created or thought up by the minds of human beings. Thoughts, concepts, cultures, art etc. Likewise, the noosphere went beyond life but still includes both the bios and physio spheres.
This is one of countless examples of the process of transcend and include, which is a tenet or all holons and a key to human consciousness/spiritual development.