So it is with how the universe has evolved since the great fireball. Then, mysteriously, came life. Ken Wilber, one of my mentors, notes that each phase of evolution incorporates the previous one and adds new elements. These capacities were taken up and included in animal life, which then added the capacities for mobility and an emotional and sexual life. Those capacities were taken up and included in humans, which then added the capabilities for rational and conceptual thought.
Nothing is lost.
All is retained, enfolded, included, and embraced in each successive step. Wilber finds no reason to believe that evolution stops here, rather that we are in motion toward the next step. Some would look at all this and find a plan and conclude that only a master planner could have thought this into being, but that s a guess. An interesting one, to be sure, but I am satisfied to just accept reality as I find it, without the supernatural overtones of a Creator God. That, for me, is more of the Mystery.