2012 09 19
Natural Selection or Divine Intervention?
Given the observed existence of seemingly uncountable extra-planetary bodies and he scope of the observed Universe, it is impossible not to imagine that conditions similar to those of Earth do in fact exist on other planets in the Cosmos.
Further, given the ubiquity and fecundity of life on Earth it is not unreasonable to asssume life would arise elsewhere in the Universe where similar conditions exist.
Therefore, by a process of inductive reasoning (not deductive as that requires empirical evidence not available to us at this time), I conclude that life is an ever-present fundamental function of the dynamic of our Universe.
BUT - much more slippery is the question of consciousness, specifically self-consciousness.
Again, with only the Earth available to us for observation any conclusions, if even available, must emanate from a process of inductive reasoning, a far from infallible form of logic.
Before we can conclude that self-awareness or consciousness is as ubiquitous as life itself we must discover how it arose in man, and seemingly man alone, on this planet.
We note that life insists on manifesting on Earth, despite repeatedly catastrophic events and mass extinctions. We further note that until approximately 50,000 years ago no species ever left any but a fossil record of their existence. Only homo sapiens, an extremely recent evolutionary product have done this, and with a suddenness that pricks the imagination with speculations about intervention, either “divine” or extra-planetary.
If self-consciousness is a naturally-selected survival dynamic we must look for some precipitate event that resulted in the sudden manifestation of history-keeping. In this view we humans are, to best of our knowledge, the vanguard of self-awareness in the Universe.
If, on the other hand self-consciousness on Earth arises as a result of intervention it then becomes reasonable to assume that consciousness is as ubiquitous as life itself. In this view we are a sensory element of a vast Universal thinking machine that spends its time reveling in its beauties while striving to mitigate its terrors.
in either case the abiding dynamical
imperative is ever-expanding awareness and consciousness. And it matters not whether such awareness is "God"-induced or human-induced.
2012 01 01
EPISTEMOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Obviously tool-use is no longer an absolute measure of the distinction between humans and our animal cousins. What is defining however is that human tool use is orders of magnitude more facile and manipulative than any observed phenomena in other elements of nature. The same can be said for human intelligence. While it is no longer possible for me to doubt that “intelligence” is pervasive, possibly universal, I still can't help noticing that only humans have domesticated fire, established written history and launched interstellar spacecraft.
Further, it appears that only humans possess the somewhat indefinable mental quality known as “consciousness” (or more accurately, “self consciousness”). At present we can't know if dogs, monkeys, parrots or elephants name themselves, an activity indicative of self-awareness or -consciousness. Clearly many if not all animals possess the ability to recognize other individuals, both of their own species and otherwise, but this does not lead ineluctably to the conclusion that they cognize their own existence.
An abiding (and unanswerable) question for me has become, “Is this phenomenon of self-perception an inevitable outcome of animation”? Given the almost infinite variety of forms that life has taken here on Earth it is virtually impossible to imagine that similar events have not occurred elsewhere in the wide Universe. But, further given that human self-consciousness appears to be unique among all of Earth's species, both extant and extinct, I find it impossible to avoid the question posited above.
Clearly mere longevity does not result in the kind of mental sophistication humans exhibit; no one has ever read a poem composed by a turtle and the dinosaurs did not go extinct as the result of a runaway campfire.
The question begins to border on the metaphysical. It seems there are only two possible conclusions: self-awareness is a consequence of natural selection and is a form of survival dynamic; or human self-awareness comes about as a result of some form of intervention, be it divine or extra-planetary. If the former it appears that we are engaging in a supreme form of irony as we eat and pollute ourselves out of existence; if the latter, welcome to The Twilight Zone.
2012 08 30
Conundrum - the recognition that our brains are capable of imagining ideas and concepts that they are functionally unable to fully apprehend. Thus we conjure mental states, extramental states, ghosts, paranormal experiences, psychic phenomena, etc., all in an attempt to engage what may be latent or perhaps as yet undisovered potential.
2012 06 03
File under old news, new material: all experiences can only be interpreted with the subjective information collected by the individual doing the experiencing. Very much of what we experience has enough commonality with the experience of our fellows that we can share knowledge of the general as applied to the specific. What I know of “table” is the set of attributes that make a table a table; what another knows is similar but not identical – we haven't seen the same tables for the most part.
But when it comes to more suble experiences such as listening to a musical piece the variances in possibilities are almost infinitely more profound. When I listen to the music of Enya for example I bring not only my musical listening history but also the events of my experience that resonate to the sounds she makes, specifically my meditations on cosmos, life, infinity, eternity, subA's etc. Very potent. It is of this construction that I imagine that I can create a “Big Silence” type of directed meditation. But with the obvious caveat indicated above.
2012 08 15
The “Law of Unintended Consquences” makes well-nigh impossible to enter the realm of meditational intervention in the necessities of the so-called “Newtonian” physical world. The web of interstecting dynamics that permits us to interact is too complex. Our brains simply cannot conceive of all the ramifications associated with a given condition. Specifically, attempting to “heal” a physical ailment by applying knowledge of the quantum nature of the structure of our bodies is unrealistic because we cannot bring to bear a complete understanding of the relationships of the variables associated with a specific complaint. (cf GM food implications).
In rare circumstance it seems probable that some gifted individuals may be able to focus sufficiently to accomplish a “faith healing” as a result of a kind of concentration not available to ordinary thinking. (cf Gurdjieff's blue ball to Fritz)
2012 07 05
The soft, pliable, nearly pink, almost sibilant ectoplasmic consciousness slips into the hard-skin form of the crocodile and begins to feel its way around – the hard scales, the curving, sharp teeth the incredibly powerful jaws. All so different from the previous form as an eagle; and that so distinct from the one prior as a jellyfish.