Ewww, I love a good controversy

Philosophy
41

I wonder if we are making this thing too complicated.

I came to the conclusion that Life is just another expression of dynamism.
Dynamic energy-consuming behavior (growth) is a fundamental property of Life, be it flora or fauna.

That concept agrees with “abiogenesis”, where dynamical chemical interaction results in the emergence of organic chemistry, which in turn evolves into living organisms.

I think Hazen made a very important statement, "given enough fundamental elements, spatial surface area, and time, the evolution of life from inanimate matter offers a high probability for life in some form to become expressed.

He clearly states that based on Earthlike planets, life should exist elsewhere in the universe.

42

You are doing your best to confuse.

Your brain/body produce your mind, your inner dialogue and human oh so superior attitude. But that’s a complexity thing. We have a most amazing body so it shouldn’t be a surprise we have a few more tricks up our mental sleeves.

Yet we find the rudiments of that dynamic starting with single celled creatures.

Focus man focus!

What are you offering, more posts about our religious thinking and debates.

I’m afraid you still haven’t absorbed the concept within a couple words,
let alone an insightful paragraph.
Earth Centrism, is about our relationship with all of Earth’s creatures, not just our self-absorbed self-serving self-love. Guess that’s a much harder nut to crack than I could have imagined, yet it’s all so straightforward, and supported by modern science (not to be mistaken with modern philosophy.)

If that stuff has anything to offer, might just be a window into why we are turning out to be such miserable failures. Because despise Pinker love affair with the God of Progress - get into the weeds and we aren’t winning on any front.

43

That’s a different discussion from human level self awareness, where it comes from and what we can do with it.

44

No difference.

Self-awareness starts as chemical sensitivity to stimulation, which evolves into ever greater refinement and acuity, eventually leading to conscious awareness and ultimately to self-awareness as compared to a relationship with the environment.

Humans are not the only self-aware organisms, we are probably the most evolved, but that does not negate the evolutionary basics of sentient life in general.

The evolution of sight is a perfect example of sensory evolution and eventual cognitive awareness.

The only important result is greater awareness of one’s relationship with a very small portion of the rest of the universe.

But we are reaching for the stars!

45

That tells us nothing about human nature.

46

I love to watch videos of color blind people discovering colors for the first time and entering a whole new visual world of color instead of brown and gray.

Or babies and adults hearing others and themselves for the first time and some hearing music!

My life would be bleak without music or color.

What about human nature? We are no different than any other living thing.
Relationship with one’s environment at different levels of cognition and understanding.

Awareness is all there is as Anil Seth clearly spells out. Without awareness there is only oblivion.

Just click on YouTube

47

Start a new thread or something

48

On what? Human nature or human relationship to nature?

So far I haven’t a clue what you 2 are talking about… :scream:

But watch this incredible reaction and the horse’s “understanding” of the situation.

49

On what? I’m not confused, you are obtuse. If you can make a connection between single celled organisms and human behavior that leads to wars and racism as well compassion for people we don’t know or aren’t even born, then make the connection. Quit wasting keypresses on analyzing my personality.

It’s a cracked nut. Our relationship to earth’s creatures has been explored and continues to be explored. Ever seen a cave painting? Ever seen a tribal dance that emulates birds or buffalo? What do you think they are doing? But you just want to repeat your phrases and call others self-absorbed. I’m not self-absorbed, you are.

50

First: COVID!
Humans at war against a virulent enemy that has its own communication system, i.e. “quorum sensing”.
However, symbiont single-cell organisms are what keep humans alive, also via quorum sensing.

Second: Empathy,
A cognitive function present in many higher-order animals. Interspecies bonding (symbiosis) can be found in several species.
See the above clip of the horse voluntarily accommodating the girl trying to ride it.

p.s. Sickle Cell Anemia, primarily found in African descendants and a serious condition in moderate climates, is a natural protection against malaria in tropical climates.

51

Seriously?

What you are missing is, this is about getting beyond our human perspective,
and appreciating Earth’s perspective (read the biological evolved material world as it is.).

Our place within it.

And our relationship with it.

52

Problem is that humans are no longer attuned to the earth’s ecosystem. Instead, we try to control it.

Moreover wherever humans settle we replace the native ecosystem and inhabitants.

Hence AGW! We have become our own enemy, from lack of respect for the natural evolutionary processes.
Estimated extinction rate has increased due to human activity.

One recent report noted that current extinctions were ‘up to 100 times higher than the background rate.’ Global Extinction Rates: Why Do Estimates Vary So Wildly? - Yale E360

But then, humans are accidental mutants, much too intelligent for our simple evolutionary biochemical necessity. See our Naturally evolved Great Ape cousins.

We are killing the earth as we mourn our dead.

53

What you are missing is you never answer a question. You only tell me I’m missing something

OK, let’s go. Get beyond it already

54

[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:53, topic:10442”]

Once we have a visceral appreciation for the fact that our physical body creates our minds, it becomes clear that both science and religion are products of our minds dealing with the physical reality each of us is imbedded within. Two projects with two very different natures.

Science seeks to objectively learn about our physical world, but we ought to still recognize all our understanding is embedded within and constrained by our mindscape and the bubble our personal ego creates.

Religion is all about the human mindscape itself, with its wonderful struggles, fears, spiritual undercurrents, needs and stories we create to give our live’s meaning and make it worth living, or at least bearable.

What’s the point?

Religions, science, same as political beliefs, heaven, hell, mathematics, art, music, even God, they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.

That’s not to say they are the same thing, they are not! Though I think they’re both valid human endeavors, still fundamentally, qualitatively different.

Religion deals with the inside of our minds, passion and souls, Science does its best to objectively understand the physical world beyond all that, doing its best to eliminate ego and bias from its deliberations.

From this starting point a much more constructive conversation . . .

55

I have to type something because the software requires it. But, this is it. I asked to get going and you return to the starting point.

56

Can’t go any where with any of this,
until one gets to understanding the starting point.

What else should I do,
you come from the world of the Mindscape,
but the creation (physical reality) around us requires a little more than simply what our self-absorbed thoughts can provide - to make sense of any of it.

Don’t mean to irritate you, but there it is.

57

You are asking me to accept your truth before you have proven it. I don’t mean the statement itself, it’s non-contriversial. I mean that you believe it explains human nature and that it is key moving forward as a species or something, I don’t want to overstate the thing that you won’t clearly state but you are asking for a-priori acceptance. That’s what religion does.

You say I’m in some mental state that blocks my perception, then say you don’t want to irritate me. Really?

58

I am saying one needs to accept the accumulated evidence of modern science that awareness is produced within the organism. And those roots are found in ancient single-celled creatures and were passed on to all succeeding creatures.

(How can that be said? Because it’s difficult to imagine how an organism can survive without an inner awareness and awareness of environment.)

I don’t see that as a Faith question.
That is about (accepting) appreciating the full breath of what science has learned and continues to build on.

Bring “Truth” into this, doesn’t do the conversation any good.
Truth is meaningless without a specific frame of reference.
I would say “Honest” is a better word,
since this is about honestly looking at the evidence that is available.

59

I don’t know what you think I’m trying to do here, but I’m sure you’re misunderstanding. I spent my life pro-actively learning about this planet around me, the life in and trying to make sense of me and my family, then after childhood, the people and society around me.

I’m a child of the 60s, and adolescent of the 70s with parents who’d always listened, then watched, and discussed the news around us. I left high school aware of what was happening on our planet, and of what science was finding, which was not good. Back then, no one reading or listening or watching news could be stupid to the science screaming warning, we lived on a finite planet and we’d better proceed with caution, because we were gambling with our Earth’s biosphere which IS our very life support system.

Long story short, look at where we are at in
2024
Space tourism destroying resources and atmosphere,
Billions living in increasing poverty with many area on the brink of hideous collapses, but we won’t get into that.

I was very hopeful in the '70s,'80s, perplexed in the '90s/'00s at all the malicious disinformation on the one hand,
Folks like Pinker worshiping western Progress as thought is were a God,
Cherry picking his data categories, ignoring huge swaths relevant contrary info.

Me, being in love (passionately, that is viscerally, ) with our Earth and her biosphere I hear the bad news stories and they ping and get grouped into there categories with the accumulating back-stories. That is I pay attention to the hits, that most are totally unaware of.

But, I digress,
this little story I’ve developed is the outcome of me trying to make sense of why we went so, so terribly wrong, and like they say:
Seek and Ye Shall find.
So it was, I cracked the nut.

What I’m sharing is my worksheets, of my thoughts via the life I was blessed to live. I welcome critique, I will defend my thoughts, by striving to refine and improve them and answer the objections.
I never expected everyone should get it, though I never imagined there’d be so few on whom it makes an impression. But that’s another matter, beyond trying to do a better.

My one concern is to get it out and polish it up as much as possible before I check out.

Miss B just got up, excellent I was done. You what’s a really beautiful sight (baby monitors - weird in a way, but a beautiful thing in all others) - a baby that wakes up and is fine with keeping itself occupied for a while. Okay, sees up now, bye

60

I’m not arguing with the facts. It’s when you say it as a reaction to so many of my posts. It doesn’t mean much, it’s just a thing. You imply that if I believe this, accept it, get it viscerally, then I’ll see what you mean about violence from billionaires or something. Well, I do accept it, I never didn’t accept it, but it doesn’t change anything about my posts.