If you want to draw an analogy of God, the closest I can come to it is: Evolution = God.
And that removes the need for a God altogether. Evolution is a mathematical self-organizing function that presents an infinite variety of molecular varieties from which the best adapted is selected for continuation. The rest disappears into the mist of history.
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Great articles, great gadgets, still missing how they inform us regarding our species and our unique human condition within the realm of reality - as opposed to all the crap our minds can dream up and the interpretations we stamp on stuff.
IMO, as I explained, our extraordinary brains are a result of a rare beneficial genetic mutation of the fusion of two chromosomes into one chromosome twice as large.
This is the indisputable evidence that sets humans apart from all other great apes.
As for the “seat of consciousness” what’s that even mean?
Who’s consciousness are we referring to, the single cell, or an octopus, or grove of Redwood trees and their underground network, or consciousness of an Amazonian hunter, compared to a Wall Street hedge funder?
I see consciousness as a quantum field emerging from the dynamic electrochemical activities in the “neural network” that uses microtubules as the fundamental functional substrate of information processing.
The brain alone has 100 billion neurons connected with some 10,000 othere neurons via 1000 trillion synapses.
Can it inform me about the weird connection and communication that’s developing between my Maddy dog and me, or those various winks of recognition that flick between strangers now and then?
You bet it can. It’s called “love”.
Can it help me appreciate my place in this world, or can it help me reconcile my love of life with my inevitable death and the end to my existence interior and exterior?
Can it help me find kinship with, and my place within, the animal kingdom?
Yesssss… the “mirror neural network” that allows one to “identify with the emotional state” of another brained animal. Seems that all brained animals have mirror neurons. It allows them to copy behavior patterns of the parents.
All brained animals have the exact same microtubules as humans. They are just arranged in simpler patterns.
This is what enables similarities in conscious thought processes.
Can it help me puzzle out the weird little conflicts between my desires and impulses with my better angels and worser demons? The battle between the flesh and the spirit, and all that.
Yes, and that may be a detrimental side-effect of having this incredibly complicated human brain patterns. It can process data in so many different ways and from different perspectives that what allows other animals to adapt and adjust to environmental pressures, humans are able to control and change our environmental conditions.
Plus what used to be a “hoarding instinct” for scarcety in food sources, in humans this has developed in full emotional condition of GREED!!!
We want and take more than what we deserve and the natural environment can sustain.
Just think, we have released in 300 years, billions of years of sequestered carbon and spewed it back into the atmosphere. Nature can only absorb so much before it starts reacting negatively to the insult. And then watch out ! Major changes on a global scale usually result in mass extinctions.
You adore and worship microtubules, so all roads lead to microtubules as if nothing else mattered - I see them as another fascinating critical gadget among many many foundational fascinating critical gadgets within the micro-world of biology.
But biology is just an interesting if foundational, hobby for me, my passion is figuring out the poetry of my life within the stage of living humanity as I struggled with my passions and desires and I’m finding it rather gratifying that there really are resolutions to those dog-chasing-tail spiritual questions everyone likes arguing about.
I see biology as an evolved probability potential in a self-ordering dynamic environment, not only on Earth but all throughout the Universe.
I firmly believe in Hazen’s proposition that life must exist elsewhaere in the universe.
It isn’t that complicated . Some 500 different evolved molecules self-organized from common chemicals and found throughout the Universe, a dynamic environment that creates an occasional chaotic condition from which new patterns emerge and are tested by natural selection for survivability in one form or another. Plus time and probabilities will inevitable become expressed .
It’s starts with recognizing who I am as a human, and that requires grasping the significance of the Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide, hand in hand with that, it requires an appreciation of Evolution’s pageant upon Earth’s evolving stage, unfolding one day at a time…
Of course, you have created your own environment where you feel comfortable and safe.
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