I've been thinking about complex structures like a human. What are they made of? Organs, and the organs are made out of cells. The cells have their own little world. They go about their bussiness doing whatever they've been proggrammed for. All together the cells create a human with a brain that thinks about God. Do the cells know, that whatever they are doing, contributes to a higher reality? Do they know that they produce a personality, a thinking entity? My answer is no. Now lets examine the next level, our level. Could it be that as a higher level group we contribute to producing a higher level entity that we can not begin to fathom,just like cells can not fathom that they contribute to an entity like our selfs. Could it be life is a series of levels, starting at a subatomic level and extending ad - infinitum into higher levels of understanding? Any thoughts from my fellow cells?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It's an interesting question. I think that, from a certain point of view, you can look at a human society (include the entire human population of the Earth, if you like), and regard it as like a giant organism. Certainly, it has many features of an organism. It changes over time, with progress in certain directions. Parts work for the good of the whole; other parts work against the whole, for their own aims. Forget humans for a minute and consider all life on Earth as part of the Earth organism. This is essentially Lovelock's <b>Gaia</b> idea. In his thesis, the Earth will continue with or without human beings. The Earth as a whole is a higher-level, self-regulating system. Humans may act to drive themselves to extinction, but Gaia herself will endure whether or not we are here.
Need to find references I know the idea exists in history, and for some reason Silvestrus' cosmology leaps to mind, but it's been years since I've seen the text, and the idea has been "playground philosophy" for children at least since the late 1970s when Madeline L'Engle brought it, along with tesseract, nuclear annhilation, and the basic rules of conduct for time travel into children's minds and imaginations. I know I've seen the idea elucidated somewhat in the past by some thinker of the last 500 years, but I can't for the life of me remember who, what, or when. I can't figure out, however, the atheistic version of it, until the medium of consciousness is explained as a scientific phenomenon in the relative sense that divorces itself from prior notions about the complexity of structures hosting consciousness. The whole of our consciousness defined within our phyiscal brain ... how does matter and energy relate to consciousnessin those cells? (Also, would not such a vitality have a detectable physical symptom? Ah, have we solved the problem of dark matter? &c, &c, &c.) A myth of modern times (L'Engle, T.H. White) suggests that the Universe itself is somehow, in its components, aware, and that aside from humans and similar consciousness in organic lifeforms, the basic structures seem to know what they're about. Thus the stars sing a joyous harmony unto creation; cells dance to the rhythm of life; imagination becomes a whole new reality. All in all, I like it. Sadly, it doesn't (necessarily) make it so. But I've heard the stars sing. It's only a short leap of faith to presume joy. :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
