- I. for one, propose the one-celled paramecium. I think it’s hard to get more basic than a one-celled animal-like protist with coordinated legs [a lot of them] that: can move forward or backward; eats bacteria or algae; metabolizes its food; grows; responds to the world outside of it; excretes; maintains homeostasis through response to the world outside of it; and reproduces. Doing all of those things gives it purpose and meaning. I’m with those who think it’s up there at the top of list of "conscious Animate Concrete things–without, I suspect, a soul–certainly pre-Original Sin creatures; that live and travel in herds.
- As an afterthought, because paramecium are not immortal, I’d conjecture that physical death preceded sin.
- P.S. The hard question is: “Are paramecium conscious or not?”
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