Tantalizing topic @15:30 and a lovely interview of a fascinating individual
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That link shows this:
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Seems a really big stretch in imagination to me. I believe in biogenesis, much to the amusement of my abiogenesis-believing kin. But “consciousness before life”? that’s not even in Johanna Xavier’s world, is it?
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An uncaused causer that knew something before anything lived?
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I know very little about this IAI organization. So there’s no telling what you’ll find there.
It’s an incredible subject. From the article you linked:
Most scientists believe that consciousness came after life, as a product of evolution. But observations of extraterrestrial organic material, along with Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s quantum theory of consciousness, provide reason to believe that consciousness came before life. In fact, argue Hameroff and his collaborators, consciousness may have been what made evolution and life possible in the first place.
This is also a great video on consciousness and a quantum effect that was recently observed with trytophan microtubules. Thus raising the possibility that consciousness isn’t linked to the neural network, but to the structure within neurons… and dare I say to the enteric nervous system
I’m having doubts about abiogenesis myself. Life comes from life but I think we both believe consciousness came first. You just think it was all contained in God while I’m less sure about that part.
- You think wrong. I concede that consciousness varies, from a minimum to a maximum. But rocks and dirt isn’t conscious. That was Bahrat’s theory.
But not what I said which was that you believe consciousness came first in God.
Of course I could be entirely mistaken about that. I’d have to concede you are the expert about what you believe.
- I currently believe life comes in different quantities, from very small to very large. I once accepted that moving non-living things formed living things. I now think non-living things are not capable of actually being conscious: Rocks, regardless how small or large, aren’t conscious. An AI bot will always be just that, an AI Bot, no matter how much lipstick you put on it. Life first, without which no consciousness. First life, first consciousness. Life and consciousness come in quantities. The more life, the more consciousness. Which came first: all life or subsets of the all. I’m quite comfortable with “All life”. Through it all, no life: no consciousness. Think I’m wrong? Show me the tricks your Pet Rock can do. Oh wait, you’re not certain of anything, are you.
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It may surprise you to learn I do hold beliefs. Some of what I believe cannot be entirely justified either by demonstration nor by reason. I have degrees of certainty concerning many matters but I don’t feel any more entitled to certainty than any other mortal man. Plenty have greater knowledge than I in particular realms but no one sees it all and so no one can say who or what God is or even who or what we are. But people can elect to hold as authoritative what they like and based on their initial choice of what to hold as certain they can then claim certainty regarding almost anything. Compared to that it may seem I’m not certain of anything, but you’d be mistaken. Between knowing it all and knowing nothing is everything we can actually know.
So given your own greater certainty, did God lack consciousness until after He’d brought forth life?
The chronology of sets of life alone are outside my interest. I’m satisfied with my belief that where there is no life, there is no consciousness.
I don’t consider that knowable but I just treat rocks like rocks each after it’s kind. Trees on other hand are our relatives. I’m not a Bahratian.
Reading a little on this, I saw trees do not have a Weismann barrier.
Proto-consciousness… apparently Penrose ascribes this to the universe.
Based on those studies with bacteria networking and displaying intelligence, I am not unwilling to acknowledge it as a fundamental property or field.
And speaking strictly philosophy, the cause of the universe may be aware, unaware, or not yet aware of its action.
Wow… I’m looking at the table of contents for Noble’s Dance to the Tune of Life. This is a book I want to read.
There is a section entitled, The Weismann Barrier is Relative, not Absolute
Oh my… look at this… Is Naive Theism the Only Alternative?
Anyone interested in reading a few of these sections together?
We all know the metaphor “dumb as a rock” but quite frankly if you are in archaeology you spend most of your life listening to them even as the Lord declared :
39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
40 But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Lk. 19:39-40 NKJ)
To be sure, our bodies are just the interface between us and this universe…and certainly as we grow older, less so until one day not at all when we have that FINAL death experience and we go from duplex to simplex…lol!
But if God predicates even the rocks, He certainly predicates us! It simply remains for those in unbelief to observe such predication of thought to action, which such people even seem to have sucha hard time doing as they want to predicate everything upon their feelings…a VERY DANGEROUS practice.
- If I understand your claim, I do not currently agree with it. On the other hand, if I do not understand your claim, it would be silly to agree with it.
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Noble’s book Dance to the Tune of Life has quickly become a favorite of mine. I’m slowly working my way to the part on the Weismann barrier.
Just read this part, which was a real eye opener:
If we could magnify the proton up to the size of a cell, the edge of the cell would be beyond the edge of the solar system. I emphasise the vastness of these ranges because we can otherwise be misled by schematic diagrams that show the components of cells.
To represent single molecules, such as individual proteins, we have to draw them much larger than they are for the diagram of the cell to be possible.
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