vincentML
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Joined: 10/31/2009
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML
Do all things physical contain spirit or are all an aspect of spirit?
If not, how do you distinguish which does and does not?
You asked, are we to assume that rocks have consciousness? I think that sets up consciousness as a straw man. I do not think that rocks are conscious. But who is to say that matter at all levels does not possess a degree of interior subjective experience, however dim. And what line can be drawn that isn't purely arbitrary? Some material organizations are animate and some are not, but that distinction speaks only to a capacity for responsiveness. It does not address the presence or absence of interior subjective experience. We are made from the same earthly materials as rocks. To say that awareness "emerges" in certain conditions is simply to state that it becomes evident, without explaining how something that wasn't there before can become "evident" in the first place. I can't claim to hold any firm beliefs on the question, but I don't find it unreasonable to view the situation as a matter of degrees and capacities.
K.
It was not my intent to set up consciousness as a straw man. You dwelt on it in your OP; I was following your lead.
I fully understand that matter has energy, or is a manifestation of energy, at all levels but I don't understand how one can even speculate that inanimate materials have an internal subjective experience without sensory contact with the external world. Evidently, it depends on how you define "degree of internal subjective experience." I cannot imagine it is very enriched. I am curious to know what were the precursors in your thinking that lead to such speculation.
quote:
We are made from the same earthly materials as rocks. To say that awareness "emerges" in certain conditions is simply to state that it becomes evident, without explaining how something that wasn't there before can become "evident" in the first place
The organization of those earthly materials are different. The carbon in rocks may be found for example in the salts calcium carbonate and calcium chloride, among other inorganic compounds, while the carbon in the human body is found abundantly in fats, amino acids, proteins, and carbohydrates which are far more complex molecules. The evolutionary emergence of consciousness springs from the self-organizing organic structures. Some experiments (a few cited above) have demonstrated the cross over from inorganic compounds to organic compounds. The emergence is due to the structures not to the materials, how the materials are organized into varying structures, and importantly how the structures are self-organizing through the activity of the nucleic acid chains which provide templates for new structures. Emergence is not evident in the primitive stages of organization, but seems to be evident in the late stages.
I agree the situation may be a matter of degrees and capacities once organic structures are "alive."
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RE: Let's try leaving religion out of it.... - 
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