Immanuel Can wrote:Wow.
It got quiet out there.
Kind of like when I posted this "Emanuel, I use the term emergent to simply mean "coming into existence", it says nothing about how or where from, but only that consciousness as a phenomena, comes to exist at a point that certain conditions are met. If we think about the way lightening emerges as a phenomena when storm clouds become adequately charged, we can see how physical conditions change the potential for what events are possible, electromagnetism doesn't always have the power to jump large gaps and burn through trees, so these properties are emergent. And although every bolt of lightening is distinct in terms of form and position, there is an aspect of the phenomena which is not unique to any particular example, it's substance and prerequisite conditions are indistinct, and common to each example of the phenomena.
To take the analogy further, it can be seen that there exists at every biological level of life, a form of volition, which is functional and implicit for the continuance of higher functions such as consciousness. Cells are colonies of organelles, which are found to exist in only fifteen distinct types throughout all biological organisms from bacteria to humans, each has a unique functional attribute which it adds to the cell unit, some build, some produce chemical energy, some transmit information, and others organise. Each of these organelles have a degree of autonomy with which it carries out its particular function within the cell, so they each have some ability to manipulate and overcome the natural forces that would otherwise command.
If we investigate further, it's seen that these organelles are created by amino acids, which are each constructed in such a way as to behave in a way not natural to any of their constituent parts, kind of like the way oils and water repel, but if the oils are bonded to a molecule that is attracted to water, it develops semi-chaotic motion, if you then have millions of examples all acting together, patterns emerge.
So at what stage do we say we have life? I would suggest that life is simply energy, and that what develops is that thing we call consciousness, the ability to evaluate and direct existence beyond the natural laws, and I would again suggest that this is an emergent property, but one which, like lightening, has distinct character in any individual instance, while being fundamentally the same principle at work."
