Can we truly explain consciousness out of geology, yet deny that same geology is at least part conscious? How could that be? There is a myriad of explanations and footnotes to inculcate a believable mythology* emergent property, yet, the simplest answer may be the correct one. Maybe we should start there?
If we can use this to explain that, we can just as easily describe that with this. That we can identify this mind with those elements, yet deny those elements have part of mind? Reason tells me that one cannot exist without the other. It’s tricky—so observation and testing takes a cold, hard leap-of-faith which has developed into a popular new mythology, but is a very ancient teaching.
The modern world is an extension of human consciousness, and human consciousness is an emergent property of minerals, crystals, and primordial soup lipids composed mainly of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
“However, “Emergent properties” is a scientific term, eerily similar to Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit, commonly translated as dependent origination, dependent arising, or interdependence, a key doctrine of Buddhist philosophy, which states that all dharmas (phenomena) arise dependent upon other phenomena; “if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist”. This is a sound principle. There is no such thing as a one way transaction. It contradicts what transaction implies.
Of course there are two sides of this debate. One is careful to re-coin terms to sophisticate an entirely scientific approach, while the original is a philosophy older than the dirt itself. Science has reinvented the wheel (or borrowed the wheel) from a religion. It is a re-emergent property already known for thousands of years through reason and deduction—and is the least complex answer. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. How this all happens will forever be missed as hypothesis continues solidifies into mythology. It is now the common sense of the modern world, yet takes some real mental wrangling to master.
*Mythology: (from the Greek mythos for story-of-the-people, and logos for word or speech, so the spoken story of a people) “is the study and interpretation of tales or fables of a culture known as myths or the collection of such stories which deal with various aspects of the human condition”. The current hypothesis of emergent properties has become the accepted mythology of modern society—again. It is the current story of our people.
TheCommonAtheist 