This is not a 'post' for those billions who still hold to the creationist view.
So going forward, to use the current jargon, the question is, how can 'life',
you and that uber complex - what one terms 'mind', evolved from a world of inanimate
matter. How can something so complex evolve from nothing?
In order to answer how this came about we need to be able to conceive in such a way
that it becomes intelligible that 'you' could have arisen naturally from the kinds of
inanimate processes described in physics and chemistry.
If we track back hundreds of millions of years, stable but active inanimate systems,
like whirlpools, tornadoes, and “autocatalytic molecules" existed - systems that
maintain their existence notwithstanding material interaction and change.
Once this 'pre life' scenario is taken on board it can then provide the conceptual
perspective that enables us to see how primitive life might have evolved from this state.
In addition there has been the bombardment from space over time. So when you next look up your lineage be sure to include, your parents au fond, the stars.
Out of this and over aeons of time, we arrive at a basic biological form, the cell.
One of the cells central capacities is counteracting the effects of the second law of thermodynamics: it creates order and resists chaos. Some cells have a further capacity - the capacity to
produce copies of themselves. In these capacities life ultimately consists
The biological cell makes up further more complex dynamic systems such as
organs and whole organisms. The cell maintains its integrity over time by means of an
enclosing membrane that is selectively permeable, letting in only such molecules as will
serve its self-preserving needs: performing basic metabolism and expelling waste
products. It is a self-organizing unit that admits of teleological (the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve) description - it has goals toward which its activities tend - and that contains the essential ingredients of
life.
Reference: Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter
by Terrence W. Deacon
Norton, 602 pp., $29.95
.
So going forward, to use the current jargon, the question is, how can 'life',
you and that uber complex - what one terms 'mind', evolved from a world of inanimate
matter. How can something so complex evolve from nothing?
In order to answer how this came about we need to be able to conceive in such a way
that it becomes intelligible that 'you' could have arisen naturally from the kinds of
inanimate processes described in physics and chemistry.
If we track back hundreds of millions of years, stable but active inanimate systems,
like whirlpools, tornadoes, and “autocatalytic molecules" existed - systems that
maintain their existence notwithstanding material interaction and change.
Once this 'pre life' scenario is taken on board it can then provide the conceptual
perspective that enables us to see how primitive life might have evolved from this state.
In addition there has been the bombardment from space over time. So when you next look up your lineage be sure to include, your parents au fond, the stars.
Out of this and over aeons of time, we arrive at a basic biological form, the cell.
One of the cells central capacities is counteracting the effects of the second law of thermodynamics: it creates order and resists chaos. Some cells have a further capacity - the capacity to
produce copies of themselves. In these capacities life ultimately consists
The biological cell makes up further more complex dynamic systems such as
organs and whole organisms. The cell maintains its integrity over time by means of an
enclosing membrane that is selectively permeable, letting in only such molecules as will
serve its self-preserving needs: performing basic metabolism and expelling waste
products. It is a self-organizing unit that admits of teleological (the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve) description - it has goals toward which its activities tend - and that contains the essential ingredients of
life.
Reference: Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter
by Terrence W. Deacon
Norton, 602 pp., $29.95
.
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