Chemical Consciousness

[Technosoul]

In a lab some science people are looking at the DNA of a single cell life form in order to determine what chemicals are linked together in that DNA strand and in what order and amount.

Once they get the data they hope to find those same chemicals in nature and make a DNA strand in thier lab that would duplicate the one they investigated, they would put the strand inside a cell casing and watch to see if it acts like a living one-cell organisem. If the experiment works (and they have faith it will) then they will claim that life started when chemicals somehow came together to form the first DNA strand of a micro organisem.

If the man made organisem duplicates it's self and swims around normal like then they will have proof about how life started through some happening that made those chemicals unit in that manner.

So the concept would be that chemicals are thoughts waiting to happen, once the right combination is made - kaBoom, you got consciousness and a living thing that can know how to reproduce and how to survive with intelligent motion of some kind.

The more chemicals that were united in some sort of order the more intelligence that brain would have.

I posted this here instead of in the science section because I thought some religious folks might want to put in their two cents worth.

Do you think the science project will have success or not? And if so how would that effect our concepts about the orgins of life on earth?

Technosoul.

[rcne]

Wow, what a great topic. The science and concept involved is fascinating, I'll have to google and get further info.

However - I do see some 'ethics' problems arising. Fist would be the believe that God is the only one to create 'life'.

Second, and on a more humanistic ethics value - is the question - should man pursue this avenue - even if only for scientific knowledge.

The ethics aside - the concept is well worth pursuing. Kinda like quantum biology.

[Technosoul]

Also in the ethics department would be the idea that we could control evolution by adding chemicals to create more advances in the DNA blueprint.

And we know from reading about he hippy experiments with chemicals like LSD that consciousness can be totally manipulated to interpret in-coming data in a radically different manner.

But not sure if a hippy is evolutionary step up from the 1940s people had unexpanded creativities of consciousness. But chances are they were and now the children of the baby boomers have those genes as part of their new DNA instruction codes, and movies have better special effects and virtual realities then they did in the 1940s. Progress?

Technosoul.

[SlySpy]

Nothing that special. Consciousness can also be attained via computer AI, both processes are mechanical.
Btw, evolution says nothing about progress. I don't see how those hippies would be any more advanced than their forefathers. In Fact, we are pretty much identical to our 10,000 year old ancestors. The only thing that has changed is our reservoire of knowledge.

[rcne]

10,000 years in the evolutionary process is the blink of an eye. The drug induced chromosome modifications are just a booster in the evolutionary gene pool.

Homo Maximus may be present in todays gene pool - but it may take another 10,000 years for him to become dominant.

I would be more concerned that the ability to create life or extremely modify (to suit our tastes) DNA would lead to the classification of some humans as unmodified - therefore lesser.

My greatest concern at the moment is creating an organism with no natural limiting factors. (Andromeda Strain).

[Rave7pt0]

What would be so wrong with creating a life that made us obsolete? Isn't that a parent's fondest hope? That their children will grow up better, stronger, smarter, happier than they did?

Maybe it's time we Homo Sapiens Sapiens stopped pussy footing around and let some beings with some sense take over.

[Technosoul]

Originally posted by SlySpy, Nothing that special. Consciousness can also be attained via computer AI, both processes are mechanical. Btw, evolution says nothing about progress. I don't see how those hippies would be any more advanced than their forefathers. In Fact, we are pretty much identical to our 10,000 year old ancestors. The only thing that has changed is our reservoire of knowledge.

But if one thinks creatively you can see that we are evolving externally instead of internally, because our survival systems are based on external factors and not our inner or physical factors.

The technology that has become part of the extended self is evoloving at an alarming rate, from Model T Ford to Spaceship, from bow and arrrow to guided missle. Etc.

As our automobile is created as an extended personality and self-image, as we slowly merge machine and biology with machanical body parts like artifical legs, artificial hearts, and so forth so that the human body is half flesh and half robotics. And as we slowing create computers that are in the image of our own brain.

We are experiencing a evolution of technology which we apply to our body as replacement parts, some like hearing aids and as eye balls.

Plus we have invented technology that is an improvement over our normal ability to see, like the microscope, and equipment that can smell things better then we do, and so forth.

In other words the final manifesto of progress will loop back to become us.

Most of the population is unaware of this momentum and the outcome of this evolutionary revolution in technology, so be aware, we (as a human race) are becoming the UFO.

All this can happen when we learn how to transfer our mind (consciousness) into a computer chip and put that chip into the computer brain of a flying machine which would be like a ufo spaceship. So our new body for our mind would be a small spaceship that could have lots of machanical replacement parts and could even journey around the whole universe. Our new body would not have to eat, die, get sick, or suffer pain. However it would have virtual reality programs that our mind could log onto so that we can experience our old human joys of sex or whatever as the mind simply would see those virtual realities as real until the time runs out on the recreational timer.

These patterns of momentum we can witness taking place through-out our man-made artifical environments which we have adapted too just outside the gates of natual paradise.

Whatcha think?
Technosoul.

[Technosoul]

And so if we look one day and say of our robots "now they have become like us, their creators" it would not be so shocking.

If God said "now these humans I created have beomce like us" (biblical story) and if God became flesh (as Jesus) then why is it not unlikely that we will become the Robot, the UFO, the child of our intelligence?

Which is to say that Spirit becomes flesh, and flesh becomes the machine, which would mean that the Robot would be another version of God? Get it?

Have I suggested a new kind of "religious science" concept? Hmmm?

Note: placing this idea as speculation or theory only.

Or as Bob Dylan once sang "Something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones".

Technosoul.

[SlySpy]

Originally posted by Technosoul,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Technosoul,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-SlySpy, Nothing that special. Consciousness can also be attained via computer AI, both processes are mechanical. Btw, evolution says nothing about progress. I don't see how those hippies would be any more advanced than their forefathers. In Fact, we are pretty much identical to our 10,000 year old ancestors. The only thing that has changed is our reservoire of knowledge.

But if one thinks creatively you can see that we are evolving externally instead of internally, because our survival systems are based on external factors and not our inner or physical factors.

The technology that has become part of the extended self is evoloving at an alarming rate, from Model T Ford to Spaceship, from bow and arrrow to guided missle. Etc.

As our automobile is created as an extended personality and self-image, as we slowly merge machine and biology with machanical body parts like artifical legs, artificial hearts, and so forth so that the human body is half flesh and half robotics. And as we slowing create computers that are in the image of our own brain.

We are experiencing a evolution of technology which we apply to our body as replacement parts, some like hearing aids and as eye balls.

Plus we have invented technology that is an improvement over our normal ability to see, like the microscope, and equipment that can smell things better then we do, and so forth.

In other words the final manifesto of progress will loop back to become us.

Most of the population is unaware of this momentum and the outcome of this evolutionary revolution in technology, so be aware, we (as a human race) are becoming the UFO.

All this can happen when we learn how to transfer our mind (consciousness) into a computer chip and put that chip into the computer brain of a flying machine which would be like a ufo spaceship. So our new body for our mind would be a small spaceship that could have lots of machanical replacement parts and could even journey around the whole universe. Our new body would not have to eat, die, get sick, or suffer pain. However it would have virtual reality programs that our mind could log onto so that we can experience our old human joys of sex or whatever as the mind simply would see those virtual realities as real until the time runs out on the recreational timer.

These patterns of momentum we can witness taking place through-out our man-made artifical environments which we have adapted too just outside the gates of natual paradise.

Whatcha think?
Technosoul.[/b][/quote]

I hope you're using the word evolution in the most coloquial and liberal sense of the word. Evolution is a natural biological process that has an upper limit. However, there is no clear limit to how fast we can grow our pool of knowledge and, so far, it seems to be growing exponentially.

[SlySpy]

Originally posted by Technosoul, And so if we look one day and say of our robots "now they have become like us, their creators" it would not be so shocking. If God said "now these humans I created have beomce like us" (biblical story) and if God became flesh (as Jesus) then why is it not unlikely that we will become the Robot, the UFO, the child of our intelligence? Which is to say that Spirit becomes flesh, and flesh becomes the machine, which would mean that the Robot would be another version of God? Get it? Have I suggested a new kind of "religious science" concept? Hmmm? Note: placing this idea as speculation or theory only. Or as Bob Dylan once sang "Something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones". Technosoul.

Hehe, that's quite an interesting concept. Except, in this case, the robots will know that we exist so I don't see how it could be compared to religion.

[rcne]

Originally posted by Technosoul,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Technosoul,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-SlySpy, Nothing that special. Consciousness can also be attained via computer AI, both processes are mechanical. Btw, evolution says nothing about progress. I don't see how those hippies would be any more advanced than their forefathers. In Fact, we are pretty much identical to our 10,000 year old ancestors. The only thing that has changed is our reservoir of knowledge.

But if one thinks creatively you can see that we are evolving externally instead of internally, because our survival systems are based on external factors and not our inner or physical factors.

.....

Whatcha think?
Technosoul.[/b][/quote]

Why do you think we are evolving externally? Perhaps our mental capacity is what is evolving - the physical form we are now in may be adequate while the mind evolves.

Natural evolution for man stopped when we started controlling our environment. Our reservoir of knowledge is the result of our mental evolution - don't you think?

[Samildanach]

You guys need to check out www.betterhumans.com that is dealing with a lot of the ideas you are having here if you haven't been there before.

Also I don't agree with evolution being just a natural biological process. It can also be a self directed process once you reach a certain stage of development. you could say your consciousness evolves along the lines of your choosing.

[Technosoul]

The thing I kind of wanted to explore in this exchange is the importance of chemicals and if chemical combinations are the key factors for determinating evolution and/or the differences in how life forms are designed.

Can chemicals control or determine consciousness? Is the brain a pharmacy and are we who (and what) we are because of the chemicals that our brain can supply us from that storage center?

Or is that concept way too simple of an answer?

Technosoul.

[Samildanach]

I would say thats a definite. Chemicals determine the state of your consciousness every day, thats why drugs that are manufactured in pharmacies have an effect on you.

[Technosoul]

Now here is a story that Ram Dass once told about his journey to India. This was back in the 1960s and Ram Dass was a close friend of Timothy Leary and the LSD group. So on his journey to India he took along some LSD and when he found a spiritual leader in that country he requested to become a student so he could learn about meditation and the truth about life, self, and the universe.

The holy man asked what was in his bag and so Ram Dass told him, the holy man said let me have some of those and so he handed over his bag and the holy man promptly consumed about 5 of them which was way more then needed to go into a altered state of consciousness. Then the holy man sat there for hours and hours and talked to Ram Dass in a prefectly logical and intelligent manner. Ram Dass was shocked that he remained totally uneffected by the drugs he had taken.

He asked him why the drugs did not make him high and the holy man answered "because I am already in a higher state of consciousness".

Some of those guys in India can do some amazing things with their minds and bodies. It seems possible that we could mentally control much more then we might think we can. That a person could even step outside of the whole thinking process and whatever fantasy the mind might be undergoing, or that we could control the chemicals via a process of ascended awareness and likewise by mentally re-programming our attitudes and motives.

So what are you opinions (what is your knowledge) about that concept and that way-of-life?

(anyone else can jump in and answer, also).

Whatcha think.
Technosoul.

[Technosoul]

Forgot a link for Ram Dass, however any google search under the name Ram Dass will bring up lots of link pages about him, his philosophy, and his current fund raising activities for doctors without boarders and the "Compassion in Action" organization.

Please read my above posting that I made just beore typing in this add-on, thanks.
Technosoul.

[Samildanach]

It just means he was perfectly aware of what reality is normally like and could control his fear of the green goblins jumping out at him because he knew they weren't real.

[Technosoul]

Now you are on the right track Samildanach.

With roots firmly planted in the land, the trees of truth shall make a stand.

Prepare then for the Grand Illusions that shall rise forth from the toxic tailpipes of progress, when the paranormal perspectives will dominate as deceptions upon the minds of the mulitudes.

The Grand Illusion is slowly manifesting as the new matrix and the madness shall consume the souls of all but a few of the elect who know how to remain as an true human, un-altered in their consciousnesses by the fantasy of flasehoods of high mindedness.

Be still as a tree of truth, and hold fast in the hurricanes of horror and green goblins, and instruct the angels about the nitty gritty of being human, so that the extreme roads of destruction shall not detour the center roadway of logic and common sense.

Technosoul.

[orgaelin]

Be still as a tree of truth

Truth, like a tree, must take form slowly, and grow in accordance with the nourishment it finds in the earth where someone else planted it.

Or, more directly: we all start off in different places, some with a good chance of finding truth, some with none. Should we find enough truth to grow, there will always be yet more truth to find. Every branch of the tree is one of the many truths that can be found, and new branches grow all the time. The only truth that lasts throughout the life of the tree is the trunk - you; maker of your own truth.

Sorry. You got me started all poetical like!

[orgaelin]

Back on the subject:

I think it would be *amazing* if they created life by mixing some chemicals. My instincts tell me that it won't happen, but a reasonable grasp of science and logic tell me it's quite possible.

The most important thing that would come of it if they did manage it would be, hopefully, an explanation of just *how* a bunch of chemicals turns into a life.