What is Life?
By: Seeker
I think, in the beginning, from whatever cause, there came to be Consciousness. Looking at the world around me, the common factor I see is about learning. Bacteria learn, viruses learn, insects, fish, reptiles and mammals all learn. Humans have the best learning ability.
It seems to me that a new consciousness, without relatives, would first be aware of self, then perhaps, aware of not-self. But whether or not there is awareness of not-self, awareness is NOT the same as Knowledge. Knowledge is information that can be applied, that is the result of trying out ideas or testing the information. While Wisdom requires Awareness, Awareness is not Wisdom. Awareness plus Knowledge begets Wisdom.
So how does a lonely, individual Consciousness go about gaining Knowledge? Pretty much as we do. We look, we listen, we model and experiment to try out our concepts. We shape our minds as we go - using Edward de Bono’s concepts we begin with a slightly modified plain. Information ‘rains’ down on the plain, slowly forming terrain with shape.
The more information about a particular thing, the deeper the valley that forms. Sometimes we have a fixed idea & it dams up the rain, preventing us from achieving real knowledge on a subject. Then one day, a new realisation, sometimes totally unrelated, will dislodge the fixed idea & the dam burst. We call this ‘Epiphany’ & it is a sought after state of mind because of the euphoria it brings us.
I think Consciousness is THE Basic, the underlying reason for it all. From what I can understand about Quantum theory, Consciousness is a requirement of Reality - something collapses the probability potentials to establish a constant state. I think maybe something chooses the pattern of collapse. It seems to me this is why our Universe is so suited to us, why the values of the basics are so precisely tuned that this is a hospitable place.
Leave a Reply