Tag: evolution

“For the First Time . . .Thoughts . . .Plans”

January 2, 2025

I had been told how early human beings first started making marks that represented this or that – the beginnings of language.

“And this helped them to think about those things?”

For the first time, thought can be detached from objects.  Plans can become abstract, long-term, not just emergent possibilities inherent in situations, as they are for animals.  The response to other creatures can be evaluative, normative.  It becomes possible to notice that a particular action falls short of the best or right action, that a particular human being falls short of the ideal human being. 

molecules

“The First Glimmer is Found in the Lowest Molecules.”

December 12, 2024

Consciousness developed very slowly.  The first glimmer is found in the lowest molecules, in their ability to interact with, to respond to, their environment.  Whitehead and Teilhard are on the right track in this regard.  (Leibniz is not.)

I had to look again at these thinkers to see what God was getting at.  Rejecting the mind-nature dualism, the twentieth-century philosopher-mathematician Alfred North Whitehead held that, even at the micro level, every event is a pulse of existence, feeling and responding to its environment.  These “prehensions” are not so much states as vectors, arrows pointing to connections with the surrounding world.  The Jesuit scientist-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the “within” of things, their interiority, which “appears at the heart of beings”:  “Co-extensive with their Without, there is a Within to things.”  In every part of the universe, “the exterior world must inevitably be lined at every point with an interior one.”  By contrast, the seventeenth century philosopher-mathematician G.W. Leibniz believed that everything in the universe was made of elementary particles that were not matter or energy, but minds, centers of consciousness, each of which internally mirrors all the others.  In short, Whitehead and Teilhard believed that physical (or psycho-physical) nature has levels of awareness—and they were on the right track—whereas Leibniz held that there is no physical nature other than points of consciousness.

As God went on, He sounded a lot like Teilhard.

What happens is that reactions have an internal dimension—responding to the environment, the molecule begins rearranging its internal parts and configurations and processes.  This is the beginning of interiority.  Ultimately, interiority involves the second-order process of monitoring and directing inner processes.  But, even at the beginning, prior to the emergence of second-order processes, there is an emerging consciousness.  To be conscious is not the same as and does not require self-consciousness.  It can be very dim and limited and still be consciousness, because something new and remarkable has arisen—the pre-sentient and then sentient awareness of the environment.  Don’t worry at this point about what is meant by “pre-sentient” awareness.  Your understanding is necessarily anthropocentric, using human consciousness as the standard by which to understand all forms of consciousness.

storytelling

“It Leaves Out the Most Interesting Part of the Story.”

September 12, 2024

“Lord, is the theory of evolution correct?”

It is not a bad theory.  It is a short-hand that works, but it leaves out the most interesting part of the story.  It is like behavioral psychology in this respect.

While Pavlov’s dog salivating tells you something about animal and human behavior, seeing people solely through the lens of stimulus-and-response conditioning leaves out what is really interesting about them.  Similarly, the theory of evolution is okay as far as it goes, but leaves out the best part of the story.

great ape

“The Great Apes Are Wonderful Creatures . . . So Close But Yet So Far.”

February 1, 2024

 

“And so, Lord, You call forth the first human beings?”

Yes, the first inklings, forerunners, of man.  The great apes are wonderful creatures, full of intelligence, energy, and drive.  But it is frustrating to interact with them.  They are so close and yet so far from having full interactive personalities.  They have teleological urges but they are only effective, for the most part, at the biological level.  Their social life is rudimentary and their spiritual awareness is diffuse and inarticulate.  They lack a symbolic order.  They can’t project ideals beyond the sensual.  They can’t respond to Me either.

“But they evolved?”

The transition to early man is both slow and sudden.  Remember what the first two years of a child’s life is like, and (then) imagine each day to be a century.  In a sense, nothing is happening.  One day looks much like the last, and there is no single great leap forward.

So imagine My excitement when the first protohumans arrived.  At first, you couldn’t tell them from animals but I could see their potential.  They didn’t have language but their sounds and marks had representative purposes.  They could connect one thing to another, one thought to another.  They could remember their past and replay it in their minds.  They slowly developed a sense of the future.

Evolution, Animals, Creation

“Man is important, but so is the rest of creation.”

October 21, 2014

The previous prayer continued, but something I received later might be helpful here.  I had been guided to read about evolution and animal behavior.

“Why read this, Lord?”

You need to understand—to have enough concepts to understand—My history with the world, including all forms of life.  Part of the distortion in religions is they are homocentric (anthropocentric).  Man is important, but so is the rest of creation.  My history involves close interaction at every level.  Every level is part of the healing, re-creation of the world, its unfolding, fulfillment.