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Nonphysical.org
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True or False? Testing the Cornerstones of Modern Biology What is the Truth? Science Textbooks Tell Us:
The Issues
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Dedicated to a Revolution in Biological Theory Consciousness is Created by the Brain. True or False? Could the conscious mind be a nonphysical force? Not according to modern science's rigid material orientation. Textbooks leave little doubt that the human mind is simply a description of the brain's physical operation. With analogy to the operation of a computer, the conscious mind is said to "emerge" from the brain's neural networks analogous to the way life is said to "emerge" from complex chemical activity. And biologist explain the instinctive behaviors of birds and spiders as "genetic programs" that are somehow engraved in the wiring of the animal's brain. However, the operation of the mind and memory is the black hole of scientific theory. Science can offer no physical mechanism for the operation of the mind's qualities of memory, perception, and choice in any creature big or small. Within the darkness of our skulls, the mind sees the brain's patterns of sensory impulses as the people, places, and things about us. Memory of past events guides the mind to choose what we desire and avoid what is injurious. The mind focuses its attention on food, sex, and things of interest. We jump when startled. We curl up when physically traumatized. And with regard to instinctive memory, biologists cannot provide an actual mechanism by which genes actually carries or directs the four-dimensional volume of instinctive memory or inflates that memory into the brain. Might the nonphysical mind provide life a mechanism of intelligence that no machine will ever possess? Many scientists view speculation on the nonphysical nature of life and the mind as "unscientific" and conceptually useless (1). They explain that each of us only knows our own internal experience of reality. Nevertheless, most of us readily accept that other humans posses a conscious mind. Why? Because we see that their behaviors are similar to our own. And many of us readily accept that dogs and cats are also conscious for we relate to them. From their behaviors one can conclude that these animals also experience fears, desires, and joys. But what about birds, fish, worm, or insects? And what about single-celled paramecium and amoebas? Are they conscious? Few, if any, respected biologists would dare ask such questions today. But at the beginning of the last century, the eminent biologist of Johns Hopkins University, Herbert Jennings, posed the radical question in his well-respected book, The Behaviors of Lower Organisms. Peering through his microscope with the diligence of a field biologist, Jennings watched single-celled amoebas, paramecium, and bacteria move in their little worlds. He watched tiny amoebas slither about looking for food. Dexterously, the amoebas extended membranous fingers to grasp and envelop food particles. If a slippery particle eluded its grasp, an amoebae chased after it. With persistence that lasted many minutes, an amoebae would try different means to encircle the tasty morsel with its protoplasmic arms. To eat a long strand of algae that far exceeded its length, an amoebae repeatedly grasped the strand and pulled it so that it coiled tightly into its body. Amoebas fought with each other when a large one struggled to envelop and eat a smaller one. They curled up when threatened by the experimenter's probe. And like much bigger animals, they displayed preferences, focussed attention, and startle reactions. All in all, Jennings observed that the basic behavior of these tiny, one-celled creatures is strikingly similar to those of large-brained animals such as dogs, cats, and humans. He concluded that when one views such behaviors in a large brained animal such as a dog, one would readily conclude that the creature possesses qualities of consciousness, choice, memory, perception, attention, and emotions. Jennings concluded, "It is difficult if not impossible to draw a line separating the regulatory behavior of lower organisms from the so-called intelligent behavior of higher ones; the one grades insensibly into the other." Further, Jennings speculated that these tiny creatures were motivated with similar drives and emotional states of higher organisms, writing, "The writer is thoroughly convinced, after long study of the behavior of this organism, that if an amoebae were a large animal, so as to come within the everyday experience of human beings, its behavior would at once call forth the attribution to it of states of pleasure and pain, of hunger, desire, and the like, on precisely the same basis as we attribute these things to the dog." What might one conclude? Certainly the evidence does not indicate that consciousness requires a brain or even a neural system to exist. Judging from common behaviors, all living creatures appear to be endowed with conscious intelligence. This strongly suggests that consciousness is not created by the material structure it inhabits. Rather, the conscious mind is a proactive, organizing force endowed with memory, perception, choice, drive, and emotion. It is time for conventional scientific to look beyond a purely material explanation for the nature of life. There is ample evidence that the conscious mind is a force separate from the material dimension and life is a vast dimension of conscious intelligence, the vital dimension. Speculation should be actively encouraged, not discouraged. Until we do so, the great mysteries of life, the mind, and memory will remain unexplained.
Reference: (1) The distinguished Harvard biologist, Ernst Mayr in The Growth of Biological Thought. See also The Vital Dimension, Chapter 6.
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