Evolution

[Jim Cross]

I also think the middle-way scenario is most likely, especially if we consider facts like this:

Although the anatomical differences in echolocation in bats and whales are strong evidence of independent evolution, recent research has found that several genes involved in hearing are nearly identical in these two groups ...

Instead, these genes have grown to resemble each other due to convergent evolution, a process where distantly related creatures evolve very similar solutions to a problem they face. In this case, it's remarkable that the similarities are solely at the level of genes and proteins while the anatomical mechanism of echolocation is quite different. To me, it's a wonderful example of the ubiquitous interactions of the many levels of biology, from molecular genetics to ecology, and of evolution's role in binding and shaping them..

How would the natural selection through random mutations make it possible that whales and bats share the same genes responsible for echolocation even though the anatomical mechanisms are different? IMO the probability of that happening by random mutations would be infinitesimally close to zero. On the other hand, exchanging useful genes between species is exactly what modern genetic engineering technology does. So, in reality the evolution could be a mix of natural selection and genetic engineering, which can be termed as a "guided and intervened natural selection".

Eugene, did you read the article about prestin?

Our findings suggest that the high-frequency acoustic sensitivities and selectivities of bat and whale echolocation rely on a common molecular design of prestin.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fu ... 09)02057-0

That takes away some of the mystery. The shared genes are the ones that produce the protein prestin.

Prestin is a protein that is critical to sensitive hearing in mammals. It is encoded by the SLC26A5 (solute carrier anion transporter family 26, member 5) gene.[5][6]

Prestin is the motor protein of the outer hair cells of the inner ear of the mammalian cochlea.[5] It is highly expressed in the outer hair cells, and is not expressed in the nonmotile inner hair cells. Immunolocalization shows prestin is expressed in the lateral plasma membrane of the outer hair cells, the region where electromotility occurs. The expression pattern correlates with the appearance of outer hair cell electromotility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestin#: ... ir%20cells.

[Eugene I]

Eugene, did you read the article about prestin?

Thanks, interesting. Right, this makes the natural selection explanation for this case more plausible.

[Toto Gale]

I appreciate the patience and help that I have received from this discussion group. I’ve only been studying Analytic Idealism (AI) for about a week. There is a lot of good material here. I’m trying to understand if it explains my experience.

The following post is based on my personal experience and I do not claim any basis in science (other than citing paleontologists). The science of reality is what I am trying to understand.

Let me start with consciousness. I understand the difference between perceptual and meta-consciousness. This is a quality of sentient (human) beings and are contained within alter-consciousness individual and is managed by the individual’s ego-executive. The ego-executive also manages the alter-conscious’ membrane boundary. Most humans spend their entire human life within that alter-domain.

But an individual alter-domain can also become directly aware of a higher level of consciousness as the alter-boundary is reduced. When the alter-identity identifies with that consciousness, it provides an outside vantage to examine the alter-identity experience that informs meta-conscious.

In my language this presents as subconscious (what AI calls perceptual consciousness), consciousness (what IA calls meta-conscious), and soul-identity consciousness. Beyond that is what AI calls universal consciousness. In my experience, the alter-identity contains another level of consciousness, soul-consciousness, that is a spiritual fractal of universal consciousness, which I have not seen AI address.

The Ego did not create the Boundary, but it manages it. The Boundary was created when the spirit fractal (soul) incarnated. It was created from spiritual amnesia and maintained by voluntary (wanton) ignorance. (The Prodigal Son metaphor.)

Soul-consciousness (the individual fractal of spirit) always transcends the boundary, either by experience while living or by death. There are countless paths of transcendence, by various trance experiences, including intellectualism, science, hallucinogens, spiritual experiences, or psychological experiences, to name a few.

The Prodigal Son had amnesia caused by his adventure into the world, that produced at first pleasure, and later, trauma. Finally, when he remembered his father and his home, he transcended the pig sty and returned. I have often wondered about his thoughts as he walked home alone. He must have wondered what happened.

So it is, when a human becomes self-realized and gasps at the deeper reality. On one hand it is simple. On the other hand, the technique of producing reality can be measured as the infinity of all past and future science experience.

So now, I want to circle back to Evolution. Evolution is a fact that is observable in DNA, the fossil record, and everyday life (such as new COVID variants). Yet the fossil record shows (which I cited above) that in a wink of a cosmic moment, all the basic life forms (phyla) emerged in a wa-lah moment, and have not evolved much since then.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a loaded and abused term, much like spiritualism, but I think of its definition as simply a design done by some form of intelligence. Is it too much to consider that universal conscious created life in a flashbang and evolution has tinkered with it since then?

Beyond that, what is the evidence that reality is not being produced by technology, such as holography?

[Eugene I]

Beyond that, what is the evidence that reality is not being produced by technology, such as holography?

No evidence. In fact, the simulation hypothesis became very popular, whether the simulation is running on a computer in a different "base" reality, or in the mind of mass-scale-consciousness.

[Toto Gale]

Evolution is the theme of our lives. Beyond mortal biological evolution and psychological evolution (human development) there is immortal spiritual evolution. This leads to considering the motive of universal consciousness creating alter-consciousnesses, and putting those alters through hell. What would the Prodigal Son say about that? Why did his father let him go out in the world? Why did the alter (son) desire that life? To evolve. Time is the medium of evolution.

[Toto Gale]

I feel vented. Thanks for listening.

My experience is that biology is built on nanotechnology, my human is an android, and the whole she-bang is presented by holography, using many dimensions beyond 4D. An onion model of reality using virtualization technology.

My dashboard is not only my six body senses, but also the view of my eternal soul observing, with good humor and interest, the human pilot flying in shit storm of time to evolve somewhere.

[Toto Gale]

I have done a lot of work in computer virtualization. My expert opinion is that it is turtles all the way down.

[Toto Gale]

I am excited by science, technology, and intellectualism nearing understanding reality. They have the wind in their sails and the harbor from the shit storm of time is near. When they come into the port bars, the mystics will be waiting to buy them a drink. Our story is like the Odyssey, which is one of the oldest stories, and ends well. It has to. If you don’t believe me, just ask Dorothy; we have each other’s back.

[Eugene I]

Evolution is the theme of our lives. Beyond mortal biological evolution and psychological evolution (human development) there is immortal spiritual evolution. This leads to considering the motive of universal consciousness creating alter-consciousnesses, and putting those alters through hell. What would the Prodigal Son say about that? Why did his father let him go out in the world? Why did the alter (son) desire that life? To evolve. Time is the medium of evolution.

This is the most daring question to any version of idealism that assumes that the universal consciousness is meta-cognitive. BK avoids answering this question by claiming that the universal consciousness is not meta-cognitive and therefore, being driven by instinctual will, does not know what it is doing and can not be held responsible for "putting those alters through hell". Various meta-cognitive universal consciousness idealism variants suggest a variety of answers. And there may be not a single answer or a single motive/reason for the universal consciousness to create alter-consciousnesses and to "put those alters through hell", but multiple motives and reasons, such as:

- To escape the loneliness of timeless state of solipsism
- To develop higher levels of cognition
- To acquire the experiences of multi-personal relationships and life of a community
- To experience imagined/simulated realities from multiple personal perspectives "as if" they are real. In other words, not just imagine what it is like to be a fox, but to actually experience what it is like to be a fox, including all the suffering associated with such experience.
- To explore the unlimited universe (fractal) of possible conscious states
- To unleash the creativity and create an unlimited variety of conscious forms enjoying the thrill of the creative process and the beauty of the created forms
- And of course there might be other motives

Regarding the "problem of suffering" ("putting those alters through hell"), IMO no benevolent and meta-cognitive conscious being would purposely put other conscious meta-cognitive beings "through hell" without their consent even if the outcome of that would be good. Therefore, I can only see these alternatives:
- The MAL is malevolent (Gnosticism version)
- The MAL does not act purposely/meta-cognitively (BK's version)
- The alters incarnate into humans (and perhaps other living forms subject to amnesia and suffering) only by their free pre-consent/choice. The question remains why would alters want to do that ("Why did the alter (son) desire that life?") if they know that it will involve suffering? Possible motives for that choice are listed above. There is also a Buddhist answer: they do that because of ignorance and because they are unconsciously driven by desires (in other words, they are not meta-cognitive enough to understand what they are doing and why they are incarnating). In reality all of these motives might be in play with some of them more or less pronounced depending on the alters personalities.

[AshvinP]

Evolution is the theme of our lives. Beyond mortal biological evolution and psychological evolution (human development) there is immortal spiritual evolution. This leads to considering the motive of universal consciousness creating alter-consciousnesses, and putting those alters through hell. What would the Prodigal Son say about that? Why did his father let him go out in the world? Why did the alter (son) desire that life? To evolve. Time is the medium of evolution.

This is the most daring question to any version of idealism that assumes that the universal consciousness is meta-cognitive. BK avoids answering this question by claiming that the universal consciousness is not meta-cognitive and therefore, being driven by instinctual will, does not know what it is doing and can not be held responsible for "putting those alters through hell". Various meta-cognitive universal consciousness idealism variants suggest a variety of answers. And there may be not a single answer or a single motive/reason for the universal consciousness to create alter-consciousnesses and to "put those alters through hell", but multiple motives and reasons, such as:

- To escape the loneliness of timeless state of solipsism
- To develop higher levels of cognition
- To acquire the experiences of multi-personal relationships and life of a community
- To experience imagined/simulated realities from multiple personal perspectives "as if" they are real. In other words, not just imagine what it is like to be a fox, but to actually experience what it is like to be a fox, including all the suffering associated with such experience.
- To explore the unlimited universe (fractal) of possible conscious states
- To unleash the creativity and create an unlimited variety of conscious forms enjoying the thrill of the creative process and the beauty of the created forms
- And of course there might be other motives

Regarding the "problem of suffering" ("putting those alters through hell"), IMO no benevolent and meta-cognitive conscious being would purposely put other conscious meta-cognitive beings "through hell" without their consent even if the outcome of that would be good. Therefore, I can only see these alternatives:
- The MAL is malevolent (Gnosticism version)
- The MAL does not act purposely/meta-cognitively (BK's version)
- The alters incarnate into humans (and perhaps other living forms subject to amnesia and suffering) only by their free pre-consent/choice. The question remains why would alters want to do that ("Why did the alter (son) desire that life?") if they know that it will involve suffering? Possible motives for that choice are listed above. There is also a Buddhist answer: they do that because of ignorance and because they are unconsciously driven by desires (in other words, they are not meta-cognitive enough to understand what they are doing and why they are incarnating). In reality all of these motives might be in play with some of them more or less pronounced depending on the alters personalities.

There is another consideration which must be factored in here - our own tendency to anthropomorphize all that which transcends our current understanding. I am not sure if that is the proper word, because it is really a projection of modern man more than any humans before the modern era. We want the higher level Reality to bend to our intellect rather than the other way around. There is probably a little fragment of truth in all of the above "motives and reasons", but not nearly enough to form a comprehensive understanding. If that is acknowledged consciously, then it is no problem to speculate. But all too often we start thinking we can logically deduce which motive, reason, option, etc. is the most likely one, and that is simply idolatry of a dangerous kind, because it blocks from our view answers to the most fundamental questions we can ask and answer for ourselves. The modern age has especially been characterized by people of all sorts seeking to blame God, or whatever they call the highest unifying principle they can imagine within the structure of Reality, for all the suffering in their lives and in the world. I discuss this some in latest essay.


viewtopic.php?f=5&t=466

Krishna reveals a final paradoxical truth borne by the Guardian Angel's mighty wings of Time. The threefold doors of the sense-world which open into Hell will, in the course of Time, be reborn - transfigured - into the threefold faith which conforms itself to the true spiritual essence of man's soul. Mere intellect will never grasp this spiritual truth, for "straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life", so it will only be grasped by power of the Spirit's threefold cognition (imagination, inspiration, and intuition). What the Eastern spiritual traditions have referred to as "Maya" - that which Schopenhauer also elevated in his world-conception of blind Will - was not an absolute state of the physical world, but rather it was a reflection of our own spiritual infancy. It is we who have so far failed to raise our spiritual thinking activity to the heights needed to discern the spiritual essence of Maya from its physical images. We must always refrain from blaming the world or other souls in it for what we ourselves are failing to perceive. When our tamas nature wishes to recruit our soul to any vengeful cause, we must tell it firmly: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone".