Towards a Higher Order [09/28/01]

[The following rambling is a hybrid between my own personal insight, and the insight of many gifted authors whose ideas I've absorbed over the past few years. Although I'm not making any footnotes, I am certainly not trying to take credit for everything I write. But I suppose this is always the case since philosophy is heavily dependent on the digestion and reorganization of other people's ideas.]

Human beings are highly evolved monkeys. We are all an advanced form of higher primate. Remember that the next time you go to the zoo. In my opinion, this in NO WAY belittles the human enterprise, but rather elevates monkeys to a level worthy of respect.

Furthermore, human beings habitually FORGET this fact-- that we are indeed animals just like pandas and tigers and tree shrews. People typically become so immersed in their social existence (and anxiety) that this basic observation is overlooked. But this is just an ego game: "I'm made of different stuff than a monkey, since monkeys can't speak and they don't own microwave ovens." etc.

Biological life is a continuum of complexity. Human beings represent an incredible jump in complexity over the other primates, but still exist within this continuum. When you observe the natural world through the lens of the biological sciences, any other conclusion is simply illogical.

The primary experience of being human is our consciousness. We each have an ego, and a mind, and many would reasonably argue a spirit as well. This feeling of "being in a body" is what defines us as conscious entities.

The tragic flaw in reasoning that most humans make is to assume that we, and we alone, possess this characteristic. If life is indeed a continuum, then "being conscious" also exists on a continuum. Practically speaking, this means that your pet dog has a certain degree of self awareness, consciousness, mind, soul or spirit. Choose whatever descriptors suite you best... The point is that ALL biological life on planet Earth possess SOME DEGREE of consciousness.

But where do you draw the line? Does this only apply to "biological life"?

What about a bee who exists within its intricate hive social system? What about the bacteria living between your toes? What about a cell nucleus?... itself a structure so marvelously complex. Keep going down the chain... proteins... atoms... electrons... It would seem that everything is composed of a fractally organized hierarchy of consciousness.

Now meditate upon the following:

"Nature is self-similar across scale."

What does this mean? It means when we observe the universe, we notice that structures at all levels tend to organize themselves according to similar patterns. The orbits of an atom vs. the orbits of our solar system; the shape of a seashell vs. the shape of the Milky Way galaxy; the evolution of the eye in primates vs. the evolution of the eye of a squid... the list goes on, and on, and on... (but that's all I can think of right now... ;)

Reality is structured fractally. The further you probe into a pattern, the further the pattern will repeat itself... endlessly. Biology is also structured fractally. For example, select a single autonomous higher primate, such as Bill Clinton. Upon further study, Bill has a ultra-complex community of organs operating within him. Zoom in on one organ, such as his lungs (no... not the organ you were thinking...), and we will find an intricate community of cells. Zoom on a single "autonomous" cell and we find organelles such as cell walls, a nucleus, ribosomes etc. Zoom on a single ribosome and you find an intricate web of proteins. Each protein is composed of individual atoms, and each atom composed of protons, electrons and neutrons. Then the electrons have their dancing quarks... and so on, and so on...

So what? This is just "basic science" you say. The point of this is to recognize the repetition of general patterns. These patterns apply to ALL levels of Reality, with higher levels building on the lower levels. It seems that when enough members of a "lower level" band together for a common cause and work in unison, then a higher level is miraculously born. For example, when enough like-minded cells cooperate in Bill's chest, we identify it as a lung-- a separate entity unto itself (within the context of Bill's other organs).

I am convinced that a similar kind of "miraculous level transition" is what occurred in the primate mind some 50,000 years ago. The brain's neuronal complexity hit its "boiling point", and viola, self-reflecting consciousness was born. We need not invoke theories of alien hybridization, Atlantian inbreeding, or Jehovah's divine will. Believe it or not, this is how Reality works. Pretty cool, huh?

And if reality is fractally structured, containing patterns within patterns within patterns... does this not imply that there may exist a structure BEYOND our familiar human one?