Proving common descent (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 20, 2012, 12:20 (4363 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: That is the analogy I am drawing: first-cause energy may have been intelligent (as Nature is), and through aeons of its intelligent material combinations has gradually increased intelligence to consciousness and then to self-consciousness. 
DAVID: That statement is pure materialism through and through. Nature is not intelligent ipso facto. Inorganic material has no intelligence. Intelligence comes only with life.-Earlier you asked where intelligence came from, and your answer was "only an intelligent first cause. I don't know why that IFC isn't self-aware." That is the question I am asking. I keep talking about the "intelligent cell" and the intelligence of Nature in the sense that both create functioning organs and systems without necessarily being conscious of what they are doing or being aware of themselves. That is my (purely hypothetical) analogy for first cause energy ... an energy which naturally creates orderly systems without being self-aware.
 
dhw: And here is another possibility, raised by NDEs: that once our material self reverts to the energy from which it originally sprang, perhaps our human attributes will bring new dimensions to that original energy. Who knows?-DAVID: NDE's are a form of proof that consciousness is universal. That is how the brain can formulate NDE stories while totally non-functional.-Or perhaps they are proof that energy as processed by the brain survives the death of the brain and brings human consciousness into the energy that first gave rise to life on Earth. Otherwise, how would the ND-experiencer preserve his/her identity? It's interesting that ND-ers see certain people from their own world. That = individual and intersubjective consciousness, but NOT universal consciousness.