Clever Corvids: BBella's approach (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 24, 2016, 13:26 (3166 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Still raises the same question for me: we can't even explain the presence of our consciousness and now you want it to pop up all over the place in all living matter!?
dhw: We can't explain the presence of any form of consciousness, but you want it simply to have been present all over the place for ever and ever!?
DAVID: My conjecture is that I cannot ever conceive of consciousness simply appearing on a rocky planet from evolving life. It must have pre-existed that process of evolution only to be rediscovered latter as brains developed to the point of being receivers of consciousness, per studies of NDE's.-I have complete sympathy with your first sentence. However, although I have a pretty good imagination, I cannot conceive of a single, eternal, sourceless, conscious mind with the knowledge and ability to create billions of solar systems, having created a universe so vast that its boundaries (if it has any) are unknown. I am surprised that you or indeed anyone can. Hence my agnosticism.
 
dhw: I am a little queasy about the word “wise”, because it suggests sound judgement, as if ATI were somehow geared solely to goodness and beneficence. I see life very much as a mixture of good and bad, nice and nasty, and feel more at ease with a neutral “intelligence”! 
BBELLA: I do believe there is a balance within ATI. I don't know why there would be, but I believe it is obvious in too many ways not to be. It's why I favor (allow for the possibilities of) karma, reincarnation, etc.-I can't go beyond “allow for”, which covers my approach to most of the theories we discuss on this forum.-BBELLA: I personally find it very difficult to believe there is ONE central intelligence (headquarters?) of authority. If there ever was ONE, for me, it would be no different than saying that at one time there was just one color and out of that one came many.
DAVID: If intelligence is everywhere as dhw states, it is not unreasonable to assume it is part of one united intelligence/consciousness, but each individual using their intelligence still is separated as shown by free will. Oneness yet disparate parts.-I am delighted to hear that at long last you are accepting the idea that individual organisms use their intelligence with some sort of “free will”, or by individual are you only thinking of humans while all our weaverbirds and crows and cuttlefish are mere automatons preprogrammed by the CIA (Central Intelligence Almighty)? I think it is unreasonable to ASSUME that the zillions of intelligences are part of a single mind; that is one possibility among others. -DAVID: The central authority is required to account for the Big Bang and the jumps in evolution (saltation).-Required by whom? There are plenty of scientists and philosophers and other clever people who do not believe a central authority is required to account for the Big Bang (if it happened), or for saltation.