Alchemystix

Question by G’Kar: do you think that one day science will discover something that resembles consciousness at a sub-atomic level?
a force that has driven life to exist, a ‘desire to be’ , a basic programming if you like that has caused all things to become. Dont get me wrong im talking more god particle evolution than God 6 day creator here.
Ive never been happy with the idea of the universe emerging in a random chaotic fashion, why would sub atomic particles even come together to form atoms, or something as complex as a single celled organism just fall together, nothing would ever happen or ever be without a driving force. Without a consciousness-like drive behind it, a random bunch of amino acids proteins etc etc just wouldnt do anything, it wouldnt desire food or develop eyes or senses because it wouldnt even know there was anything to see or feel.
Equally difficult to believe is that no sooner had it fallen together it would just miraculously fall apart to create an exact copy of itself, then continue in a random chaotic fashion to fall together into something as complex as a human with our amazing consciousness. This isnt an argument for creation as such but for conscious evolution, guided evolution or at least rules and programming and laws of physics put into place to allow something amazing to form. Yes it sounds like pantheism, which is sexed up atheism apparently, but science just wont let a divine foot in the door, or even a semi-conscious foot. My point is what if science discovers and quantifies what we might now call supernatural after saying for long enough it doesnt exist?
This next bit isnt necessarily up for debate its just my personal theory:
I think that we, as conscious beings who create all manner of things including now virtual worlds etc, i think we created this universe, we progarammed it and maybe guided it along the way, and in much the same way as we will one day have virtual reality games where we can download our consciousness into the game, we came into this universe to experience it. We even choose to forget that we are experiencing/playing the game (after all it would be much more fun that way!) or maybe the limitations of this physical universe make forgetting a pre-requisite of taking form here. Some may say why would we have such horrible things happen here, if you imagine waking from a nightmare, it all seems silly and even exhilirating and after waking you see it for what it was, just the same way you will veiw this world when you die and wake up from this experience/game, besides for the majority of people its bloody brilliant here most of the time!!. Death and decay are just part of a universe based on rules of renewal and making room for new lifeforms, experiences, civilisations, an ever-changing universe, expanding, changing, growing.
Who knows, maybe there are millions of other universes based on totally different laws that we cant even comprehend while we are here but that we can experience after this one. Lets face it, we have eternity or maybe we exist outwith time and space.
I know lots of religious people will hate this idea so its not worth posting that im wrong or why would the bible/jesus/koran/torah etc etc exist if what i say is true. Id like serious answers from people who seriously think that any of this could be true.
PS. I feel i probably shouldnt have used the word “force” at the beginning so before anyone else says it, may the force be with you…………take care fellow earthlings )

Best answer:

Answer by suitti
Uhm, no.

Consciousness isn’t very well understood. But it appears that it is an emergent process from large networks of neurons. There isn’t a single neuron or even a small section of the brain that could be called the seat of consciousness.

The first life on Earth probably wasn’t DNA based. There’s a good chance it wasn’t RNA based. It was much more likely a simpler chemical that had the property that it could self replicate, but sometimes make mistakes. Most of the time, those mistakes led to complete failure. But sometimes, it led to an increased survival probability.

Once RNA was discovered by this simpler life, the advantages of genetic changes could be used. This led to extremely rapid advances in life’s chemistry. Genetic algorithms in modern computers are very fast at searching for solutions to multi-dimensional problems, given the most minimal direction.

If consciousness is an emergent process of neurons in a brain, it seems likely that there is an emergent process that is similar in DNA genetic codes. It’s hard to imagine how DNA genetic codes could be self aware, but it’s not that hard to imagine how emergent behavior of genetics could appear self aware. They do.

In sexual organisms, sexual selection aids natural selection in moving towards some goal. Typically, the goals are similar. An attractive mate is one with symmetric features – a proxy for health. Humans are often attracted to smart, well adjusted people. “Well adjusted” is mental health. And this selection behavior is the behavior that ends up providing survival advantage, and so came out of genetics.

So, i’m totally cool with starting with hydrogen, which collapses gravitationally into stars, which fuse hydrogen into heavier elements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, which get released into the galaxy to form new stars with rocky planets, where complex chemicals stew for billions of years and eventually send stuff out of the solar system. Amazing, but not incredible.

What do you think? Answer below!