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If one looks at human affairs and at how we are impacting our home and fellow inhabitants here on Earth, we are a failing species. We have fallen from the place in Life in which we were nested as another of its creations. We have fallen from our perch on the tree of life. Yet, for all this we are still of Life. We are still one of those configurations of Energy and Consciousness Life has spun out of itself.
It is with this in mind that this presentation is about the anatomy and physiology of Consciousness. There is however, a prerequisite concerning correcting our limited appreciation of what consciousness is. Let me deal with that first, before using an image/text Power Point presentation to go further into the matter.
Each of us has interests we pursue, in which our sensitivities and awareness are different, according to what´s at play in the circumstances, at home for instance, at work, or just generally out and about. In being different these aspect of us are in a sense hidden or veiled from one another. Yet, they are all there in the larger overall field of the sensitivity and awareness of the person that each of us is. In this, we are different from the same sort of thing concerning these sensitivities and awareness in others, in our family, amongst friends, at work and around us in daily life. This spreads out, not just through society, but with regard to other beings, creatures and entities in the world around us, as to who they are and how they live. We are encapsulated in life in this way, each of us a field of life, so constituted and sufficient unto itself, whose existence would not be, but for that supporting realm behind the veil our sensitivities and awareness casts about itself.
We can think of this in another way. We are sensitive to heat and cold. If we feel tired and rundown, we behave differently from how we behave when we feel okay. Our sensitivities inform us. We choose what we do with what we are sensitive to. We take an aspirin for a headache. We eat and drink because we are hungry and thirsty. We make decisions and take action. Our sensitivities and behaviours, stemming from the awareness they give us, are the backbone of what we call consciousness. Herein, lies the nature of reality, entities through whose states of sensitivity and awareness they experience their world, each a consciousness itself, while all together they are Consciousness.
... and this is the same for other living things, from here on Earth with us, ever on out into the Universe. Let´s explore this a bit.
*Things about Life are non-linear. From the jagged edges of leaves, to the convoluted structures of coral formation and the brain, all seek the maximum surface exposure for what is without to touch them and be felt within.
Magnify a section of a leaf and it is a copy. It is the same with a section of that section, and so on. One after another these sub-sections of sections of its edge extend the leaf´s penetration of its environment in the quest for information. (The fact that it subversively spies on our attitudes and disposition as we work in the garden, shoot one another and chop down forests are but another outcome!) Such edges that are so much more than a plain edge extend the feel it has of its environment and, therefore, its sensitivity to the alterations that stimulate and stabilise it and/or perturb and destabilise it. The heightened sensitivity this bestows enables that plant to respond more easily and faster in making whatever adjustments it can in the circumstances. More information being more readily available helps that plant cope, survive and flourish to greater effect. This is plant consciousness!
*It is the same at other levels of life on Earth. Take the awareness of a forest, as the living system the competitive, cooperative, symbiotic, synergistic and transformative activities of the microbial life, plants and creatures, therein, make of it. All this activity is in itself transformative, making the forest a living entity husbanding and regulating its own growth and development. Reacting and interacting with the atmosphere and the larger environment, together, their awareness and sensitivities create the weather patterns and the climate conditions of the region. Again, this is about consciousness – not ours, of course! Nevertheless, in its sphere, it reflects ours, just as our consciousness is a reflection of it’s, due to their both being reflections of Consciousness, itself!
*Elsewhere, deep below Earth´s surface and beneath the ocean floor, there are microbial biospheres, in which there are the likes of microbes that breathe uranium, make rocket fuel, release elements and convert the CO2 gases of volcanic and tectonic activity into carbonate limestone and minerals. (The mass of those kilometres into Earth´s crust is estimated to be 40 billion tons, where that of all surface life is but 2 billion tons! – and that in the sea-floor is estimated to be 200 times greater than the total bio-mass of the human species). In this case, this is about the sensitivity and awareness of a range of microbial species that are as plentiful and varied as that of all species of life in the surface world, working in community, as the ecosystem their competitive, cooperative, symbiotic, synergistic and transformative activity makes them.
*On a larger scale, there is Earth´s changing CO2/O2 cycle of the release and absorption of the heat-trapping gas, CO2. The natural forces involved in carbon being sucked up by the oceans and forests, or released in long pulses, causing the ice caps to shrink or grow, influencing sea-levels, thereby, belongs to one of Earth´s vital functions, as a natural phenomenon in the scheme of Earth´s life. ...and the periodicity of the closing down and re-starting of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC – an arm of the planet´s oceanic circulatory system – its global heat transfer system) is what triggers this. That human activity is flooding all zones with CO2 simply means that the release of CO2, in this cycle of Earth´s pulsating CO2/O2 interchange, is happening faster. That is to say that human activity is but an integral part of Earth´s functioning! This matter is an instance of Earth´s sensitivity and awareness, an expression of Her life and consciousness.
*Or, there is this! From our point of view, here on Earth, the other planets in our solar system appear to make retrograde movements (an optical illusion that makes a planet appear to move in the opposite direction, similar to when those in a faster car, think the slower vehicle they are overtaking is moving backwards), at particular points, as they orbit the sun at their own speeds. Venus, for example, goes through a cycle of 5 such retrograde loops every 8 years, where Mars encompasses 7-8 in a 15 year period. Jupiter has 12 retrograde loops in an 11 year cycle, with 28 in 29 years for Saturn. Mercury performs 3 loops a year. These looping movements are syncopated pulsations of those planets´ energies impacting Earth´s field.
How so?
Well, in their naming and description, plants are classified according to the similarities they show at different levels of complexity. So, for instance, the huge Rosaceous family is characterised by 5-foldness (somewhere or other in the branching from the stem, the number of leaves, bracts, petals and the disposition of seeds in the fruit), something different from the 8-foldness Cruciferous plants share. It is as if something concerning the taxonomy of the Rosaceous and Cruciferous plant families is affected by the pulsation of the retrograde looping cycles of Venus and Mars in Earth´s field. It is intriguing to think that Linnaeus, and others, classifying plants in the C18th, weren´t aware they were naming the Rosaceous family after the Rose, the blossom of love, the flower of Venus (both goddess and planet!), the planet with a 5-fold looping cycle of Venus´ dance with Earth! However, how Venus experiences the movement of Planet Earth around her is not just something we do not know, but something that it has never occurred to us to think about!
This parallels our sensitivities and the behaviours stemming from the awareness they give us, as the backbone of what we think of as our consciousness. The sensitivities and the resultant behaviours that come from the awareness other planets give planet Earth are the backbone of her consciousness.
*...and that is not all, for this is also so amongst all of the planets in the Solar System, in their dance around one another (for if Venus, for example, so affects Earth and is itself affected by Earth, Venus must be affecting the other planets, as their influence will be impacting Venus!) This is the case for `our´ Solar System within the larger scheme of the Milky Way Galaxy, too...and so on, ever out into the universe. CONSCIOUSNESS is the consequence of the comingling and interplay of the energy fields of LIFE. It is the awareness of ENERGY, sensitivity to it, handling that and crafting responses appropriately, at all levels and in every dimension of whatever that great being LIFE is. (Of course one can dismiss such matters as being purely coincidental. But here´s the rub. From its Latin origin, co-incidence is of things affecting one another, each having an influence on the other. In other words, there is no better description of what we are looking at than that it is literally co-incidental!)
*Travelling inwards, there is also sensitivity and awareness. Between themselves bacteria affect one another. Our health, well-being and very existence depend upon this 90% of us that is not the DNA that makes us human. They help digest food, and synthesise key nutrients. They keep pathogens at bay. Their secretions moisturise the skin. They interact with us, stimulating the healthy development of the immune system. They pump out signalling molecules that affect everything from brain development to weight gain. (In this respect, for example, 80% of the traffic in the Vagus nerve is the transmission of signals to the brain that the psycho-active substances, such as neuro-chemicals, microbes in our gut environments have generated!) They communicate, react, interact and exchange behaviours within us, between themselves and with us as a `conscious´ microbial biome within the world that we are to them.
Well, as you can see, though it would seem that we have found out lots and lots of things about life in us, life on Earth and in the Cosmos, they are all brittle, dry facts, not knowledge we have a feel for. So the question is, how does it all fit together, what does it mean, for, not belonging in these other realms ourselves, we are not acquainted with the consciousness their sensitivities and awareness give them. Being what it is, the state of our consciousness is different from sensitivity and awareness in other domains of Life. This being so, is why we experience Life as we do and, therefore, not as do those forms of consciousness in those other realms of the LIFE within which we have our being.
Well, in looking at other ways Consciousness manifests itself, as above, we have, in fact, been outlining some of its anatomy and physiology, already. So, let´s go to the image/text power point, now to look into it yet more. I am not going to do this in any systematic way, but rather undertake a preliminary exploration of the idea.