What is your view on the origin of life?

[mickiel]

Life can be like a secret theater of speechless monologue and persuading counsel , an invisible bubble of birth , an infinite resort of discoveries ; a whole kingdom of questions and a tiresome repeat of answers.

But life is life! I mean here we are.

So how did we get here? Where did life come from? Or what is your present view of it , as far as you can determine?

How did humans become humans? How and why are we conscious?

In my personal view, consciousness is one of the keys to this enigma. It has to be. Just as I think there are many keys , consciousness has to be one of the things that unlock some of the answers. Augustine was astonished at the " Mountains and hills of my high imagination " , the plains and caves and caverns of my memory, with its recesses of manifold and spacious chambers , wonderfully furnished with un numberable stores. Even those who adhere to the theory of evolution , where and when does the origin of consciousness appear in evolution?

Is it not reasonable that life began before evolution? I think it did. Nothing in our reality could have began without " Reality" ;; now is reality alive?

I think that is similar to asking is consciousness alive? Is life alive?

Is conscious life alive? Is it real? Is it reality?

I think some here know that I believe in God , so how does God , or my idea of God , square with my understanding of life , reality and consciousness?

Well I actually think God is life , reality and consciousness.

Yet each of those things can be separate from each other, or certainly be bound to each other; so life is indeed a mystery.

[Honza]

No idea! It's a huge mystery.

How do you view God in terms of science? What is time in comparison to God? What is space in comparison to God? And so on?

For me, time is consciousness and space is symbolism within consciousness. A wave will dissolve into the nothingness if it is not observed. Observation is key to life.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by Gracey

How do you view God in terms of science? What is time in comparison to God? What is space in comparison to God? And so on?

For me, time is consciousness and space is symbolism within consciousness. A wave will dissolve into the nothingness if it is not observed. Observation is key to life.

Interesting observations because with you they lead to time is consciousness , and I think that could lead to " The Mind-Body problem." And with the advent of the theory of evolution , this has bared itself into a more scientific question , or the advent of considering there being a God being. It has become the problem of the origin of the mind. Now we must ask is consciousness a property of matter , ( time , space , nature- or evolution) , if it is then the Physicists is now attracted to these theory's. Now we can combine time , space , still consider the theory of God , and as Julian Jaynes observes " This opens the succession of subjective states that we feel in introspection has a continuity that stretches all the way back through phylogenetic evolution and beyond into a fundamental property of interacting matter." One feels that science then is manipulating matter , another feels that God is interacting with matter ; still another feels that matter evolved into our environment from a "Neo-Realism".

We are interacting to our environment and we are conscious of each other.

[Busby]

This question is the one that has caused me to look forward to awaken early each morning so that I can think about it before the day starts. Something I have been doing for years and which I love to do. When, as a young lad, playing on the London streets I suddenly realised (I was about 9 or 10) that the world I was seeing at that moment just could not be - it was hiding another reality - or rather our daily world is hiding it because our restriced senses cannot decipher much of what really is.

Sometimes, some people make a little jump beyond or outside this 'normal' range and tell us surprising things.

That which we call 'the truth' without actually knowing what we are talking about simply has to allow us to live in our everyday lives. Everything else; religions, philosophies, theories, speculations, that which we love to call spirituality and all the rest are the offshoots of something we ignore.

Something we know about but don't take seriously because it's too simple.


Mind and matter are the basis of reality (in my opinion). In fact, and we know this, matter doesn't exist. Buddhists call this 'illusion'. The universal mind, known otherwise under other names, we share. Jung called it the collective consciousness. Which seems to me to explain everything really. All that we know is created by thought. More often than not we need tools to form our thoughts and so cities, ships and tennis balls are created. We create these from our thoughts and who we are and where we are today is the total result of all that has ever been. The present is the only eternity.

This mind, the only reality, is an emerging mind. It relies upon evolution and mainly upon evolutionary experiences. We aren't here to learn but to experience. We give feed-back to that which projects us. The basic mind, that which is everywhere, is an abstract mathematical construct which we are only now, as we progress ever so slightly, beginning to understand as digital. Yes or no. Something or nothing. Hot or cold. The proof lies in our own design.

Our real creativity lies in our imagination. This attribute is an utterly disgegarded aspect of our lives - it can be seen in its true capacity in 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead'. The world 'out there' is created by us as a part of the whole.

All is One.

[mickiel]

The interiority of consciousness just could not in any sense be evolved by natural selection out of mere assemblages of molecules and cells. There has to be more to human evolution than mere matter , chance and survival. Something must be added from outside of this closed system to account for something so different as consciousness. Some see only continuity in evolution , they take comfort and hide in the holes of the theory; others are realist , longing for truth they see the discontinuities in life as terrifying and absolute ; man's conscious faculties could not possibly have been developed by means of the same laws which seem to determine his destiny with death ; but in my view they have.

There is a point that goes past all the animal theories and human guesses that consciousness evolved biologically by simple natural selection. The continuity hypothesis of Darwin for the evolution of mind is a very suspicious totem of evolutionary mythology. ( From Darwin's work " The Decent of Man" and Julian Jaynes work " The Origin of Consciousness"), The yearning for certainty which grails the scientist , the aching beauty which harasses the artist , the sweet thorn of justice which forces the rebel from the eases of life , or the thrill of exultation with which we hear of true acts of that now difficult virtue of courage , of cheerful endurance of hopeless suffering , -- Hey! are all these and more really derivable from matter? Or even continuous with the idiot hierarchies of speechless apes?

One little jump beyond ; more credit needed for those who view humanity as the creation of human imagination ; something further than religion ;

Motivation to think; about the origins of life.

[mickiel]

That is what twist my reasoning and gets me more relaxed with " Let God handle all that stuff" , when I must go deeper than the " Origin" of life! Or " The point at which something comes into existence ; or it is derived! In the God reasoning , life derives from life ; so I view God as the point at which all things come into existence , but how God arrived twist my reasoning ; because I see no point to attach God into existence from anything more alive or powerful than he must be.

How powerful must God then be , if he exist? We add together all the things in life , ( like an addition or math equation ), we arrive at the sum total of all power combined ; I then suggest , from my studies , that God is far greater than that sum total , moving off the scale to beyond! Beyond math and science , so those cannot be used to achieve God. I think that is incredible. Where God intersects the unknown and connects it with the known , he signifies the possible with the impossible , and then offers reality a coordination that at some point we can begin to see , and we are inspired to continue to study.

I am curious as to others view of the origin of life , and offer some insights as to my views; because this is a deep topic , I think. We could drown in it its so vast. I mean just the mystery parts are like the darkness in space ; volumes of the unknown ; scientific knowledge is real and there to see , but many just do not understand it. Spiritual knowledge is just as real and I think there NOT to see, which is why we do not understand it. I think its meant for another age. Just not this one. Why this is, IF it is , I don't know.

I think the true origin of life , is God , but God carries with him mystery. He always has it with him , as he does many things. Love is always with God , power is always present with him." Lightening" is always around God. So these things have their origin with God. " Sound" is always around God. Jesus is always around God. " Peace" is always present with God.

God is constant ; with him " Origins are always constant."

[Baile]

I don't have a belief about this. But I connect with the Hermetic view, essentially: The ALL dreams; and we are that dream. And every "meaning of life" question can be answered by understanding the difference between relative and absolute truth. Because both exist.

Material life is real.
True from a relative pov (human).
Not true from an absolute pov (The ALL).

Our experiences are an illusion.
Not true from a relative pov (human).
True from an absolute pov (The ALL).

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by Baile

I don't have a belief about this. But I connect with the Hermetic view, essentially: The ALL dreams; and we are that dream. And every "meaning of life" question can be answered by understanding the difference between relative and absolute truth. Because both exist.

Material life is real.
True from a relative pov (human).
Not true from an absolute pov (The ALL).

Our experiences are an illusion.
Not true from a relative pov (human).
True from an absolute pov (The ALL).

I connect with the biblical view , it has God and Christ as " The All." Col. 3:11. The Hermetic view is certainly of interest. The similarities in " The All" seem selective , but those common pressures I think had a lot to do with " The Origin of Civilization." Simply put , the " Way people have lived" can open the ancient reason as to how they lived or came about living. Now our new friends have to be history , archaeology and religion ,they now have to join our list of matter and science. No matter what groups believed or how they lived , the important thing is that social structure depends upon the communication between individuals ; things began to move outside of those parameters when individuals or groups claimed communication with spirits or gods.

We tracked that so called communication , or one could say evolution of communication , through the evolution of " Language."

[Baile]

Originally Posted by mickiel

The Hermetic view is certainly of interest.

I studied various Christian views for three decades. I'm not set on any one view. I could imagine we were put here by an alien race if someone came up with an argument that sounded reasonable.

The truth is not in any belief, idea or thing outside me.
The truth is in my human consciousness, in my ability to imagine and reason.