Primitive Awareness

     Without any sense of surroundings, or internal conditions, life is only a complex set of co-joined molecules capable of using a chemically coded structure to select, attract and order molecules as a way of duplicating themselves. The bio-mechanical reproductive process of cell division is not simple and developed very slowly over millions of years.  Life isn’t simple. Life’s basic processes aren’t simple, and we are a long way from explaining how organic molecules first joined to start performing this amazing trick.  

     The creative processes we observe in both the micro and macro physical world around us exhibit patterns of hierarchical steps of increasing complexity. Electrons, protons and neutrons join to become atoms. Atoms join to become molecules and molecules join to become chemical substances which in turn join to become the stuff of nature and life. If living forms follow these same hierarchical patterns of developing complexity, we may be able to deduce a sequence of events for the advent of life and awareness that we can test scientifically. Nature appears to test combinational possibilities ad hoc and without end. Throw basic materials and basic forms of energy into an empty space with unlimited time available and let the experiment begin. With a nearly infinite amount of experimental material, unlimited time, and a few joining forces, all possibilities will eventually be tested. From our limited perspective this seems to be a very inefficient process, but we are observers created by the very process we are observing. Criticizing the efficiency of the process that formed our ability to criticize the process is certain to be futile.  The book of natural creation is open. We have been given the tools to read nature’s book, and it is an amazing story. Science is closing in on the details of life’s beginnings, but while this tedious process takes place, we can skip ahead and peek at a few possibilities using the unscientific method of deductive investigation.

     We observe organic molecules in abundance on and off the earth, and could easily assume that nature flooded the Universe with these molecules in order to insure the advent of life. To support this assumption we have discovered that two of the essential elements needed for life, water and amino acids, have been delivered to our planet directly from space by comets and meteorites and have been produced naturally on earth by lightning cursing through volcanic clouds. Any claim that the production and delivery of life’s essential compounds as purposeful however, becomes suspect when the great abundance of molecules created by natural processes is appreciated. Without empirical evidence, any imposition of hidden intent can lead us to false conclusions. Amino acids are called organic molecules not because all amino acids are attached to life but because all life on earth uses various forms of amino acids. The fallacious syllogism; (All white horses have four hooves; I just saw an animal with four hooves; therefore it must be a white horse), illustrates this logical error. If life is a natural result of ascending complexities, it seems reasonable that living forms would be made from available materials. With enough basic molecules necessary for life populating the environment, and with a propensity to join naturally when prompted by an occasional stimulus, it seems reasonable that all joining possibilities would eventually be tested. We can reasonably assume that the hierarchical complexity we observe in other aspects of nature also exists in the joining of the basic ingredients of living forms, including the development of a state of awareness.

     When we observe reactive behavior in very simple living forms we observe single celled life reacting to contact, responding to light and adjusting to changes in their chemical surroundings. In each case a specific part of the cell is responding to an external stimulus. Living cells at this stage are already complex, have had their complexity naturally selected and contain many internal components. If a general vector for the development of life through natural selection could be drawn, it would point in the direction of increasing complexity. From naturally formed amino acid chains to the human brain, complexity adds survival advantages.

     The next step in complexity, beyond single celled life began as early cell congregates exploited the advantages of loose cell groupings, Congregates of cells with slightly different reactive characteristics created a symbiotic survival improvement over a separated existence. In Earth’s early atmosphere of methane, carbon dioxide, sulfur and sulfuric acid, some cyanic bacteria formed themselves into layers to survive and exploit these early conditions and flourished in such abundance they poisoned the entire atmosphere with the by-product of their respiration, (oxygen). As life adjusted to a new atmosphere, grouping tendencies gained additional favor and cell congregates became more complex. As additional congregational diversity continued to be a useful survival technique cells, in close proximity within these congregates, began to communicate with each other through simple chemical exchanges. Responsiveness to external conditions improved as light sensitive cells began to alert their neighbor cells to an opportunity or a threat. Survival advantage developed further in early cell congregates as responses were added to identify vibration, pressure, temperature, and chemical conditions. The complexity vector of natural selection begin pointing at increasing awareness very early in life’s development, and the seeds for both rudimentary sensory organs, cellular communications and neural control centers were all on nature’s early selection list.