Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 23 Nov 2015


Taken: 23 Nov 2015

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Keywords

CA
SF
Lands end
Richard Feynman
Excerpt
Evolving the Mind
Author
A G Cairns-Smith


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Atom with consciousness

Atom with consciousness
There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison
Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the Sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the Universe.

"Atoms with Consciousness" ~ Richard Feynman

Comments
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
The idea that consciousness might be a macroquantum** effect of some sort has quite a long history. In 1970 Evan Walker proposed such a theory. Walker was particularly impressed with the way in which consciousness seems to be ‘an onset phenomenon’ as he called it, that is to say something which happens quite suddenly when a certain general level of brain activity is reached, and remarks that there might be an analogy here with certain other onset phenomena such as condensation. Walker’s theory depends on delocalised electrons connecting and acting on distant synapeses tht are appropriately structured. Based as it is on elector mobility, it is a kind of superconductivity theory. For it to work there would have to be ‘intermediary molecules distributed throughout the brain that the electron can use as “stepping stones” in making the transition from one synapse to another.’ ~ Page 269

** A macroscopic quantum state is a state of matter in which macroscopic properties, such as mechanical motion, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and viscosity, can be described only by quantum mechanics rather than merely classical mechanics.


Evolving the Mind
12 months ago. Edited 12 months ago.

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