Awareness v. Darwin

Whether or not Darwin had a problem with awareness, or even treated of it, the essential problem in current times with science and evolution is that it ignores awareness, assuming that that approach, so fruitful in the past can carry it yet further. Or even that that is part of the definition of science. The investigation of the physical universe, neglecting the effects of awareness since it hasn't yet been demonstrated that that is part of the physical universe.

This would seem to be an extension of the inescapable duality of mind and body, even though anyone can see that they cannot be separated without damaging the picture that emerges. After all these same scientists are using their own awareness as the main tool of their research.

So, granting that research assuming the absence of awareness is valuable since it exposes mechanisms that would be invisible because of the importance of awareness acknowledged, still we should keep in mind that awareness is there and is having some effect.

A number of questions arise regarding awareness. Is it passive or active, that is, does it matter? If it is incapable of acting, then it can safely be ignored. If it is capable of acting, how far down in scale does that capability extend? To the chicken? To the ant? To the bacterium? If the bacterium is aware and can act, then are its actions important to survival? Is it capable of self repair as an act of awareness rather than some sort of automatic response engineered by natural selection?

From the other perspective, how is natural selection operating at the bacterial level? We can see at the level of the animal, natural selection operates in two ways. The female makes a choice and the animal either survives the environment or not. In either case, some are chosen and some are not. In the first instance, awareness is the main factor, since choosing is a function of awareness. In the second, awareness has a lesser role.

In the plant kingdom the same two factors are operating. Bees are choosing one flower over another and the weather is having its say.

At the level of bacteria, we can assume again that the environment is having its impact. Ultra violet radiation is either being dealt with or it is not. We can also see choice in operation here when viruses choose a host, so what should we conclude from that?

Science likes to distinguish awareness from intelligence. Dogs can't take IQ tests and this is thought to be crucial. So, since the ability to take an IQ test is a result of objective awareness, the characters being manipulated are objects, this will be the factor that is thought to be critical. Can we extend this difference to fairly reach the conclusion that subjective awareness is incapable of engineering, for example?

Dogs don't seem to be doing any engineering, though bees do and so do viruses. Viruses, in their life cycle appear to replicate themselves in a host, construct a spaceship, fly it around their space looking for another suitable host, land it bottom down, and inject themselves into the host via a proboscis feature built into their transport. That sounds like engineering to me. How is that different from the engineering that humans do?

Where is the source of awareness? We are aware and the brain would seem to be the source of that awareness. However, ants are also aware and no brain seems to be available as a source of awareness, so maybe the nervous system is capable of awareness. Taking intentional movement as a sign of awareness, we see that all life exhibits intentional movement. Can we then assume awareness in all life?

In fact, how do we define life. The common scientific definition is self replicating, self maintaining, and growing. Replication seems to be key and recombinant DNA the act of genius. Since DNA is included in all, thus far discovered, life forms, why not make that the determinant? As life develops and reproduction becomes necessary as a means of dealing with entropy, a record is needed to function as a blueprint for another iteration. Or, on the other hand, perhaps the record comes first and is a random construction of natural forces. But, even in that case, how to imagine recombining two split halves of a DNA strand as a result of random interaction with the environment and natural selection?

Of course the only alternative is that awareness exists in a virus and it was capable at some distant time of recognizing the utility of this feature and somehow bringing it into existence.

In the past, when confronted by the amazing complexity of life people had to resort to God as a shorthand way of explaining the unexplainable.

We should probably not give up so soon.

One has to imagine that the motive, however it came about, of recombining was to overcome damage. The environment was damaging DNA with radiation and some technique for repair was needed. Perhaps some random event supplied the initial idea, this is not to be doubted. The randomness of the environment is easily capable of starting one on the road to a solution. But, generally only a start is to be expected. Intelligence is necessary to know of the need and to recognize the suggested solution in the natural event.

Recognizing intelligence at work is not so easy. Imagine yourself as an alien in a spaceship hovering above the earth trying to decide if the undoubted dominant life form, the automobile, is an intelligent entity or contains one that is responsible for the vehicle. Since the plans are located elsewhere and would be unintelligible even if discovered, the answer to this question isn't clear. We can imagine levitating an automobile to the space ship and cutting it in half and trying to dissect it into its component parts. But, trying to demonstrate that it is the product of intelligence or natural selection would undoubtedly elude us. After all, it is both.

The function of recombining DNA, especially in the event of damage, is daunting to consider. First, the design of DNA had to be in the form of a redundant entity in which one half is the mirror image of the other. Then it has to be capable of splitting down the middle and plugging itself into another strand also split from its other half. Thus, each rung would seem to have to recognize in some way the rung on the other that it is to attach to and have the desire to do so. Well, we can imagine that the design is intricate and only correct halves will fit into one another, and that some error is not only tolerated but needed. And that some chemical is designed to produce the breaking into halves and another is designed to force recombination. If damage exists, then random parts, floating in solution will be drawn towards the only place they can fit and eventually a new and complete entity results.

We now have to consider whether this sequence of events can be expected to happen given an unlimited amount of time randomly, one step at a time in sequence. That is imaginable if there is some chooser that recognizes the advancements as they occur as valuable. Some entity is needed here to emulate the function of the female of the species in choosing a better design of male. So, once more, awareness raises its scientifically ugly head.

So, what we arrive at is a function for awareness, distinct from that of conscious awareness in the design of life. Awareness, even at the level of the virus is functioning, but not in the sense of projecting into the future as does consciousness. Awareness is doing the same job but in an experiential way. Each step of the way is observed and judgment is passed on whether what is seen is an advancement in pursuit of the goal of survival. So, it doesn't have to be thinking ahead to a comprehensive solution or thinking at all, it just has to be pleased by each step in some way so that selection occurs. All of the actual new construction is the result of random events, though one can imagine that the life form recognizes that some circumstances make the hoped for random event more likely. The actual act of awareness, though, is in choosing amongst several possibilities.

So, choosing occurs when the virus looks over its potential homes in the various cells it encounters. It won't want one already inhabited by a brother. It will want one that contains the raw materials it needs.

A Model of Life