Darwinism, Creationism and The Seed

The Darwinist contention on life's' origins is diametrically opposed to the Creationist thesis. Creationists proffer that each kind of life was designed separately. Each extant type of life was individually made, in a period of seven days, six thousand years ago. The claim is that no two types are related, and no new types have been made since then. They are adamant the different forms of organisms like Birds, Reptiles, Mammals, etc. are absolutely unrelated and may not form a single common family tree.

Both Darwinist and Creationist agree that Individuals of a given type can be related, forming a single common family tree. For example individuals with the same grandmother are related. First cousins are second generation descendants of the same grandparent. Each cousin's parent is a first generation “copy” of the 1st cousins' grandma. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins are her 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th generation descendants. Grandma above is the "mother" of these descendants. 4-great-grandmother, 3-great-grandmother, 2-great-grandmother, great-grandmother, grandmother, mothers, sisters, aunts, first, second, third, fourth and fifth cousins are related by common family roots. When grandparents, parents and aunts (sadly) pass away the generations of cousins may not have been told of their family ties. A Creationist and a Darwinist would concur that all the different kinds of people alive today are literally cousins. We are just unaware of our common genealogy.

Creationist adherents insist, arbitrarily, that different types of family trees are unrelated; family relationships are forbidden beyond the borders of the fixed family types. They insist the different family trees are separated by permanent walls. The Darwinist begs to disagree. We argue that genealogical history may logically extend beyond "permanently fixed" types. We insist that unique types of "family trees" are simply different offshoots from the same tree. We prove this contention by digging deep into the ancient primeval history of life, piecing the jigsaw puzzle of life  together to reveal the family ties that bind all different extinct and extant forms of life into one family tree. Contrary to the unproven thesis of separate design of types, the Birds and the Bees, Reptiles and Mammals, all Flora and Fauna, and all other currently existing forms of life are descendants of an ancient and long forgotten "lost mother". Birds, reptiles, mammals, monkeys, mice and men are all cousins.

Evolution by Natural Selection contends that, as an organism thrives to sustain its survival, growth and development, by adaptive changes to new environments, it radiates into a myriad of different life forms. In so doing, branches grow on the Tree of Life.

This contention implies that the Tree of life had fewer branches in the past. Taken to its logical conclusion then, eons ago, it must have been a mere seed. How on Earth  did its seed arise? Earth's accumulation of complex chemistry was the basis for a living seed to arise. The tale I am about to tell is based on a true life story; names have been changed to protect the innocent. . .

About three and half to four billion years ago, after hundreds of millions of years of Earth chemistry development, the nucleic acid molecules, ribonucleic acid (RNA), and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules emerged. As I started to say, Earth had the potential to bear The Seed of The Tree of Life. This potential laid in DNA and RNA. What makes RNA and DNA especially unique among all other molecules is that they just happen to have the inherent property of replication, or self-cloning. That is, they can copy themselves. Their method of replication is called "complementary base pairing". Let me explain:

RNA and DNA, the two types of nucleic acid molecules, are extremely long chains of four different types of "beads". DNA beads are Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), adenine (A) and Thymine (T); the first three of the DNA beads are also found in RNA but the fourth DNA bead is replaced by Uracil (U) in RNA. In both DNA and RNA, G will only bond with C to make the pair, GC. In RNA, A will only pair up with U (AU). In DNA, A will only pair with T (AT). For example, an RNA strand:

GGGUUUUUUGACCAUGA


Will pair up thus:

The G's will only attach C's; the U's, A's, creating the RNA strand:

              CCCAAAAAACUGGUACU

Then          CCCAAAAAACUGGUACU



Will do the same, creating the RNA strand:



              GGGUUUUUUGACCAUGA

This is an identical copy of the original RNA strand.
In RNA, GC and AU are exclusive twosomes, or they are the complement of each other only. Similarly, in DNA, GC and AT are exclusive twosomes.
 

The chemical nature of G, C, A, U AND T beads is partly alkaline and partly acidic. Another name for alkaline is "base". Complementary base pairing simply means the base portion of G will exclusively pair up only with the base portion of C, and the base portion of A will exclusively pair up only with the base portion of U (or T in DNA). The acid part (phosphoric acid) of each bead (called a nucleotide) has a sugar component. RNA beads have "ribose" sugars; DNA nucleotides have "deoxyribose" sugars. The sugar-phosphate portion of each nucleotide forms the back bone of the RNA and DNA molecules they form when they string together. The details of the backbone is not shown in the above RNA strands. A piece of a DNA backbone made up of deoxyribose sugar and a phosphate, and a piece of RNA backbone made up of ribose sugar and a phosphate attached to their base are illustrated below:

The RNA nucleotide molecule above is just a tiny portion of a hugely long molecular strand of, at minimum, two thousand beads, consisting of a mix of these four nucleotides.

The backbone is made up of a ribose sugar molecule and a phosphoric acid molecule that attaches either a C, G, A or U. When an RNA strand forms (or DNA double-strand forms) for example with its back bone showing you have:

...SugarAcid-SugarAcid-SugarAcid-SugarAcid...

      |         |         |        |         

      A         U         U        G 

        

But whereas RNA is single-stranded, DNA is double-stranded (double-helix because its two strands are braided together in the shape of a figure "8"):

::dSugarAcid-dSugaracid-dSugarAcid

      |          |         |

      T          T         C                

      A          A         G       
::dSugarAciddSugarAciddSugarAcid   

                

                                 

The back bone of DNA, as you can see, has a slightly different ribose sugar, called deoxyribose sugar (the difference is that ribose has one more oxygen atom than deoxyribose). Threesomes of RNA nucleotides are called triplets, or a CODON. Each codon is the genetic code word for a specific amino acid. For example the genetic code word for the amino acid Serine is UCG, and GCA is the code word for Alanine. There are twenty amino acids; each is paired up with a specific codon. There are sixty-four codons (more than one codon can code for the same amino acid – see the table below). A protein is a specific sequence or string of amino acids. Genes are small portions of the gigantically super long  DNA molecule (by way of comparison, if a gene or RNA strand was an inch in length, a DNA strand would be as tall as the Empire State Building). Each gene is the code for a specific protein. When a DNA molecule copy’s itself this is called replication.

When an RNA copy, called an mRNA (the "m" stands for "messenger"), is made of a gene, which is a small portion of DNA, this is transcription. The mRNA is “read”, or translated from the language of nucleic acid into amino acid language by protein synthesizers called Ribosomes. Specific "Transfer" RNA's (tRNA)transport their specific amino acids to ribosome sites where protein manufacture takes place. A ribosome attaches the specific amino acid to its codon: For example Serine is attached only to the triplet UCG, Alanine only to GCA, Glycine to GGC and so on resulting in a very long amino acid chain. This is a protein.

.... UCG GCA GAG UUC GGC....

      |   |   |   |   |

     Ser-Ala-Glu-Phe-Gly

One of the smallest proteins, hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells, is made up of three amino acid chains, with each chain consisting of at least 144 amino acids.

The DNA molecule is a humongously huge double-stranded molecule consisting of millions of the four different nucleotides per strand.


When DNA replicates the two strands unzip from each other. Each strand acts as a template to manufacture its opposite half. Hence when DNA self copies, each half simultaneously copies its other half to give two identical clones of DNA molecules.

RNA replicates itself in two stages. In the first stage RNA uses itself as a template to create a clone that’s its negative. The original RNA strand is replicated in the second stage when the clone negative acts as its template. In life processes, RNA (mRNA) is made in one step; The mRNA is copied, or transcribed, directly from the gene in a DNA template strand.

As shown in the table above, the genetic code consists of twenty amino acids that are associated with sixty-four nucleic acid codons. Two to up to four nucleotide triplets code for a specific amino acid. For example, you can see from the table above that the triplets UUU and UUC are the only two triplets coding for Phenylanaline, while the four triplets CCU, CCC, CCA, CCG code for Proline. The only four exceptions are Tryptophan (UGG) and Methionine (AUG) with one triplet each, and Leucine (CUU, CUC, CUA, CUG, UUA, UUG) and Arginine (CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA, AGG) with six triplets each.

The genetic code, consisting OF twenty amino acids and sixty-four nucleotide codons (triplets), is universal. If you examine any protein in any organism you will discover that they are only made up of the amino acids and the Gene codons in the table above. The table shows that Tryptophan for example is only coded for by the triplet UGG. Tryptophan in any protein in any one of the millions of organism is only coded for by that one particular triplet.

It begs the question: if each type of life form, the Bird, the Reptile, the mammal, people, etc., were made uniquely, why is that not even one of them have a unique genetic code? Just as every  ethnic group developed a unique culture due to unique historical experiences, you would expect that, if each species was designed separately they would have their own unique "genetic culture". In other words, there should be different tables of genetic code for each type: one for The Bird,  another for The Reptile and a different one for mammals. What are the chances that thirty million species were lucky enough to have the identical genetic code in the table above? A miracle you say? Why is my tryptophan code, UGG, the same in every single individual organism, from a bacteria, to a whale, to an oak tree? It is no miracle, and it is no longer a mystery; there is a rational Darwinian answer. The best explanation that accounts for all the genetic and fossil record data and the observed family tree pattern of life is that a living cell that evolved the above code by Natural Selection passed it on to its descendants. All organisms share this exact same code because every single one of us is descended from this cell. This primeval cell is our common ancestor.

Life on Earth today is an unbroken chain extending back to this “Mother” of all life.

And the Life-Tale continues . . . Evolution, without its beating heart, Natural Selection, would have remained just a potential. In the absence of replicators Natural Selection would have nothing to do, and would have remained in suspended animation. With an idle Natural Selection, Evolution would not get off the ground. The Seed would not come to be without Evolution and Natural Selection. The happenstance of the molecular replicators, RNA and DNA, Four billion years ago, dramatically changed everything. The natural chemical emergence of these replicators stimulated its heart to start beating with a purpose, and Evolution awakened. The birth of the embryonic Seed of Life, with Natural Selection as midwife, would become a reality.

Self-cloning DNA established a growing colony of DNA replicators. The population was comprised of various types; AlphaDNA, Beta varieties, DNA- π and DNA~1 forms. The environment was  mainly DNA~1 friendly. These types were preferentially favored. Gradually, over many generations of selective environmental nurturing of DNA~1's and suppression of the growth of the other types, only this form continued to flourish. The others turned out maladaptive and disappeared over time. The once variety-laden DNA colony, thru Natural Selection, transformed and evolved into DNA~1. After several descendant generations, DNA~1 variants appeared due to random copying errors - subgroups DNA~1A, DNA~1H, DNA~1j, DNA~1^f, DNA~1{{5}}and DNA~1red[10]. The colony was largely made up of subgroup DNA~1A. 

A population comprised of the above DNA~1 subgroups became isolated in a new and different land. The sign to its entrance flashed “RED[10]!!. . .RED[10]!!. . .RED[10]!!. . .YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED INTO RED[10], RESISTANCE IS FUTILE”. This region turned out to be DNA~1red[10] friendly and was not favorable to the other types in "The Lost Colony". Though the other subgroup struggled bravely to survive, slowly but surely, after preferential selection over hundreds of generations, the inevitable happened. All the other groups of "Lost Colony" failed to adapt, save one. Only the descendant lines of DNA~1red[10] were successful.

Another group from the original DNA~1 colony, "The 2nd Lost Tribe", became hopelessly trapped in a whole other country, called Death Valley Country. Except for being DNA~1{{5}} friendly, The Valley proved to be a DNA~1 "killing field". Due to Its unrelenting weeding out of all other variants, only "The Chosen Children of Death Valley", DNA~1{{5}} descendant lines, prospered. "The Tribe" was transformed and evolved into DNA~1{{5} and the land was forever known as "DNA~1{{5} country".



Suddenly an apocalyptic earthquake split the land into four pieces, and creating a deep chasm between the newly formed lands. The original DNA~1 colony was splintered into four population groups that were forever separated from each other. The isolated regions were known as The Southern Steppe, The Northern Prong, The Western FireWall and The Eastern Wings. Only DNA~1A's  were allowed to "sit" on the Steppe; all others were pushed off to their death. After fifteen hundred generations only DNA~1H's could survive the jabbings of The Prong. The FireWall scorched and blocked out all variants except favoring one, DNA~1^f. And only DNA~1j types could soar effortlessly on The Wings. Selection by each environ caused each of the four isolated colony groups to evolve into a type adapted to each specific region, weeding out and suppressing the development of the other forms.

The DNA~1red[10] and the DNA~1{{5}} colonies were more complex compared to DNA~1A. Thus, due to Natural selection, DNA evolved increasing complexity. Also six new branches of DNA evolved from DNA~1: DNA~1red[10],  DNA~1{{5}}, DNA~1A, DNA~1H, DNA~1j and DNA~1^f.

Eventually Natural Selection bred DNA/RNA cooperatives. After hundreds of millions of years of environmental adaptations these cooperatives evolved into DNA/RNA monolithic union blocs. When a bloc cloned itself, it produced a carbon copy monolith.

After a billion years of natural selection, a bloc of DNA gene replicators and RNA replicators, housed in a protective shell, evolved. This first cell was The Seed of The Tree of Life. This cell is the last universal common ancestor, or the LUCA, of all life on the Earth   

As the LUCA thrived to sustain its survival, growth and continued development, by adaptive changes to new environments, its descendants sprouted the first two of the three major branches of life, three and a half billion years ago; ARCHAEA and BACTERIA, the first two different types of prokaryotic cell. The third major branch, EUKARYA, the first animal and plant cell, arose about one billion years ago. Germinating from the LUCA, the tree of life evolved into existence. It continues to grow and branch out through the process of natural selection.


Creationist supporters are adept at designing a Straw Man Model of Darwinism. This model rests on the false premise that evolution's essence is random chance. Then they say how absurd it is to believe that the eye, for example, so complexly exquisite, could organize itself just from shaking up the eye parts until they accidentally connected together perfectly into a complex eye. This, of course, is absolutely absurd nonsense. Evolution by Natural Selection is not premised on such a ridiculous notion; it’s not "Evolution by Random Accident". Natural Selection is nonrandom. The transformation of a species form from one adaptive form to another adaptive species form involves almost imperceptible small adaptive changes over hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of generations of species descendant lines. A variant within the species may develop a light-sensitive patch of skin. If having a light-sensitive patch of skin is a survival tool, and not having any or too little is a survival disadvantage, then a variant so possessed might leave more off springs in the next generation. The genetic trait for light-sensitive skin patch will slowly spread through the breeding population. Natural Selection tends to preferentially nurture and amplify survival traits, or the fittest variants. It also suppresses the development of ill-adapted variants. After many generations the population would be typically dominated by the light patch variant. To continue, the light-sensitive patch gradually, over millions of years, evolved into patches with improved sensitivity. It would not be wrong to say that useful improvements in the sensitivity of the light patch were produced by random accidental mutations. Cloning errors result in accidental mutants. Typically most mutants prove to be maladaptive and may fail to thrive. One or a few mutants might have a larger or more sensitive light-sensitive patch just by accident. If this turns out to be a survival advantage over other variants, perhaps more and more generations will have a larger and larger amount of this variant. The point is that light patch improved variants are preferentially selected and nonrandomly favorably accumulate in the population. Preferential amplification of a variant by selection can be so unrelenting that the population gene pool may not have any individuals left without that advantageous trait. As an aside, the advantages of sight as a survival tool caused many animals to independently nonrandomly evolve several different types of eyes, and it was slow going; the evolution of the eye took on the order of about forty million years to perfect. Insects evolved a variety of compound eyes. The house fly has two compound eyes, with each eye having four thousand lenses! Frogs evolved an eye sensitive to subtle movements (watch a frog grab a moving fly with its tongue). A spider has seven to eight eyes. And the visual acuity of the eagle on the wing is legendary. Owls eyes are so sensitive that they can see prey in almost pitch darkness. Some snakes have eyes that can perceive in the infrared part of the spectrum, and honey bees with their five eyes can see in the ultraviolet.






Let me illustrate that Evolution by Natural Selection is definitely not a purely accidental random process. You are out for a stroll in the woods. You end up in a meadow where you see all kinds of wild flowers and plants. Wild roses catch your fancy. Different varieties of roses are growing randomly all over the meadow. You are a connoisseur of aesthetics, and the Red Rose you find most aesthetically pleasing. You carefully choose a bunch of red roses from among a wide choice of wild varieties. As you walk through the bushy woods you hear baby animals whining. Low and behold it’s a litter of abandoned Gray Wolf pups! They are so irresistibly adorable! And it would be heartless to leave them in that cave where they would surely perish! You bundle the nine little cutie pies and drive home.

What have you done? You made a deliberate selection for various reasons of preference. The deliberate choices you've made from a random variety of wild life is a kind of "nonrandom selection". This could rightly be termed nonrandom Artificial Selection. Plants and animals go through a similar process, naturally. There are all kinds of seeds and animals accidentally entering a region of land by wind, rain, swimming, walking, drifting in from the sea, so on and so forth. Those plants and animals that thrive best in the land will preferentially remain there. Those finding that they are poorly adapting will leave if they are able or become scarce from leaving less and less poorly adapting off springs. The better adapted plants and animals leave more off springs and because they are better adapted like their parents they too grow up and breed more than the other poorly adapting animals and plants. The environment, like you, can said to be deliberately nonrandomly selecting from among various plants and animals randomly entering that particular region ; and this could be rationally termed environmental nonrandom "Natural Selection".



As the pups grow you take an especial liking to a particular individual; she seems to have "personality". You lavish her with special adoration to the point of giving her the most care and attention. She reaches maturity and becomes a mom. As her litter grows there are two or three of her pups who have "personality" but much more than mom. From one generation to the next you consistently select the ones with the best and most personality. This continual selective breeding of personality has been acutely nonrandom on your part.
From accidental randomly occurring pup varieties, you have preferentially selected and bred those Gray Wolf pups with "personality". This Wolf is so different from all other types of wolves you could reasonably say it is no longer any kind of wolf. You seemed to have evolved a new kind of animal whose ancestor was an abandoned Gray Wolf pup. Over thirty thousand years of breeding, in human environmental settings, a Gray Wolf was transformed. Today we call this animal a Chihuahua, a Great Dane, a Poodle, a Shih Tzu, a Rottweiler; in other words, "A DOG".

GRAY WOLF PUPS ABOVE

Chihuahua pup

Great Dane pup

Poodle pup

Shih Tzu pup



Rottweiler pup

Nonrandom human-environment Artificial Selection evolved The Dog from a Gray Wolf pup. Similarly, a natural stable environment can evolve one kind of animal by naturally selecting from among random accidentally occurring traits, thus transforming one species of animal into a new species by a process of nonrandom Natural Selection.
Evolution depends both on accidentally occurring random traits and nonrandom Natural Selection. Without variety that spontaneously arises, Natural Selection has nothing from which to choose and preferentially nurture. This nonrandom selective nurturing and amplification or augmentation of a chosen trait or traits, from spontaneously arising random characteristics, is responsible for the transformation of one form into another. That is, evolution.

What is our origins, what is your origin, what is my origin? I am a prodigious number of copies of a single cell from my mother. When my mother was a baby she was a growing cooperative of  billions of  copies of a single cell from my grandmother. Grandma is a cache of tens of trillions of copies of a  living cell inherited from her mother. And great-grandma was a . . . All humans are descendant copies  of a  cell from the "mother of all generations". If you walk the time line backwards we eventually reach the first cell. As time moves forward from that seed, it generates more descendant lines. The Seed's cell copies and cell copy collectives, thru natural selection, evolved into the different types of living organisms. Each type of organism is a different branch, twig, bud or leaf of the same family tree.



So, what’s my biological human story? I grew from a twenty-three pair DNA chromosome cell. Half of the genes in my DNA chromosomes came from mom and the other half came from dad; this cell became a zygote which transformed into an embryo. The embryo that was me coming into being grew into a fetus, unfolded into a Homo sapiens baby who grew up in a family of humans to be a dad. You probably have a similar story to tell about your origins.

What about our family tree. How do we figure into the Darwinian scheme of things? No doubt most of us have heard of Eve. According to The Bible, Eve was the first woman and we are all her descendants. Well, there was a real "Eve". She is called "Mitochondrial Eve" and she actually lived on the continent of Africa about one hundred fifty thousand years ago. She is actually one of the last common ancestors of all human beings alive today. The human fossil record shows evidence tracing our roots to Africa; it turns out all of us are Africans: Black, White, Chinese, Indians, all races, all ethnicities can trace their family trees right back to this one woman who actually lived those thousands of years ago! How did we track the real "Eve" down? Through Mitochondrial DNA research; from our sisters' and mothers' mitochondrial DNA. MtEve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor (MRC-MA), on our mother's side,  with which all humans alive today share the same Mitochondrial DNA  variant. Hers is the only descendant line of her contemporaries that stretch to the present time; all the other descendant lines (her sisters, her aunts, her cousins her neighbors) died out without reaching the present day. Only the descendant generations carrying her mitochondrial DNA variant are alive today. The mitochondrial DNA variants in each and every one of us are from the branching of her mitochondrial DNA. In other words,  The mutation that gave rise to the Mitochondrial DNA variant was passed on to all of us from "Eve". We honest to goodness all belong to the same family! All mitochondrial DNA passes down through the female line only, never from the male line (sperm cannot pass on mitochondrial DNA, only [female] eggs can). But Ahh! There is a "Y-chromosomal Adam". There was an actual living breathing African man, who lived about one sixty-eight thousand years ago, whose Y-chromosome DNA copies passed down through his generations to us male. No, Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam never dated. He is called Y-chromosomal Adam because he is the most recent common patrilineal ancestor (MRC-PA), on our father's side, with whom all of us (males) share the same Y-chromosome DNA. The fossils of humans collected over the last one hundred and fifty years were used to trace our human ancestral line right back to Africa. However, conclusive corroborating proof came from female mitochondrial DNA and male Y-Chromosome DNA studies.



There is unanimous consensus within the scientific community that Darwinism is supported by overwhelming scientific peer reviewed evidence. Creationists have provided not one scintilla of scientific evidence to support their thesis. Their "theories" cannot pass muster. Under the withering floodlights of scientific peer review, there’s have been proven to be pseudoscience.

Pieces are still being added to the evolutionary jigsaw. It’s not complete but the outlines of the big picture are clear. Contrary to creationism, we are not strangers to each other with alien natures. We either thrive together as the family that we are or wither in lonely isolation. Thriving as one we develop our growth potential. We are the tree of life evolving in wisdom, with strength renewed through nurturing in the soil of Natural Selection.

 

   

 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE UNIVERSE

The universe has no independent life outside of consciousness.  It’s a blank dead canvass that becomes brilliantly animated only when consciousness paints it red green and gold.  It only takes shape when consciousness renders its formlessness into an infinity of variety of styles.  It only becomes melodious when consciousness generates the music of the spheres.

A nice metaphor is a Star Trek DVD. 

If you look at the DVD all there is on close examination are pits burnt into it.  you will never find anywhere on that 6-inch platter the complex combinations of colors, shapes, forms, and sounds that fleshes out the story lines and breathes life into the characters; no dynamic full-of-life dramatics.  Without the DVD player the Star Trek story would never make a splash.  Without the DVD player the epic drama would never unfold.  Without the DVD player the characters could never live out their lives.  Stare at the disk.  It’s virtually dead without the player.  You experience no imagery, you hear no songs, and you are not enraptured by the spell binding oratory of the charismatic Captain James T. Kirk as he thunders on passionately with the icy and logical Mr. Spock. Without the DVD player there are no peals of laughter, no anguished wailing and gnashing of teeth on either side of the DVD.  You don’t observe the trials and triumphs of your favorite stars without the DVD player.  You don’t see the leading lady aglow, immersed in technicolored bedazzling panoramas, without that magic-making wand.  the adventures of the crew of The Starship Enterprise sailing at warp speed among the stars and the larger-than-life escapades of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Mr. Data and Geordi La Forge as they battle Klingons, compete with the Romulins for the galaxy and resist being assimilated by the Borgs, only burst onto the screen when you play the DVD in your Blu-Ray machine.  Without that spin doctor, the DVD dead dinks do not dramatize data-the-droid's daring dalliances.  And the still life imprisoned within the DVD. . . colorless, formless, motionless and silent. . . is a dream undecoded; a dream deferred.

Similarly, the physical universe has no color, no shape, no form nor dynamism without conscious awareness.  Without conscious awareness there is no nightingale chiming in the willow tree. Without conscious awareness no rainbows deck the heavens and there is no pot of gold.  Without conscious awareness there are no shimmering moon beams.  And without conscious awareness there would be no aurora borealis formations dancing in the northern skies.  You can’t smell the chrysanthemum or savor the sweet taste of a nectarine out there in the outside world without conscious awareness (playing it).  Only when it is "played" by consciousness does the pine in the forest explodes into existence standing tall and looming large.  The orchid does not have a scent when you are not around to smell it (play it).   And if you are not around (to play it), when the mighty oak crashes to the earth. . . 
it does so quietly. . . without a whimper. . . without a sound.

CHANCE, EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION, HUMAN DESIGN, DNA and GPS

On the one hand consider a bird and a smart plane. Throw The Bird skyward and say, "Bird, fly to area A". Then throw The Smart Plane skyward and say, "Smart Plane, Fly to area B".

On the other hand consider finding a bird-shaped stone and a plane-shaped stone that you per chance came across when you stubbed your toe on them. Now, in the same way, command The Stoned Bird, "Fly to area A", and Command The Stoned Plane "Fly to area B".

Almost a 100% of the time The Bird and The Smart Plane will reach their designated targets.  How is it that The Bird can overcome gravity, wind etc and reach its goal? The Smart Plane has built-in GPS that switches on and guides The Plane to "B".  Seasonal changes in The Bird's environment switches on its GPS and guides it to "A"

 It is not hard to guess why The Stones miss their designated targets 99.99% of the time. The Smart Plane can overcome  obstacles and vicissitudes to reach its goal as its  GPS gives it self-control over how it "falls".  There is a great deal of confidence that The Bird will succeed. The chances that the Stoned Bird will reach destination "A" is slim to none.  The Smart Plane is flying heads up with GPS sight. The Bird-shaped Stone flies blindly.  When you toss The Stones across the park they are strictly  under environmental influences that they have no power to resist; The Stoned Plane is twisted and flung, and so bounces around  here, there and hither. The Stoned Bird just "flies" uncontrollably.

  The similarities between The Bird and The Smart Plane are quite obvious but it is not always clear what makes them different. The Smart Plane's GPS  has "Designed by The Man" written all over it. The Man could not have programmed The Bird.  During the millions of years when The Bird was developing its GPS, the ancestors of The Man were mouse-sized rodents living in the shadow of The Dinosaur. True: a Stoned Bird and a Stoned Plane could have been around billions of years before The Bird and The Smart Plane took to soaring the skies in controlled flight. Maybe some lucky stone had a little GPS embedded in it. However, The Bird-shaped Stone with this tiny bit of GPS cannot make copies of itself and multiply.  The Stoned Bird will eventually crumble under the blind forces of nature, causing the accidentally acquired bit of GPS in it to disappear. An individual bird will eventually die, but, because it can multiply, the little bit of accidental GPS it acquired is preserved in its copies.  Over thousands of generations these copy/offsprings can accumulate improved GPS.  Unlike The Stones, The Bird was not shaped solely by chance.  Evolution by Natural Selection relentlessly weeds out the less fit and the unfit GPS birds, and keeps on improving the most successful ones.  The Stones can only "fly back" to Earth when flung into the air, and exactly where in the world they happen to land is anybody's  guess.

The Bird did not always have GPS.  How did it come to have GPS? Eons of time ago, within a bird population, one bird (let us call her Big Bird)just accidentally discovered a bit of GPS. Big Bird became more successful than the others, who had none. Its offspring, Little Bird, inherited its qualities. Little Bird's daughter, Grand Bird, had a bit more. It allowed Grand Bird to fly straighter, to have a greater range of access to more mates, food and breeding space.  A non-Big Bird descendant, lacking the advantages of GPS, left less and less offsprings within the population.  After many generations the population had mostly GPS equipped Big Bird descendants.

The Smart Plane did not always have GPS.  How did it come to have GPS?  Geeky Girl designed a simple GPS app for JetBlue.  JetBlue is now able to fly its passengers more quickly and safely to any desired locale, as compared to the non-GPS, Air Iguana.  Smart Geeky Girl, GG's Daughter, designed  a better version  for Air Spirit.  Caribbean Geeky Girl, GG's granddaughter, made a much better GPS app for Air Jamaica. More and more airlines competed.  The jets with the better and best GPS out-competed the poorer and non-GPS ones.

The Smart Plane's detail specs were written and assembled by The Man. The Stones' superficial  plane-and-bird likenesses were accidentally molded by random blind forces.  Bird GPS was perfected by thousands of bird generations slowly accumulating  chance improvements. And thousands of man-hours of preplanned design work went into advancing the perfection of The Smart Plane's improved GPS.

To reiterate, human  culture accumulates planned improvements. Fathers and mothers teach it to the next generation. The following generations add to the store of knowledge and teach it to their kids.  Much more slowly, bird "culture" (bird DNA, heredity) accumulates, stores and passes down GPS chance improvements genetically from one bird generation to the next.  For each lucky genetic improvement chanced upon, there are hundreds of thousands  of poorly serving "GPS gene" modifications that are rejected. Countless many mutant genes are tested by Natural Selection but only a scant rare few are not weeded out. These lucky discoveries of genetic gems accumulated slowly. Improvements are added by bird descendants stretching through epochs of time to the present. Tens of thousands of bird generations record these tidbits of "GPS" information within DNA heredity, thus passing on the cumulative stores to future generations.

 

So, the difference between the Smart Plane and The Bird is that one is designed and assembled by The Man and the other is self-designed and self-assembled by the bird's DNA.  Another difference is that it took The Man about 50 years to perfect GPS, but it took The Bird's DNA millions of years.  Once upon a time billions of years ago, by some quirk of chance (true story, no kidding), a certain type of stone got the ability to generate copies of itself. From that time forward that particular stone was known as The Replicator. It replicated copies of itself, and those copies replicated more copies of themselves. As time passed (millions and millions of years of time) The Replicator transformed and evolved into The RNA Replicator.  The RNA Replicator transformed and evolved into The DNA Replicator.  The DNA Replicator transformed and evolved into The Animal. The Animal transformed and evolved into The Bird and The Man. The Bird evolved built-in GPS first and The Man had no evolved built-in GPS at all. However, during those millions of years The Man had evolved The Intelligence and was able to design The Smart Plane with better built-in GPS (in which he flew to Paris faster than The Bird :).

The mode applied by The Smart Plane is The Man-designed preplanned assembly of various appropriate "Silicon Valley Stones". The mode employed by The Bird is self-assembly through Natural Selection of various appropriate "DNA Genetic Stones".  Of all the tens of millions of different types of molecular "stones",  only five kinds have the ability to naturally store information that leads to the evolution of The Dinosaur into The Bird and "The Mouse into The Man". These are the "genetic stones"  guanine, cytosine, adenine thymine and uracil(G, C, A, T, U).  

Stones on Earth without DNA are not evolvable. But, just by happenstance, a few may superficially resemble The Smart Plane and The Bird. "The birds and the bees" have "Designed by DNA Evolution" written all over them. However, the notion of a random plane-shaped stone and a random bird-shaped stone acquiring GPS navigation without being man designed or DNA designed just wont fly. 

 

Let’s look at a population of dice: marks on their six sides:

A, B, C, D, E, F.  Let’s call it the REDdie variant.  The chance of throwing an F is 1 in 6, or 16%.

The chance of throwing a Z is zero

An E on an unlucky (or lucky) die may accidentally change into (mutate into) an F.

Marks on this die: A, B, C, D, F, F. Lets call this variant REDDERdie).The chance of throwing an F is doubled:2 in 6, or 33%.

The chance of throwing a 2.02Z is zero.

A B as well as an E might accidentally mutate in an individual copy of REDdie.  Marks on die: A, F, C, D, F, F. Here we have variant REDDeepDIE. The chance of throwing an F is increased to 3 chances in 6, or a 50% chance.

The chance of throwing a 13.02Z is zero.

The above is all purely accidental, chance, luck, "miracles", acts of pure randomness. Evolution by pure chance is pure. . . well. . .  nonsense!

Yes.  Chance does play an important role in evolution.  If this is a breeding population of dice the above has it that the die species started out with a population of 100% REDdie.  Purely and spontaneously, by accident, a REDdie individual mutates into REDDERdie. Out of the blue, a cosmic ray slams into an individual of the original REDdie causing it to mutate into REDDeepDIE.

Among the three variants within the dice population, REDDeepDIE by chance acquire the ability to have offsprings fastest, with REDdie dice, the original, slowest. What may happen after some time is that the population of dice will consist of a majority REDDeepDIE and a smaller and smaller minority of REDdie. However, if the environment is such that REDDERdie makes the best fit it may thrive with greatest success and may out-compete the other two, even though it is not as fecund.  If the environment has a selective bias for one variant, chance matters less and less to its survival as compared to those that are the least adaptable.  Natural Selection can be viewed as a series of many sieves, one under the other.  If REDDeepDIE or REDDERdie variant descendants consistently passes through them, that particular variant is not simply being lucky.  Somewhere along the line one of its ancestors most surely acquired the adaptive ability by chance random mutation. But it is now nonrandomly being given a free pass through the sieves of Natural Selection because it has the best fit to the environment.

The variants of this breeding population REDdie, REDDERdie and REDDdeepDie have heritable qualities as well as non-heritable qualities. Only heritable qualities maybe nonrandomly preserved and consistently passed on down the generations.  And only heritable qualities may nonrandomly be weeded out of future generations consistently. 

What does it mean to say "The chance of throwing a. . .Z is zero"?  One, two, three or more individuals within the die species might all wear the same fad badge (Z) of identity regardless of belonging to different variants. However, only the heritable qualities of REDdie, REDDERdie and REDDdeepDie maybe consistently passed on by Natural Selection and improved or not improved by descendants. The expression is implying that, though the quality, Z, maybe accidentally acquired by various individuals within the die population, it is not of heritable quality; it is therefore not subject to Natural Selection. Only heritable traits are acted upon by Natural Selection's series of sifters. Passing fads like Z come and go at random because passing fads like Z do not affect survival within a given environmental niche.

If A, B, C, D, E, F qualities are the only ones that can be "thrown” (that is, the only heritable ones) then 2.02Z or 13.02Z (by definition of not being heritable qualities) cannot be "thrown".  Sure, all of the above qualities/traits (A to Z) are randomly changeable due to "the throwing of the dice" by blind unpredictable influences. The point about evolution is that the Natural Selection sieves are indifferent to changes in nonheritable traits, Z's. On the other hand, changes in the heritable traits (A, B, C, D, E, F) of living organic populations may nonrandomly affect the species survival fitness within their niches.  

Let’s move from A, B, C, D, E, F and Z to genes. Nucleic acid bodies (for example, the cache of genes/DNA within the human genome) store the information for growing amino acid bodies(for example, the cache of proteins/enzymes called a human being).  The latter's design specifications are stored in the former.  Random mutations in DNA may alter protein expression for better or for worse for the experience of an individual of a species.  A mutant gene allele that leaves the protein body it affects more adaptable in its environs than previous, may, at the expense of its other competing alleles, increase its frequency in the species gene pool (compare the frequency of the brown eye gene to the blue eye version/allele). If a protein mutates as a result of direct damage there is no consequence to the species DNA. On the other hand, direct damage/mutation of an individual gene may have widespread species consequences. For example, if Lindsey trashes her Optima, it is inconsequential to the future success of The KIA Optima. However, if the original KIA Optima blue prints are heavily damaged with the loss of some key specification information, this could prove to have grave widespread consequences in the manufacture of future Optimas.

Evolution will not occur solely by chance. A species evolutionary progress demands a combination of chance and selection. Random/chance gene mutations are necessary because it continually generates a wide variety of heritable DNA raw material within a species gene pool. But nonrandom/discriminating  Natural Selection is the final arbiter because it chooses what gene raw materials will advance the improvement of the organisms' fitness to their environments.

The Body & I

My body and I woke up feeling energized and in good spirits. My body felt renewed. I bounced up out of bed and stood stiffly upright on my knock-kneed legs. As my face and mouth contorted into a wide yawn my muscles shook all of my body. My arms stretched out taut seemingly reaching out to embrace the whole of humanity. My belly fat jiggled as I shook uncontrollably. A gaping noisy yawn from my throat brought tears rolling down the sides of my cheeks, and I was happy.

After enjoying a refreshing shower my body and I got dressed. There was an awful grumbling bellowing from my stomach. My body was saying that it was time to feed itself. I felt the freshness of the air as it was passing through my mouth filling up my body’s lungs with the life elixir of oxygen. I could feel my body’s powerful heart beating in the body's chest cavity as it pumped vigorously pouring more than a gallon of blood through all its veins and arteries, awashing and sustaining all of the body’s tissues and organs. I patiently waited and watched with interest as the hands effortlessly fixed my body and I a low carb, low sugar breakfast that I thoroughly consumed with relish and gusto. My body’s brain and mind became acutely awakened after my haughty breakfast. My body and I went out into the world to start our day.

I watched as my body placed its right foot forward and then its left foot forward as it sauntered me down Center Street towards Franklin Ave headed for ShopRite. While making my way through the park on Center I started to taste the salt of sweat seeping from the pores of my body, dripping off the brow of my massive head, burrowing into my eyes, snaking its way into the nostrils and seeping over and into my tongue and gums. My legs were now stepping less stridently. My body was saying it was tiring, to sit it down. As I relented the body sagged and sat its butt down on a park bench. “Ah! Isn’t this relaxing!” I said out loud to no one in particular. My body then proceeded to flop itself down as its legs jutted out, spreading forward wildly. Its long outstretched arms flailed out as its huge strong-man hands arched across in opposite directions to grip the top of the park bench. “How sweet it is!!” my mind exclaimed loudly to itself. As I sat there lazily my eyes began to focus on a family of swans swimming on the still pond. My lips formed a curious broad furtive smile as I sat with widening eyes transfixed and wide open ears perked up. My body even tingled a little as my brain processed the scenery of a pride-filled father swan and a doting mother swan playfully fussed over their six little ones. I sat and bonded with this dad as I laughed out loud, enjoying the “The Proud Swan Family Show”.

After a good thirty minutes my body told my mind that I was now thoroughly rested and that it was time I moved on to new experiences. We, my body and I, picked ourselves up as we briskly meandered on our way towards having our ShopRite shopping experience.

At end of the day I "stand back" and contemplate about my body and I. Who is really in charge here? Is it I who am in charge of my body or does my body "simply" runs itself. I know for certain if I was given the simple task of making sure to take a regular breath every second all the time I would fail miserably at it! I am glad I don't have to worry about making my heart beat! I really appreciate my body being responsible for that!!

However, I feel strongly that I give my body meaning and purpose. Without "me/I" my body seems purposeless. What is the purpose of that thing with a roof, rooms, closet space, a stove etc? What is the purpose of that thing with four legs, a seating and a backing? A chair would not exist as such if it did not "live" to serve as a purpose and meaning for me. A house is not a home if no one lives in it. A car "achieves its destiny" only when it "lives" as transportation.

The whole universe seems to be an extension of our bodies. Without us our bodies along with the whole of existence seems purposeless. Our center of awareness, or consciousness itself, "I", it seems to me, brings existence to life.

If I exist outside of time and space then why do you see me changing and growing in space and time, you ask? Because of our nature as a duality. I strongly identify with the various changing, growing appearances of Charley that is constantly being transformed in space and time. In my apparent nature, I live in time and space. However, the more real essential you lives outside of time and space. Our constant coming into being (from a cell to a baby to the person you are now , etc) must be balanced with and contrasted to the essential nature. This center, consciousness itself, is the well spring of existence.

It is beginning to look like you, me, we, sentient beings, are that which is timeless and infinitely spacious, or conscious awareness itself.

you are THAT which is the self-projecting projector that is self-generating the timeless, infinitely spacious screen. You are THAT which is alive with the experiences called existence.

The unborn, undying essential center, consciousness itself, is THAT which brought existence into being; THAT within which the whole universe is embodied. THAT which brought cellular life into being; THAT which became THAT which I identify with as "The Body & I"

"I"

Awareness is the witness to experience. It is like a projector screen. A constant stream of changing impressions arising from your objective and subjective experiences is being projected onto this screen. These impressions of reality appear, persist and change but the subjective projector screen is always a constant; it is always being “written on”. Your awareness has the essential property of wholeness. The center of this wholeness is your consciousness. This allows you to distinguish between YOU and THINGS that are NOT YOU. Things appear, persist for awhile and go through changes. However, this center is a constant background. Conscious awareness remains essentially unchanged while it constantly watches a constantly changing scenery of changing appearances.

Consciousness is not some supernatural entity foreign to material reality. It is a phenomenon rooted in objective reality. Let us compare consciousness to the hands. Your hands are material things interacting with other material things. As the hand feels out its world, it experiences a constant stream of impressions. These “feel” imprints, or experiences, come and go but they essentially leave the hand unchanged. The hand has all these experiences without losing its “HANDNESS”. That is, it remains itself as it continues to have constantly changing experiences. Theses marks made by it and on it come and go but your hand remains your hand.

The complexity of the brains of sentient beings is, unarguably, unsurpassed. The mind is an extremely subtle “organ” rooted in the material brains of conscious beings. Impressions made on our material organs of sight, hearing, feeling , smelling and touching are transformed via complex brain processes into mental perceptions. These external stimulations are transformed into the mental impulses of the mind. There are different levels of complexity of the mental, with our thoughts being the pinnacle of this complexity.

The mind has the property of wholeness. Your mind may appear to be a separate “body” from the brain but it emerged from it and remains deeply and firmly embedded in the brain at all times. Just as your hand “witnesses” constantly changing experiences and remains essentially unchanged by its worldly experiences, the impressions of reality coming through your material organs of sense (eyes, ears, etc) is projected onto the subjective screen that is the mind. Some of these perceptions become our thoughts. Thoughts are mind stuff. They come and go. Similarly to the hands, the mind’s center of conscious awareness witnesses these constant comings and goings but remains essentially unchanged.

Another name for your consciousness, or center of conscious awareness, is "I".