In the picture of me at my blog you will notice a bird on my shoulder. That bird is Pretty Bird. I wrote about Pretty Bird in the following comment that I wrote to a commentary written by Dick Cavett titled "The Windows of the Soul Need Cleaning" that was published as an Opinionator column in The New York Times online edition on May 14, 2010. Cavett's commentary can be read at:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/the-windows-of-the-soul-need-cleaning/ My comment to Cavett is perhaps a fitting comment to some of you regarding my thoughts concerning biology. But please do not confuse the issue. I did not include Biology in the NAPS curriculum for one and only one reason: it did not fit in according to what I was trying to accomplish. That stated, my thoughts concerning biology might interest some of you anyway.
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http://community.nytimes.com/commen...oul-need-cleaning/?permid=104#comment104Comment #104
Steven A. Sylwester
Eugene, Oregon
May 15th, 2010
7:16 pm
Dick Cavett wrote: "Meltzer tied in with this the fascinating distinction between the thing that makes us human creatures unique: consciousness. Consciousness, that is, vs. awareness. A dog is not conscious. He is aware, but only we are conscious."
I spent my kindergarten through eighth grade years living in Seward, Nebraska, which is very near Lincoln where Cavett spent many of his formative years through high school. While Cavett had Baptist influences in his upbringing, I had Lutheran influences in mine. I understand the religion behind such a statement as Cavett's that separates humans from all other creatures through a distinction that only gives the trait of consciousness to humans, but I have come to a point of thinking differently about it all.
There is folly in separating living creatures through the distinction of consciousness, and a whole lot of arrogance, too � especially if we as humans do not know or in any way understand the expressive languages used by those other living creatures. My revelation � my consciousness raising � came as the result of living in my home with a free-flying cockatiel for the past 14 years. Pretty Bird is a creature with consciousness, and I state that with sincerity and conviction. My family and I have countless times witnessed firsthand the consciousness of Pretty Bird � and he has taught us much of his language along the way, even to the point of successfully devising bridges between our consciousness and his consciousness to achieve his purposes. And, remarkably, after he has devised a working bridge, he keeps using it with confidence, because he knows that he is communicating with us � his human flock.
The whole question of consciousness in living things exists at a global ecosystem level, too. Much of the global warming controversy unmasks an arrogance among scientists that gives no credibility to the intelligence and the consciousness of Planet Earth, because such a notion that a global ecosystem could have intelligence and consciousness is not easily measured and is simply preposterous by the current accepted premise, which is based on the linear thinking of evolution.
It seems to me that many scientists are alarmists concerning global warming.
Consider:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/14/magazines/fortune/globalwarming.fortune/index.htmhttp://www.newsweek.com/2007/04/15/why-so-gloomy.htmlI trust in Earth's mechanisms. Furthermore, I believe Earth is an intelligent ecosystem that naturally fluctuates through the means of self-correcting mechanisms between various extremes of climate and the consequent environmental results of those extremes. Most spectacularly, the self-correcting mechanisms are observable in polar ice formations, sea level changes, and volcanoes, and it is very probable that these three observable self-correcting mechanisms are absolutely and profoundly interrelated, and that they naturally trigger at the extreme points of the normal fluctuations of Earth's ecosystem.
If you believe in the haphazards of chance and luck, the opposing alarmist thinking is understandable. After all, the circularity of natural cycles is opposed to the linear requirements of the scientific thinking that is premised on evolution. Fortunately, "scientific thinking" does not require adherence or allegiance to the limited premises of some scientists, even if those "some" constitute a majority. In the end, if intelligence is observable sometimes somewhere in some life forms, then it must be present at all times everywhere in all life forms, including in the life forms known as ecosystems. That "intelligence" is not always visible to us and measurable by us does not determine whether or not intelligence exists. Ultimately, "intelligence" is inherent wherever there is life, and an ecosystem is teeming with life on the very grandest of grand scales.
In my thinking, "intelligence" is evident when deliberate coherent reactions occur in response to provoking actions. The presence of "intelligence" is not limited to life forms that have a presently recognized discernible brain. The world is not only a physical reality that is wholly dependent on known material substances and manifestations. If the world is not wholly material according to what is presently known, then "intelligence" also is not wholly material in its sources and/or in its observable origins.
The question then is this: Is what is unfolding in Nature best described as evolving change or as the revelation of what is and has been?
I vote for the latter.
That said, I am opposed to the unnecessary polluting of all land, air, and water environments and the unnecessary destruction of any natural environments, especially those that are still pristine. An abiding credo of the developed world should be an unwavering determined commitment to pollute less and less, to recycle more and more, to live in harmony with Nature and that which is natural, and to expect consciousness where intelligence can be observed.
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Steven A. Sylwester
