Reality: The Grand Illusion

[herbie]

Here's something I just came across (from http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000709.html) that kind of ties in with these ideas:

The evolution of matter
is the gradual building up
by growing complexity
of the primary atomic elements,
arranging itself in particle groupings
of ever-greater volume
into organisms ever more highly organized
and ‘consciousness-ready.’

The whole history of physical
and chemical life on earth
has been, in effect,
the effort of Consciousness
to ‘raise up’ Matter
-- to create in Matter
a supracognitive machine
that would in time triumph
over the mere mechanism
of genetic phylogenesis.

-- And that machine is
Humankind.

“Man is nothing but
evolution become conscious
of itself.”

Any thoughts?

[Dr. Greenthumb]

If evolution was conscious why would it create man? Mankind is destroying the earth, it's resources, and the other humans in it.

[herbie]

Well (if this is right) evolution wasn't conscious when creating man, so it had no control over it.

[Dr. Greenthumb]

The whole history of physical
and chemical life on earth
has been, in effect,
the effort of Consciousness
to ‘raise up’ Matter

It's calling evolution a conscious machine. Saying that things have the natural will to evolve, that's just what they do.