A new nontheistic Creation Story (II)

Part II of II: Life on Earth

With an interplay of evolving habits and creativity, the universe has always been open to new forms arising from waves in the Field.  Even on the physical and chemical levels, nature has been conscious and creative – incessantly growing toward ever-more complex competence.

Each physical entity has proto-awareness and prehension. 

But it is in the next step – the next leap – that we truly see consciousness at work.  For our planet Earth gave rise to the miraculous phenomenon we call life.

What is life?  How about this?: A complex embodiment of vitalizing energy, volition, awareness, and responsiveness.

Living organisms are infused with a will to survive and replicate, which stimulates a drive to grow, adapt, invent, innovate, and become ever-more aware, creative, intelligent, and resourceful.  Life prefers increased life. 

How many planets in the universe are capable of sustaining life?  One hundred million, said scientist Harlow Shapley.  One hundred billion, said astrophysicist Su-Shu Huang.  One hundred billion times one hundred billion, said chemist Harrison Brown.

More than 3.7 billion years ago, e-m fields with photons assembled the Earth’s first molecule-in-membranes: cells.

Ever since, our planet has given rise to a rich. abundant, creative, coherent, elegant, and dynamic unfolding of interconnected life.

Ever since this first life, in each and every form of life, biophotons have organized and assembled cells into organisms.  And each organism has been infused with fields – fields that radiate at specific frequencies. 

Each organism has been made up of cells made up of molecules made up of atoms made up of quantum wave-particles.

And each organism has had boundaries.  Each has consumed, metabolized, and eliminated energy.  Each has had the capacity for self-regulation and repair.  Each has grown, and responded and adapted to the world around it.  And each has been able to replicate or reproduce life forms of its own kind.

With collective vibrations of frequencies, biophotons have guided cells and the switches of genes to act in unison in bodily processes.  And biophotons have guided each embryonic cell to become an adult organism.

The fluid genome of each organism has responded and adapted to forces and stresses in its milieu by rearranging.  And so living species have used the same genetic mechanisms a nearly infinite variety of ways.  From shifting expressions and uses of genes and gene switches, a great complex diversity of biological forms has arisen.

And so there evolved in water and on land fungi and a wide range of oxygenating and nourishing plants: blue and red and green algae, spores, moss, ferns, trees and bushes and other wooded plants, flowering plants, grasses, and a wide variety of edible vegetables and fruit. 

And for 1.2 billion years, multi-cellular non-plant organisms have reproduced sexually.  For 900 million years, there have been animals on the Earth.

There arose arthropods, arachnids, and insects.

For about 600 million years, most species of animals on Earth have had a structured body with tissues, organs, muscles, a mouth, and a digestive system.  Many have had eyes, neurons, and a brain.

In the oceans and seas and rivers and streams, there arose flexible invertebrates without shells, including the well-protected mollusks.  Some mollusks and some other invertebrates have had a brain.

There arose vertebrates: agile fish with cartilage and bones, jaws, and protective scales.  All fish have a brain.

And there arose crustaceans with both a brain and true heart.

Each animal with a brain has also had a consciousness.  Consciousness arises from self-organizing ripples from the Zero Point Field coupled to brain activity.

The primary site of consciousness is in the quantum and electrical activity of the microtubules.  Consciousness arises as microtubules, and their connecting proteins, influence and are influenced by activity at the synapses between neurons.

Brought into coherence and cooperation through quantum communication (mediated by microtubules), biophotons travel along paths of each animal’s body.  At its most basic level, consciousness is coherent quantum light.

For 530 million years, many species of animals have lived on land.  Land animals have had a circulatory system to supply their tissues with oxygen, remove waste, and regulate their body temperature.

For 520 million years, vertebrates have had a backbone and other bones, a jaw, teeth, a protective skin or other epidermis, and a heart.

For 375 million years since the tetrapod, many animals have had legs, arms, lungs and a nose to breathe the air, upward-facing eyes, and a two-lobed brain. 

Since the emergence of frogs and other amphibians, many animals have been able to hear airborne sounds.

Since the emergence of lizards, turtles, snakes, crocodiles, alligators, and other reptiles, many animals have reproduced via internally fertilized eggs.

As animal life has developed on Earth, so has consciousness.  Consciousness manifests in the physical movements of animals, in their sense-perception, in their intelligence, and in their emotional and social activity.  In each of these areas of conscious activity, there is also the question of how much energy, purpose, and self-awareness each animal brings to each activity. 

With physical movement, agile and dexterous maneuvers are usually visually guided, and they require a coordination of sense-perceptions and the animal’s body.

Sense-perception – perceiving sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile events – take place via the senses and the brain.  Each animals’ brain resonates with and “reads” (translates from its senses) frequencies of quantum waves.  All animals’ brain cells respond to translations of patterns into waves and back into patterns.  In each moment of life, each animal translates through its senses and brain a limited range of frequencies of energy and information from surrounding fields.

Intelligence arises in animals as a combination of sense-perception, memory, and information-processing.  To be more intelligent, an animal must (1) observe more keenly (from more active sense-perception), (2) learn new knowledge and skills and recall past experiences better (from more active memory), and (3) think more clearly about past, present, and future events and actions (from more active information-processing).  All these activities involve consciousness working through the brain.

Emotional and social activity – largely lacking in reptiles – also involves consciousness working through the brain.  This includes processing one’s emotions, thinking about relationships, communicating and forming bonds with others – kin, friends, and allies – and attuning to and cooperating with others.

Social activity well beyond that of reptiles emerged in animals who can fly.  Birds.

And then came far more emotional and social animals we call mammals: dolphins, whales, horses, cats, and dogs as well as the platypus, mice and squirrels and other rodents, bats, raccoons, rabbits, pigs, deer, antelope, bears, camels, elephants, the rhinoceros and hippopotamus. giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers, lynxes, leopards, pumas, jaguars, cougars, panthers, foxes, coyotes, jackals, wolves, and marsupials like the possum, koala, wombat, and kangaroo.

For 180 million years, almost all land-based mammals have had body hair, kept a constant warm body temperature, and excelled at climbing. 

Mammalian mothers have nursed their young with milk, and adult mammals have spent a long time protecting and caring for their young.

Mammals have keen and long memories – and a well-developed forebrain and cerebrum – that boost their range of movement, emotions, curiosity, exploratory behavior, intelligence, language, communication, and self-awareness.

Then along came the primates, including the lemur and the higher primates: the monkeys, the baboons, and the apes without tails, which include gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.

For 85 million years, primates have had short noses, large forward-looking eyes, and binocular sight for enhanced full stereoscopic vision. 

Primates have dexterous hands and feet with nails, and they excel at reaching, grasping, and manipulating objects.

Primates rely heavily on their eyes for complex visually-guided movements, and they learn movements by observing them. 

The upper lip of primates is free of their nose and gums, allowing them a wide range of facial expressions.

Primates tend to homestead with a strong bond between one male and one female. 

Primates tend to have one offspring at a time and to invest a great deal of time in their young, who are for years heavily dependent on their parents.

Primates excel at friendships and alliances.  They invest time being aware of and thinking about events, actions, feelings, and relationships.

Higher primates excel at seeing, working with strong and efficient hands, achieving complex maneuvers, recalling past experiences, thinking, making quick decisions, communicating, and cooperating.

The most advanced primate, the chimpanzee, has a larynx that repositions between the pharynx and lungs in the first two years of life – making highly complex speech physically possible.

Chimpanzees embrace, kiss, hold hands, tickle each other, and use many postures, gestures, and calls to communicate with each other.  Chimpanzees experience sadness and happiness, and display a wide range of social behaviors from aggression and brutality to family bonds and altruism.

The primates have been followed by hominids.

Over the past several million years, there have been a dozen and a half species of hominids. 

Compared to primates, hominids have had a chin, longer legs relative to their torso, a longer thumb and shorter fingers, less hair, and a longer life span.  Hominid mothers have gestated their young longer, and hominids have spent even more time raising their young. 

And for at least four million years, hominids have been bipedal – habitually moving while standing upright on both feet.

Compared to primates, hominids have had bigger brains with new structures.  Hominid brain size doubled in 1.6 million years.  Hominids have a much bigger Broca’s area of the brain, enabling more complex language and speech.  Hominids use signals and words while displaying a wide range of facial expressions to communicate with each other.

For 2.5 million years, hominids have used tools to hunt, cut, and carve.

And for 500,000 years, hominids have controlled fire to cook food and keep warm.

Finally, ultimately. there arrived a culminating form of life and a new beginning. 

Just 200,000 years ago, there emerged on planet Earth a new species – a species that has held onto many of the capacities and much of the potential of the hominids, primates, mammals, and animals that gave rise to us.  And that holds, it turns out, far more capacities and much more potential.  We call our species homo sapiens.