Bond of Awareness

   

    Empathy and cooperation between species becomes evident as common traits if we focus on the universal similarities of awareness instead of the great diversity in physical forms. Natural Selection has responded to the diverse and ever changing environment in which life must struggle to survive by letting genetic adaptations run free to produce microbes, magpies, minnows, mollusks and mice, but it has been restrained in the creation of adaptive forms of awareness by the limited ways in which a living form can sense and react to its surroundings.

     Life can’t exist, even in its simplest form, without some way to sense and respond to internal conditions and environmental situations. Early awareness may be only simple chemical responses, (the gene being prompted to separate and reproduce), but awareness has evolved in concert with biological complexity to become the eye, the ear, chemically sensitive buds and pressure and temperature sensitive cells. These essential sensory paths can be traced back to single celled life, some possessing primitive eyes some a sensitivity to temperature some to vibration etc. From plants to mammals the natural selection of pathways for awareness and the natural selection of nerve clusters to utilize environmental sensors more effectively, follow a common and narrow trace.

    We are related to all other living things more closely by our common ability to sense and respond than we are by genetic histories of form. Genetics has played a major role in the selection of our common abilities to sense, respond, learn, remember and choose. The limited ways in which we can gather and utilize information from our surroundings has made all life more alike in common pathways to awareness than in any other.

    Recognizing awareness in others, even other species, is the core of our cooperative and empathetic responses. Natural selection is not a formula or directive, it is simply the way in which life persists and adapts. The natural world around us has made us very different and very similar. To appreciate our similarities we need to begin to define our common awareness in more basic terms. My book, “Darwin’s Paw” introduces these ideas in a fictional lecture series. The book “The Other Half of Evolution” (see by blog series with the same title), explores these ideas in a formal non fictional format. When we find life elsewhere in the Universe, classifying it in terms of its level of awareness may make more sense than looking for differences or similarities to earthly forms.  Emphasizing awareness over form may also allow us to dampen the inevitable reactions and religious revolutions the discovery of extraterrestrial life will certainly evoke. Seeing ourselves, (Humanity), as the result of three billion years of naturally selected advances in awareness, (with the ability to usurp natural selection itself), mandates that we think beyond ancient moral precepts. We need not give up our moral foundations, but as humans, (the only life form determining the future of all life on our planet), we need to understand our responsibilities. Nature has empowered us with an advanced state of awareness and three mandates for its use:  Explore and learn; Be of good council; and be a good steward. The future of all life on our planet depends on an understanding of the lessons of adaptation and cooperation taught by evolution.