Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman
Thank you kindly for these words. Knowing something of your mind from having read your essay, I am thrilled to have this review from you. I have praise for your work, so will head on over to your page today to place it. But to say for the moment, you have written something most extraordinary. Perhaps I should read more of the contending top spot essays for comparison, but it is hard to imagine they could present ideas more useful to human awareness and method of mind, that applied effectively will undoubtedly improve our general scientific method. Yours is an essay that will leave an ever lasting impression and is my favorite for winning.
I have been feeling a shift in my awareness these past few weeks, reading various ideas and opinions about the nature of universe and consciousness. I am influenced by several people here including James Putnam and yourself who have arrived at comparable opinion on this subject. The current scientific approach to physics doesn't have the tooling necessary to bring the subject of consciousness within its description. It needs to broaden its approach.
Question for you if you will please? In my scenario of Darwinian Universal, the material universe we observe exists to absorb the regenerative field of space which corresponds to Auv (Dark Energy), and therefore the Baryonic structures we observe in the universe make sense in terms of being structured optimized for this purpose, for what could be termed an efficient atmospheric interaction. So all characteristics of matter are evolved, and therefore nothing of matter physics can be considered fundamental. The functions of matter that lead to composite atomic structure, and matters response to gravitational fields that leads to cosmological structures, stars, galaxies etc, might then be termed as evolved "agencies". And now I need to emphasize for the benefit of my point. These evolved "agencies" of matter most extraordinary and articulated. Would it fit within your frame of mind, that these "agencies" of matter could represent the fragments of consciousness that when compiled within an elaborate structure such as the brain, could be the underlying source from which higher levels of consciousness are assembled?
Then it could be stated that the evolved agencies of matter are exploited by biology to manifest the compounded levels of agency of mind. The agency of matter that is aware of and responds to gravitational fields, would then be directly related to all agencies matter is capable of, including mind.
"Agency" is a useful word that is useful in describing the function of matter that is aware of and responds to gravitational fields, and agency is also useful in describing the capability of the mind we term consciousness. Consciousness could then be represented as a sliding scale that transgresses all levels of matter assembly, from individual photons and sub atomic structures, through to the extreme level of assembly and functions represented by mind. "Agency" my new favorite word.
This is my attempt to reconcile what I have learnt these few past weeks, and views such as you and James.
Thanks again and you will see me soon on your page.
Steve