Good discussion last night.  The topic was, is revolutionary.  Revolutions are violent paradigm shifts, alternative ways of perception, and of self understanding.  Political revolutions are almost never a “good” thing, as the river of blood that results, provokes a corresponding violent, bloody response.  Revolutions of the intellect, on the other hand are desirable, a way forward from the gravitational pull of the outdated, and half truths of one’s past, liberation from the status quo.  Or so it seems to me.

Time moves in one direction, like a river.  “Get with the program,” adapt, change, or be left behind.

Philosophy is an invitation to play with ideas which have revolutionary potential.

Is matter conscious?  Before I reflexively answer “of course not,” I pause to consider that I’ve known a number of humans who I considered to be minimally conscious —   my hesitation serves as a reminder that my definition of “consciousness” is the real issue.

Is the line of demarcation between conscious being, and brute, inert, stuff not arbitrary?  I have no reason at all for assuming and labeling humans as conscious, and disallowing other mammals, and definitely ruling out rocks….

This assumption is simply a convenience, an assumption absorbed with culture, a convention that eases communication.

Aristotle said that there is a difference between a principle upon which one stands, from which one argues, and a principle for which one argues, a principle amenable to support by reasons.

So, why not reverse our starting point — that all things are conscious, all things are what they are due to the internal relations between their constituent parts?  Why not begin with the assumption of consciousness?  The best definition that we can come up with is that consciousness is a relationship, a particular structure, how energy is organized.

Well, how does that happen?  Does God do the organizing?  Is there a “Big Other” behind the curtain?  Or is everything self organizing?

Two rocks I offer for your meditation.  The smaller black pebble is a piece of anthracite coal which was used for firing the boiler to heat the Braggtown Elementary School which I attended as a kid.  The old building has since burned.

The other is a river rock retrieved from the Eno River which flows into the Cape Fear, which flows into the Atlantic ocean.  How long did it lay in the river bed, five hundred years, a thousand?

Do these have a rock-level of consciousness?  What stories might they tell, if we knew how to listen?