As a thought experiment, let’s reverse current philosophy that the Human Species has the only known sentient beings. Let’s not make humans part of the rule by removing our sentience (as in the philosophies that bring out our “animal heredity”), but rather by granting sentience to Everything Else.
If the one-celled creatures of which I am made were sentient (and still are) and bonded together in much the same way that humans form families and cities and states and countries, to form organs and circulatory systems and other sentient entities, then there is no need for anything new to emerge. Human culture would be evolution up close and personal. Culture wouldn’t Group out there all by itself as a human phenomenon. Just as one geographical area may become the energy producing area, or classical music center, or grain producing or wool producing area or city, so organs may have developed, specializing in digestion or respiration or hearing or sight.
We claim to be the only creature to have built structures as elaborate as our skyscrapers or our devices that allow us to conquer the skies and the sea. Consider that the one-celled creatures of which we are made, created us, creatures millions of times larger than they are (as a city is thousands or millions of times the size of an individual); creatures with eyes (Hubble telescopes?) that are able to bring back images and report these images to the rest of the colony; creatures with ears (satellites?) that are able to bring back sounds and report them to the rest of the colony, etc.
I feel very strongly that I have free will (at least now and then); do the members of the colonies that make up my inner cosmoses feel the same way?
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Comments
So BEAUTIFUL and amazing!!!!!!
Thank you so much, Robin. I sense a kindred spirit in your beautiful art and beautiful thoughts.
– Sarah Curtiss
Is that a candle
or dynamite? ;D
I guess I’d like to think I have a say in my Life…
but I really don’t know. My feeling is: yes, we do.
Lots of food for thought here Sarah… you’ve done it again! :)
One sentient being’s candle is another’s dynamite! I agree we have a say in our life. We just don’t have total control. I think we can give up on control because there are too many decisions being made by too many creatures of which we are made; but on the other hand, if we are the same creature on many other levels (we are our family, our city, our country, our species, our planet…) then maybe we all need to accept a bit more responsibility toward the rest of the Everything. The decisions we make affect Everything.
– Sarah Curtiss
and I call it ‘the awareness game’ most humans are aware of just a little bit… and think they have some control over that… than some humans (like you) expand their awareness… and discover issues they don’t have control over… but many more that they might have… but do we want control, or just awareness… everything seems to run quite well without human intervention… oh, except those things we’ve intervened with.
;-)))
I think we need to forget control, but I think an expanded awareness could only benefit everything. If we were aware that sentience was not just a human trait but a trait of Everything, would we behave differently? Would it be a little harder to cut down that 2000 year old redwood tree if we thought it was “aware”?
– Sarah Curtiss
this is a wonderful work – I don’t know the words to describe my experience