Flex Mentallo

She has at least three boobs! (the one on the right) Doesnt everyone?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and a palaeontogist, who attempted to reconcile his faith with the scientific evidence of evolution. He took part in the discovery of Peking Man and in excavations in the prehistoric painted caves at the Cave of Castillo in the northwest of Spain. In his book Le Phénomène Humain he argued that "evolution is an ascent toward consciousness". Rome subsequently forbade him to write or teach on philosophical subjects or to attend the International Congress of Paleontology in 1955. His books were not to be sold in Catholic bookshops and were not to be translated into other languages. He wrote “evolution is the natural landscape where the history of salvation is situated.” Teilhard also states that "evolution is an ascent toward consciousness" He was later rehabilitated by advocates within the church, Here is Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI): It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardin’s that he rethought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world and, in spite of a not entirely unobjectionable tendency toward the biological approach, nevertheless on the whole grasped them correctly and in any case made them accessible once again. Let us listen to his own words: The human monad “can only be absolutely itself by ceasing to be alone”. In the background is the idea that in the cosmos, alongside the two orders or classes of the infinitely small and the infinitely big, there is a third order, which determines the real drift of evolution, namely, the order of the infinitely complex. It is the real goal of the ascending process of growth or becoming; it reaches a first peak in the genesis of living things and then continues to advance to those highly complex creations that give the cosmos a new center. Though I do not subscribe to his views (being an atheist), I am a big fan of Teilhard's because he tried in such an intensely reflective (and therefore self aware) manner so bravely to reconcile faith and reason. In scientific circles, he was equally polarizing: "the greater part of it is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself". Peter Medawar (Nobel Prize-winner) "The Phenomenon of Man is the quintessence of bad poetic science" Richard Dawkins By contrast: "Teilhard was one of the first scientists to realize that the human and the universe are inseparable. The only universe we know about is a universe that brought forth the human." Brian Swimme To me, what is most interesting is that Teilhard's view regards higher consciousness as the underlying evolutionary imperative. That would presumably include life elsewhere in the universe- and arguably, creatures on earth other than humanity, either now or in the future.

Philosophical accounts of self-awareness concern the particular ways in which we are aware of our own subjectivity, of the way in which we are aware of our experiences as our own, as well as our awareness of aspects of our own experiences. To whom (or what) could experiences belong, if not to a self? Who is it that is aware of the phenomenal feel of experience, if not a self? Of whom am I aware when I am self-aware, if not a self? To whom do I refer when I employ the first-person pronoun, if not to my self ? Matthew MacKenzie Tests for self awareness have been successfully conducted on many animals (our right to test them notwithstanding a single instant's scrutiny of course) including apes, monkeys, elephants, magpies and dolphins. "Animals that can recognize themselves in mirrors can conceive of themselves," Gordon Gallup We cannot know if dinosaurs had self awareness, but much of their behavior - say, mating and courtship rituals, are strikingly similar to birds - and crows and parrots are demonstrably among the most intelligent - and self aware - animals alive today. And they are direct descendants of the dinosaurs, or perhaps of an ancestor common to both.

dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum Rene Descartes said there must be a thinking entity—in this case the self—for there to be a thought. "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am” Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Know thyself, said Socrates, repeatedly. Go far enough, and you inevitably arrive, not at consciousness, but at conscience. The opposite of self awareness is anosognosia, more commonly known as a lack of insight. That is, if you lack self awareness, you cannot know it, because you are unable to recognize the need.

Our impact on the environment since the 1950's has been so great that many scientists now feel it is legitimate to refer to the modern age as the Anthropocene Epoch. I havent done much research into this but here is Wikipedia: 'Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction.Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction. The exact rate remains controversial – perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction. In 2010 a study published in Nature found that "marine phytoplankton – the vast range of tiny algae species accounting for roughly half of Earth's total photosynthetic biomass – had declined substantially in the world's oceans over the past century. From 1950 alone, algal biomass decreased by around 40%, probably in response to ocean warming – and that the decline had gathered pace in recent years. Some authors have postulated that without human impacts the biodiversity of the planet would continue to grow at an exponential rate.– implying that human activities accelerate or exacerbate global warming. Increases in global rates of extinction have been elevated above background rates since at least 1500, and appear to have accelerated in the 19th century and further since. A 13 July 2012 New York Times op-ed by ecologist Roger Bradbury predicted the end of biodiversity for the oceans, labelling coral reefs doomed: "Coral reefs will be the first, but certainly not the last, major ecosystem to succumb to the Anthropocene." This op-ed quickly generated much discussion among conservationists; The Nature Conservancy rebutted Bradbury on its website, defending its position of protecting coral reefs despite continued human impacts causing reef declines. In a pair of studies published in 2015, extrapolation from observed extinction of Hawaiian snails led to the conclusion that "the biodiversity crisis is real", and that 7% of all species on Earth may have disappeared already

Self-awareness is no indication of intellect. Dinosaur evolution may have been trumped by the intervention of a catastrophic event, but the limits of human intellectual evolution appears to trump itself on a daily basis. Then what is self awareness an indication of? And how do you trump limits? Stephen Jay Gould's argument is that we are only here by accident, because other dominant phyla died out. I see no reason why octopi might not have ended up 'ruling' (sic) the earth in other circumstances. As for humanity, if we were truly self aware, the sub-prime mortgage scandal would not have driven the world economy over the edge of a cliff because of reckless greed. At least dinosaurs had the excuse of a giant asteroid. When we become extinct, will we have a similar excuse? Danger, intellects at work Intellect is no indication of wisdom.

Broadly speaking I agree. There is an argument that says h. sapiens sapiens is a merging of cro magnon and neanderthal. At that point perhaps 'self awareness' has evolved, and a marriage of subspecies is negotiated, rather than randomly selected. 'We' take control of our own evolution, if inadvertently. And it seems there was not one single line of descent, but many, in Africa. But dolphins and whales also appear to have self awareness, though it is still debated. We dont think the same way, so how can we ever be sure? And the creature with the closest brain structure to 'us'? The octopus.

Definitely true about us, but I'm not so sure about dinosaur intelligence. They did just fine for much longer than we've been around, so even if they were still here (still unlikely due to the colder climate, but we're just speculating here) what would drive the evolution of greater intelligence? Well, had they survived, they would've encountered the same environmental challenges as apes did. (Of course, it was a long journey from primitive mammals to apes over many millions of years before australopithecus arrived on the scene. And it seems there were multiple sub-species of proto-humans well before cro magnon and neanderthals vied for supremacy - if indeed they did. The may just have intermarried, and we do in fact have neanderthal genes.) So maybe there was a dinosaur that had the potential to evolve hands. Mind you, if they were as dumb as,say, turkeys, the world might still be populated with really dumb dinosaurs, we'd still be voles, or extinct, and intelligence would not have become a survival trait.

The cartoons are great. Of course, my point need I say it, is that it is pure serendipity that we are here at all, instead of, say, intelligent dinosaurs.

Thinking back, the other book that made a big impression on me was Stephen Bakker's Dinosaur Heresies. I believe he was the first to propound the theory that dinosaurs were nimble. Dinosaur Heresies I ws also fascinated by a long lost National Geographic article about the largest dinosaur that ever lived Argentinosaurus

Apparently so, but I thought the Burgess Shale went against that theory (if there's a new modern interpretation, then I'm not up-to-speed on it). Me too, on both counts. reception

I agree. Took his writings as gospel for many years. Quite surprised that he seems to have become so controversial in recent years. His argument is that in the early periods, life had not yet becomes survival of the fittest, more survival of the mutants. In other words, entirely new phyla would come into existence unrelated to other phyla except in the most rarefied of ways. As I understand it, more recent theories - which I have yet to read - argue that what appeared to be new phyla were in fact progenitors of existing species.

(I'm only thinking it.) A shaft! You got me!

And the rest.

http://www.amazon.com/Extinction-Million-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691165653/ref=dp_ob_title_bk The author is firmly in the volcanic activity (as opposed to impact) camp for the Permian event. Do you have any other book recommendations on palaeontolgy Steve? Here's one for you. wonderful life My favorite extinction theory proposed by Larson... Hee hee. Thanks Richard. 'We may as well try to smoke ourselves to death because that darned asteroid will be here any day now anyway.' That seems so, well, human. On the whole I think I'd rather be a dinosaur. (Dont say it.)

http://www.amazon.com/Extinction-Million-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691165653/ref=dp_ob_title_bk The author is firmly in the volcanic activity (as opposed to impact) camp for the Permian event. Do you have any other book recommendations on palaeontolgy Steve? Here's one for you. wonderful life

..and commiserations. Now there is no escape.