Genome complexity: mechanism stopped evolving (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 11:57 (2894 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Once more: the term denotes such attributes as sentience, the ability to register and process information, to communicate and cooperate, to take decisions and solve problems.
DAVID: All of which can be explained as automatic in molecular reactions and feedback loops.-You asked me to define non-human consciousness. Under “algae” you told us that early living forms with brains were conscious. You seem to agree that the above attributes are present in bacteria, but say they are “automatic”, so may I please ask you in turn to explain what additional attributes are possessed by conscious organisms with brains, apart from humans.-DAVID: Next, energy and matter are interchangeable. God's conscious energy just transformed some of itself into the matter of the universe. 
dhw: The “interchangeability” of energy and matter presents a problem here […] 
DAVID: Disagree. God as pure energy can be aware of Himself. Why He cannot create matter (which will be unconscious) is not reasonable. Of course, if God has all the attributes assigned to Him, He can create matter from some of His energy.-If you say God can do anything, he can do anything. End of discussion. But let's go on. My problem here is with what you have called interchangeability. If consciousness can turn itself into unconsciousness, can unconsciousness turn itself into consciousness? Can the planet Jupiter turn itself into the god Jupiter? Seems unlikely. The problem BBella*** and I have raised is that if nothing, absolutely nothing existed except conscious energy (there was no matter), how could it suddenly make itself into separate, unconscious matter? They are clearly NOT interchangeable. Whereas an endless first cause process of energy and matter being transformed into one another gets rid of that problem (though it doesn't solve the problem of how consciousness arose).
***This was written before I had seen BBella's latest post and your reply, which again emphasizes interchangeability.-DAVID: All particles which form matter are points of energy. E=mC^2. Interchangeable. Pure unconscious matter is potential energy. It is separated in our universe, and if God made this universe, the separation occurred.-I have no problem with matter as potential energy. I do have problems with unconscious matter springing from conscious energy, and the two being separate but interchangeable.-dhw: As an agnostic, I thoroughly approve of your neutral “conscious living forms appeared”. As a fan of the “cellular intelligence” hypothesis, I also approve of these early living forms being described as “conscious”, though not the same as “consciousness at the level of ours”.
DAVID: In that statement I am referring to multicellular early forms with a brain, as in the Cambrian Explosion.
 
My apologies. When you said the early inorganic universe was not conscious until conscious living forms appeared, I assumed you were referring to early life, not forms that did not appear until some 3 billion years later. You see, I live in hope!