This is a very rich post, and it's only the above conclusion I find problematical. Of course I have no answers, so please forgive me if my response is too earthbound!
> 
> For me, there are two major issues: 1) Is the ATI self-aware or not? 2) Is my individual identity a permanent part of the ATI?....you once spoke of souls choosing to be reborn, but reincarnation is not much use to me if I have no knowledge of having been here before), you're presumably referring to an afterlife ... especially as you talk of NDEs and OBEs. This is already a colossal leap of faith, but even if I were to leap with you, it still presents major problems.->But if we evolved from a mechanism that assembled itself out of universal energy without self-awareness, the only self-awareness within ATI will be ours (barring other life forms that have evolved like ourselves). -We know for sure that the energy we are created from/by is malleable to the point that we have become self aware creatures and creators ourselves. We can only guess at whether we evolved from a "mechanism that assembled itself". The last post I wrote was about "what we know for sure."->And so an afterlife will consist of our human spirits minus our bodies creating...what? ...........-I have imagined an after life just for my own comfort. But my post wasn't about the afterlife (or NDE's and OBE's), which we are not for sure of, it was about what we do know for sure. ->And what else can you visualize that would be meaningful to us if the ATI does turn out to be self-aware?-If the ATI is self aware, I don't think anything would be any different than it is at this point. That's why I said, it's neither here nor there to me since we can't know for sure. But, what we do know for sure, is that we have, and are made from/by, this malleable energy that is at our disposal, and given that fact, what does it mean to us as a species, and what could we do as self aware humans to make things better for the greater good of all? This was what the whole post was centered around; what we know for sure and what we could do with what we "know". ->Without its own self-conscious identity, the ATI will also be unaware of us. -Whether the ATI is self aware or aware of us matters not to me, and doesn't make any difference in the scheme of things, since we have at our disposal such a malleable energy that knowing this, we could, at a certain point (I mentioned a flash point), or gradually, whatever - there is no telling what we could accomplish for the greater good for the earth, mankind and all that is. -Not sure if this post helped clear anything up for the other post. The whole post before this one was about "what we know for sure" and was not meant to discuss NDE's, OBE's, the Afterlife, mystical experiences, or the ATI's purpose in creating us (which I have no problem discussing - just wanted to make my last post clearer).


> dhw:I've just read David's response. I certainly agree with you, David, about the beauty of BBella's ideas, but as I understand them, they do not necessarily chime in with your belief that the UI is self-aware and created us deliberately. This belief to me makes it inevitable that we discuss its purpose and nature (see above), but you always point out that this can only be pure speculation. In other words, you prefer to remain agnostic on the subject. An afterlife and the self-awareness of the UI or the ATI are also pure (though fascinating) speculation. So won't you come and sit with me?-Remember, I look at all of this as a scientist. From the science of the universe and biology, I see what has appeared from the Big Bang on and judge what might be behind it all. There MUST be intelligence. The information contained in DNA is too complex, and the code itself is also more complex than the human coders currently can invent at their level of accomplishment. Also, an intelligence of that ability MUST be self-aware because the creation of such a code requires analysis and self-aware feedback to be sure the creation of the code accomplilshes the desired goal for functionality. Our consciousness MUST be a mirror for the universal consciousness. I can see its purpose. We are here thinking about the UI. As for afterlife, the NDE's support strong evidence beyond speculation. No picket fence for me!


> So whether the ATI has self awareness of itself or not, or awareness of us or not, for me, is a moot point - since, the greatest quality of ATI/God is this malleable energy that humans have been created from and with. What we can create and become (because of this energy) is also what ATI creates and becomes (which is my main idea I've been pushing toward with this post). "We" are one and the same. What we (us/ the ATI) can become (together) is so much greater than any one part that we are, no matter how great that one part is.-Your whole post is beautifuly stated and fits my concept of a universal consciousness of which each of us is a small part. It contains the planning and information that must exist to explain what we observe and are capable of doing.It is a better description than religions supply.

In your comment on David's post and my response (that your ATI is neutral) you write: "I would not say that my conscious awareness is all that I am" and that it is "but one part of the ATI" because you are/it is not aware of the activity of all the cells in your/its body. This is sort of in line with the analogy that I've been trying to draw, except that I'm questioning whether the ATI actually has self-awareness at all. Perhaps it is composed of nothing but unselfconscious yet functioning "cells" like ours.
> -Just some thoughts on a few facts we know: 
1) The ATI is composed of such a malleable energy that unconscious, conscious and self conscious matter/beings have been created from it or by it. 
2) The human mind/consciousness is also made from this same malleable energy.
3) Human consciousness has the ability to dream and to experience NDE and OBE's and many other "mystical" experiences that also lends to the idea of malleable energy within consciousness itself.
4) Human consciousness has the ability to conceive and then to create exactly what it has conceived (even if it's only on a screen, paper, book or movie, etc) which also lends to malleable energy of conception (which more times than not ends up an actual created thing). 
5) The Humans consciousness, as a whole, is rarely satisfied to rest on their laurels. The deep yearning to achieve even more than we already have achieved is gifted to us by/from this malleable energy that is inherently creative in nature and ever changing. Go farther, go faster, go deeper, see further into, see ourselves further from ourselves, understand more about ourselves, know and see our space surrounding us from the consciousness outward and, not least - know and see ATI/God. -So we "know" we have the ability to take the malleable energy of ATI and create and understand whatever we put our minds to create, know and understand. This ability to conceive, create, understand and know, we know for sure, comes from the ATI. So, since (not if) we have this ability to create what we can conceive, and we know that we do, at some point this knowledge will gain momentum and will have it's flash point. Then we will put our creative abilities to a greater use for the good of the whole and no telling what we will become and what we can achieve for the greater good of all. -So whether the ATI has self awareness of itself or not, or awareness of us or not, for me, is a moot point - since, the greatest quality of ATI/God is this malleable energy that humans have been created from and with. What we can create and become (because of this energy) is also what ATI creates and becomes (which is my main idea I've been pushing toward with this post). "We" are one and the same. What we (us/ the ATI) can become (together) is so much greater than any one part that we are, no matter how great that one part is.


> All of these fascinating observations are at a quantum level. Makes perfect sense since we know a quantum network underlies the entire universe. -a table-top experiment to test the foam quantum structure of the universe:-
http://phys.org/news/2012-11-physicist-simple-foam-like-universe.html


> Maybe what scientist are observing thru the movement of these proteins that are about their business doing their thing, is actually their movement along by/thru light and sound, possibly above or within the quantum level. These two articles have different views, one from light and one from sound, but sometimes interchangeable. The first one is a more thorough look at the Popp article I began this original post from.
> 
> http://www.viewzone.com/dnax.html
> 
> http://www.biotune.net/Power-Of-Sound.php (the references given for this article was even more interesting).-All of these fascinating observations are at a quantum level. Makes perfect sense since we know a quantum network underlies the entire universe. It certainly warrents a lot more work. Penrose's idea of quantum tubules and consciousness is fascinating. It all fits with the idea that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon.


> > I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, but I will try and answer what I think you may be asking and what I think I am understanding (but may well be off base in what I think the information is relaying). Light, in a sense, feeds the cell, not only with the building blocks of information (in a sense information is like food for the cell), for whatever the cell needs, but with the fuel/energy for using the information the cell keeps and uses as well. 
> 
> I'd like to drop in here recent research on nano-protein machines and the electric current produced. I wonder if photons are also involved as suggested:
> 
> http://phys.org/news/2012-11-electronics-nature-nano-machines.html-Maybe what scientist are observing thru the movement of these proteins that are about their business doing their thing, is actually their movement along by/thru light and sound, possibly above or within the quantum level. These two articles have different views, one from light and one from sound, but sometimes interchangeable. The first one is a more thorough look at the Popp article I began this original post from.-http://www.viewzone.com/dnax.html-http://www.biotune.net/Power-Of-Sound.php (the references given for this article was even more interesting).


> I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, but I will try and answer what I think you may be asking and what I think I am understanding (but may well be off base in what I think the information is relaying). Light, in a sense, feeds the cell, not only with the building blocks of information (in a sense information is like food for the cell), for whatever the cell needs, but with the fuel/energy for using the information the cell keeps and uses as well. -I'd like to drop in here recent research on nano-protein machines and the electric current produced. I wonder if photons are also involved as suggested:-http://phys.org/news/2012-11-electronics-nature-nano-machines.html

I get the impression that your "light" is David's "energy", and since we are a part of the ALL THAT IS, our cells absorb a limited quantity of the infinite amount of information contained in the light/energy. Theoretically, there is no limit to the amount we can absorb, but in real life we can never take in more than the tiniest fraction. Therefore we can have no idea of the true nature of the ATI,-I agree that we, or science, does not have, at this time, much of an idea about the true nature of the ATI, but I do think that in time science will learn more about the ATI when they begin to notice (and quite a few already have) that their findings crisscross the same paths as the mystics. Maybe when they take into consideration the findings of the mystics and study with this knowledge of the mystics in mind they will gain further access into the workings of the ATI. I believe trying to avoid anything "mystical" has hampered science but many scientists have begun to accept and step into the light of the mystics and explore with a more open mind.
 
> None of this, though, is tied to "light" as a particular key to our understanding of the ATI. -I was thinking that the article, by shedding more light on how cells communicate, did provide a key to understanding more of how the ATI operates. If we think of the ATI, as David has said, like a giant body, the whole of communication within every cell of our body is some how connected to our whole body and yet we are unaware of anything that goes on within our body. The mystics do say that the mind is not in the head it's within every cell, all working as one yet independently at the same time with no conscious awareness of each other. ->What I have written above concerns the storage of information, and not how the information comes into being, or how it is processed and applied. So I am stuck as far as the creative/active properties of light are concerned. Perhaps you can clarify that for me. -I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, but I will try and answer what I think you may be asking and what I think I am understanding (but may well be off base in what I think the information is relaying). Light, in a sense, feeds the cell, not only with the building blocks of information (in a sense information is like food for the cell), for whatever the cell needs, but with the fuel/energy for using the information the cell keeps and uses as well. And since the light holds all knowledge within and without all cells (including all new information created by each cell) within the ATI, the light is able to always keep the balance within the ATI as well. -Meanwhile, I'd like to comment on David's reply to you, but again this involves what may be a wrong interpretation of your posts.
> 
> DAVID (to BBELLA): You are working at a more mystical level than I am. As you know I look at solid science and try to figure out what that means in terms of God. With my religious background I start and stop with one God, no trinity. I know that God is a person like no other person, if one can even approach the concept at that level. So I best conceive of Him as a universal mind, an organized bundle of energy with supreme self-aware consciousness.
> 
>[dhw]BBella's ALL THAT IS is a totally neutral description, -It is only a neutral description in the sense that all of my body, if it was the ATI, runs as one being - yet all parts, every cell, within the ATI (me) is also the ATI (me), yet I, as the ATI, am not personally aware of all the activity of all cells just like I am not aware of the activity of all my cells, yet all are all me/one. I would not say that my conscious awareness is all that I am, which is what David is saying God is. If God is just conscious awareness (first and at all times) then all the tiny cells would not be each doing something different within the whole. Because then, all cells would know that it is God. -What I am saying, is consciousness and self awareness is but one part of ATI just like it is one part of me. Yet, my whole body runs as one in almost perfect unison. To me, this typifies God. Because I do have conscious awareness, all cells of my body also has access, thru light, to this information within my consciousness, and if a cell needs or wants to use that information to tweak itself, it does, but it's not that information. My explanations and metaphors may just be too far out or not explanatory enough or just wrong. I'm probably just spinning my wheels here?

dhw: Put all these perhapses and theories and hypotheses and don't-knows together, and it sounds to me like a pretty good case for agnosticism!-Of course no one knows the answers. That is why agnosticism is a refuge from the debate. Most debates declare a winner. In timed sports events that play to a tie, there is overtime to try for a winner. No one likes a tie result. Agnosticism is a tie result. But it is an honest position.


> dhw:The fact that consciousness is required for any kind of research does not mean that what is being researched is conscious. .....But nobody knows. "Inferences" are as strong as believers and non-believers consider them to be, and that is precisely what this whole debate is about.-We will have to agree that no one knows what consciousness arises from. We all experience it. And we have to leave it at that. All else is theory.


> dhw: The fact that we are self-aware is certainly of tremendous significance (to us), but it does not mean that Nature is aware of us, let alone that it consciously cares about us. The fact that evolution arrived at us does not mean that the forces which drive evolution ... perhaps your unknown mechanism in DNA or my "intelligent cell", plus the environment ... are aware of us or consciously care about us. That is what I mean by impersonal.-Whatever you want to call Nature, an inoganic universe is interconnected by a quantum network. You are ignoring the fact that consciousness is required for quantum research. I think we have a strong inference that the universal quantum network is conscious and our brain has learned to use it. Our consciousness is not emergent. Only the methodological materialists in science and the atheists believe that it is.

bbella: I will leave the question open and ask maybe that you do more scientific research on the holographic nature of the universe and see if there might be something more to discuss "scientifically?" Or, I can research myself to bring more science in that area to the table. -I've read Michael Talbot's book "The Holographic Universe, 1991. I assume you have also. Also reviewed David Bohm's thinking. I'm just not convinced about the holographic idea. I've seen holograms as playing with light. I can go no further. Although I admit this is a quantum universe, all interconnected with our human consciousness.-> > bbella: With my religious background I start and stop with one God, no trinity. I know that God is a person like no other person, if one can even approach the concept at that level. 
> Why do you call God a person (speaking of solid science)? When I think of the word person I think human. Even if God is like no other, in what way is God a person? Just curious. Of course I thought this way myself when I was religious, I pictured God the way I had been taught to see "him."-Mortimer J Adler, the prominent 20th Century Philosopher and advisor to the Catholic church uses exactly that terminology, and I follow his lead.
> 
> > David: So I best conceive of Him as a universal mind, an organized bundle of energy with supreme self-aware consciousness.
> 
> bbella: Why does God have to be a self-aware consciousness person as if SAC is some kind of great feat just because humans have achieved it? What if, self-aware consciousness, as a "quality," is minuscule within the WHOLE of what God is?-I don't conceive of consciousness as a miniscule achievment. The inorganic universe allowed life to appear, and through us the universe became self-aware. That is an amazing event whether there is a UI present or not. If a UI is present, then it is slightly less amazing. -> 
> bbella: I think there is information "out there" you are not considering when it comes to this particular problem in evolution of which I have asked, here, for us to consider the possibility - of so called "gods" tinkering with evolution.-I am sure there is information that runs the universe and is contained in DNA. The issue is where did that information come from? Not from formless inorganic matter. That is why I have told dhw there must be an intelligent First Cause, one with consciousnesds so that it can think and present cohesive information.