I watched a tiny bug – less than a millimeter long – fly around. It appeared to be a capable flier. It seemed to go where it wanted to go; got whatever food it needed; avoided or dodged dangerous situations; and, probably, reproduced. Perhaps it even enjoyed doing those things. In short, it did everything a bug many times its size could do. In fact, it was apparently able to do all the necessary things any living thing – including a blue whale (the largest creature) – needs to do to function as a living being.
One would need a microscope to see the tiny bug’s brain – just a few nerve cells, while the blue whale’s brain would typically weigh about fifteen pounds. Yet, not only do both of these animals do the things necessary for life, they move in three-dimensions, which would seem to require a bit more more sophistication in navigation and orientation than we souls that move about in two dimensions.
This brings to mind the question of how much brain is necessary to exist as a living, functioning being? When we examine the anatomy of a bug and a whale we find that a great deal of the brain tissue in each is connected to sensory organs. And we find the primary activity of those brains is deciphering information from the connected sensory organs – light, sound, temperature – that sort of thing. It is interesting to note that the whale’s sensory organs do appear to be more complex than those of the bug, which could account for some of its larger brain. However, the bug’s senses appear to be adequate and fit for its purposes.
Do these creatures have consciousness? They must have something like that or they wouldn’t be able to identify another whale or bug with which to make little whales and bugs. Where does that consciousness reside? Curiously, we haven’t been able to produce any real consciousness with a computer. Partly because we don’t understand what it is and how to do it, and partly because what we do understand seems to require an enormous amount of computing power. So the question with the creatures remains: Does consciousness reside right there in their brains? Or does it possibly reside somewhere outside their physical brains and is simply communicated to their respective brains rather like a magnetic field or a radio wave?
If the “somewhere else” exists, it could satisfy the necessary space requirements for even a microscopic consciousness in a bug. But where would that “somewhere else” be? The existential, mechanistic mind-set widely taught throughout the world today does not allow for such a place. Yet the need seems to be there and our failure to recognize it may be nothing more than the adversary’s efforts to keep us humans from discovering who they really are.
Is the ‘need’ for an external location for consciousness hard evidence for the existence of a Greater Power in the universe? Can we figure this out? (see Deuteronomy 29:29)
Each of us is a unique spiritual being. We are born individually, die individually and stand before God every moment of our lives as an individual. No matter how large a group we are in, our relationship with God is one on one. Therefore our worship and each of our styles of worship must be accordingly unique. That concept is developed and expanded in the book “Worshiping Alone” available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Booklocker. If you haven’t read it, please consider doing so.
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God Everyday 