It’s the Goldilocks Zone, Not the Twilight Zone
By Wayne Saalman
EVERYTHING IN THE EARTH’S BIOSPHERE is made up of atoms, molecules, cells and genes.
Deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, is the informational molecule at the heart of our shared cellular existence. DNA instructs and impels protein molecules to build organic structures. Among these organic structures is the human body and within the human body, there is an organ known as the brain, which scientific materialists have concluded (without proof to date) that this is the organ which generates “consciousness” and “thought”. They say that consciousness is an “epiphenomenon” of brain function.
The brain, of course, is a pulpy cellular structure engineered by nature to indulge in electrochemical activity in conjunction with the autonomic nervous system. It does undoubtedly instinctually impel the body to take action for a very express purpose: to keep the body itself alive.
This does seem to imply that electrochemical and neuronal activity is primary and consciousness is a secondary phenomenon.
Yogis, meditators, psychics, sages and those who practice what is called “shamanism” disagree with that conclusion, however. These practitioners of higher levels of perception believe that consciousness is primary and brain function secondary. They believe that consciousness sends signals to the cells within the brain and those signals are what activates the brain and causes it to utilize its electrochemical and neuronal networks.
Epigeneticists are cell biologists who have come to the conclusion — based on experimentation with cells — that the surface membrane of the cell is the cell’s brain. Why? Because it reacts to the environment when signals from it are received on its surface membrane. This is true even if the cell is denuded of its core machinery, DNA. That signal (or vibratory signature), epigeneticists say, originates in the planetary biosphere. When a cell reacts to such a signal, it sends a message to its interior instructing it to act in a certain survival-conducive manner.
If a cell’s surface membrane is its brain, then the DNA within the cell is its fingers, arms and legs. DNA doesn’t think. It takes action by inducing RNA to build protein structures. The cell membrane is what does the thinking and what makes the big decisions. Among those decisions are ones like “What shall we make this time around? A human being, a lion, a rodent, a mayfly, a worm or a bacterium?” After all, these things are made of the same stuff, but are simply configured differently.
Scientists like to think that life sprang up spontaneously on this planet, but why then did this particular phenomenon only occur once in 4 billion years? And did it really only occur on one planet in the entire cosmos?
If consciousness is primary, definitely not. If consciousness permeates the planetary biosphere, then consciousness is literally all around us as it would be around other planets, those which inhabit the so-called “Goldilocks Zone” existing around other suns.
Consciousness is not even just all around us. It infuses us at a cellular level. We are like fish in an ocean of water, only for humans, air is the oceanic substance which surrounds and permeates us. Air, of course, is comprised of oxygen and there is oxygen in water as well, permeating the seas and perhaps powering the planet’s aquatic creatures. Air also works its way into those creatures which inhabit the Earth’s soil. Oxygen, of course, is also a factor in the fueling of fire.
Earth, air, fire and water… Many an ancient sage postulated that physical life was essentially made up of these four elements or, more correctly put, physical life is powered by the forces which these elements represent.
Today, we know that these elements occur in nature thanks to one thing: stellar activity. They come from the heavens, from exploding stars, and once a planet is formed from the heavier elements spewed forth by an exploding star, in due course, over billions of years, those elements generate a planetary biosphere which can subsequently create and sustain life as we know it. We ourselves are the proof.
At root, then, our whole world is made of stardust and powered by sunlight.
So where does consciousness come from if not from the brain?
One can only speculate about that. People say that it comes from “God” (by whatever cultural name), from the “Akasha”, the “Tao”, the “Matrix”, the “Zero Point Field” and so on. Whatever it is and however it originated, it just may be what triggered the whole process that formed the universe in the first place.
The argument in my mind goes like this: Something cannot come from nothing. This is impossible. What, however, is more “nothing” than consciousness itself? One cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear it. Yet, it irrefutably exists.
Without consciousness, we humans could perhaps be and perceive things, but we could “make” nothing at all of what we perceive. We could not interpret the raw data in which we are immersed. We would be just another animal, therefore, wandering about with but enough instinctual awareness to fight for our survival, not reflect on it.
Yogis, meditators, wisdom masters, psychics, shamans and near-death returnees, tell us that consciousness can exist without a body, which may sound miraculous, but it is quite possibly our most totally natural state.
By the way, if being alive and aware of our own “aliveness” is not miracle enough for us — if we need our miracles to defy the known laws of physics — then maybe we are far less grateful for, and impressed with, the life we experience than we think! If there is one thing that even scientific materialists must be grateful for, and happily amazed with, is the fact that we exist in a Goldilocks Zone. We might think this particular fact is down to pure luck, but then again, maybe a higher form of cosmic consciousness chose this planet as a breeding ground for spawning DNA-based lifeforms for this very reason. It knew that this earth of ours was in the “zone” and, as a result, here we are, in the zone, as well, and not just surviving, but thriving!
