Firstly, I want to thank you for your pointed and complete reply. It is very rewarding to see you understanding my challenges to your arguments and reasoning. I am so humbly grateful that you fully addressed all of my questions.


What a brilliant argument! How could I have not considered in the first place that the causal relation is "obvious".

Okay, let's be serious now:


But it is up for debate. These amino acids were likely already essential well before the human brain's evolution. Considering that, from where are you then conjuring up the relation with the brain's evolution?

I also repeat the (unanswered) question about all the other animals that eat plants containing Trp, Phe and Tyr? Why has their brain not exploded?


There we go again, just like in the other thread. You quote pieces of popular science articles with a superficial veneer of authority that nevertheless have questionable or absent relevance to your case. In the other thread, careful review proved that some of the people who you quoted as if they proved your argument, actually disagree strongly with your viewpoints.


The point I made with the dolphins was that plants are not a part of their diet. So where is the role of plant chemicals in their brain evolution? I put this forward because it pointedly challenges your "reasoning" with a simple example. Obviously, you completely ignore that part.


Not everything in that thread is in this (yet) and your "evidence" in the other thread was completely deconstructed there already. Perhaps you should actually re-read that thread? Or will this be another example of not responding to any direct questioning and instead persisting in your own viewpoints and baseless claims of proof?





I already pointed out some questions, which you mostly ignored and took as an occasion to gladly go into great detail about your own viewpoints.

How about actually considering the questions already put forward before actually addressing them?

How about you telling me what the slugs, who were eating my psilocybe cyanensis patch a few weeks ago, are up to? Should I expect a "slug brain explosion" any time soon (in evolutionary terms)?

Re-read what I wrote, along with many other factors, diet is obviously a key piece of evolution.

Again, the fact that there was a drastic change in brain size of early humans is documented:



So, what are the potential causes?

Let's look at natural selection and genetics:



This argument claims that natural selection caused genetic mutation, though I have difficulty believing that natural selection alone could be responsible, as the complexity of the mutations was vast:



Natural selection alone does not seem sufficient in my mind...

So what caused these genetic mutations?

While Mutagenesis can occur spontaneously, generally exposure to mutagens is needed.

Where would these mutagens come from?

Diet and environment.

As to amino acids being essential* prior to evolution of modern humans, I feel these compounds must have become essential during our evolution.

The whole amino acid argument was to show that plants produce our currant neurochemistry, and that with out these essential precursors derived through diet that our evolution into our currant stare would not have been possible.

When it came to the dolphin example, diet was not mentioned, you stated "if humans brains had a big-bang than why didn't dolphins?" And I responded "million years ago dolphins were four legged land animals" pointing out that this species did in fact have its own period of radical evolutionary change.





This is explained above, tryptophan was not the issue, compounds in food driving evolution was, the tryptophan was in direct relation to serotonin production, I was making the point that we depend on plants to produce our higher neurotransmitters, so why not assume that the evolution of our neurotransmitters is connected to the plants needed to be consumed to produce them?



You called into question the "reasoning" that a big bang of the brain occured, this was my reference showing that scientifically it's an accepted notion.



I would be happy to respond to any direct questions, it helps if the are direct, and to the point. It also helps when you use my words rather than your assumptions regarding my words when asking these questions, rather than saying "you say this or that" post what I said in quotations, then outline what you think it means.

I can't recall any of my direct questions ever being answered...even in this thread. For example, some said "don't you think a brain and nervous system are needed for consciousness?" Or something to that effect, and I said "what about jellyfish?".....*crickets chirping*

Sometimes, if it appears that there's no way to get through to a person, or if I feel a person is looking for, or inventing flaws in my posts for the sake of ego or arguement, I will choose not to respond, it's a complete waste of time or energy.

If I'm making an actual error, by all means correct it, I have always responded politely to this type of correction, but if it's abmatter of opinion and no amount of words will change that, what's the point?


-eg

After reading the book Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, I became absolutely convinced that:

1.) Plants are definitely intelligent and
2.) so are bacteria

Totally mind blowing book...

I agree with you totally digitalvygr! I would actually take it a step further and say that all living organisms have an intelligence of some kind. Of course, I know less than nothing about these subjects, so these are just my fanciful speculations.

You said that you think bacteria are intelligent as well as plants. It's interesting to note that plants, as well as all other living organisms, evolved from bacteria. http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/evolution/plantEvolution.shtml

I recently got a darkfield microscope and there is no doubt in my mind bacteria are intelligent. One simply needs to look at a sample of saliva and watch those critters move to know they are every bit as alive and responsive as any other organism on this planet. Add a drop of blood and watch those little fellas scurry to the nearest plaque like a swarm of bees around a bee hive. It's absolutely mesmerizing. Anyways, Stephen Buhner is really a brilliant man and one of my biggest inspirations in life. I have yet to finish Plant Intelligence as my interests lately have been in health in gaian systems as opposed to the dreaming aspect, but i'm currently finishing up Lost Language of Plants which may be my favorite book written by him. Wonderful exposé of the dangers of the pharmaceutical paradigm and the ecological importance of plant medicines for both individuals and biological communities. His books have really put he magic back in my life. I was in my fourth year of studying biochem when i got struck with Lyme disease and got introduced to his works through his books on herbal treatment of Lyme and coinfections. They really saved me from a life of pointless and destructive reductionism.

Awesome, I also have not finished Plant Intelligence in the Imaginal Realm... but you mentioned something about its relationship to dreaming, so I may have to finish it soon! ANd I agree, his work helps put much of the magic back into the world!

I actually believe even molecules and subatomic particles have some component of consciousness, but the things we talked about above at least have proof of intelligence.

But while science is a tool I enjoy wielding, I think everything is likely a result of consciousness, vs matter, i.e. primacy of consciousness vs. reductionist primacy of matter :-)

If consciousness is primary i do not understand why science or reductionism cannot be used to explain it. Isn't the idea that something is primary a reductionist view itself as it defines that consciousness is a fundamental contituent?


Is intelligence the same as consciousness?

As I wrote, I enjoy using science as a tool, and I fully believe that it is helping us explain consciousness. One thing many scientists are now postulating is that our universe is itself a simulation, which if true would mean that it is technically all made of "information".

What quantum physics tells us is that at the subatomic level, all matter behaves more like information and "probability distributions" than "things" per se.

So to say that consciousness is primary is based on that bottom up observation, but I see your point. Really my ultimate belief is that everything is part of one interconnected whole, and language is a poor tool to describe that unity, whether you use the words matter or consciousness or information or something else. The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao, but we still try our best anyway...