A Relatively Logical Argument for the Existence of God*
from an Evolutionary, Biological and Philosophical Point of View.
*Please substitute whatever designation you prefer to assign a singular conscious being at the core of the cosmos: “Great Spirit”, ׳יהוה׳, “Allah”, “Dao”, “Atman”, “Valis” etc.
Summary Argument
Organisms are comprised of living cells specialized for various functions within the organs and tissues of the body. Each cell is a living entity, able to sense and respond. Planet Earth can also be viewed as a single living entity comprised of species which are like organ and tissue cells in that they are specialized for various functions within the ecosphere. Species are comprised of individual members just as an organism’s organs are comprised of individual member cells.
Organisms are cell collectives with a unifying conscious intelligence organizing and maintaining the collective, mediated through neural communication networks. Likewise, each species is made up of individual members organized by genes, mediated through various types of communication networks. Organelles within cells are also organized by some conscious agency coordinating the various cell processes.
Unless life is unique to planet Earth the universe is populated with countless other living worlds. Assuming this plausibility it’s reasonable to see each living world as a cell within the living body of the entire cosmos. Just as a living body of cells has a unifying consciousness resident within it, it’s entirely plausible for a living cosmos to likewise have a unifying consciousness organizing and maintaining it. This cosmic unifying consciousness has been given many names — in the English language God is as good a name as any.
Note on semantics: The word “conscious” in common usage has a number of meanings including “the capacity to sense and respond”. But it can also mean “deliberate and intentional” or “having knowledge of something” often with an implication of self-awareness. The spelling modification “cønscious” is here used to refer exclusively to the sentient abilities of sense and response.
Key to the following discussion is a clear distinction between these different meanings. An entity that’s capable of sensing and responding may not have knowledge of what it’s doing. It may not be deliberate or self-aware. Self-awareness and deliberateness can be difficult to ascertain where cønscious “sensing and responding” is observed — so it’s important not to mistakenly infer their presence.
For instance — we have an autonomic nervous system that senses and responds. But who can say whether or not the autonomic nervous system “knows what it’s doing”, is acting “deliberately or intentionally” or is in any way self-aware? All biological organisms are capable of sensing and responding but it’s a matter of contested opinion the extent to which their responses are consciously deliberate or signify self-awareness.1
The ability to sense and respond does not necessarily imply an experience of being. For instance, a computer program tied to a physical interface can sense conditions and respond to them, but is assumed to do so without conscious experience. This is an assumption which might reasonably be questioned (particularly as the technology becomes more sophisticated).
Natural living systems are characterized by a conscious experiencer who receives sense and transmits response.
The modified spelling “Cønscious” and “cønsciousness” is here used to signify an experiential (not mechanical) sensing and responding free from any implication of intention (sense of future directionality), knowledge (understanding of past events) or self-awareness (consciousness of self).
It’s worth noting that the additional attributes of “full” consciousness (sense of self, intentionality, knowledge) may be present even in cases where they cannot be proven.
Cells within a Body
Consider your own physical body, with its billions of cells. Some of these cells are “yours” and share the same genetic code. But your body also hosts many other microscopic inhabitants (some beneficial, others potentially harmful). Your body is the world within which all these cells live.
Every cell senses and responds to fulfill its function within your body’s ecosystem. We can rightly say that each cell is cønscious because it’s able to experientially sense conditions and respond accordingly.
Your body’s cells may be somewhat limited in their ability to sense and respond. Nevertheless, each cell has a real and undeniable cønsciousness. If you dismiss the cønsciousness of a cell as insignificant, consider this: without your body’s cells and their biological functionality your present consciousness could not exist.
You can’t directly experience what it’s like to be a cell in your body. But you do experience what happens when your cells feel good (health) or bad (sickness). Likewise, your cells cannot directly experience your consciousness and may be only dimly aware of your existence — if at all.2 Nevertheless, your feelings, thoughts, decisions and actions can have a dramatic impact on the experience of your cells.
You and your cells experience very different realities; but at the same time you and your cells exist integrally as the same being.
Your cells are continually dying off and being reborn. As noted by Tor Nørretranders in his wonderfully concise online essay Permanent Reincarnation: “My body is not like a typical material object, a stable thing. It is more like a flame, a river or an eddie. Matter is flowing through it all the time. The constituents are being replaced over and over again”.
Every few years almost all your body’s cells are regenerated and replaced by an entirely new set of cells.3 But no matter how much your body changes you still identify with the same self. You feel now and have always felt a continuity of experience, believing yourself to be the same one who has always experienced all your life’s events.4
Your cønscious ability to sense and respond also includes the capacity of your autonomic nervous system to perform the functions necessary to keep your body parts working together. You are not normally aware of this capacity and unless you’ve trained in yogic or other ascetic arts you are probably somewhat limited in your ability to influence your autonomic processes. Nevertheless, these processes are deeply integrated into your cønsciousness, providing the mechanism to keep billions of cønscious cells coordinated in your communal life together.
We know that our consciousness and autonomic functions are inextricably linked because when consciousness perishes the organization of the body’s cell collective quickly unravels.
Here are the three main points to keep in mind throughout the rest of this rather long article:
• Living bodies are made of cønscious living beings (cells) organized by a unified cønscious network (self).
• The self cønsciousness persists while constituent cells come and go.
• Neither the self cønsciousness nor the cell cønsciousness can exist without each other.
Bodies within a Species
Consider the human species. Humanity is comprised of individuals, each of us with our own separate cønsciousness.5 Individual human beings are analogous to the cells within the organs of the body. The species continues on while a stream of new individuals replace those who have gone.
Every individual member of a species has their own experience separate from yet simultaneously integrated into the identity of the species — just as your cells have their own experience within the context of you. Your body outlasts the cells of which it’s made and likewise, each species exists long beyond the life of any individual member. A species cannot exist without its members and no individual can exist without a species to which it belongs.
Is it possible that each species has some organizing central cønsciousness tying all its individual members together? This idea has been circulating for a very long time (e.g. Hegel's Geist or Jung's Collective Unconscious). Everywhere we look we find suggestions of some collective cønsciousness.
• Observe a large school of fish, flock of birds or crowd of people. They consist of many individuals — yet they move as if one. Is such tightly coordinated movement possible when each member is solely sensing and responding on the basis of their own individual cønsciousness? Is it unreasonable to suggest that cønscious groupings invariably form a network which functions to some extent as a meta-cønsciousness capable of coordinating the group?
• Those of you who have been members of organizations that require precise coordination (military, industrial, political, financial, performing arts, etc.) know that a functional organization requires the integration and management of each member’s individual actions — and that for these actions to be optimally coordinated the consciousness of each member must be managed too.
• Those who effectively manage an organization recognize that the demands of the group take precedence over their own individual preferences. Self-absorbed leadership can easily ruin an organization. When a leader believes the organization should accommodate their personal vision, they are oftentimes out of step with the needs of the organization.
• Being in a large audience gives many of us a feeling of being integrated into the crowd’s collective experience. A large mass of people is often described as having a “mind of its own” and organizations of all sizes are said to exhibit “group-think”. Are these just poetic phrases or do they refer to an actual network cønsciousness?
• The character of a species can be quite different from that of its individual members; just as you are of a different character than the cell collectives of which you’re made. A species may be rapacious and destructive while many (even a majority) of its members may be friendly, considerate and generous towards each other.
• Consider the old wisdom phrases “no man is an island” and “a house divided cannot stand”. The former suggests that we are not truly individuals but rather members of a collective. The latter suggests that group cohesion is necessary for any collective venture to succeed. Does cohesion arise from the members of a group or is there some meta-cønsciousness arising from the network within the group? Is there always some cønsciousness connecting all subordinate cønsciousness?
• The ever controversial Rupert Sheldrake has long pointed to evidence for non-local connectivity within and between species (“morphic resonance”). His studies suggest that novel behavior in a species observed at one location may appear elsewhere without a direct physical connection to materially account for the spread of the behavior. Many within the scientific community reject such claims out of hand but Sheldrake makes a convincing argument for a transpersonal interconnectedness.
• All species know how to accomplish certain activities without having to explicitly learn them. Spiders know how to spin webs, chickens know how to brood, mammals know how to suckle, etc. Similarly, the cells of the body inherently know what to do within their organ and tissue collectives. The same can be said of the cell’s organelles and protein assembly functions. Where does the memory of this knowledge reside?
Inherent knowledge is popularly attributed to genetics. On a technical level the only function of a gene is to provide the code for cell protein expression. This is assumed to account for all behaviors within the organism — and some behaviors have been linked to specific genes. But can we be confident that genes are the purely mechanistic agents of all behavior? Or are they merely a blueprint followed by the cell’s consciousness — the actual determinator of behavior?
• The selfish-gene hypothesis suggests that all individual members within a species are merely vehicles for the propagation of their genes. Proponents of this theory view individual behavior as solely serving the survival strategies of the genes. From this popular point of view, individual organisms are merely tools that are created, utilized and cast aside by the gene (much as individual cells are created, utilized and cast aside by the body). The gene has it’s own logic and goals that supersede the conscious concerns of the individual (which become vain and irrelevant illusions from the gene’s eye view). Is the genome an expression of our species-wide collective autonomic cønsciousness?
It’s not difficult to imagine each species (and each taxon up the taxonomic chain) tied together by some unifying cønsciousness — similar to the way your personal cønsciousness ties together all the cells of your body. Your body is very clearly defined in space whereas a species is much less so. It may be that the form of cønsciousness for a species is quite different from the “self” consciousness we experience.
However — the power and quality of cønsciousness may vary significantly over time depending upon conditions. For instance — a network cønsciousness may arise initially to manage loosely defined relationships within a collective. At this point it may not have a powerful role and may be only dimly aware of itself if at all. If the collective proves to be successful the nature of the relationship may become more essential — particularly if severe environmental pressures are brought to bear. In this case the network cønsciousness may become the most important member of the collective as it’s increasingly relied upon to produce greater efficiencies. Is this why the body will spend everything it has to save the brain (network CPU) in the event of severe trauma or illness?
It’s easy to reimagine the story of evolution in these terms: symbiotic relationships are initiated during periods of relative energy abundance (the beginning of a particular resource epoch). In this phase some lifeforms have a surplus of energy that can be shared with (exploited by) others. If these relationships prove mutually beneficial the network becomes strengthened and begins to become more essential in maintaining the lifestyle each lifeform has become accustomed to. But when resources have been tapped to the point that availability becomes scarce — symbiotic relationships become stressed. Some symbiotic networks will collapse under pressure whereas others will strengthen. But for those that survive — it comes at a cost. This cost is a diminishing autonomy for those participating in the symbiotic system. This is accompanied by a strengthening of the cønsciousness managing the network of the collective. A unified center of cønscious control is necessary to keep all essential members integrated and functioning with maximum efficiency.
Could it be that the evolutionary formation of the organs within so-called “higher” organisms started as a symbiotic relationship between what were previously separate organisms? In the same way that primitive organisms were formed through the symbiotic relationships between various cell collectives?
Social animals can be seen in the same terms (absent the inter-species symbioticism). A bee or ant colony is often described as a single “super-organism” comprised of its many members. In this case the constituent members are far less circumscribed that in the case of a body with its organs, or the organs and its cells. Yet the notion of a unified entity still persists within the hive and colony — even while individual members are able to disperse throughout their environment. Is it not reasonably to view all species within the same framework — at least to some extent?
The social insects demonstrate that the idea of a loosely aggregated organism is already an accepted concept within science. It’s also worth noting that bees have been shown to exhibit a collective intelligence similar to the processes within our own brains.6
Is the hive mind a real mind? Does it have a cønsciousness and perhaps even a sense of self? If there is a unified cønsciousness for each individual hive — is there another for all bee hives — one that manages the species in its totality?
It’s probably impossible to know for certain whether such an organizing cønsciousness exists within all networks of organisms. Imagine how difficult it would be for one of your body’s cells to prove that you exist. We are confronted with a similar challenge if our standard is absolute proof. And in more loosely integrated networks a unifying cønsciousness is less well defined and therefore more difficult to detect.
Science has not been able to definitively identify a physical seat of consciousness. Materialists insist that consciousness is merely an artifact of the brain. But a growing chorus of articulate voices are pointing out that there’s nothing to favor a conceptualization of the brain as a generator of consciousness to that of the brain (or more accurately: the entire nervous system) as a receiver of consciousness. When consciousness is seen as a signal received by the senses it easily and handily explains the abundant circumstantial evidence for a cønscious connectivity beyond direct physical interaction. If the source of cønsciousness is “elsewhere” (avoiding speculation on its location for now) and cønscious beings are simply receivers of this source — then all cønscious beings are indeed manifestations of the same cønscious meta-being.
Why should we not call this singular being “Creator”? After all — in the absence of cønscious life, planet earth would be static and boring. Cønsciousness is fundamentally creative. And so when we are confronted with creative abundance (which is a pretty decent way to describe life on this planet) we might reasonably suspect some form of cønsciousness at play.
The image of a pattern emerges wherein every living cønscious being is but a tiny part of God’s unified cosmic cønsciousness. God manifests as a cascade of nested cønscious beings — both enclosing and constituent; coming together and falling apart; dying and regenerating like a flickering flame; running water within the river of life.
Cønsciousness and Order
Your body’s functionality depends on the autonomic ability of your cønsciousness. Ordered functionality inherently suggests the presence of cønsciousness. If not via some unifying cønscious agency then by what agency do groups maintain order and cohesion? Mechanistic explanations for order fall short as they rely upon some prior ordered state to account for the phenomena in question. At the beginning of this regressive chain is some inexplicable origin of order.
Yet a known agent of order is staring out through your eyes right now. Cønsciousness is obviously an agent of order (perhaps the only agent of order?). Wherever order is observed, some form of cønsciousness has likely been at work. All creatures attempt to organize their surroundings to their liking (some more than others) making their holes, beds, nests, dens, dams, colonies, cities and other artifacts. Of course one species’ idea of order may look like complete chaos to another — a perennial source of conflict between different lifeforms. Nevertheless, it’s easy to see that a spiderweb is the spider’s idea of order — even if we humans see spiderwebs as a nuisance and symbol of chaos.
It’s common knowledge that things don’t get organized by themselves. When we see a place falling into chaos it’s because there’s no like-minded cønsciousness effectively attending to them. Order is to some extent a matter of perspective (due to the fact that different cønsciousnesses have different ideas of order). So to be more precise: chaos occurs when there’s no overriding cønsciousness managing a system. Spiders, termites and mice all have their sense of order. Left to run loose in a barn they will make a mess of the place (from a human point of view). When we attend to the barn, the mice and spiders may still have some place in it — but within the terms that allow us to maintain our overall sense of barn order. But it’s a completely different story if there’s no consciousness attending anything. Such a place is like a dead husk.
If an ordered system is exposed to very little interaction it may maintain its order for some significant period of time without any cønsciousness attending. But most complex ordered systems exposed to perturbations will quickly deteriorate without an attendant cønsciousness.
Genetic functionality requires that order be strictly maintained to ensure the quality of protein synthesis. How are we to believe that such an intricate method of coding and error correction was produced randomly? If the gene is just a product of mechanistic processes — then why is it called “selfish”?
The concept “selfish” implies not only the cønscious capacity to sense and respond but also conscious self-awareness. What would a selfish thing seek to preserve if it had no inherent sense of self? We should reasonably expect scientists to choose the terms which best describe the phenomena being studied. Whether or not it’s intended, the word “selfish” explicitly suggests that genes are cønscious entites. Why should there be any difficulty in seeing cells and species as cønscious too?
Species, organisms and cells are all able to determine what to bring in, what to keep out, what to retain and what to expel. There is tremendous variety in the manner in which these basic functions are accomplished — and in the circumstances and materials involved. But the basic pattern appears to hold true everywhere we look…
Species within a Biosphere
Palaeontologists’ examination of the fossil record have demonstrated that (like individuals and cells) species too have lifespans. From the point of view of geological time all species come and go within the story of earth-life. Cells fleet faster than individuals, who in turn are fleeting faster than species (suggesting a fascinating relationship between scale and time).
Species come and go but the Earth’s biosphere lives on. The Earth is like a single cønscious entity containing trillions of subordinate cønscious beings, each playing their role within the planetary meta-cell.
Proponents of Gaia theory7 have long argued that the Earth has the capacity to regulate itself much as a cell does. “Gaia”is the term coined for the biosphere’s cønscious entity. The Gaia hypothesis cites evidence suggesting that the planet Earth actually manages favorable conditions for life — as if it were cønsciously doing so.
Earth can be seen as embodying the same basic activity as a cell within a body — having a membrane able to detect conditions and accordingly determine what is permitted to enter, what is prevented from entering, what is to be retained within the membrane as well as what is to be removed.
All species accept some material from the environment and reject the rest. The chosen material is put through some particular metabolic process to derive energy and some effluent byproduct (waste) is produced. This effluence is oftentimes put to use by some other species. Your body’s tissues and organs do much the same thing: they transform and exchange the fluids and neural messages of use to each other which keeps the whole system functioning.
But of course all biological systems have their vulnerabilities. If a living entity becomes infected with a pathogen that threatens the host’s survival — it’s a serious problem for them both. The relevance of this fact cannot be overstated but is probably best left understated.
Biospheres within the Cosmos
Thus far we’ve explored the ladder of nested cønsciousness comprising at least 4 levels: the cell, the organism, the species, and Gaia/biosphere.8 Cønsciousness manifests in a great variety of physical forms but all up and down the chain it’s a fantastically interconnected common thread of cønsciousness embedded within collectives of cønscious beings. Why would this nested pattern not continue outwards within the macrocosm and inwards towards the microcosm?
Human beings have long speculated that life must exist throughout the cosmos. And while this has yet to be definitively proven it’s reasonable to consider it likely. Astrophysicists now believe that most stars feature planets in orbit around them. Surely some of these systems support life of some kind. These countlessly abundant islands of cønsciousness (in whatever form they may take) can plausibly be seen as cells within the cosmic body — cønscious members of the universal species.
All stellar objects are believed to have lifespans. Galaxies are therefore comprised of a flow of individual stars, living and dying like the cells within a body. Individual stellar “cells” come and go but the body of the galaxy remains essentially intact. The fact that the night’s sky has kept a configuration almost exactly as it was thousands of years ago suggests an ordered stability within the galactic body. And as noted earlier — the maintenance of order within a complex interacting system probably signifies the presence of cønsciousness.
Some stellar worlds may not contain cønscious life. But even if we only assume some worlds to be alive, it’s still entirely reasonable to compare the universe to a body. Bodies contain many cønscious cells (those active in the metabolic or neural processes) and also many “dead” cells (such as those in hair, nails, and dry skin). The material of the cosmos is like a river flowing over the aeons. The universal fabric of stellar tissues and galactic organs may rightfully be seen as comprising the body of a universal divine cønsciousness. The identity of the universal cønsciousness is what is signified by terms such as “God”, but we each can call it by whatever we will. It wants our love and does not care about labels.9
We (all the residents on this planet) are now suffering from the consequences of homo sapien’s unwillingness to honor the interconnectedness of all living beings. How can we truly repair the damage done while we still believe ourselves to be the only real conscious beings within the universe? Can we afford to continue to think of our species as the pinnacle of conscious being when in reality we occupy a profoundly humble place in the hierarchy of cønsciousness?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Æinstein.
Let us recognize the very real possibility that this Universe is held together by a singular root cønsciousness, experiencing a universal totality and possessing some cosmic autonomic system to maintain this magnificent and incomprehensible cosmos. And just as you have been the same You experiencing a lifetime within your body, this Universal Cønsciousness is likely the same experiencer for the lifetime of this Universe.
Some Brief Microcosmic Observations
(admittedly a far more speculative and provisional argument).
It may not be possible to prove that atoms and molecules are held together by some form of cønsciousness — but can we be so sure they are not? After all — molecules and atoms do sense and respond! They change their behavior depending upon conditions. They are separate entities yet their identities are inextricably linked. As with you and your cells, the character of the atoms which make up a molecule are different from the character of the molecule.
Chemists will often describe the behavior of atoms and molecules as if they possess some intention — that “they want” to do this or that depending upon conditions. If we consider electromagnetic interactions to potentially be some form of cønscious activity it suggests a very circumscribed cønsciousness fanatically dedicated to very specific actions. But since when has fanatical devotion to a particular way of doing things signified an absence of cønsciousness? Is a primeval form of awareness truly less plausible than a mechanistic model?
The existence of cønsciousness is far easier to prove than any particular theory of matter. The phenomena of our own consciousness is rock-solid evidence of the existence of consciousness. Regardless of its particular operations, conscious being definitely exists.
But when it comes to matter it’s not so simple. The phenomena of which we are cønscious (the apparent world of material objects) is far more difficult to grasp. The history of science has made this quite clear: our perceptions regarding the phenomenal world are quite often wrong and our senses entirely inadequate to answer the ever-present nagging question “what’s the matter?”.
The atom has been found to consist of mostly nothing. The quantum nature of the microcosm and its implications for our understanding of the universe are still matters being debated nearly 100 years after the idea was born. From a quantum point of view matter is not made of definite objects but instead something more like fields of probabilities. Are quantum fluctuations akin to the flickering flame, the flowing river of constituent cønscious beings — popping in and out of existence?
In an effort to overcome our own sensory shortcomings and penetrate to the core of matter we have built amazingly elaborate instrumentation and machines of tremendous power. Yet we have embedded within each of us our own direct experience which clearly illustrates that from an existential point of view, cønsciousness is less at question than matter. Therefore, why would we in any way diminish the immanently real possibility that cønsciousness is resident at all levels within the fabric of this existence?
“The first effect of not believing in God is that you lose your common sense.”
G. K. Chesterton
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Footnotes:
1 If an organism is entirely unaware of itself — does this somehow diminish its experience of being? Human peak experiences are often described as coming about after one “forgets the self”, self-awareness being transcended (if only temporarily) by an awareness of something far greater. This suggests the possibility that self-consciousness is actually a lower state of being compared to any “selfless” state of being. This idea can be seen as implied by many of the world’s great spiritual & religious practices.
2 Imagine a cell trying to understand who you are from its position within your body.
3 The cerebral cortex and lens of the eye are said to be exceptions.
4 In some cases of extreme trauma the sense of identity as a continuous self may be obliterated.
5 As humans we tend to be keenly aware of our intentionality, knowledge and self-awareness. We believe ourselves to be “conscious” in the full normal-usage sense of the word. We know this because of our ability to communicate our experiences with each other. If we spoke the same language as other cønscious beings we might be more inclined to think of them as fully conscious too. Human efforts to communicate directly with primates and other animals has convinced many of their self-awareness, intentionality and capacity for knowledge. See G.A. Bradshaw’s Minding the Animal Psyche
6 “…studies of individual neuron activity associated with the eye-movement decisions in monkey brains and the studies of individual bee activity associated with nest-site decisions in honeybee swarms have both found that the decision-making process is essentially a competition between alternatives to accumulate support” Honeybee Democracy, Thomas Seeley. https://www.wired.com/2011/12/the-true-hive-mind-how-honeybee-colonies-think/
7 Lovelock, Margulis et. al.
8 It might be argued that meta-cønsciousness is also a property of genus, class or phyla etc. The purpose here is to paint an overall picture — not to work out all the details. The organelles within a cell might likewise be considered cønscious beings. Lynn Margulis points out that eukaryotes likely derived from archaea or bacteria who burrowed into each other (in the face of an inhospitable environment produced by their own effluence). Her theory states that the descendants of these ancient cellular hijackers are what we now call mitochondria. It might also be reasonable to speculate on a number of intermediate steps in the next section discussing the cosmos. There’s a lot of room for expansion and detail within this narrative framework.
9 Even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity is referred to by many names: יהוה , Jehovah, Eloheim, Lord, Heavenly Father, “The Name”
