Coherence
“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.” ~ American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson
With matter made of energy, and energy exquisitely crafted to produce prodigious diversity and a plausible mirage of materiality, there must be an intelligent force behind Nature. That interactive dynamic is coherence.
The evolution and fecundity of life amply illustrate the fine designs of coherence. The more biology you know, the deeper the impression of exquisite proficiency behind Nature.
Nature maintains a harmony among life through a process of self-regulation termed homeostasis. The foundation of every ecosystem’s food web comprises autotrophs: organisms which can feed themselves on energy or inorganic material. Plants are the most sophisticated autotrophs. Heterotrophs feed on autotrophs. Animals are heterotrophs.
All organisms strew organic matter about, including leaving their corpses when they die. All this organic refuse is an opportunity for leftovers, if you can stomach it. Saprotrophs clean up by consuming expired life, and thereby recycling potential nutrients into the environment.
To maintain balance, there needs to be the right numbers of each type of organism. Nature performs this feat via evolution. Organisms adaptively evolve to take advantage of underexploited nutrient sources.
The harmony of Nature is imperfect. This is by design, for the exhibition of existence itself happens via defects. Quanta are formed by blemishes in the local waveform fields which generate them.
Besides adaptation, new species emerge when a minority fringe in a population decides to strike out on its own for whatever reason. Speciation originates with aberration: deviance from the existing norm.
Nature’s balancing act is illustrated by the intelligence with which life is blessed. Coherence endows organisms with sufficient acumen that living is a challenge – yet savvy enough for the adventure to succeed, if one’s luck holds. This doling out of intelligence is a fine-tuned allotment. For instance, the adaptations of predators and their prey commonly revolve in a ratcheting skill set such that neither is out of danger (from starvation or becoming a meal, respectively) – an evolutionary arms race.
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Knowing that Nature is composed by coherence ushers a deeper issue: what motivates coherence? To get to that answer, let’s first consider the mind at work: mentation.
The Mind & Consciousness
“The universe is the outcome of imagination.” ~ Indian guru Meher Baba
All that you perceive, think, feel, value, and believe are mental confections. Your mind is the keeper of your life, which is witnessed by your consciousness. That you can monitor your own thoughts – introspect – demonstrates that consciousness underlays the mind rather than being part of it.
As consciousness provides the basis for awareness, consciousness is the bedrock of organic existence. Even within your body, you are not the only thing that needs consciousness or a mind.
The mind’s most basic task is perceiving its environment and deciding what to do, whereupon it directs the physicality to which it is attached into action. Every organic entity must have this capability.
The human body is made up of tens of trillions of cells. All of them have specific assignments, which they perform as part of a community, such as in an organ.
To operate, every cell is endowed with consciousness, and a mind that manages the situation. The doling out of awareness and minds does not stop there. Even proteins have decisions to make and jobs to do.
