What are we humans evolving into?

This is another challenge from a fellow-blogger. It is a worthwhile thought! Quo vadis?

Evolution in the biological sphere is an automatic process. Random alterations in the genome occur all the time; change is probably ubiquitous in circumstances when movement, perhaps in the form of vibrations (such as electromagnetic vibrations), is also the norm. One can envisage the dances of the particles constituting matter, or the myriad waves of forces permeating all spaces in the universe.

When genetic variation results in new features or characteristics, and the modification enhances the operational or survival capacity of the individual, this may provide the individual (or even the species) with an advantage in survival. This is known as natural selection – the essence of an autonomous pathway.

It has been claimed that a shock wave of radiation from a supernova named Vela about 40,000 years ago affected mankind significantly. The artistic (and possibly conceptual) abilities of Early Man are said to have evolved then. The cave paintings we know are said to have originated within about 2,000 years (or 71 generations) after that shock wave went through Earth.

However, at issue is whether the progress claimed for Nature through this autonomous process of evolution covered the original evolution of Man. Since no inter-species evolution has been proven (only intra-species evolution), and since we apparently have about 222 genes not found in the animal kingdom, how did we evolve? Through extra-terrestrial intervention? By the modification of an appropriate species? Refer THE Adam in the Old Testament, and Zachariah Sitchin’s claim (seemingly based on Sumerian cuneiform writings) that giants from planet Nibiru created mankind.

Evolution is implicated in the concept of reincarnation. Each life is said to offer opportunities for moral improvement – which we certainly need! Here, chance is replaced by choice (free will)!

Nature may yet enable us to evolve through the genome, but would it need a cosmic cataclysm as a trigger? Would we possibly evolve through the intervention of ‘higher beings’? Could any evolution bypass the genome, perhaps in a Lamarkian manner; that is, through the inheritance of acquired characteristics without any change in the genetic pathway?

In a universe in which anything can seemingly happen, we will need to wait and see.

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Is memory truly lost after death?

I am intrigued. What happens to human memory on rebirth? This is an issue only for those of us who believe (for good reason) in reincarnation. In this context, I remember a fellow-blogger on WordPress who offered to prove that reincarnation does not happen; but he was no different from those (like Prof. Dawkins, an eminent scientist) who believe that that they can prove the negative; that is, that something is not there.

Within my system of beliefs – initially acquired through childhood, added to by learning, and enhanced by experience (eg. my exposure to the spirit of my uncle) – after death, those who are followers of the ‘forest religions’ of Asia will go Home (for R&R – rest and recreation), while Christians should go to Heaven, right? I have no idea where the others go, or if they go anywhere at all.

My experience with the spirit of my uncle is clear. After Earthly death, the soul which defines him – which is really (and at all times) him – retains its memories. No physical brain is needed. This contradicts the claim (that is all that is) by certain scientists (without any evidence of any kind) that the human mind needs a brain. How would they know that?

My view is that my mind (with its memories) may be ‘located’ within my brain while I am alive. However, as evidenced by some heart-transplant recipients, some memories (as well as some personality traits) are transferred from the donor to the recipient of the donated heart. That is, are some memories actually ‘stored’ in the heart? (Dear, oh, dear! How little we know about ourselves.)

It is, of course, known that injuries to the brain may result in an apparently impaired memory. That would suggest that, while the injured person is alive, the neural pathways in the brain which facilitate access to the stored memories may be blocked. However, the blockage may not be permanent. When I had a heart attack, I lost my memory for some faces. Yet, this memory returned over the years. In the meantime, I searched my mind. Who then am ‘I’? Am ‘I’ separate from my mind and my brain?

There can be no scientific answer for such questions. Why? Because the scientific method is based upon a mechanical materialist paradigm. This requires verifiability based on repeatability of observations and experiences of causal connections to provide that ‘proof’ which we normally seek. In the realm of the ethereal, when what is perceived may need to overcome Maya (that is, the perception may not be ‘real’ in either the Platonic or Hindu sense), the scientific method cannot provide any reliable explanations, or even display causal connections. How can it? What would the movements of (material) particles display in the ‘cloud-land’ of the ethereal?

Take the example of ‘punctuated equilibrium,’ intended to explain the appearance of new fully-coherent species, rather than accept a more probable explanation – that about 71 generations or 1,500 years after a major cosmic catastrophe, natural selection could (would?) produce viable genetically-mutated survivors.

Leaving aside the issue of a reliable path to an understanding of reality, if (since?) souls or spirits in the ‘Hereafter’ (Home or Heaven) continue to possess their Earth minds and memories (as my uncle obviously did), what happens to these when they are re-born into a new Earth body with its own brain? Obviously, some of it is transferred to the new human – but perhaps only in some cases. I refer to the proven past-life memories of some young children all over the world, as identified by academic researchers of renown. (No amount of scepticism can deny their research methods and findings.)

Is the rest deeply buried within the new person? Would this explain some strange intimations I have had throughout my life (confirmed late in life under auto-hypnosis) of geographical areas I have never seen in this life (There was no National Geographic magazine where I grew up and matured). Under stress, I have felt certain ‘instincts’ – relatable to cultures not my own – to achieving justice.

To ponder is to wonder!

Cosmic catastrophes and their consequences

“Since major cosmic disasters have, in all probability, destroyed Man and his putative civilisations more than once, the Great Deluge (the last universal flood as attested to by a whole raft of prevailing myths from all over the world) may have destroyed all evidence relating to the alleged giants who apparently lived incredibly long lives on Earth. If they had inter¬bred with the humans they had created using homo erectus, unavoidable mutation may have shrunk them to become an integrated part of current humanity.

If the Sumerian clay tablets are to be believed, our knowledge of the formation of Earth, of the origin of modern man, of the history of human civilisations, of cosmic impacts, of geological upheavals, of the transmission of knowledge, and the probable loss of previously advanced cultures is open to substantial revision – assuming that we do not enter an Age of the Fifth Sun through yet another annihilation of most of mankind. The clairvoyant Edgar Cayce’s stories (which were uttered while indubitably asleep) about Atlantis (in the Atlantic Ocean) and Lemuria (in the Pacific Ocean), and the Inca culture’s ‘end of time’ prognostication do not offer much hope for the continuity of modern ‘civilisation.’ Yet, the search for understanding the Cosmos and our place in it must continue.

It is surely significant that Man’s Cosmos is now seemingly assumed by some cosmologists to be ever-lasting, always renewed after a cycle of growth and shrinkage. But I do wonder: in terms of the ‘Big Bang’ framework, would the Cosmos need to shrink to a dot before it expands once more? In any event, how plausible is a ‘Big Crunch’? … …

Harking back to the Hubble Telescope’s observations, what if this movement away of every visible object from every other visible object is on such a small scale as to be insignificant on a wider screen? What if other matter, invisible matter, is filling the spaces left vacant? Are we trying to describe an elephant by looking only at its feet? If so, does not the leading foot move away from the other feet repeatedly as the animal walks?”

(These extracts from ‘Musings at death’s door’ offer little hope of mankind knowing for certain as to what happened in pre-historic times. One thing is certain – the probability of cosmic clashes with Earth, resulting in convulsions of the ground in the form of earthquakes and tsunamis, and the consequential torrential rains. Our known history is too short for any confidence to be placed in available writings, myths, and beliefs.

In the meantime, vast research continues. But, how much illumination has been provided to understand our origins and subsequent history? For example, what if (for example) the Hubble Telescope’s screen is as wide of my thumbnail against the totality of all the space on the surface of Earth? What can we ever hope to learn through our technology?)

The bond of nested destinies

How do I see karma? In the Hindu framework I have set out above, it reflects the confluence of reincarnation and the law of cause and effect.

As we paddle as best we can on our personal rivers of life, we exercise our free will to pay our personal cosmic debts, to access any opportunities to learn whatever we need to learn for our personal development, and to prepare for the next life.

We thus effectively create, as a consequence of bumbling through life as best as possible, the cliffs through which our river of life will flow during our next sojourn on Earth, and the rocky impediments and chasms we will find on the way. How we deal with these and the cross-currents created by other personal destinies related to us will determine our future lives. No gods, saints, or spirits are therefore necessary as determinants. However, they may be able to intrude, to help, if they choose to; presumably they too have free will.

Since each of us is an integral part of a number of collectives, there will result a complex network of personal destinies. The expected web, and possibly nested mesh, of personal destinies would presumably be reflected ultimately in tribal and possibly national destinies. These might influence species development, although a major contributor might also be genetic mutations, which are truly accidents of nature.

What place is there for the major religions? Divested of the detritus of dogma deliberately designed to distinguish each sect or faith from the others, and then to enable a claim of an unwarranted theological superiority, and thereby an exclusive path to heaven, two core beliefs are shared by these religions, except Buddhism. First is a claim of a creator god. The second is that, since humans are the products of this creation, we are bonded to one another.

(The above is an extract from the chapter ‘On religion’ in my book ‘Musings at Death’s Door’)

A non-visual reality

We humans rely substantially on what we see. That is real. In total darkness, we are somewhat lost – until, perhaps, our other senses take over to compensate – but, surely, to a degree. But, I have read that there are bacteria or possibly other mobile life-forms which, as scavengers, keep our skins clean. But we cannot, thankfully, see or even feel them. I certainly do not want to hear them. Indeed, I am not happy about these life-forms living on me. What am I? Some sort of pasture?

Then, what about all those trillions of diverse categories of bacteria living within us? They are supposed – in the main – to be beneficial. Indeed, we are said to need them in order to survive. So, what are we? Homes or transport vehicles for a variety of unseen (and unseeable) microbes?

I once had the wacky idea that bacteria, which had previously arrived from deep space, had developed us, in the hope that we will one day take them back home. In any event, are there not residues within our body cells of those early bacterial astronauts which (science says) have helped to shape us (apart from other advanced spacemen, or giants from Planet X)?

So much for the reality within us. What about the reality of other influences which we cannot see? Are they not affecting us in ways of which we are not aware? By influences, I do not refer only to the bombardments by particles and rays from both the sun and space. These affect us by day, or less regularly if they come from further out. We may be what we are, partly because of these bombardments, just as what we are is partly through the actions of life-forms both on and in our bodies?

Reliable scientists tell us that dark matter represents about 96% of all the matter in the universe. Purely as an aside, we yet rely on what we ‘see’ through the Hubbard Telescope to contribute to the formulation of the current cosmogony; that is, the speculated origin of the universe – the one we think we can see. Is the speculated dark matter part of our existence? Indeed, is there some of it within all of us, affecting us in ways we may not be able to fathom?

Skin whitening

Even if we originally came out of Africa, it does not mean that we were black to begin with. Honey colour was one description I have read of about people living on coastal areas. Tawny was the colour attributed to others in China, Central America, and Europe. Paintings of Egyptians in the times of the pyramids show them to be of a tawny shade. The recent finding of a relic of Neanderthal Man of Europe was described as coloured.

Perhaps of the influence of colonial writers, the colour of the early tawny Chinese, Mesoamericans, and others might have been described as black. It seems ridiculous to suggest that the early rulers of China were black. But then, in my early years in White Australia, anyone coloured, however lightly, was consistently described as black; whitish East Asians were in fact described as yellow.

It seems that ‘white’ Europeans were a relatively recent development. Were they tawny, like everyone else, before the colour change? Some writers refer to albinism, an inability to produce melanin as the cause. However, that may only apply here and there in various countries. Some of the mothers in coloured families in such places have apparently produced red-haired white-skinned children. I have seen photos on the internet showing these families. Blue eyes seem to be a separate issue.

As I mentioned in a recent post, it has been claimed that white skin resulted from genetic mutation caused by a burst of cosmic radiation which swept the globe about 41,000 years ago. A strong blast hitting the globe around the Tropic of Cancer would, if it led to a mutation causing skin de-pigmentation, affect all the people around that latitude.

The white East Asians, Central Asians, and Europeans attest to such a scenario. They are all to be found around the Tropic of Cancer (some subsequent migrations obviously excepted). Indeed, until the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago, Europe would have been uninhabitable.

Did cosmic radiation affect mankind significantly?

Some of my previous posts referred to the following claims by various authors of renown.
• Rock and cave art suddenly appeared about 35,000 years ago.
• About 37,000 years ago, advanced toolmaking, music and art appeared to flourish.
• Humans were born with larger brains. This may have given them some advantage relative to earlier humans, such as more complex thinking, without necessarily equating to an increase in intelligence.
• Cro-Magnon humans appeared suddenly. They were like modern people.
• Dogs were domesticated from gray wolves.
• Sophisticated speech may have arisen.
• Massive extinctions of humans and other life forms occurred.

A major flood of cosmic radiation, occurring about 41,000 years ago, has been suggested as the cause of the above developments through genetic mutation. It takes only about 2,000 years (about 70 generations) for the survivors to display new characteristics; and to propagate them into posterity.

Other bursts of radiation have been postulated at 34,000 years, 16,000 years, and 13,000 years ago. These would have caused more radiation, while contributing to yet more genetic mutation.