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Josh Mitteldorf's avatar

Darwin himself didn't know what to make of this issue. He was aware that people would ask, "What kick-started the evolutionary process?" In some editions of the "Origin of Species", he refers to a "Creator" with a capital "C". In others, he just leaves the question open.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932709000763

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Rob M's avatar

Well, this is how to start a Monday with my mind blown!

I love this piece and have over the years (very) superficially dabbled in the science and theories you refer to. The chicken and egg problem is usually where I abandon a subject befuddled and frustrated.

Every thread in my awareness of these questions leads to magical thinking. While in Egypt touring megalith structures or astoundingly perfect and symmetrical statues the only explanation my Egyptian guides had was that earlier civilizations' science had developed in different directions than ours. Hence they had methods unknown to us to manipulate stone.

This "different but unknown to us" is the standard answer I see over and over to explain the unexplainable. It leaves me as unsatisfied as a child whose parent responds to a question with "well, because, that's how it is!".

I grapple with this conundrum without a better solution than God, or Mind or Computer simulation or any other form of magical thinking. And, by the way, I use magical thinking all the time, practicing gratitude for instance - who am I expressing gratitude to?

My only glimmer of a direction is in reading about psychedelic drug experiences. When our cognition and interface with reality are significantly altered it hints at the possibility that reality might be interpreted in alternate ways. Perhaps in these alternate ways models of reality allow for leaps we cannot make yet.

This is, of course, just another form of magical thinking...

Thanks for your wonderful work.

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