Out on my walk yesterday, in the fields between Dawidy Bankowe and Łady, I spotted a small group of deer. I was surprised that they are still there, living in these fields, which from year to year are filling with new houses. How do they regard the encroachment of humans on their habitat? Of course, humans have always farmed here, scattered dwellings and barns, fields criss-crossed by paths and the occasional road. Deer have co-existed with humans in some kind of equilibrium which now seems threatened as this land becomes engulfed by development. How do they perceive us and our encroachment on their terrain?
Back in the garden, moles have made an unwelcome return to our lawn after several years. They have generally learned to stick to the herbaceous borders, having learnt that molehills on the lawn are met with an instant drenching with human urine. Recent snow cover, however, had disoriented them and suddenly four large and seven smaller hills appeared. All dealt with. The question now is - for how long? Again, it's a human-wildlife equilibrium issue. What do they think of what goes on above ground?
This morning, Felusia the cat meows at my door as she does most mornings; she jumps onto my bed and gives me a couple of playful head-butts in greeting, then lies at my side purring. I interpret her morning ritual as an expression of gratitude for food and shelter and mutual affection. Unlike deer and moles, the cat has spent thousands of years living with humans; the process of domestication has given cats insights into human behaviour. I can observe Felusia's instincts - cats are hunters; her attention betrays her intentions - ears rotating to focus on some new sound, tail swishing, slowly adopting a crouching position... But from time to time, we make eye contact for a second or so, and two conscious beings communicate simple acknowledgement - "I'm alive and you're alive and I acknowledge your awareness of your existence".
As I wrote earlier this month, I feel certain that consciousness is a fundamental property of the Universe, rather than something that merely emerged as a by-product of the evolution of life. My big question is whether consciousness is a property of matter (along with mass and charge), existing within material particles in discrete units, or whether consciousness is even more fundamental than that. Could it inhabit all the space between particles? Maybe consciousness is the dark matter that keeps galaxies together? Or the dark energy that propels galaxies away from each other at ever-increasing velocities?
Whichever it is, consciousness seems to me like mass in the way it accretes - increasing by natural growth or addition. Matter has a tendency to clump together; quarks into protons and neutrons, protons, neutrons and electrons into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into proteins, then into life, which takes on ever more sophisticated forms.
At the core, consciousness is no more and no less than the awareness of existence. Could an atom be aware of its own existence? Nothing more - there's no sensory input to prove it. I can prove to myself that I am alive by looking out of the window and looking at the garden, the branches of the trees swaying in the wind... Can a cat do that? A deer? Certainly. A mole? It's a different world down there a few inches beneath the ground in that sandy loam, hunting for earthworms. But I guess that in the end, the experience of the qualia of existence are similar for all sentient life.
But at lower levels of creation?
This time two years ago:
A myriad paths to God
This time three years ago:
No God for those who don't believe, a God for those that do
This time four years ago:
Work proceeding around Jeziorki
This time five years ago:
Karczunkowska reopens to traffic
This time nine years ago:
Goodness gracious!
Cycling and recycling
This time 12 years ago:
Winter clings on to the forest
This time 13 years ago:
Toyota launches the iQ
This time 14 years ago:
Old school Łódź
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