Damned dirty ape

So here I sit, all 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms of me arranged to take the shape of an ape...a thinking hairless ape.

Something funny about consciousness is that nobody knows where it comes from or where it is located in our body. Seriously. Nobody has any idea. Neuroscientists are scanning our brains with some pretty darned impressive bits of technology, but they still haven't found it. Astral projectors say that they can separate their consciousness from their physical bodies, roam around like a ghost, and return with information that they could not possibly have known had they not actually been there. True story. Astral projectors and remote viewers can move their consciousness out of the body. So whether The Amazing Randy chooses to believe this or not is a moot point, it is a known fact. Just google "Hal Puthoff remote viewing" for a good start. Buddhist monks are able to put their consciousness into all kinds of things from rocks, to birds, to trees, you name it.

Now here's the funny part: Scientist are still looking for the seat of consciousness in our brains! I'm no Einstein, Jung or Huxley by any stretch of the imagination, but follow my logic here for just a moment, please. Our brain is the central processing unit for our 'nervous system', right? We have about 45 MILES of nerves running through our body creating a continuous network of communication with each and every part of our body. Why are they still looking in only the brain? What piece of logic am I missing for this to make sense to me? 'We' are a unit. 'We' are not our nervous system. I am not my brain. I am not my leg. I am not my stomach(though often my stomach may convince me of this when I've gone too long with out a munchie!). I am not my left big toe. You get the picture.

So what and where is this 'consciousness' then? Well, the 'what' part is that I am an ape with an ape consciousness. I am an complete entity. I am a complete ape made up of many systems. So the 'where' must mean that my consciousness is in ALL of these systems since they all make up 'me', and since these systems are all working and communicating together(hopefully, so long as I stay healthy), it seems to me a perfectly logical leap to say that my consciousness is not just located in my body's biological systems either, because these systems are all made up of smaller cells, remember? I mean think about it, somehow the cells in my nervous system act like good little nerve cells and not like muscle cells, and blood cells all know they should flow through blood vessels and not my digestive tract...they seem to be conscious of their roles in my body, just as my digestive system is conscious enough to tell me that I'm hungry for another munchie. It's DNA, you say! DNA tells our body what to do and how to act! Yes, but our DNA are simply molecules, and remember, those molecules are all made up of atoms...the very same atoms that have been here on the earth for billions of years. Those very same atoms that aren't really 'matter', remember they're 'energy'.

So here we are again. Back where we started, and I've talked my self right back to the same conclusion that I had before, only this time, I added 'conscious' to the mix. I am a conscious human ape, made up of several biological systems all acting and working in unison, which are in turn made up of tiny little bits of energy that have been here since the dawn of time.

...I think I'm making headway.

Introduction

Once, years ago, while sitting on the toilet, I had the realization that every atom which makes up my body actually happens to be the very same atoms that were around to make up the bodies of the dinosaurs. While this may not seem like much of an earth shattering realization for you, it was the seed that began a life long quest to understand who and what I truly am. So, having absolutely no idea where to start, and assuming that modern science must have a pretty good way of doing things, I buttoned up my lab coat and began the search for meaning by using the reductionism technique. I started with the question, "What am I?". I am a human...easy enough.

So um, what's a human? A human is a bipedal primate. Cool got it.

What's a bipedal primate? Well, a bipedal primate is a mammal, an animal that has live birth and is fed at infancy from mother's 'mammary glands', and walks on two legs. The name primate comes from the order PRIMATA and I am part of the family HOMINIDAE, which makes me an ape.

So what makes up this walking talking ape? Systems. Several systems make up the whole creature that I call 'me'. Systems such as the digestive system, the endocrine system, the circulatory and respiratory systems, nervous system, muscular and skeletal system and so on...

...and what makes up these systems? Cells that form organs, muscles, and tissues of all kinds...and what makes up these cells? Groupings of molecules...which are in turn made of atoms, which are in turn made of even smaller bits.

"Well, what are these bits?", I asked...and here's where it gets weird. Albert Einstein very famously and very succinctly stated that all matter can be denoted in terms of energy. This is no longer a disputed claim. Scientists around the globe will all agree with this statement: Matter is energy.

Holy crap. This is starting to sound a little new-agey, but I'll keep going. This energy which has combined to manifest itself as 'me' is actually a combination of approximately 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms and are as old as the earth. The smallest constituents of my body have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and before...since the creation of the universe itself.

Well, there you have it. At least I finally found something to work with. I am many extremely complex and intricately woven systems of ancient energy units which combined themselves in a very specific way. In fact, the way that the energy combined to make 'me' is so utterly specific, that I am actually 100% completely unique. There is no other system of energy in this whole wide world that is combined exactly like me.

...now we're getting somewhere.