Paul Lenda,
Guest
There’s a heightening level of awareness within the human race with
regards to nature and all that is contained within it. Everything from
the discoveries of the rudiments of language in monkeys, metacognition
in dolphins, self-awareness of elephants, the ability for animals to
tell “right” from “wrong”, to the creation and extension of the bills of
rights for animals and plants by countries such as Switzerland and
Ecuador, as well as the acknowledgment of dolphins as being non-human persons.
There’s a growing awareness by humanity that nature and its
inhabitants are not as primitive and simple as it may have been believed
to be the case in the past. With this growing awareness, comes growing
understanding of the unity that humanity has with the environment within
which it exists. This sense of unity with nature is not something new
and indeed has been the primary position of awareness for many societies
in existence before their industrialization.
In today’s post-modern societies, there is a resurgence of that
connection with the biosphere and interconnected organism that is the
planet and all that exists within its domain. As more discoveries are
made, greater awareness shines down on humanity’s collective
consciousness and thereby, allowing us to evolve the transpersonal consciousness to a level where the ego is no longer the dominator of the Self.
Science can be a wonderful thing. It can prove without a doubt what
may have been suggested in times past, but was not completely understood
as being the absolute truth, which always left a bit of doubt or
confusion. However, with continuous scientific discoveries occurring all
the time, it is of great fortune that we are able to attain substantial
data and knowledge concerning the environment and all that it
encompasses.
With these new discoveries, it is being quite apparent that humans
have mistakenly been ignorant and arrogant concerning the mineral,
plant, and animal kingdoms with respect to their levels of sophistication, evolution, consciousness, and awareness. If we were to start looking at the mineral kingdom, much can be seen from recently-made discoveries.
Of course, there has been such an influx of findings that they would
be able to fill up an entire book. However, just a few will be looked at
in order to demonstrate the point at hand. All of the discoveries and
findings mentioned within this article have been announced publicly
within the last few years.
Rocks have been looked at as generally non-living, inanimate,
unconscious, and completely devoid of any life-like characteristics,
even though everything in nature possesses self-organization. However, stunning new evidence shows
the incredible diversity of crystals and minerals after the rise of
life on this planet and points to the reality that rocks, like plants
and animals, have been evolving all this time, and we did not even
realize it until now. This idea is being called “mineral evolution,”
which is the concept that many of the our planet’s rocks, minerals and
crystals are dynamic species which emerged and transformed over time.
Of
course, the evolution of the mineral kingdom is not exactly the same as
the evolution of the plant and animal kingdoms, since minerals do not
mutate, reproduce or complete like other living organisms, at least to
our knowledge. However, the vast variety and abundance of all the
various minerals on Earth have changed quite dramatically over the 4.5+
billion years of Earth’s past. US geologist Robert Hazen, who led the
research team for this finding, said that “for at least 2.5 billion
years, and possibly since the emergence of life, Earth’s mineralogy has
evolved in parallel with biology.”
This should not be too big of a surprise to us, however. It makes
quite a bit of sense that evolution is all-encompassing…everything from
our consciousness, to galaxies, to rocks. Everything is in a constant
state of be-ing and become-ing, and the condition that the various
aspects of Reality are static does not find much underlying evidence. It
looks more and more as if Reality is dynamic and extropic in nature.
Stepping out of the mineral kingdom, we make our way to the plant
kingdom. Although it has been known for quite some time that the
rainforests of the world act as lungs for the planet, it has recently been discovered that
they act as a heart as well. What this implies is that not only are
rainforests giant carbon sinks of the planet (acting as lungs), but they
may also be responsible for moving many of the weather patterns that we
see all around the globe (just as the physical heart moves blood
throughout the entire body).
The new study researching this subject suggests that rainforests,
such as the ones in Africa and South America, create winds that
circulate water around the planet. It is known that more than half the
rainfall in rainforests evaporates and recirculates, which then keeps
the upper air moist. New findings show that rainforests are also moving
the air around them, which also has the effect of moving the water
around.
It turns out that as important as plants and trees are to ensure that
there is enough clean oxygen for all sentient beings on the plante to
thrive and survive, they are now acknowledged as being even more
important by affecting the very weather patterns of our biosphere.
Perhaps as a response to the various discoveries concerning the plant
kingdom, there have been governments across the planet that have taken
it upon themselves to become trailblazers in the area of plant and
ecosystem rights. This higher awareness has been most recently
demonstrated in the countries of Switzerland and Ecuador.
In the case of Switzerland, the Swiss Government’s Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology has come to the consensus that
plants have rights and that they have to be treated appropriately.
Making our way to Ecuador, we can see that the country has changed its constitution to
say that nature has “the right to the maintenance and regeneration of
its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.” The
basis of these rights “change the status of ecosystems from being
regarded as property under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing
entities.”
The idea of plants having a degree of consciousness is
very well documented, and so it is not unreasonable for a government to
come up with such a conclusion in respect to the plant kingdom.
However, the perceptions of humans are not always quick to shift and
change. It is demonstrations such as these which show that there is
indeed a higher awareness being experienced by humanity with relation to
its biosphere neighbors.
Emerging out of the plant kingdom and into the animal kingdom, a
myriad of recent discoveries exemplify humanity’s growing awareness of
the sophistication and higher level of be-ing at which animals exist.
The latest and most well-known finding is concerning dolphins. Dolphins
have been perceived as being very intelligent beings for at least
several thousand years. In ancient Greece, it was punishable by death to
kill or harm a dolphin.
Much mythology revolves around dolphins. However, concerning the scientific data being research and analyzed, it has been found without doubt that human language and dolphin movement
patterns show similarities in brevity. The law of brevity in human
language, according to which the most frequently-used words tend to be
the shortest, extends to dolphins, as well as other animal species. It
was observed that when dolphins move on the surface of the water, they
tend to make the simplest movements, in the same way that humans tend to
use words comprised of fewer letters when they are speaking or writing.
Perhaps it is discoveries such as these and others that are altering
the positions of awareness that humanity has concerning dolphins to the
point where they are being described by scientsts as
being non-human persons and, as a result, should be treated as such.
Dolphins are recognized as being the most intelligent beings on our
planet, after humans. The signs are numerous, such as: the anatomical
research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated
with high intelligence; and studies showing that dolphins have distinct
personalities, strong sense of self, and the ability to think about the
future. Dolphins are also cultural animals, which means that new types
of behavior can be quickly picked up by one dolphin from another.
There’s a heightening level of awareness within the human race with
regards to nature and all that is contained within it. Everything from
the discoveries of the rudiments of language in monkeys, metacognition
in dolphins, self-awareness of elephants, the ability for animals to
tell “right” from “wrong”, to the creation and extension of the bills of
rights for animals and plants by countries such as Switzerland and
Ecuador, as well as the acknowledgment of
dolphins as being non-human persons.
There’s a growing awareness by humanity that nature and its
inhabitants are not as primitive and simple as it may have been believed
to be the case in the past. With this growing awareness, comes growing
understanding of the unity that humanity has with the environment within
which it exists. This sense of unity with nature is not something new
and indeed has been the primary position of awareness for many societies
in existence before their industrialization.
In today’s post-modern societies, there is a resurgence of that
connection with the biosphere and interconnected organism that is the
planet and all that exists within its domain. As more discoveries are
made, greater awareness shines down on humanity’s collective
consciousness and thereby, allowing us to evolve the
transpersonal consciousness to a level where the ego is no longer the dominator of the Self.
Science can be a wonderful thing. It can prove without a doubt what
may have been suggested in times past, but was not completely understood
as being the absolute truth, which always left a bit of doubt or
confusion. However, with continuous scientific discoveries occurring all
the time, it is of great fortune that we are able to attain substantial
data and knowledge concerning the environment and all that it
encompasses.
With these new discoveries, it is being quite apparent that humans
have mistakenly been ignorant and arrogant concerning the mineral,
plant, and animal kingdoms with respect to
their levels of sophistication, evolution, consciousness, and awareness. If we were to start looking at the mineral kingdom, much can be seen from recently-made discoveries.
Of course, there has been such an influx of findings that they would
be able to fill up an entire book. However, just a few will be looked at
in order to demonstrate the point at hand. All of the discoveries and
findings mentioned within this article have been announced publicly
within the last few years.
Rocks have been looked at as generally non-living, inanimate,
unconscious, and completely devoid of any life-like characteristics,
even though everything in nature possesses self-organization. However,
stunning new evidence shows
the incredible diversity of crystals and minerals after the rise of
life on this planet and points to the reality that rocks, like plants
and animals, have been evolving all this time, and we did not even
realize it until now. This idea is being called “mineral evolution,”
which is the concept that many of the our planet’s rocks, minerals and
crystals are dynamic species which emerged and transformed over time.
Of
course, the evolution of the mineral kingdom is not exactly the same as
the evolution of the plant and animal kingdoms, since minerals do not
mutate, reproduce or complete like other living organisms, at least to
our knowledge. However, the vast variety and abundance of all the
various minerals on Earth have changed quite dramatically over the 4.5+
billion years of Earth’s past. US geologist Robert Hazen, who led the
research team for this finding, said that “for at least 2.5 billion
years, and possibly since the emergence of life, Earth’s mineralogy has
evolved in parallel with biology.”
This should not be too big of a surprise to us, however. It makes
quite a bit of sense that evolution is all-encompassing…everything from
our consciousness, to galaxies, to rocks. Everything is in a constant
state of be-ing and become-ing, and the condition that the various
aspects of Reality are static does not find much underlying evidence. It
looks more and more as if
Reality is dynamic and
extropic in nature.
Stepping out of the mineral kingdom, we make our way to the plant
kingdom. Although it has been known for quite some time that the
rainforests of the world act as lungs for the planet, it has
recently been discovered that
they act as a heart as well. What this implies is that not only are
rainforests giant carbon sinks of the planet (acting as lungs), but they
may also be responsible for moving many of the weather patterns that we
see all around the globe (just as the physical heart moves blood
throughout the entire body).
The new study researching this subject suggests that
rainforests,
such as the ones in Africa and South America, create winds that
circulate water around the planet. It is known that more than half the
rainfall in rainforests evaporates and recirculates, which then keeps
the upper air moist. New findings show that rainforests are also moving
the air around them, which also has the effect of moving the water
around.
It turns out that as important as plants and trees are to ensure that
there is enough clean oxygen for all sentient beings on the plante to
thrive and survive, they are now acknowledged as being even more
important by affecting the very weather patterns of our biosphere.
Perhaps as a response to the various discoveries concerning the plant
kingdom, there have been governments across the planet that have taken
it upon themselves to become trailblazers in the area of plant and
ecosystem rights. This higher awareness has been most recently
demonstrated in the countries of Switzerland and
Ecuador.
In the case of Switzerland, the Swiss Government’s Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology has
come to the consensus that
plants have rights and that they have to be treated appropriately.
Making our way to Ecuador, we can see that the country has
changed its constitution to
say that nature has “the right to the maintenance and regeneration of
its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.” The
basis of these rights “change the status of ecosystems from being
regarded as property under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing
entities.”
The idea of
plants having a degree of consciousness is
very well documented, and so it is not unreasonable for a government to
come up with such a conclusion in respect to the plant kingdom.
However, the perceptions of humans are not always quick to shift and
change. It is demonstrations such as these which show that there is
indeed a higher awareness being experienced by humanity with relation to
its biosphere neighbors.
Emerging out of the plant kingdom and into the animal kingdom, a
myriad of recent discoveries exemplify humanity’s growing awareness of
the sophistication and higher level of be-ing at which animals exist.
The latest and most well-known finding is concerning dolphins. Dolphins
have been perceived as being very intelligent beings for at least
several thousand years. In ancient Greece, it was punishable by death to
kill or harm a dolphin.
Much mythology revolves around dolphins. However, concerning the scientific data being research and analyzed,
it has been found without doubt that
human language and dolphin movement
patterns show similarities in brevity. The law of brevity in human
language, according to which the most frequently-used words tend to be
the shortest, extends to dolphins, as well as other animal species. It
was observed that when dolphins move on the surface of the water, they
tend to make the simplest movements, in the same way that humans tend to
use words comprised of fewer letters when they are speaking or writing.
Perhaps it is discoveries such as these and others that are altering
the positions of awareness that humanity has concerning dolphins to the
point where they are being
described by scientsts as
being non-human persons and, as a result, should be treated as such.
Dolphins are recognized as being the most intelligent beings on our
planet, after humans. The signs are numerous, such as: the anatomical
research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated
with high intelligence; and studies showing that dolphins have distinct
personalities, strong sense of self, and the ability to think about the
future. Dolphins are also cultural animals, which means that new types
of behavior can be quickly picked up by one dolphin from another.
More
stunning research has discovered that dolphins, as well as other
animals such as macaque monkeys, have shown to have conscious
metacognition. There is a
growing amount of evidence that animals share functional parallels with
human conscious metacognition.
Metacognition is essentially the ability to reflect upon, monitor or
regulate various states of mind, and, although this was once considered
solely the domain of humans, it is now seen as evident in some animals
as well. J. David Smith, Ph.D., a comparative psychologist who has
conducted a study on this topic, has concluded that “metacognition
rivals language and tool use in its potential to establish important
continuities or discontinuities between human and animal minds.”
Metacognition aside, animals are also now known to possess
self-awareness. First seen in gorillas and then later in elephants and
dolphins, self-awareness is
no longer solely recognized as
being the domain of the human being. When most animals see themselves
in a mirror, they will interpret what they see as another animal,
possibly a threat, and may attack the image or be scared away. After a
while, the animals habituate and ignore the reflected image entirely.
However, an animal that is self-aware will recognize the image as its
own reflection, which is something that requires a degree of abstract
thought and cognitive association.
As fascinating as these things may be, new research has discovered that
several species of animals,
such as monkeys, wolves, coyotes, elephants, chimpanzees, rodents,
bats, and whales, have a sense of what is called “morality”, in that
they are able to subjectively tell “right” from “wrong”. In a
series of studies, scientists
have found that monkeys and apes can make judgments about fairness,
offer altruistic help and empathize when a fellow animal is ill or in
a difficult situation. The existence of a conscience is also apparent,
and remembering obligations also exists. Even when there is no obvious
reward for an an altruistic action, chimpanzees were still observed as
willing to help others. The conclusion of this observation led to the
statement by one of the researchers that “chimpanzees spontaneously help
both humans and each other in carefully controlled tests.”
Perhaps the most interesting point in this discovery is that
everything else being equal, animals such as chimpanzees prefer to
reward a companion together with themselves rather than just themselves
alone. The act of giving by the monkeys is self-rewarding and can be
said as being a demonstration of the interconnected consciousness of
monkeys, just as humans, within their
interconnected transpersonal consciousness, will experience the same effect. As the old adage goes: what you do to another, you do to/for yourself.
Language among animals is the one final demonstration, at least in
this article, of the elevated level of consciousness and be-ing in other
aspects of nature. It has
been recently found that
the rudiments of language exist among monkeys. Certain monkeys that
have been studied have been seen to combine the same calls in different
ways, using rules of grammar that turn sound into language. Alban
Lemasson, a primatologist at the University of Rennes in France, has
stated that “this is the first evidence we have in animal communication
that they can combine, in a semantic way, different calls to create a
new message.”
As it stands, it seems that humans are no longer the sole users of
language in the sophisticated manner in which we use it. Although
nowhere as complex as the syntax of human beings, monkey calls are more
advanced and complex than we have ever previously been aware.
All these discoveries have occurred within a few years and are
demonstrative of the incredibly accelerated rise in awareness that
humanity is experiencing with respect to the level of consciousness of
the various aspects of nature, as well as how primitive nature and all
its various aspects seemed to be in times past. There is an awakening to
a more intelligent nature than has ever been previously acknowledged.
This is a step towards a new age in which humans and the rest of nature
will hopefully have a
more symbiotic and unifying relationship,
and more respect will be given to the environment. Baby steps, for
sure, but baby steps towards a positive future, nonetheless.
About the Author
Paul Lenda is a conscious evolution guide, author of
The Creation of a Consciousness Shift,
and co-founder of SHIFT>, a social community focused on anchoring in
the new paradigm and assisting the positive transformation of humanity.
With the drive to be aware of and experience the wider horizon of
Reality, Paul has developed an extensive background in the spiritual and
transformative elements of life; one that is both knowledge and
experienced-based. Visit his website
www.shift.is, follow him on
Twitter or visit the
Shift Facebook community.
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay
to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all
links remain intact.
More
stunning research has discovered that dolphins, as well as other
animals such as macaque monkeys, have shown to have conscious
metacognition. There is a growing amount of evidence that animals share functional parallels with human conscious metacognition.
Metacognition is essentially the ability to reflect upon, monitor or
regulate various states of mind, and, although this was once considered
solely the domain of humans, it is now seen as evident in some animals
as well. J. David Smith, Ph.D., a comparative psychologist who has
conducted a study on this topic, has concluded that “metacognition
rivals language and tool use in its potential to establish important
continuities or discontinuities between human and animal minds.”
Metacognition aside, animals are also now known to possess
self-awareness. First seen in gorillas and then later in elephants and
dolphins, self-awareness is no longer solely recognized as
being the domain of the human being. When most animals see themselves
in a mirror, they will interpret what they see as another animal,
possibly a threat, and may attack the image or be scared away. After a
while, the animals habituate and ignore the reflected image entirely.
However, an animal that is self-aware will recognize the image as its
own reflection, which is something that requires a degree of abstract
thought and cognitive association.
As fascinating as these things may be, new research has discovered that several species of animals,
such as monkeys, wolves, coyotes, elephants, chimpanzees, rodents,
bats, and whales, have a sense of what is called “morality”, in that
they are able to subjectively tell “right” from “wrong”. In a series of studies, scientists
have found that monkeys and apes can make judgments about fairness,
offer altruistic help and empathize when a fellow animal is ill or in
a difficult situation. The existence of a conscience is also apparent,
and remembering obligations also exists. Even when there is no obvious
reward for an an altruistic action, chimpanzees were still observed as
willing to help others. The conclusion of this observation led to the
statement by one of the researchers that “chimpanzees spontaneously help
both humans and each other in carefully controlled tests.”
Perhaps the most interesting point in this discovery is that
everything else being equal, animals such as chimpanzees prefer to
reward a companion together with themselves rather than just themselves
alone. The act of giving by the monkeys is self-rewarding and can be
said as being a demonstration of the interconnected consciousness of
monkeys, just as humans, within their interconnected transpersonal consciousness, will experience the same effect. As the old adage goes: what you do to another, you do to/for yourself.
Language among animals is the one final demonstration, at least in
this article, of the elevated level of consciousness and be-ing in other
aspects of nature. It has been recently found that
the rudiments of language exist among monkeys. Certain monkeys that
have been studied have been seen to combine the same calls in different
ways, using rules of grammar that turn sound into language. Alban
Lemasson, a primatologist at the University of Rennes in France, has
stated that “this is the first evidence we have in animal communication
that they can combine, in a semantic way, different calls to create a
new message.”
As it stands, it seems that humans are no longer the sole users of
language in the sophisticated manner in which we use it. Although
nowhere as complex as the syntax of human beings, monkey calls are more
advanced and complex than we have ever previously been aware.
All these discoveries have occurred within a few years and are
demonstrative of the incredibly accelerated rise in awareness that
humanity is experiencing with respect to the level of consciousness of
the various aspects of nature, as well as how primitive nature and all
its various aspects seemed to be in times past. There is an awakening to
a more intelligent nature than has ever been previously acknowledged.
This is a step towards a new age in which humans and the rest of nature
will hopefully have a more symbiotic and unifying relationship,
and more respect will be given to the environment. Baby steps, for
sure, but baby steps towards a positive future, nonetheless.
About the Author
Paul Lenda is a conscious evolution guide, author of The Creation of a Consciousness Shift,
and co-founder of SHIFT>, a social community focused on anchoring in
the new paradigm and assisting the positive transformation of humanity.
With the drive to be aware of and experience the wider horizon of
Reality, Paul has developed an extensive background in the spiritual and
transformative elements of life; one that is both knowledge and
experienced-based. Visit his website www.shift.is, follow him on Twitter or visit the Shift Facebook community.
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay
to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all
links remain intact.
– our money – into large, armed, drug-enforcement
bureaucracies which are entitled to break down our doors at dead of night,
invade our homes, ruin our reputations and put us behind bars.
