LH Merlo

I don't think consciousness is an exclusive human property, I think other living beings just have different levels of consciousness. Also, I think consciousness and sense of existence are different things. I believe consciousness is one of the most powerful and important things in our world. Unfortunately our population lack self-awareness, critical thought, mental health and a bunch of other things that could make the world a lot better. It's truly amazing that we as humans can explore the offworld, If you think about it, it looks like life itself is an extremely rare thing, we're like 'guardians of life' in such a huge and enigmatic universe, maybe we should look at it with more respect. But, as dimreepr said, we're destroying this one yet.

It may be, that's an interesting opinion. Your comment gave me some insight, thank you. Indeed, life is pretty amazing.

When I said something more I meant something that goes beyond our comprehension till now, but you're right, I gave it a little spiritual connotation, because the fact that we EXIST just blows my mind. Let me try again. We can't prove that life emerged from abiogenesis or panspermia or whatever. I believe it has an explanation, but I just think it may go far beyond our current knowledge - and that's what I call something more -, there are much more possibilities than our main theories. See, spirituality isn't a religious belief, it's just the refuse that life it's all about a matter state. What happened before the big bang? I can't assume there was nothing. It's just that we can't understand. Maybe there's a lot more when it comes to life as well, a lot more than matter, maybe science is just not there yet.

I think I expressed my opinion poorly. Yes it could be that we're all matter. I just don't believe it because we got no explanation for the very existence, we know in what conditions it could exist and we have some theories about how the first living being appeared but, still, we can't actually explain when and how did something inanimated became animated, we can't explain what is the sense of existence itself and how it emerged.

What is consciousness? I'll start this with an example, let's suppose someone has Alzheimer, he can forget his name, he can forget where he lives or who he are, but he won't ever forget he's something, by the way he doesn't even have to remember it, he just is. It's like there is a sense of existence in each one of us that goes beyond our comprehension - which we can call life -. When and how something inanimated became an animated being? When it started to exists? What is it that we call existence? IMO it makes more sense to believe there's "something more" we can't explain, it can't be just our brain and its impressions. Life itself is transcedental.