Wounded King

Dear Nowhere,

A good brief overview of a variety of abiogenetic theories is at this URL . I would strongly reccommend that you read primary papers and review in journals to get a really good idea of the state of study of abiogenesis.

I am not sure where you see the bias arising in studies of abiogenesis, unless you think it is biased to exclude supernatural causes from scientific analyses.

If you want to demonstrate the active participation of consicousness then pain is a particularly poor example given the many well documented involuntary reflexive responses to pain. Perhaps our ability to supress those rexflexes would be better.

Nowhere357

Okay, I'll use the link. Thank you.

As I said, just an impression from skimming. My mind is open.

I understand your point, but I've found that pain is the simplest concept where folks might agree that subjective experiences have a definite reality, apart from the deterministic view.

Suffering is real - most people agree. Suffering cannot be seen under a microscope (so to speak), and most people will agree with that; and so I can try to show that subjective experience is a valid and necessary tool for the exploration of the mind. And it's still like pulling teeth.

THEN I would bring in our ability to suppress reflexes.

Just to be clear: I accept the deterministic POV as valid and correct. I claim that the subjective POV is needed for the complete picture. These views exist side by side.