This was a followup response to another response from "Tom" where he speculates on age old appreciation of higher meditative consciousness, and ideas such that perhaps Hindus came to consider cows sacred by being in awe of their peaceful serenity, thinking that maybe they (the cows) had therefore achieved higher consciousness...

It also contains some ideas I had come upon while experimenting with mushrooms after reading a science article about retroviruses and evolution.

It seems to be in our nature to question, and to believe in a "meaning" behind it all. That fact alone makes one believe that there must be something there.

What would be interesting to me, would be to communicate with a "lower" life form, and find out what they think.

We have made advanced steps in communicating with talking birds, and signing (sign language) primates.

Has anyone asked them philosophical questions?

I read about Koko the ape being asked, "where you go once dead?" and she apparently responded with: "Comfortable hole bye"

This doesn't say too much...

If you take a baby ape and teach it how to communicate with humans at an early age... how would the ape aquire and share knowledge known by ape society?

If we could find a way to "mind-meld" with other animals, maybe we could obtain more insight.

It would be quite interesting to find out what other species "know".

Lower forms of life, such as insects seem to work as a collective.

The "hive" acts operates as a single being. A higher state of consciousness than a single insect in the colony.

Birds in a flock, schools of fish, and herds of animals seem to share this ability to some extent. Even a large group humans in certain situations can operate like this (mass hysteria, dance floors, lynch mobs, concert goers, riots, etc, etc).

Plants and trees can also work together in collective fashion.

Trees apparently have quite a bit of control over the weather. They can control the rate of evaporation from their leaves to form clouds which rain back down.

Trees live and grow by sucking up water and nutrients through their roots up the trunk to their leaves and photosynthesizing with sunlight.

Without rain to bring fresh nutrients down from the top layers of soil to the lower root layers, the tree would run out of nutrients.

Decaying dead leaves and other foliage under the tree provide nutrients for the soil that eventually gets down to the roots and back up into the tree.

Does a grove of trees have some sort of collective consciousness, on a small level that we can't detect?

Like Tolkien's Ents, maybe the language of trees is very slow and drawn out comparied to the hasty chatter of animals.

Maybe they can only talk to each other when the wind is blowing strong enough, and the weather is cold, causing those creaking tree sounds.

Or maybe they communicate on completely different level.

What is it like to be a lower life form? Animals are certainly self-aware, and react to all kinds of situations. Domestic pets can be quite intelligent, and can quite enjoy the company of humans regardless of incentive like food.

What of plants? Plants have evolved along with animals, and have specifically evolved in ways to communicate and interact with them.

Flowers make themselves appealing to insects by smell, appearance and nectar so that the insects will help them pollinate.

Some plants and trees produce fruits that higher animals will consume, and later deposit seeds in a very rich pile of organic waste.

Some plants produce seeds and berries that birds come and eat... fly far away and deposit elsewhere.

How did these things evolve these sorts of relationships?

Then we get onto the subject of viruses and retroviruses...

It is now thought that these retroviruses help species evolve by reprogramming their hosts.

After all, it benefits a virus to live a long, healthy existence in its host, and to propagate itself along with the propagation of its host.

If a virus can make its host more likely to survive in the world, it can live a better life itself.

If the virus kills its host off, then it needs to aquire a new host to survive.

The average human body is a whole ecosystem of viruses, bacteria and fungi... most of which we need to survive. We have a symbiotic relationship with them.

I've had some interesting thoughts on this...

DNA itself only contains so much biological information to pass on to the offspring, and evolution of DNA is a very slow, meticulous process.

Viruses on the other hand, can also have strong effects on how the offspring turns out (often bad, but possibly good).

A child's immune system, for example, isn't only based on the DNA of the parents. Antibodies that the mother possesses are passed on to the child.

I expect that along with antibodies, the mother passes on to the child many beneficial viruses, bacteria and fungi (along with bad ones).

We are under the general impression that all viruses, bacteria and fungi that end up living inside our bodies are bad.

This is far from the case. We need many of them... many are beneficial, and some we can't live without.

So I had this thought... when people talk of touch-healing, and "kissing things better", and talk of miracles by just being in the presence of certain people in history (i.e. like Jesus)...

It could just be that these people have some really extra-beneficial viruses, that they share with others by spreading them around.

This might also explain why people have the strong desire to meet with people that appear great to them. Why women want to just touch (or sleep with) rock-stars.

Maybe instinctively they feel that they may be able to aquire some of their greatness from the contact... (spread by these viruses).

It's certainly more credible than unexplainable mystical forces ;) (Other than the power of the mind -- believing in something)