The Evolution of Will

There is more to life than genes. The annals of evolution are recorded by the genome, but life is the story of the living tradition. A body consists of trillions of individual organisms working cohesively to propagate the whole; They carry out their specific instructions, and together form devices of ever greater capability. These devices are our organs which make us what we are. Millions of years of development has resulted in a machine of such incredible complexity it can even deny its own experience. It can hallucinate new perceptions, or fracture into many identities. The devices of our organs were built in layers, components of consciousness beneficial to survival and propagation in this ecosystem of perpetual self consumption. The neuron is the organ that allows for the living experience, a means of binding together the two fundamental aspects of energy and matter; an interface between chemical nature and conscious will.

Year by year the cells divide, changing ever so
One by one the creatures die, developing the code
An endless cycle violently churning through our lives
A vicious fate that calls to us no matter how we try
We began as tiny creatures too small to be seen
Who can only do as programmed to like little machines
There was a bifurcation, a duality of means
From there what was written isn't only in our genes
Electronic interactions leave wakes within a field
Sensation drives us harder to pursue every meal
Awareness ever grew with each new chemical reaction
Perfected by the process of constant rarefaction
Life went on to bring us to who we have become today
Awake aware and feeling, battling decay
Through it all we can feel and see, imagine life without
The joyful pain of ecstasy, the spectrum of all sound

With the nervous system life developed around two structures; The chemical body subject to the random whims of nature, and an architecture of energetic interactions which as they grew in complexity developed ever greater access to awareness. The nervous system evolved as two parallel hemispheres built upon the scaffold of the spine, inside structures of nervous tissue electricity oscillates in harmonic patterns: Energetic architectures that stimulate the conscious experience. This experience was built in layers, as organs evolved so too could the awareness of the creatures they became. Hunger came first, the feeling deep within that drives us to consume; What compels animals to prey is more than attraction to chemical signatures but a feeling that is fundamental to our vertebral heritage.

Upon that was built sensation, our methods to perceive; Lust and pride to fuel our drive to expand our means. Systems of chemical energy developed in tandem with the ever increasing intricacy of the nervous system; The electrical oscillations grew in their complexity while hormones and neurotransmitters could be rearranged into novel mechanisms for interfacing natural matter with energetic consciousness. Each new function of experience came with advantages to feel in ways that create yet more desire to succeed. Each new sense accompanied a more vibrant emotional palette resulting in a complexity of awareness that is difficult for us to untangle. Feelings create a lot of power within us, they overwhelm our thoughts and make consummate our action; to act with such internal certainty as reason can't provide.

The brain is itself a universe in scale, as ineffable in its scope and function. The mechanisms of its body affects the brain in ways we have barely yet begun to understand, nor will until we accept that the conscious experience is more than the thoughts we call our minds. The spirits within us are the ghosts of our ancestors, the architectures of awareness which beget our waking will. The story of animation has been one of reality reaching back out to itself, a chemical genesis and graduation of this flesh through worlds of horror in the evolutionary journey to humans. Who we are is who we've come from; A chain of ancestors sculpted through the eons to be an imperfect juncture of chemistry and consciousness, a novel mode of experience from which to discover and create