Questions on Sentience, qualitative versus quantitative relationships, metamorphosis, and transformative phenomena

So I'm sitting here pondering how the hell the deduced and engineered arrangement of plastic and metal, and okay, some form of "energy" consumed (but neither created nor destroyed!) - and I'm like - "how the hell did tape ever 'capture' sound such that it is replayable - "re-listenable".

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How did some labyrinth of tiny metal tracks on this green template, and various holes or TINY plastic (what, metaphorical power plants??) come to be? How did a "circuit board" instruct a collagice sculpture of plastic, metal, rubber - whatever - carbon based "stuff" - become this task-master that tells this sculpture what to do, and when and how to do it? A toaster, a Victrola, a T.V., the first telephone, a cell phone, an Ipad, a computer... ...a nuclear centrifuge or a rocket booster?

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Okay - maybe these are all merely mechanical phenomena (simple machines working with simple machines) combined and refined to STUNNING levels.

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Then I asked - are there really such things as qualitative differences? I mean , qualitative differences area mere stop points that we arbitrarily label as special (256 hz is middle C - so what is 258? - and no, C# is several vibrations more/faster) and that all matter and phenomena are a function of ONE infinitely simple physical presence - orders of magnitude smaller than electrons - and then 3 characteristics thereof: proportion (and zero is a quantity!), positional relationship (in space), and sequential relationship of events and inter*ACTIONS* (implying relationships and states of being between entities of THE simplest particle, and the infinite combinations within (or not?) dimensions forever reducible and forever vast over this "fourth" dimension called TIME, which both does not exist physically, but which is a vital theoretical "space" so as to perceive, measure and undergo change!

And...what was it like when some VERY special phenomenon of material interaction (and here, "inorganic" and "organic" are continua on some grander scale), some random (or unrandom???!!!) circumstance of time, space, proportion and interactions and meta-interactions thereof result in the VERY FIRST event, phenomenon, INSTANT awakening called sentience?

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When and how did consciousness come to be???? This has blown me away for awhile, the first time when, engaging in a, ahem, natural bodily necessity, I nearly fell over at pondering the circumstances and "miracle" of conincidences that resulted in this biological form who sentience belongs to ME??? Why now - in all the temporal vastness of the universe.

When you sit with it awhile, going beyond reading some long-winded pondering on Facebook, and really trying to GRASP that you ARE conscious - when for most of time past, and most of time future, you won't be? What IS this phenomenon?

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How do events and actions now produce deoxyribonucleic "instructions"? How does the parasympathetic, or at least instinctive or even learned behavior of squinting, in the constant onslaught of windstorms in a certain region of the world, result in the evolutionary imprinting of instuctions into DNA, a uniquely and viscerally instantly recognizable physical feature attributable to individuals of Asian descent?

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Same for freckles, or skin color, height, gender, savantism, right/left-handedness, perfect pitch, "intelligence" - even - going WAYYYYYYYYYY back, splits into categorized and differentiateed species?

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How did we come to the point where metal and plastic and rubber and energy allow us to ignite the first fire? Record the first sound? Give birth to "electronics"!! And how did we get to this point (so called "digital", but I again argue that that is a mere stop point of quantiative significance, and not qualitatively different from watching Leave it to Beaver thanks to this think called the Cathode Ray Tube) where we can use our fingertips to communicate with other human beings half a world away. And how does this "stuff" - these events, become this "stuff" called data that has to be managed, stored, and can be recalled via whatever technology was used to create it.

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How do the brain and mind do their dance???

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And what are the ridiculously LOW odds that it just so happens that these very special "intelligent" phenomena are happening only on this orbitting mass called Earth?.How did life "wake up"?!

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It...it just blows me away!