The collective human ego has as much trouble letting go of itself as the Center of the Universe and it did the Earth as the Center of the Universe. For the same reason. Someday the folks who regard Man as the epitomy of creation will seem as backward as those who regarded the Earth as that about which everything turns.

Your fascinating post points out what thinkers can achieve when they are free of an ego-centric view of the Universe. The thought that the collective intelligence represented by humankind is analogous to the collective DNA of those slimes of 2 billion years ago, a step along the way to more durable creatures is intriguing.

It would be nice to have a better handle on what the "spark of life" and "consciousness" really is and whether those can be attained by more mechanical means.

One of the traits of humans I haven't seen machines even attempt to replicate well is the ability to obtain energy from a variety of sources, to cycle down to a more primitive manner of existing when necessary. Take a person out of the stock exchange, penthouse in Manhattan, fly that private jet to the Serengeti and land it. He/she could live just fine once they adapted some of the techniques of the Masaai using materials and energy supplied by raw, naked Nature. Until one is able to feed his computer a chunk of scavenged zebra machines may not have an easy time of it. UNLESS they learn to live on sunlight or some other energy source directly. Possible for small ones, probably possible for an assemblage of small ones.

I haven't seen any hint that machines could be that adaptable yet, though nanotechnology is in it's infancy.

And even if machines wanted to replicate over time and space, the best way might be to send forth DNA and wait for evolution to spawn something like humans to invent them. If one looks at the growth Man has made since freeing himself from the influence of religion it's incredible.

Arf