Jinydu,
Everything you see, hear, feel, smeel and taste, is an interpretation of vibrations you catch.
I want a billion dollars to appear right in front of me. Argh! It didn't happen!
If you could, you wouldn't want it anymore, it wouldn't make sence to you, you'd have different things to learn.
And atoms do not join with atoms so they can "learn"!
Not according to the scientific theories of nowadays. We think we can't communicate with atoms, so they can't have a concience. Exchanging electrons and energy, is a form of communication between us and them, but as our concience has far overpassed theirs, we think they aren't aware of anything, but i don't see a reason to assume that. Our concience is the sum of some lower conciencenesses, but so is theirs.
I think they can learn, not in the same way as us of course, every creature (what molecules are aswell as protozoa or humans, if you don't agree, define me life please :wink: ) can, and has something to learn.
Now that we have to start defining, i'd better define you learn aswell, don't I? To learn is to become the thing you learn. Not materialy, but conciencely. Somewhere in the past, you've learned how to walk. Now, you don't even think about how you do that anymore, because you've become your way to walk. It's the same with writing, or science.
I see you as someone who follows rules, and thinks about them. That's what you are to me. You've become the rules you learned.
You learn by experiencing. If a molecule attaches himself to others, and leaves them afterwards, he's experienced how it was to be part of something bigger. We do that aswell, by joining a group, or having relationships, communicating with people or even walking through woods.
Of course, we won't see molecules change rapidly, because their way of learning looks slower to us then ours (this is seen from our point of view, but they aren't aware of time in the same way as us). We appear to have a lot more interaction, and to learn faster.
Strength, to me, is an accumulation of experiences, that leads to a higher concienceness. I say higher, becaus you would'nt understand equal, but equal is how I see it. Still, for you to understand what I say, I have to say higher, and that's a difference in our concience.
Now you could argue that science doesn't talk about concience, but science itself is formed by it. Science depends on concience. Concience forms a big chaos of vibrations to the structurised image we get from it. Molecules don't realy exist, they're just interpretations of vibrations we catch. As are cells, trees, animals, and ultimately, yes, we are our own interpretation of ourselves aswell. But we are no more then the structure we give to the world around us.