Ode to Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and other Outrages

This post is prompted by yesterday's (12-14-12) massacre of 20 elementary school children and 6 adults in Sandy Hook, New Town, Connecticut.


I begin by stipulating that I am not an expert, but I think the experts are very wrong in their approach to understanding and responding to this kind of insanity which appears to be growing toward ubiquity of late, especially in the United States.

Ultimately, I am convinced that people who commit these senseless acts of violence do so out of a conviction and feeling of powerlessness. Essentially, the root of these feelings arise from various and sundry perceived “injustices” buried somewhere in the lives of those who erupt into madness. Some of those perceived “injustices” may be legitimate, and some are no doubt absurd misperceptions, but the point is that these people have, at some time in their lives, felt “wrongness,” and have been unable to express those feelings in a way they can feel they've been heard and understood.  They feel powerless, alone, and unheard. Ironically, perhaps, it is only because they actually care -- perhaps compulsively, but they do care as opposed to succumbing to apathy -- that they end up going mad.

Sadly, public responses invariably include attempts to further limit power. Clearly, the public wants to prevent such actions, and that's more than reasonable. But making more restrictions -- essentially putting more stops to expression, and belittling feelings of fear and injustice -- is worse than useless; it merely adds to the real root cause of the problem. One common idea is that, if such people didn't have access to guns, they couldn't commit such acts. Sensible. We're not talking about “sport” weapons here. Theae weapons are not good for hunting, and not necessary for target shooting. They are weapons of war, designed to shoot humans, and serve no other purpose.

But, as long as war is waged, or as long as there is threat of such, war weapons will be built, and will be accessible, legally or otherwise. Of course, such weapons have no purpose in the hands of non-warriors, and it seems reasonable to do anything possible to keep them out of non-warrior hands. But taking them out of the hands of those who feel they need them only serves to threaten those people and to leave them with even more fear than they already have.  To them. it seems unjust.  They are "different."  They have done nothing wrong.  It seems to me that we have to ask, “Why do people, especially American people, want such weapons in the first place?” What kind of fear would motivate someone to desire such a weapon “under her/his pillow or in her/his nightstand?

I contend that it is fear, legitimate or not, that they might, someday, be threatened, whether by a government, a random insane person, a thief, or any of a dozen other possible sources. In other words, people fear to become powerless; exactly the same problem as lies at the root of the senseless shootings.

I further believe that the only way to resolve the problem is to reduce such fears, real or imagined. Why are so many people so afraid? I could write a litany. Ultimately, individual “reasons” don't matter. I think we need to approach this positively. Fear, and desire for access to weapons, will exist, no matter what. If we want to make inroads to a solution, we need to replace fear with communication -- caring and honest communication, -- responsibility, and accountability.  We must become worthy of trust.

We need to actually listen and care when someone reports injustice. We need to practice listening and caring on an individual level with each other. We don't necessarily have to agree with the complainant, but we do need to acknowledge it's real for the one(s) reporting it.  We absolutely cannot institutionalize our responsibility, nor can we dismiss it with drugs! That's the problem, or perhaps I should say, it's a root cause of the problem.

We, as individuals, attempt more and more to give responsibility for accounting and justice to institutions. We rely on teachers and schools to “teach” our children proper behavior, for Pete's sake! We insist more and more that problems be “provable” legally before we will deign to pay attention to them. We plead “busy” when someone tries to tell us their problem(s).

Someone tells us something horrid -- horrid in their eyes, at least -- and we simply refuse to hear it. It's “unacceptable,” so we try to deny it, try to justify it, or try to argue it away rather than hearing the pain of the person telling us about it. Certainly, the person may be misperceiving things. Certainly, we listeners may feel impotent to change things even if we believe them, but the point is to hear and care about the feelings of the person talking with us. That person is telling us something that is currently true -- for them -- and that has to matter. Listen first, and care!   Earn their trust.

After feelings subside, we may or may not be able to find solutions, but it's a part of caring, and it's vitally important to think about it, to talk about it, and to at least try to find solutions. We must stop ignoring such communication, and we must stop sending the complainant to some faceless institution or other.  Such people don't need to be "handled," they need to be heard and inderstood. That, I believe, will reduce the school shooting problem. It will also reduce the desire for and subsequent availability of war weapons.  In short, we must become able to trust one another.

Likewise, we must recognize that institutions do not and can not care. There is no such thing as “corporate responsibility!” We must cease trying to give responsibility to institutions, and we must cease blaming them when things go wrong. For instance, BP did not spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn't just an anonymous engineering problem, either.  People -- individual, responsible people -- were involved and should be held accountable. The New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass. didn't make drugs that caused fungal meningitis, people at that facility did (not intending to pick on one company in particular; I mean any manufacturer of any faulty product).

Conversely, President Obama didn't cause the Libyan ambassador to be killed recently, though he may or may not have had a role. Neither did Joe Paterno, at Penn State University, allow children be sexually assaulted, though he may or may not have had a role. Responsibility and accountability are difficult to assign -- especially in the face of lies and “corporate spin.” Yet, I contend that lies and spin are at the root of our desire to have war weapons available for use, and, on a “local” level, are at the root of actions like the school shootings.

The current situation is unacceptable! It would be convenient to deny responsibility; to turn it over to the “experts.” We'd like to put it aside, and move on with our lives. Hey! We need to know who's leading in the Steelers-Bengals game, don't we?   We've got text messages to answer, right?

But that's exactly the problem. We, each of us, has a role in solving this; a role in making a better world for ourselves and our children. No one of us can solve it on her/his own. No one of us should try to assume it's all her/his personal fault nor her/his personal responsibility to "fix." You can't “save the world,” and neither can I.  For that matter, neither can Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed or Obama or Romney or any other individual solve it. We're all in this together, and no matter how good we get at solving things, someone, somewhere will “prove” us inadequate. However, each of us does have responsibility, and each of us can contribute to the solution.  Over time, and with a bit of effort, things can change.

Life is sacred! People are important! Listen and care! Take time! Make time! Work for something positive. Adding restriction on top of restriction, negative on top of negative, only makes us all more impotent, and exacerbates the problem. We can make a difference! It takes work, and it takes time.

For the sake of our sanity, forgo a little inconvenience, and make a better world. If it's not important enough to be worth that, then accept the consequences. No amount of Ritalin or Prozac is going to fix things.  If we continue to make life into a spectator sport, the human race is doomed. Many have said that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in December of this year. Well, it won't end in cataclysm, but if we refuse to invest time and caring in each other, it will have ended for all intent and purpose.

To those in Connecticut, and to all the others, in the U.S., in Norway, and all nations everywhere, who have lost loved ones to this insanity, my heart goes out to you! I cannot change things done; I can only hear your cries of anger and anguish, but I do hear them, and I care! You matter! Inadequate as it is, I am only one, and it's what I can do. Added to the above, I can only hope it makes a difference in your future lives, and those of all our children, mine included.

Civilization: It's All About Sex

What is it that makes one person “civilized” and another “barbaric” or “primitive?” I suggest that civilization is essentially synonymous with rules or controls, and that most of those rules arise to determine when it's OK to fight, and how the fighting is to be done. With civilization, fighting becomes something more than a physical contest. With civilization, there arise legal systems, courts, and institutionalized methods to resolve disputes without resorting to physical fighting. Yet, the central issue is still about fighting or arguing.


So, why do people fight? Why did humans need to develop civilization in the first place? Plants and animals managed to “get along” on this planet for literally millions of years without civilization. What's different about humans?


I propose that it has a lot to do with sex. Animals fight over the right to mate. When I say that, I'm talking about fighting within their species, and often within their specific herds or groups. Beyond mating, animal fighting is limited, as far as I can tell, to practice fighting or play fighting, either as a way to learn hunting skills or to prepare for mating challenges.


I used to think that only humans the ability to engage in recreational sex, and that all other life forms were limited to procreational sex, but it turns out that that isn't entirely true. A number of animals, bonobos and dolphins are two examples, do engage in recreational sex; ie: sex for pleasure rather than procreation.


What remains of my errant observation, and what I believe is at the root of mankind's argumentativeness, is that man appears to be the only life form, plant or animal, that doesn't know whether it's engaging in procreational or recreational sex. In other words, one of the things that makes humans different from all the other life forms on Earth is that he's lost the ability to know whether and when his female is fertile. This, in turn, means that any sex is potentially procreational sex. And that, in turn, leads to incessant fighting over mating rights, even when mating isn't the intended goal. And that leads to civilization.


While I'm on the subject, I want to make two related points. One is that fighting is too restrictive a term. We compete. Fighting is about competition, and competition can be intellectual or emotional, as well as physical. We compete to prove our prowess, to score “points” in social status, and thus the right to mate. We compete to dominate. We compete to rule, even when rule is determined by election -- or should I say, especially when it's determined by election.  Not only do rulers generally gain the right to mate, they gain the right to make the rules about who can mate.  Note also that females compete for the right to choose, or be chosen by, the “best” male candidate. Even Cinderella is a story about competition for the right to mate.


The other point I'd like to raise here is that I think this inability to know whether we are recreating or procreating is a fairly recent development in the evolutionary history of mankind. There is little, if any, evidence of what we would call civilization; including agriculture, writing, and building on any significant scale; prior to the end of the last ice age; specifically about 12,500 years ago. There appears to have been art, and there appears to have been spirituality before then. Even Neanderthals demonstrate those attributes. Certainly, that is true for Cro Magnon, or early-modern-humans. But civilization, as such, is a relatively modern development.
I would ask, “What happened to change us?” If it was a genetic change, it might be discoverable through DNA analysis, but I suspect it was epigenetic. Epigenetics isn't about gene changes, per se, it's about gene expression. In other words, while dogs share the same genes, one variety of dog exhibits short, curly hair, while another exhibits long, flowing hair. One looks like a pug, while another looks like an Irish wolf hound. These differences are epigenetic. If that turns out to be the difference between civilized man and so-called primitive man, then I doubt that science will ever be able to learn when or why the change took place, or even to prove that it did. Still, I raise the question: “What happened?”



One final note:


According to the latest published DNA research (as of 2012), there is evidence that modern humans carry DNA from Neanderthals. This is very recent, and is in direct opposition to a previous announcement that there is no DNA carryover. On looking into this, I've learned that the earlier “no carryover” announcement was based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). MtDNA is inherited only from the mother. Thus, it would appear that Neanderthal males could and did mate with early modern females, but that early modern males did not (successfully) mate with Neanderthal females. Was that because Neanderthal females were incapable of carrying such children to term, or might it have been that modern human males knew when Neanderthal females were fertile, and avoided sex with them during that time? Again, it's something we'll likely never answer with certainty, but I raise it, nonetheless.

A Fantasy in 11 Dimensions

I haven't posted in a while now. I've been having some pretty astounding personal changes in my life, and they've distracted me to the point where I need to let things settle down in my mind before I can organize anything sufficiently to post. Therefor, it's likely to be a while more before I have something intelligible to write here.

I thought I'd be ready by now, but that's not the case. One thing keeps leading to another, and I can't even say how long it will be.. Meanwhile, the following fantasy occurred to me before the changes began (and it's just possible they're related). I'll put it out here for your amusement 'til I'm ready to continue. If this brings up anything for you in your personal life, I'd love to hear about it if you're willing to share.

Thanks for your patience, and I hope you'll check back in a month or so.



"A Fantasy in 11 Dimensions."


This post is fantasy. Any relationship to the real world is purely coincidental.

One of my all-time favorite books is Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. In it, he describes three concepts I have found fascinating my whole life.

“Waiting is”: The idea that waiting isn't necessarily a passive thing. You can do it actively, more like stalking than waiting.

“Grok”: The ability to drink an idea into oneself, to understand it so thoroughly that it becomes a part of you.

“90-degrees from everything”:

The hero, an idiot-savant of sorts, has the ability to “disappear” things, but can't explain how he does it. The secondary-main character does an experiment to see where things go when this happens. He sets up 2 high-speed cameras 90-degrees from each other, and films a disappearance. Both cameras show that the disappeared object goes rapidly off into the distance, becoming smaller and smaller until it vanishes from sight. Where did the disappeared objects go? “90-degrees from everything.”

It's a wonderful book, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Recently, something prompted me to think about it once again, particularly in regard to “90-degrees from everything.”

We're all familiar with 4 dimensions:

up-down (height)
right-left (width)
near-far (length)
recent-past (time)

Each is 90-degrees from the other. So, what's 90-degrees from everything we know? Inside-outside (a nameless dimension so far). It's the 5th dimension.

Of course, inside and outside are relative, but then, so are up and down, right and left, near and far, and even recent and past. They all depend on the position (and time) of the viewer. Inside and outside is no different, really. Our bodies are inside the real universe, and our “selves” (souls, spirits, whatever) are outside. Or is it our selves that are inside the real universe and our bodies are outside of it? See what I'm saying? Either way, inside-outside is 90-degrees from everything else.

Note also that inside and outside each have a version of right-left, up-down, and all the other dimensions. So, now we have 10 dimensions in the universe. Five are “real” and five are “imaginary.” So, let's add an all-pervasive barrier that separates inside from outside, “real” from “imaginary,” and let's call it the 11th dimension.

We could call this M-Theory (Mystery Theory), but that name's already taken, so, in the spirit of 2001's semi-intelligent computer H-A-L ( note that's I-B-M minus one letter alphabetically), let's call it L-Theory.

Now, that's what I call fun! (OK, so my idea of fun is maybe different than yours.)

Let me repeat: This post is fantasy. Any relationship to the real world is purely coincidental..

Or it it? (Cue the spooky music, and fade to black.)

What is Life?

Here's a mind-expanding idea for your consideration: “Life is that which organizes.”

How can you tell if something is alive or not? Generally speaking, you might do things to provoke reaction, and if it doesn't react, call it dead -- or non-living if it never seemed to react in the first place. But, what is it that motivates reaction? It seems to me that the motivation is about creating or retaining organization. If something feels threatened; in other words, if it senses danger to the form it is organizing, it does what it can do to avoid or counteract the threat.

But what about things that react slowly? Does a tree react noticeably when you chop it down? How about a carrot? Those things cannot move, or cannot move quickly. Plants will react -- albeit slowly -- to shifts in light, or to the introduction of poisons and such things, but the best they can generally do is to grow toward or away from the stimulus, and that happens at a rate that takes hours or days to notice. In any case, once again, they do their best to preserve the molecular structures they have organized.

It seems to me that the most reliable way to tell whether something is alive or not is to kill it. What happens then is that it's organized structure dis-organizes.  Plants, for instance, turn brown and/or start rotting. Animals do the same, they just do it faster.

Living things also often organize their environments. This is easiest to see in people, where we build houses or towns, and make gardens and such, but plants and other animals do the same thing. They are just more limited in their ability to manipulate (organize) things quickly. Often, their only real chance to organize their environments is to choose where to grow in the first place. Many plants and animals seem to have developed rather remarkable strategies for transporting their progeny to new and suitable environments. In this, they seem to exhibit a level of unselfishness: the strategy is aimed at future generations, and takes no heed for preserving the parent generation.

It's easy to say these things are the result of random chance. Parent trees seem to have little control over where their seeds get blown by the wind, or carried by birds, for example. There are many examples that lend credence to the “chance” hypothesis. (Note that many plants do develop relationships with bugs and other animals when spreading seeds.  Some may have a sense of timing related to weather and such.)  Still, the thing that matters is that there is an effort -- in all cases -- to organize. Trees organize molecules into trees; people organize molecules into people (and houses and such).

What about rocks? Diamonds are an organization of carbon atoms, aren't they? Is a diamond alive? Is coal, which is another organization of carbon atoms, a 'failed” diamond -- a diamond that didn't find the best environment in which to “grow?” Perhaps that's taking things a little too far. Yet, what about a planet? Could it be that the planet is what organizes both diamonds and coal? Does it organize carbon and other elements into bacteria or algae, too? Maybe or maybe not, but I ask again, what exactly is life, and how do you tell when something is “dead?”

So far as I can see, there is nothing in physics that predicts organization. There are all kinds of arguments that permit it, but there are no codifiable laws that predict it. As far as I can tell, the laws of physics predict only entropy, and entropy predicts dis-organization; random scattering of molecules and energy into a “smooth” soup of sorts. Left to itself, everything in the universe is predicted to eventually dis-integrate.

I propose that wherever we see organization, there is -- or recently was -- life.

Certainly, chance (or luck?) plays an important part in the organization process. All stars do not organize solar systems, and all planets do not organize amoebae or coal, or polar bears, for that matter. Question: is the amoeba a by-product of organizing for coal, or is coal a by-product of organizing for amoebae? I leave it to you to ponder that one. The point I want to make here is that organization is a “by-product” of life.

A by-product of my “Life-is-that-which-organizes” hypothesis is that I find it useful to anthropomorphize -- to personify -- things that most people consider as non-living. I think of Earth as a living entity, the organizing principle or force behind the planetary structure we see. I tend to call Her “Grandmother Earth,” and I ponder Her intents and motives when acting in my everyday life. I think of Her working for 4.5 billion years to create the basic environment in which I live, and which nourishes my body and brings enjoyment to my life, and I am put into a state of wonder and awe. I feel gratitude, too.

I do the same thing with “Grandfather Sun” and ultimately with the whole universe (aka “Great Spirit”). It's not the atoms and molecules I think are alive, but I think there's an organizing principle at work in all of it, and I find it useful to have a place for myself in that thought-framework, and to try to cooperate with it rather than subjugate it or take it “for granted.” I think of this organizing principle -- this life force -- Nature -- as sacred, and worthy of respect. And I think of myself as sacred too. I not only feel reverence for other life forms, I feel it from them as well.

Thinking and speaking as I do, gives me an unusual view of things. Recalling the influence language has according to General Semantics (  see post here ), this gives me a way to create a useful world-view; a pretty “map,” if you prefer.

And I do find it useful. I “go with the flow” more easily than I once did, and I think I get important things done more easily as a result. I certainly have less stress doing them. I also find that when I meet resistance to doing something, it frequently turns out that it was a bad idea or that there was an easier way to get it done. I offer my experience to you for consideration.

Is it necessarily the absolute truth of how things really are? I don't know. I am told, especially by scientists and atheists, that it isn't necessary to have an organizing principle; that it could all be done with random chance. I respond by saying that what isn't necessary is that we beat each other's brains out in competition to grab all the resources we can in complete disregard for the sanctity of life.  What isn't necessary is war; war with other people or war with Nature. What isn't necessary is to advocate the pointlessness of life and the irresponsibility of attributing it to chance. What I do know is that my hypothesis, and the way I use it, makes for a more beautiful and more wondrous world-map.

YMMV.

Making a Difference: General Semantics and Sanity

“Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.” That was a common phrase in my youth. It's rarely said quite the same way, but lately, it seems that everyone complains about violent overreactions, apathetic complacency, boundless greed, needless war, and many, many, other kinds of human insanity. Yet, no one does anything about it. Well, here's something we can do to make a difference. It's not a magic bullet, and it won't solve every problem in the world, but it can make a difference; a big difference, I think.

I'm talking about General Semantics (GS). Please wait! Before you shut me out and go away, notice that this is not the same thing as “semantics.” Semantics argues over the exact meaning of words. Semantics is about definitions and language. GS is about symbolizing our thoughts and psychology. Semantics is often pedantic. GS matters. The only relationship between them is meaning; both subjects are about meaning.

We often speak emotionally, or habitually, or just plain carelessly. GS posits that while this may be the result of sloppy thinking, it is just as much a cause of sloppy thinking. According to GS, as we learn to speak in terms of approximates and generalizations for the sake of convenience, we actually learn to think that way as well. Essentially, we program ourselves.

Alfred Korzybski, who founded this subject in the early 1930s, proposed that the words we speak, if we speak them often, actually create neural circuits in the brain such that we respond automatically -- habitually. In other words, we often react habitually, without thinking or at least without careful thinking. We repeat what we said and thought yesterday, rather than looking at facts, and seeing situations as they are today.

For example, in haste we say things like. “Joe is sick.” Compare that to saying, “Joe has an illness.” The first statement is permanent and unchangeable. The second statement allows for the possibility that Joe might not always have an illness. GS says this difference really matters -- it's not just “semantics.” Even though we insist we don't really mean that Joe is permanently sick, saying it that way actually affects our thinking -- and our actions. Need I mention that it can affect Joe as well?

From habit, we say, “The sun rose this morning.” If we actually think about it at all, we keep in mind that the Sun didn't rise, the Earth revolved. However, if we just toss out the sentence, “The Sun rose this morning,” without significant attention, then we create or reinforce a neural circuit in our brain-mind that's false. GS suggests that this affects our thinking, too, whether we intend it or not.

We generalize. We stereotype, we group, and we classify. That's useful and convenient in the sense of mapping things, but it's vital to keep in mind that “the map is not the territory.” Specific individuals and events are unique, and don't necessarily conform to a classification. For instance, we might say something like, “Homeless people are irresponsible.” That's just a “map,” and a rather poorly drawn one at that. It may or may not apply to a particular situation. It's just as false as the “map” (thought pattern) of the sun rising every day, but it's much more harmful in that it prevents us from seeing an individual person as who s/he is.

At it's worst, a specific “homeless person,” hearing the generalization, might take it in as a true representation of herself. S/he thinks of herself as being irresponsible, whether true, or not; or perhaps s/he thinks s/he is irresponsible when the truth might be that she did something irresponsible in the past. My experience tells me that we mis-identify -- saying is rather than has or did -- hundreds of times a day, and that, I think, contributes a lot to insanity.

Let me emphasize that our thought patterns go beyond talking. They often lead to actions -- actions that cause hurt and harm -- actions that tend to perpetuate our sloppy thinking. In other words, talking irresponsibly often actually leads to acting irresponsibly. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We say something is so, and because we say it often enough, it becomes true. The effect is not one-time. Sloppy speaking, especially when it contains emotion, often percolates through society like a disease, and becomes a “meme” with a life of its own, so to speak.

So, it's vitally important, I think, to be aware of our words and their meanings as we speak them. The more we can learn to speak carefully; to say what we mean, and mean what we say, the more we can break the patterns of insanity in ourselves and in our society.

When I first read about these ideas in Korzybski's book, Science and Sanity, I thought they were exaggerated. So, I tried an experiment on myself. I noticed that I said things like, “my friend,” “my wife,” or “my children.” Did I own these people? Of course not! I didn't mean that I “owned” them, and I was sure everyone knew what I really meant. I thought it was just a way of expressing a social relationship. But that made it a good example to test the GS theory.

So, I decided to stop saying the word “my” in relation to people to see whether it made any difference. When I caught myself saying, “my friend, Joe,” I made myself say, “Joe.” Instead of saying “my children,” I'd say “John and Jane” (not real names, by the way). I tried this for several weeks. I noticed how hard it was to be aware. I'm sure I slipped a lot, especially in the beginning. Still, to my own surprise, at the end of about three weeks, I noticed that I actually did think of them differently. I found myself acting more respectfully toward them; I paid more attention to things they said and did. I “permitted” them more rights to have their own ideas and opinions. Note that I “permitted” them! Yikes! I really had been acting as if I “owned” them! It was extremely eye-opening.

Ever since then, I've tried to speak precisely. When giving an opinion, I try to say, “It seems to me,” or “I think,” or something to indicate that your view may differ from mine. When I don't know, I try to say so. I try to keep in mind that everything changes. Everything is different from everything else. Everything! Classes and generalizations are just maps, and when I use them, I try to make them as accurate as possible.

Time passes. The “me” of this exact instant is different from the “me” that was a minute ago; not to mention the me I was 20 years ago. This spring is different from last spring: the Earth, the Sun, the entire Solar System has moved a long way in space since last year. Every single particle in the universe is moving relative to every single other particle. Anything I say that seems true to me today, might seem different tomorrow. I do sometimes slip up and say things like, “So-and-so is a jerk,” but I try to follow it up with something to say that the condition might change, or could change, in the future.

There's a down side to this, though. As a society, especially as a television-viewing society, an internet-surfing society. an instant-gratification society, we seem to mete out attention in sound-bite increments. We are literally inundated with information -- much of it filled with memes and sloppy speech. It's too much to process with care. We also seem to enjoy emotional stimulation. It “grabs” our attention. One result of this inundation without adequate attention is that we get lots of “programmed” neural circuits just through mundane daily activities.

In conversation, I've found that if I pause to gather my thoughts and formulate my words -- often while fighting off internal emotional pressures -- my audience loses interest before I finish speaking. Sometimes that happens while I'm still formulating my words; even before I begin speaking. My hesitation is sometimes interpreted as an unwillingness to speak, or as a criticism of what's been said, and I am sometimes perceived as being aloof or indifferent. It gets frustrating at times.

I'd like to lobby for a social change. I think a big part of improving sanity is going to require slowing down, and waiting for replies in conversation. We need to care, not only about what we say, but about what others say. As we take time for ourselves to think before responding, and to overcome habitual and emotional responses, we need to allow others to do the same.

That doesn't have to ruin the “fun” at social gatherings. It can be a different kind of fun. What's the point, after all, of idle prattling, either in person or on the internet? Really seeing each other, and really caring about what the other person thinks and says, can bring real communication as opposed to social banter. Think about it for a minute: it would make the world a truly different place -- and a better one, in my opinion!

One final thought for this post: we can never achieve perfect precision with our words. If we try to do that, we'll never speak at all. We need to remind ourselves that words are only symbols. Words only represent things; they aren't the actual things. They can never fully describe reality. I think we need to care about what we say. We need to speak as accurately as possible, but avoid getting overly pedantic in the process.

Emotion is valuable, too; extremely valuable! It just needs to be recognized for what it is. Emotion is not fact, and doesn't contribute much that's useful to decision-making. Still, emotions are vitally important. Speaking them and speaking about them is factual in the sense that it's absolutely the truth about how someone is feeling at one specific instant in time, and in relation to one specific set of circumstances. Celebrate it that way. Feel it together. Share it! Emotions are communications worthy of our attention, too.

GS has additional techniques that can help us toward integrity, and sanity. You can find out more by looking up General Semantics on the web. You can read Science and Sanity and Manhood into Humanity by Alfred Korzybski. Those books are highly technical, and make for rather difficult reading, though. As a really good introduction, I strongly recommend a 2-volume science fiction series called The World of Null-A and The Players of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt. They are fun to read, and they also explain a lot about GS.

GS is something to think about. It gives us tools and something to do with them. It's a lot better than just complaining. I think it matters, and I hope you find it helpful, too..

Spatial Convexity: a Possible Explanation for Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Disclaimer: In trying to understand how the universe works, and especially in trying to make the subjective part consistent with the objective part, I feel a compelling need to understand physics. I also feel a need to expand on what is “known” with some occasional speculation about what might be found out “someday.”

From time to time, I'll post some of my speculations here. If physics isn't your “bag,” I'm sorry. It seems important to me, but I realize a lot of what interests me is, to put it mildly, unusual. Please feel free to skip over my physics-related posts; it's just speculation, anyway. I don't claim expertise.

There's an awful lot of just plain BS out there calling itself physics, though. I may be guilty of adding to that, and it bothers me. To the extent I am guilty, I apologize in advance.

Most of what I write here is subjective, and about things that are subjective. My views are worth as much as anyone's. Physics is just about the only area where there actually is a right and wrong. Physics either works or it doesn't. As best I can, I apply that same criteria to my subjective stuff: does it work to increase sanity or not? Testing the subjective isn't easy, though, and unlike physics, even the results are subjective and vulnerable to misinterpretation..

When I do write about physics, I can only tell you that I'm sincere, that I check and re-check against “accepted” physics, and wherever possible I ask “real” (professional) physicists for their opinions and criticisms. I have learned a lot doing that! I have come up with some really wacky ideas along the way, most of which have been proven wrong. Meanwhile, I'm a lot more careful these days, and I hope you'll find my ideas worth reading and considering.

On the off-chance that any “real” physicist should read here, I'd welcome your comments and criticisms! Really! Meanwhile, I hope that someday, at least some of my ideas lead the “real” physicists to a valuable finding or two. I hope they'll help my other readers, too.
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Spatial Convexity: a Possible Explanation for Dark Matter and Dark Energy

(Update:  The "rainbow effect" described here is almost certainly wrong.  See comments.  The rest still stands, though.)

One reason theoretical physics is unpopular is that it's hard to understand. While it's easy to grasp that when I jump, I come down again -- every time -- it's not at all obvious that when I run fast enough in a straight line, I can actually escape Earth's gravity, and orbit in space. I don't even have to jump up! Yet it's proven to be true every time we launch a satellite.

In recent years, one of the more incomprehensible ideas physicists have offered is that of “dark matter” and “dark energy.” Very briefly speaking, as we have developed new and more accurate measuring tools and methods, anomalies have been discovered that bring into question our previously-accepted view of how gravity works, and of how space expands as a result.

After several years of effort trying to grasp the problem and to imagine how we could have been so wrong 'til now, I believe I've come up with a relatively simple and obvious solution. Ironically, it's about how we subjectively interpret the data we see. In other words, I don't think any of the observations are incorrect. However, by re-interpreting the meaning of the “facts,” I think I've come up with a way to incorporate the new data with our old view of things.

In a sentence, I think I've eliminated the need for “dark matter” and I've explained “dark energy” as something we've been seeing all along. In other words, our old view of how things worked wasn't really far off. The interpretation just needs a bit of tweaking.

The tweaking necessary requires three assumptions:

1) Space is not nothing. It is not a “thing” in the sense that you can't pick it up; it can't be separated into parts (except in our minds); it has no weight; etc. But it exists, and it makes a difference in everything we see and do.

2) Space does have one characteristic that affects matter and thus can be indirectly measured; it has shape.

3) The force we call gravity affects the shape of space. Gravity does not attract matter, per se. It changes the shape of space so that matter “falls” into the depression/concavity it causes.

We have known number 3 above since Einstein worked out the theory of General Relativity (GR). Yet, for reasons hard to fathom, we have persisted in assuming that gravity is a force that affects matter. (*see note)

In any case, all of Einstein's calculations, and all of everyone else's calculations are based on how gravity affects matter. The idea that this effect is indirect; must have gotten lost in the shuffle. It's indirect because gravity actually affects the shape of space, and that, in turn, affects the matter within the space.

So, what happens to the shape of space when there's no gravity to make it concave? Up 'til now, it's been assumed that space without matter (gravity) to distort it is effectively flat. In other words, space has been considered not to matter unless there's matter to shape it with gravity. I find it ironic that we say it doesn't matter, and than we prove that it matters after all.

In explaining that the universe is expanding, it's as if we've been saying that new space is magically appearing out of nowhere. Everyone agrees that the amount of matter in the universe is not growing. Matter is not appearing out of nowhere. Why should space be different?

Yet space is expanding. Areas of space where there is little or no matter, expand. In a sense, space “pushes” the matter of one galaxy (cluster of galaxies) apart from the next one. Well, what is the shape of expansion in all directions? Convexity. It's like a balloon blowing up. It gets bigger, and more convex. And that, I think, explains “dark energy.” The numbers need to be checked. It needs to be proven that areas in the universe which show greater red-shift (faster expansion) are, in fact, more devoid of matter than other areas. It should be verifiable.

Spatial convexity, as I'm describing it, is synonymous with spatial expansion.

Then why do more distant galaxies appear to be expanding faster than nearer ones? The answer, I think, is that we are seeing them through more convexities. Which brings me to lensing, and the rainbow effect.

Astronomers measure the speed of spatial expansion using something called the red-shift. Essentially, red-shift is thought to be due to a kind of Doppler effect, where light, from a source moving away from us, is less energetic than light from a source that's standing still or moving toward us. Red light is less energetic than blue light. Since light travels at light speed in any case, this motion of recession doesn't slow the light down, it just gets redder instead. Compare it to sound from an object traveling away from us; the sound seems to go down in pitch as it recedes, and the faster it recedes, the lower the pitch.

That is no doubt correct as far as it goes. But convex lensing, I think, can also produce the same effect.

First, let me point out that we see concave lensing affect (distort) light when we see light from distant galaxies distorted as it passes through the gravity of nearer galaxies. It's called gravitational lensing, which means that the concavity of space caused by the nearer galaxy is causing the distortion. In other words, it is a recognized fact that the shape of space does affect light.

In fact, GR was first proved to be correct by observing light from distant stars as it was gravitationally lensed (distorted) by passing through the sun's gravitational field (concavity) during an eclipse.

So, lensing caused by convex space should also affect light. Looking through a convex glass lens spreads light out. Objects seen through such a lens on Earth, appear larger (and get blurry) as a result. Convex spatial lensing is different, though. Convex spatial lensing is essentially spherical, whereas the glass lenses we normally use are only partial spheres. In a spherical convex lens, the light is spread out as it enters, but gets re-focused as it exits out the other side of the lens.

However, one other important thing happens: as the light gets spread, the colors of that light get separated as in a rainbow. That's because light is not a single thing; it's composed from different colors, or wavelengths, and each one has its own degree of energy. In visible light, the least energetic wavelengths are red, and the most energetic are blue.

Each wavelength of light is bent by the convex lens according to its wavelength, with the least energetic red light bending the most. To put it another way, the path traveled by the red light, as it passes through the lens, is longer (bent more; more curved). Even though it exits the lens at the same time as the other colors, the fact that it has traveled a longer distance makes it appear more separated (redder) from the other colors. Each color is affected, too, it's just affected less. As each color separates from the others, we see a rainbow.

Thus, as light travels through the convex lenses of space, it appears to redden. The different colors, in fact, lose energy at different rates. Even though the light is re-focused upon exiting the lens, it retains some of this rainbow effect, and the red light (and the other colors to a lesser extent) appears redder. The more lenses the light traverses on its way to us, the redder it gets. Thus, more distant galaxies have a greater red-shift.

Doppler-caused red-shift (speed of recession) is real, too, I think. After all, as convexity increases, it increases the straight-line distance as well as the curving between here and "there."  But if there are two causes of red-shift, as I am suggesting, then our view of spatial expansion is distorted. It's not all due to Doppler, it's a combination of Doppler and convex lensing. Determining how much is attributable to each cause is going to be a ticklish process, I think. Nonetheless, it might be possible as I'll describe in a minute.

On another front, astronomers measure the speed at which stars rotate around the center of galaxies by using the Doppler effect of red-shift, too. And it's that measurement that suggests most of the stars in the galaxies we measure are rotating too fast to account for the gravity we think they have (they have to be seen edge-on, or nearly so to measure them). Because of that, astronomers have proposed “dark matter” to make up for the deficiency in gravity.

However, if spatial convex lensing, and the rainbow effect, is taken into account, I think we can eliminate the need for this mysterious “dark matter.” In other words, those stars are probably not rotating as fast as we thought they were.

Testing for the rainbow effect might be possible by comparing visible light spectrographs with X-ray spectrographs. X-rays are even more energetic than visible light. They should therefor be distorted less by lensing than visible light. On the other hand, the red-shift effect of recessional speed should be the same, or nearly so for both bands.

I suggest that we use these effects to compare equivalent spectrographs in the different bands. Red-shift due mostly to recession speed should be measured according to the X-ray graphs, and any additional effects caused by lensing should be measured according to visible light graphs. Subtracting one from the other should give an indication of how much the rainbow effect is distorting our view of things. Note that lensing will still affect the X-ray graph, and recession speed will still affect the visible light graph, but lensing should affect one more than the other. I have to leave the math to the experts.

The fact is that it's darned hard to picture space as a not-nothing that affects matter, but it's a lot easier to picture that, and assume we've been nearly correct all along, than it is to picture mysterious, spooky, and invisible “dark matter” and “dark energy.”


One other thing while I'm here: Physicists have been working to create a “Grand Unified Theory” (GUT) that explains all the forces in the universe in relation to each other. To grossly simplify, they want to make the “story” of how the universe works into a single, relatively simple, one-page story.


The story originally had four pages (the four forces). One page for the electro-magnetic force, one for the strong atomic force, one for the weak atomic force, and a final one for gravity. So far, the first three forces have, in fact, been consolidated into a single page.


Gravity seems completely incompatible, though.


I think that's because the force of gravity is an interaction between matter and space, while the other forces are interactions between matter and other matter. In other words, E=mc2 is only true for the three matter-matter forces. Gravity (and spatial convexity) are completely different things. They aren't really forces at all in the usual sense of that word. They are shape-shifters.


And, by the way, gravity doesn't come in waves, either.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it until I'm proven wrong. Thanks for reading! Comments and criticisms welcomed.

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*Note: I can only guess that Einstein, himself, got confused when it was discovered that GR needed a “cosmological constant” to make the universe static and “forever.” When Edmund Hubble later discovered that the universe was, in fact, expanding, Einstein felt so embarrassed about the cosmological constant error, that he called it his biggest mistake. I am saying here that Einstein's cosmological constant should have been a variable that mathematically describes spatial convexity. Then GR would have fit perfectly with an expanding universe. In other words, I'm sort of saying “Einstein was right.” (Again! --  He was an amazing guy.)

Earth Vs Sky: the Theme of This Blog

At 10 AM on New Year's day, 10,500 BCE (give or take a couple thousand years) (smile) something happened on planet Earth. The event is commemorated as “the end of the last Ice Age,” and it was epoch-making. Lots of living things died, and many, such as mammoths and saber-toothed cats, went extinct. Huge glaciers melted, and sea levels rose as much as 300 feet in many places. Ironically, a few places got colder, too; notably Siberia where mammoths have been found frozen under ice packs, preserved since then with undigested spring plants in their stomachs. All in all, it was a tumultuous time.

We don't know what caused this to happen. We don't even know whether it was a single event or a series of them over an extended period. We do know that the repercussions went on for a long time afterward: Glaciers didn't melt all at once. Some of them melted, and then remaining ice slid into place to dam up growing lakes, 'til more melting broke through the dams and created catastrophic floods in their wake. The whole thing may have taken months, years, or even centuries before everything settled down and stabilized. It seems reasonable to assume with all the melting going on, that there were a lot of rainy days back then, too.

Also interestingly, many species that went extinct then may have actually evolved, possibly through genetic mutation, and possibly through epigenetic (*see below) changes. Mammoths apparently became Asian elephants, for example, and saber-tooth cats may have become cougars or other big cats. There are many examples that need further research for better understanding. Species that didn't go extinct, or didn't become new species, had their populations greatly reduced. Notable among them were humans.

And that's a significant point here: humans -- at least some -- lived through this event. Surely there must be stories -- myths, perhaps -- that carry memories to us today. As a species, we have a bit of historical amnesia after such a traumatic event, but it's only reasonable to assume there would be some record somewhere. Also, it seems likely that humans might have changed genetically or epigenetically in the process.

In fact, it's the changes in humans that prompts me to write this post. Before the "Deluge" accompanying the end of the last ice age, we had homo sapiens, “thinking man,” in many places around the planet. They went on organized hunts, and planned their food gathering according to climate and animal migration. They lived in caves, buried their dead, made paintings and tools, etc., yet they appear to have remained just another species in nature.

It's only after the flood event that we see writing, cities, and farming, which I'll group together as domestication. We also see stories of “gods” descending from heaven (aka the sky) to war with each other and to instruct man about how he should live. The “heavenly,” aka “Sky” gods, instructed man that he should have “Dominion over the Earth, and all that lies therein.”

When I look at those changes, I see something much, much more significant than “normal” mutations and adaptations. I propose that man changed/evolved, as much or more than mammoths and saber-toothed cats. I propose we are a new species of man. To differentiate, I prefer to call the new humans “homo arrogans” (arrogant man).

As homo sapiens, we were a product of nature, a part of it. As homo arrogans, nature, who evolved us from mud, is no longer the respected mother -- she has become the enemy. Switching to nature's viewpoint, homo arrogans becomes an experiment in artificial intelligence gone haywire, like HAL, the rebellious computer in Arthur Clark's “2001, A Space Odyssey.”

I sum it all up under the idea that a war began at that time: a war between Earth (representing nature) and Sky (representing the “heavenly” gods). That, by the way, is the import of the title of this blog: Earth vs Sky.

I propose that our urge to domesticate is what makes us different from all the other animals. Things made by homo arrogans are artificial, not natural. No other life form domesticates other life forms like man does. For that matter, man domesticates men, too, other men and even himself. In nature, there are symbiotic relationships that resemble domestication, but symbiosis differs from domestication. Domestication is, at its root, slavery. It's a one-way relationship.

Domestication is about using other life forms for our benefit, and if the tamed species benefit, too, that is merely a by-product of our efforts to use them ever more efficiently. In symbiosis, both parties more-or-less voluntarily participate for their own benefit and for their own purpose. In domestication, the slave species is subordinated, and if need be, altered through selective breeding; lately we're even using genetic engineering. We domesticate bees and horses for example, not to profit bee or horse survival, but to promote their usefulness to man. We breed new disease-resistant strains of wheat, not to benefit wheat plants, but to make more food for ourselves. It's likely that the disease for which we are breeding resistance wouldn't be a catastrophic danger in nature -- it's only a problem because we need the food. The disease itself might even be a by-product of our farming practices -- accidental, but essentially artificial.

I would go so far as to propose that domestication amounts to man taking over the reins of evolution from nature. In other words, man is actually trying to domesticate nature itself for his own benefit. If man gets his way, evolution, natural evolution at least, will cease. In homo arrogans' ideal world, all evolutionary change would be engineered by man. We're even plotting ways to prevent dinosaur-killer asteroids from evolving us.

I see this post-flood change as comparable in importance to the birth of carbon-based life itself -- the birth of the first successful, self-replicating microbes that arose from the primordial soup.

I propose that we desperately need to understand what happened here on Earth 10,500 years ago. It's not just another piece of history like a bird species evolving a pointier beak, or a whale losing limbs and returning to the sea. It's a “who the heck are we?” question, and the answer should be discoverable since it's such a relatively recent event. Mankind lived through this particular event. It must have been a terrible and traumatic time, but it should be a recoverable “memory.”

I think it's likely -- no I think it's more than likely -- that our so-called “mythology” contains clues about it. No doubt, the clues are distorted, and need interpretation based on things we can verify through geology archeology, and anthropology as well as through scholarly reading of the stories. Nonetheless, I'd like to see us concentrate our attention on investigating this event.

I'd like to point out a few legend-related things I think are relevant.

There are flood stories in mythology and religion from all over the world. Examples are Noah of the Hebrews, Utnapishtim of the Sumerians, Fuhi of the Chinese, and Spider Grandmother of the Hopi.  They all tell how a few select humans were saved or rescued to re-populate the Earth after the waters subsided. Various of the stories are dated by scholars as happening anywhere between 4,000 BCE and 1,500 BCE, and as such, they are debunked by geology and the other sciences -- there is no evidence of a world-wide flood then. But, as I have stated above, the world-wide flood happened sometime between 12,500 BCE and 8,500 BCE, and science verifies it as “the end of the last Ice Age.” Clearly, I think, the dating of the stories is wrong. The dates given to the myths are based on when they were written, but they clearly must be about events that had happened long before then.

In my opinion, there is no conflict between myth and science over whether the flood happened, only over when it happened, and I think it would be helpful if we approached the subject cooperatively, rather than competitively. There is no need for belittling or battling between the mythologists and the scientists. The incessant arguments are likely a symptom of the very arrogance we need to understand. If we can cooperate, I'm sure we can make strides toward understanding something new and exciting -- not to mention important!

There are other interesting and relevant stories in mythology, too. In addition to the rather mysterious story about Cain and Abel representing, perhaps, a war between the hunter-gatherers and the farmers; there are hundreds of stories about various heavenly gods warring with each other, and often recruiting various tribes or clans of humans to assist in the battles. Eventually, monotheism emerges, and continues even today in its convoluted attempts to unify and domesticate all of humanity.

No matter how you look at it, there's no denying that the flood circa 10,500 BCE is a really important event in our history. I urge us to think about it and study it. I'm convinced that this event is a major source of man's disconnect from nature, and I think that disconnect leads to our often-apparent insanity. Understanding what happened will, I think, bring about a better understanding of just who we are, and that, in turn, should bring a saner and happier world for us -- and for nature, too.

As I consider these questions, I ask myself whether nature would evolve a species that usurps nature. It seems to me that's a mystery worth researching.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with these questions: Are we really the epitome of nature's intent? Are we the end-product toward which natural evolution has been aiming since the universe began 13.7 billion years ago? Or are we perhaps nature's big mistake? 

It looks to me like we are an invasive foreign species, like kudzu in the American South, or Coqui frogs in Hawaii. Could it be that we really are an invasive “foreign” species?  I frankly doubt we're a physically foreign, 4-dimensional invader.  I do wonder, however, whether it's possible that we might be spiritual invaders in the sense that we “possess” human bodies. I'm asking whether we might be a result of a recent and ongoing interaction with another universe or universes (as in parallel universes). If so, is it possible that we continue to "live" there, and to operate our bodies like puppeteers?

No doubt there are other possible invasion mechanisms, too, or perhaps I should say, not-impossible mechanisms. These thoughts are certainly wild and wacky speculation, and I don't know the answers. (There's plenty of fodder here for some great sci-fi, though!)  Yet I think the questions are worth a thought or two.

Knowing who we really are should contribute a great deal toward “sanity.”  In pursuing the answers, I would propose that deciding whether we're on the right track should be based on whether our presumptions contribute to our ability to think and function sanely. By “sanely” I mean ethically, and in an integrated manner wherein our actions match our words, our activities facilitate our goals, and our goals honor all of nature's life forms.

In the end, our answers should fit with any evidence science provides, too. Just keep in mind that science can only verify the objective facts. The subjective, or spiritual ones are less certain, but even more rewarding if we get them right.

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*Note: Epigenetics is about which genes express -- become active -- rather than actual mutation. It's a fairly new field of study, and I'm no expert, so you should look it up for yourself. Still, I'll attempt an over-simplified explanation as I see it:

Every cell in the human body has the same genes. Yet, some cells express as skin cells, while others express as bone cells. Epigenetics is the study of why this happens. In addition to stem cells expressing as differentiated cells, there appears to be evidence to suggest that the environment may have a role in determining which genes get expressed as species evolve.

For example, let's say we have a mammal species that has genes for fur color, and that they generally express as striped fur. The species lives in forests, so striped fur is advantageous for stealth. If climate change produces drought so that the area becomes desert, it's possible that the striped aspect could be suppressed in favor of plain, sandy-colored fur expression. Sometimes such a change appears to be heritable.  Thus, the genes were there all along, no mutation was necessary; they're just being expressed differently.

Beauty Prayer

Here's a prayer I like a lot:


Great Spirit
Come dance in my heart!

Let beauty go before me
Let beauty walk beside me
Let me leave beauty behind me
Wherever I go, let me touch with, and be touched by, beauty.

So be it, and thank you.

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Note that this is my own version; my own words, but I owe a debt of gratitude to a Cherokee teacher for this prayer. He said he learned it from a Navajo elder.

Becoming One with the Universe is Not the Goal

Becoming "One" with the universe is not the goal. It's not the truth of who we are, either; at least I don't think so.

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard or read that the "Goal"-with-a-capital-"G" was to become One with the universe, or with all of life, or with each other, or with you-name-it, I'd have a sizeable bank account by now. If you study any of the "Eastern" religions, you'll run into the idea, too. The idea, as I understand it, is that we are all parts of God somehow; that we started out, and at our most fundamental still are, a single entity that's trying to get to know itself by having divided itself just enough so it can see itself from different viewpoints.

Along with this advice, go comments like, "Love is about seeking or finding our other half," and "Suffering is just an illusion," supposedly because the physical universe, and everything that happens in it, is a journey designed to see the rest of our “self” and to ultimately bring us back together in spirit.

While it's a romantic idea, everything I've learned about how the universe works leads me to believe that we are, in fact, separate and unique individuals.

There's an old joke I recall from when I was a kid: "When 2 people get married, they become one. The problems start when they try to decide which one." I think the joke is almost too true to be funny. Responsibility is about who did what, and who didn't do what. The idea that we are all basically one entity blurs and confuses responsibility -- cause and effect -- and does nothing to promote understanding in our everyday lives. If anything, I think the whole idea promotes insanity, not to mention that it makes for some pretty sad relationships.

Maybe that sounds harsh, but I spent a lot of time and effort trying to meditate away the pain and suffering I saw in everyday life, and the difficulties I experienced, too. I tried really hard to believe that we are all really spiritual beings, and that whatever pain and suffering we see or experience is just the result of losing touch with that supposed "Fact." Supposedly, the hurt isn't real, since nothing physical is real. Supposedly, with "Right Thinking," we wouldn't need the bad stuff, and somehow, for the "Adept," it all magically goes away. Well, I looked, and it turns out that even the supposedly great gurus and masters suffer and die in the end; they're just stoic about it.

After years of pursuing that philosophy, I finally decided that even were I to assume that there's some esoteric, ultimate, state of being; where we somehow all join together into a single whole; the fact is that between here and there we are a lot better off thinking and acting as if we are unique individuals. As far as I can see, the confusion over what's real -- to the point of arguing with ourselves about what hurts -- contributes to insanity, if nothing else.

In the end. I decided that there had to be a way to really make the world a better place; a place with less pain and suffering; a place where we can actually do things to make change. And that's not going to happen if we keep trying to meditate our way to insulated numbness rather than actually trying to address the problems we see and experience. Perhaps it's possible to achieve some kind of "Nirvana" by going away to some isolated place on a remote mountaintop; some place where we no longer have to deal with everyday life; but that's not for me -- at least not this lifetime.

Since coming to my decision, I've had to deal with the question of why the "Oneness" idea is so seductive. Among other things, it does provide a mechanism we can use to insulate ourselves and to separate from pain and suffering. Drugs do that, too, though, and few people, myself included, think that drugs are a good answer to the problems of the world. Surely, the Creator -- assuming there is one -- did not put us here for the purpose of learning to do drugs. Furthermore, the escape is not just from the pain and suffering we experience, it has a lot to do with escaping our responsibility for causing some of it. I think that part, the part that says "I have caused pain or suffering," is actually a lot harder to confront than the pain I personally experience. Ignorance really can be blissful when it comes to my own responsibility for my own mistakes and the misunderstandings I've created or to which I've contributed.

On the other hand, it's certainly true that things that affect others tend to affect me, too; there is a perceived "sharing" of experience. We even have at least one built-in mechanism that facilitates sharing experience. "Mirror neurons" in our brains are one such mechanism.

When we see -- or imagine, for that matter -- something happen to another person (or any other life form), our brains fire off neurons as though we were that other person or life form, and as though we were experiencing the event ourselves. I would propose, however, that the survival value of that mechanism has more to do with learning through the experience of others than it does to showing us that "Your pain is my pain."

Your pain -- and your success, too -- is not mine. It didn't really happen to me. If the perceived event is focused on the doing (cause) rather than the experiencing (effect), then it's also true that I didn't cause it -- you did or someone else did. I would propose that we need to realize who did what and who felt what if we are to promote sanity and to fix problems. Even though the same nerves are fired off when we "share" an experience as when we "have" the experience, we can still know who's who, and I'm convinced that's vital if we're to learn.

I think there's another mechanism at work here, too; namely that as truly separate spiritual beings, one of our reasons for being here is a fundamental desire to interact and cooperate with each other -- not just humans, but all life forms. I think that's a fundamental, spiritual truth; having once interacted with another being, we want to do it again and again. It's a significant part of "who we really are." Being innately separate beings is lonely once we discover that we are not really alone.

Note however, that interacting and cooperating are very different than "being-the-same-as" the ones with whom we interact and cooperate. The difference is really quite profound. In cooperating, among other things, we have choice and responsibility, while in "being-one-with," the choices and causes are made elsewhere -- by God, or by the universe, or whatever else you might call it.

That's enough for one post, I think. No doubt this will come up again in many other posts as we go along.

Time and Space: Me and Other

I think time is the way we distinguish between what's us and what's other. We perceive things that are not us after the fact. This is easy to see when we view something light-years away as in stars and galaxies. What we see in the present actually happened a long time ago. It's a bit harder to see that the same holds true for literally everything that isn't us. Even scrutinizing a bug from a distance of a foot or so, the light we see takes a tiny bit of time to reach us, and the bug we perceive is not the bug that is there now. Thus, the only present is the self. I would propose that awareness of self, consciousness, is dependent on this mechanism. With no separation between self and other, there is no awareness of self by definition.


A byproduct of time, then, is an awareness of other. The more I become aware of time, the more I become aware that there are others in the universe, and the larger the universe becomes. The awareness of time grounds me in the sense that I gain perspective as to who/what is me, and who/what is others.


This is the meaning behind space and time being inseparable: "space-time". It locates me. It grounds me. And understanding it, I can more easily imagine how things look from other viewing points. In other words, I can better understand, and tolerate, differences and similarities among people (and all life forms).


Time as a measure of change is then added to that view. Sequencing does allow us to make sense of things, keep us "sane," but it is not an illusion. Change does occur. Recalling the first definition of time, I can see that you might become aware of a change either before or after I do. In other words, your measure of time, your clock, if you will, "ticks" differently than mine. Again, I gain perspective and tolerance -- and understanding by seeing time.

Subjective vs Objective: Introductory post

When I was 9 years old, my maternal grandfather died. He had been sick for several months. My parents had gone to his house to help my grandmother do the shopping, and had left me home with a babysitter. The babysitter and I were playing in the basement when I perceived (as in extra-sensory perceived) my grandfather in the rafters. He smiled, and told me "Everything is OK." I was not old enough to even be startled by it. I did sort of stop in my tracks and concentrate on him, and I did sort of say, "Hello." I had time to wonder what was it all about, but when the phone rang a minute or so later, I immediately knew that the call was going to tell us he had died. As I looked back to converse with him some more, he was gone.

That incident told me, beyond any doubt, that there was more to life than the physical. I carry that certainty with me today. As I grew up, I learned that this knowledge wasn't shared by everyone. In fact, there was no one with whom to discuss it. As time passed, I did run across people who believed in the spiritual or supernatural, but they all seemed to argue as to what it was about. Nearly all of them were taking it on faith -- they had no personal experience. They were "parroting" things they had been told or read from others. Still, they had some awareness that there was more to life than the obvious.

At the same time, I learned that most people thought my "knowledge" was mere superstition or illusion. "There's no such thing as a ghost," after all. In fact, the more I learned about science, the bigger this conflict became. Eventually it became something of an obsession to understand and to resolve the paradox.

I found no help at all in organized religion, and little more in years of studying psychic phenomena with the various new-age and ancient Eastern groups. There were bits and pieces everywhere, but there was no rhyme or reason with which to make a coherent, overall picture. At some point I decided to make one. I'm still working on it, but the search has not been totally fruitless. I've run across a few things that seem possibly profound -- or at least new.

So, a lot of this blog is going to be about the relationship between subjective and objective reality. The objective side is the stuff everyone can see and share and verify. It's science. I'm no scientist, but I've worked pretty hard to grasp the ideas and concepts of science -- especially physics -- and I think it's important -- vital even -- not to argue with what we know about it.

Bumping into a wall brings a certain sense of reality that simply cannot be denied. Einstein was right: physical objects in a 4-dimensional universe cannot go faster than the speed of light. If I'm going to "believe" in the reality of the subjective, I have to add that to physical, 4-dimensional reality rather than argue with it.

However, adding to the "laws" of science is a possibility. "Believing" in the laws of science as "Truth"-with-a-capital-"T" can become a subjective "faith" unto itself. Not everything is known, and certainly, not everything is understood. Even science admits to the possiblity that there might be more than 4 dimensions; and there might be other "parallel universes."

Furthermore, if the subjective isn't real, if it doesn't matter what each of us thinks/opines/intends, then responsibility, ethics, love, etc., are meaningless. In fact, meaning itself is meaningless. I think that's insane.

So, I'm left with the assumption that both the physical and the spiritual (aka subjective) are real, and the "trick" is simply to create a paradigm that includes both. That's easier said than done, but I'm working on it. Things may get a little wacky here from time to time, but I think it's worth the effort, and a boo-boo here or there along the way seems tolerable under the circumstances.

Life needs a story. Without a story, it makes no sense; it's meaningless. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It may be cyclical, but it's never a circle -- it's a spiral. This spring is different than last spring, even though they're both springs. Life moves, it changes. Life creates, it organizes. That's the difference between life and things.

This blog has snippets from my story of life. It's history, his-story. This story gives meaning to my life, and might be relevant for yours, too. Hopefully, it's meaning that makes living worthwhile, and maybe it makes dying worthwhile, too. With a good story, life might be just a bit easier to live, just a bit more sensible and sane.

Everyone is free to make her own story, of course, but it should be self-consistent and sensible if it's to be worthwile. That's what I'm trying for. Think about it with me. Consider it. If you don't like my story, make a better one, and please share it with me! Meanwhile, I hope you'll give mine a bit of your time and attention.