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.
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
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.
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.
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