Predictions

This is probabably more of a sci-fi geek-out than a note-worthy issue, but it's interesting to me, so... yeah.

Our perception of time, as mentioned in a previous post, determines our entire concept of logic and thought process. One of the things that is inherent in our perception of time, and also the foundation of many of our standard modes of thinking, is the relationship of cause and effect. We think of virtually everything with regard to this process, and it allows us to understand the ramifications of everything we do and witness.

Generally we think of the past event as the cause and the future event as the effect. The intesting reality is that each event is both. We only label things the way we do because of their order of occurence in time. When a jug of milk is spilled, we assume that the normal state of the milk was not spilled, and that the spilled state is the effect or result of some action. It is just as possible to see the natural state of the milk as being the spilled version, and seeing the resulting non-spilled milk as the effect or result of an opposite action.

Then it gets a little tricker. The result of thinking about this is to say that the natural laws push things in the direction of spilling, but not in the opposite way. This is also simply a matter of perspective. Gravity is reversed in its effect if time is perceived in reverse. Entropy, or the natural tendency toward disorder, is reversed. Magnetic poles are reversed. The strong and weak force that bonds subatomic particles together are actually reversed as well as the electromagnetic force that we normally think of repelling or attracting charged particles.

All of that is simply a way of thinking about something from a different perspective. The more interesting thought is that if prediction works one way, it could work the opposite, since they are essentially the same. We can generally predict the results of standard physical interactions using the normal rules. We just have to reverse the rule expectations and work the equations in reverse using the current situation as the result.

I really have no idea how that actually works, but it seems like there is something interesting in it. I will have to think more about the possible ramifications of it.

Passion

We use the term 'passion' in a pretty blanket fashion to mean anything one has an emotional conviction for, or even the emotions themselves. Passion and/or emotion is by it's very nature extremely difficult to define in a verbal or literal way. People use descriptions of some of the physical effects of emotion - intense feelings in the stomach/gut, hot-headedness, crying, vocal outbursts - but those are really just the ways that the emotions announce their presence... so that we can act on them. In the end they are just sub-conscious thoughts, or thoughts we don't really grasp with language.

I remember having a conversation about romantic love once where I asserted that it was just a more intense version of standard hunger with a different need... companionship specifically. This goes back to my ridiculous nature to be a very literal communicator. Of course I don't think about it that way when I have experienced love. It is intense, soul wrenching, all-encompassing emotion (and/or like an emotional buzz depending on the particular situation). I have a tendency to want to break everything down into systems and mechanisms... no matter what importance it has in my existence. It's like a sickness ;)

Anyway -- the reason emotions/loves/passions fall into a significantly different category than other thoughts is that they are core to our survival. Through the process of evolution, individual humans (or our various species of ancestors) who had a physical notification of a thought that was important to their survival would have been more likely to react quickly to the situation than those individuals who saw the thought as being like any other and had to 'logically' work out its importance.

Hunger is obviously core to our survival, as well as thirst. Fear of death, well, that's pretty obviously important. Anger, revenge, hatred - not things we tend to promote as core to survival, but they certainly would have been needed in a world without social structure or protection from injustice. Hell, I still hold many of those type of feelings for our current Administration ;)

Familial love... obviously very important. Friendly love gives us our ability to bond and interact with those around us... pretty core to functioning in society. Romantic love - obviously important for establishing pair bonding, which is the only way WE survive.

Here's the tricky thing.

I consider intellect to be ultimately more important than everything I just listed. Mainly because intellect can tell me all of those things. And by intellect I really just mean logic, as that's kind of the core wiring. The tricky part is that as much as it can tell me that I should eat, should drink, should protect myself, should have friends, and should have a companion... it can't make me want to. Want. Physical emotional response is ultimately the reason I do anything... DESPITE my knowledge that it is an animalistic response developed through evolution. Even that revelation does nothing to change it's importance, because that's just how we work.

Ultimately I do everything that I do, including all of my problem solving, babbling, working, etc., in pursuit of the physical emotional reaction that I get from the rewards received from those pursuits.

It's really kind of disheartening, which is terribly ironic.

I think maybe my innate perception of this reality is why I have such a restrained emotional response. I tend to kind of watch my emotional reactions like they are remote events. Not completely mind you... love has still gotten the better of me at many given moments, but very seldomly has it overwhelmed my 'reason'. The reality is that I feel a bit cheated. It's kind of like the 'ignorance is bliss' concept. I feel like I have no choice but to over-analyze everything, which means that only really intense emotional responses really compel me in any way. If I could just experience emotion in a more raw and uncompromised fashion, I would probably FEEL like my life was much more eventful and compelling.

ARgh.

Perhaps I can figure out a way to either A) accept my emotions for what they are and think about them later, or B) coerce my life and situations so that my emotional rewards are coming from the same things that I think are valuable intellectually. Or perhaps I will just continue to feel internally conflicted ;)

Perception of time

One of the subjects that has been bouncing around in my gourd for years is the relationship of the passage of time with our perception of it. When we are in a normal state of consciousness and awareness, we experience time as a pretty consistent linear progression, but there are many physical/mental states where this is not the case. The multiple chimays I drank last night definitely altered my overall sense of time somewhat, and the (dare I say) many vodka-red bulls I had the night before altered that perception significantly ;).

Other experiences are even less predictable. Dreaming has virtually no consistent sense of time. One minute in a dream can seem like hours or you can spend an entire night and only feel like you dreamed for 5 minutes.

Again, I don't actually know much information about this, so I'm running on some assumptions and am okay with that (although I would like to learn more, so feel free to post real info :) ).

It seems to me that we never actually experience any given moment. We exist entirely in the information that is recorded in our brains. That information is a reaction to a moment in time... a recording of it. Essentially we are reading about the event that actually occurred just after it happens. I can't be sure this is true, so I'm going to try and research how sensory input is actually processed in the brain... it seems likely that it's working this way though.

If that is the case, we are essentially limited to the 'accuracy' of our memory, which obviously varies in many situations. Much of this thought process came up when I was thinking about death. I was trying to conceive of what the mental experience would be like (cause I'm morbid like that) and came to the conclusion that the recording of memories must slow down and stop eventually. I'm not certain about the slow-down part but it seems likely. If that is the case (I'll see if there's info out there after this) I would guess that time would appear to pass faster and faster until it became infinite (also known as stopping... infinite doesn't really exist, but it's kind of what happens).

The basic idea is that the sense of time is measured by the number of data-points, or definable events, within a given period of time. If you are extremely aware of a situation, it seems to last longer... especially when recalling it. If you are only noting a couple events over a long period of time it collapses in your mind to a very short experience.

I know people are going to react to that statement with 'time flies when you are having fun' or the idea that when you are bored time seems to drag on forever. Those things aren't quite the same as what I am describing though. 'Time flies when you are having fun' really denotes the idea that enjoyable time is something we don't want to end, and therefore we are viscerally aware of it not lasting as long as we want. The boredom thing happens because we ARE very distinctly aware of the passage of time, specifically because we aren't doing anything and are annoyed or disappointed at this... thinking about it constantly.

The specific thing I'm talking about is honestly a night of intoxication or dreaming. In either of those situations, the apparent length of time can seem much shorter in recollection if we did not record many distinct memories. Many people don't remember their dreams, and most only remember them vaguely. I often have dreams that seem to last forever, with tons of events happening in a single night. I also have dreams where I seem to only experience a small scene over the course of an entire night. My perception of how long the night was is completely different depending... even though it was the same amount of time. If I have several drinks, the same thing happens. I get less and less of a distinct sense of events or memories. I still usually feel like I remember everything that happens, but I pay a lot less distinct attention to the world around me and seem to record a lot fewer data-points. A full night basically turns into several rather blurry (but fun ;) ) events, and it seems to have flown by in recollection.

This also relates to hamsters. Really. I've always been fascinated by small animals that have excessively fast movements, reactions and metabolisms. Or bugs that only live for a day. What is that experience like? Are they aware of that time passage and are their thoughts or perceptions accelerated to make the passage of time seem more drawn out and balanced with their life-span (not that someone is turning a dial, but it seems like it would have to be for them to behave like they do)? That may seem silly, but it has always intrigued me. One of the biggest problems here is that all of this really has to be theoretical, since you can't actually experience life as a hamster (which we can all be thankful for).

One simple way to think about this: If you were to simply stop thinking and go into some stasis for 1000 years, when you woke up it would feel like that time passed instantly. You would not have any sense for the passage of that time because you would not have marked it's passage in your mind. Essentially it would equate to time-travel as far as you were concerned. And then you would have to pay for keeping yourself in storage for 1000 years... ouch. That can't be cheap.

This whole idea has always taken a lot of the fear of death away for me. Essentially I would imagine that death simply means that time and experience stops. There is no bad or good involved. The only thing that SEEMS kind of freaky is the idea that your last thought essentially lasts forever. To you it is simply an instant though... there is just no instant after it. Kind of freaky to imagine, but not actually scary to me in any way.

Assumptions

We take a lot for granted. Our perceptions are key to us in determining the 'facts' of our universe. Any good scientist will tell you that you can't 'prove' anything, but even they have to make assumptions in order to function in life... those assumptions being called theories or principles. Not taking these things (what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell) for granted would be like trying to build a house on invisible jell-o... (I just wanted to say invisible jell-o because it popped into my head).

So, because I like floating houses, I feel the constant need to question my senses and assumptions. I still just do it for fun, and of course make the same assumptions everyone else does on a daily basis. I just like to talk to myself (in my head... haven't resorted to doing it aloud yet), and this is one of my favorites to ponder.

Everything we sense is simply an impulse in our brains. We assume that that impulse is based on an external physical stimuli (like a photon hitting a receptor in our eye or a sound wave hitting our ear-drum), and further assume that stimuli to have come from a source, which becomes the thing or scenario we observed. That is a lot of steps to assume. Previous to the scientific understanding of those components, we just assumed that our senses were accurate without even understanding what they were or how they worked.

Dreams happen directly within our brain, but we assign them less validity because they don't come from an external source... even though the external sources actually require two more 'un-provable' levels of assumption in order to occur. I'm not saying that they are more valid or important, but I think it's kind of interesting that we put more faith on something with more un-provable components. I think the main issue with dreams is their lack of logical progression... probably a bigger undermining of trust in them comes from that. I know mine don't make much sense so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to rely on them for any consistent understanding of the world. However, as discussed in the last random babble session, many people do base their entire lives on a belief or belief system that is 'un-provable' and the scientists of the world discredit that because it doesn't have 'observable evidence'... even though observable evidence is based on it's own assumptions.

Of course, dreams and belief systems are both generally based on external stimuli as well. Very few, if any, people actually invent their own belief systems internally, and dreams almost always consist of imagery/sounds/ideas that we have encountered through our senses. I believe in utero babies dream... which is interesting. They do have some sound stimuli I believe, but I'll have to look that up. Makes you wonder what they would dream about.

Then there is the other big assumption we make... logic. For the life of me, I have tried constantly to think of a world without logic and have never been able to do it. The problem is that logic is time. Time is the dictator of cause and effect. Cause and effect is essentially logic (extrapolated to a great degree in it's full textbook development). We can't escape time and therefore can't escape logic. The only way I have ever come close to conceptualizing a logic-less universe is when imagining the idea of an existence not confined to linear time. Of course, that's pretty much impossible to really conceptualize, but it FEELS like that would lead to an non-logical interpretation of the universe (if indeed the 'universe' could even be defined in that existence).

Don't get me wrong... there is a LOT of evidence that both logic and our senses are reality. Pretty much every person alive is constantly adding to that body of evidence and further establishing our belief in it. However, there are many things we 'observe' that are actually misinterpreted because of the limits of our perception. We only know this because we have done complex experiments in which we observed the same issues in a different way and discovered the 'truth'. Who is to say we won't find another way to look at every aspect of our existence at some point in time? Basically it creates an eternal level of question-ability.
In addition, the only way we 'prove' something is to observe it, so all proof (other than the philosophical proof that we exist) is based on the assumption of the accuracy or truth of our perceptions. You can't use evidence based on an assumption to prove an assumption.

I will be the first to admit that this entire passage is practically (as in, "from a practical view") useless, but I wanted to write something ;)

The need for a god

I haven't done enough research to speak about this intelligently, but I'm going to speak about it intuitively anyway.

As a note, I am not trying to deny alternate explanations in any way. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and ideas, these are just mine and I feel like writing them down. I definitely don't think I know the answers, but I have my guesses.

We want to understand. We want to have answers for everything. Even those who don't want to study or attend school. It's the hard-wiring of the human mind that promotes our survival. Cats look for prey, bacteria look for light and we look for answers. Answers being the beginnings and ends of logical cause and effect. If we see something, we want to know what it is, where it came from, and why.

Some things, like our existence and the existence of the universe we live in, are very difficult to explain. The number of factors leading to their existence is so vast that we cannot truly trace, in a direct way, their origins. Several people have created pretty solid theories as to how the physical universe came into being, but it requires a huge leap of 'faith' to believe those theories when you don't understand the math behind them (even then they seem to rely on some pretty vague assumptions). As I said, I am writing intuitively and I don't understand these theories fully myself. I do, however, generally feel like there are a lot of people in the scientific community who do believe them (very smart people), and I therefore have faith that they are decent explanations. I'd love to understand them more fully, but I barely have time to randomly babble as it is ;)

I would akin my belief in this concept of the universe to faith in a god or religion in some ways. Mainly in the fact that I don't truly understand the underlying details, but have come to have faith in the overall idea. There are scientists out there who have come much closer to understanding all of the details of the idea and have dedicated their lives to it... they are the priests of this faith of course. They believe adamantly in the word of science and it's underlying assumptions. They tend to have a particularly strong faith in their beliefs because the nature of science is to rely on 'proved' and 'observable' facts. I believe in the ideas because their obsession with the details and the process of understanding these details is something I see as heartfelt and true. I think the pursuit of understanding and knowledge is one of the few human virtues that seems pretty consistent in the human race, and the scientific method and process inherently creates a system of checks and balances that require people to verify that knowledge in a consistent manner.

The trick with science is that it still relies on assumptions. It still assumes that our perceptions are accurate. It assumes that we actually exist physically. It assumes that there is no manipulative force at work... only the 'natural forces' that have been observed and experimentally determined. I believe, from a practical standpoint, that these assumptions are accurate. I believe this because I have no reason not to believe it. I don't, however, think that makes it true. It's just my best guess.

Many people, when they look for an understanding as to the reasons and nature of our existence and the existence of the universe, don't see science as an adequate explanation. The universe and they themselves appear too complex to be 'accidental'. They need an explanation that can encompass the 'perfectness' of the results. When I say that, I mean that they see our existence as making sense... things just work. The chances that humans could have come about by accident are infinitesimal. Answers that are based on infinitesimal possibilities seem unfounded. The answer that a God brought these things into existence becomes more plausible because it simultaneously explains the logical nature of the universe and humans, and explains why something so seemingly unlikely could have happened (one of the biggest difficulties is really that we don't comprehend the vastness of the opportunities for these things... us to be specific, to have happened)..

ANYONE who was independently pondering the nature of the universe would be likely to arrive at the idea that someONE was responsible for the existence of the world around us. They might not settle on that idea, but if a person really contemplates the question, it is one of the options that comes to mind. We as humans create things... it's one of our other driving characteristics and spawns directly out of the need for answers. We want to do something, we don't have a way, we look for an answer to the problem of doing that thing... and create a tool. Because we constantly create, we will automatically look at all things as potentially having a 'creator'. People always ask why all societies have developed a belief in a god. It seems unavoidable to me if you are really open to the options.

I think fewer people would choose to believe in a 'god' if they had a distinct and clearly provable explanation of the reasons and process for the creation of the universe and the human race. It seems to me that generally people's need for a god is to explain that. I realize that people often feel that god is also a source of morality and clarity in life direction, but I think that is generally a position that god holds as the originator of everything. Who would be more qualified in that case?

In many ways, I feel that belief in a scientifically understood universe takes more faith than a spiritually founded creation based universe because it doesn't involve hypothesizing an answer. In a spiritual universe, you assume the primary answer and that explains all of the detailed questions (well - the primary answer to "why, what, when, how?" is god, and then anything from god is the answer... enter holy documents to explain the details). In science, you don't have a primary answer. You have pieces of a puzzle and you are searching for the primary answer. It's much more difficult to have faith in the unknown. People want security and assurance... want to understand. Science doesn't give you that when it comes to the full picture. I personally don't believe not having an answer is a reason to invent one, but I certainly understand the desire to have an answer. My only conclusion is that religion is an easy way out, but it answers your questions and gives you a set of guidelines and a direction. Science is cold and unresponsive, only giving you what it can 'prove' and leaving the core answers unsatisfied and those who pursue it un-sated... but it does it's best to be objective and open to possibilities (when properly executed).

I personally would rather be openly questioning than to force my theory on the universe, but I understand the desire for answers. I think the reality is that we will probably never really understand 'why' or 'how' fully... there is just too much to know and no way to know it. In the face of that kind of ambiguity, it is perfectly reasonable that people decide to create their own answers. I still question why people take the 'religion' of others as their own, but I think choosing to believe something in the face of the vacuum of meaning is as good a choice as choosing to look for or wait for an answer. I just think it's important to choose something that makes your life and the world around you better. It would only seem to make sense to choose beliefs because they are intelligent and healthy - not because someone says they are 'true' or 'right'... no one in the world is qualified to say what is 'true' or 'right'. Not scientists, not priests, not imams and not me (or you). Everyone has their belief, for whatever reason, but that doesn't make it true for anyone else. Every person in existence has just as much innate knowledge and right to make that decision.

In the end, I personally just think 'god' is an answer to a question. The question is intrinsic to all of us and therefore god is an option to all of us. Ultimately I think the question is actually the meaning of life and the motivator for the human race. It is our god. It is what gives us hope, fear, compulsion and faith. It is what gives us life.

Of course, this is like running through a forest looking only at the tree in front of you. It may be the biggest tree, but all the ones around you are interesting. All of this deals with the more celebrated side of humans - our somewhat unique and defining 'higher' conscious thought. There are also the more 'base' physical and psychological motivators... but that is a different discussion, and one that gods tend to consider best avoided ;)

Fair warning

Lots of words about to be spewed about.

Please join in the spewing if you feel so inclined.