Everything we experience in this world comes from our own unique perspectives. Whether as individuals or mankind as a race, we quantify the world based on our own standards. I think this is one of the main factors that prohibit us from making large strides in understanding existence. We get about 80 years on this planet, and thus we characterize the entire universe based on viewpoints of less than a century. This is why we go crazy over things like global warming; our sample size is so small that we fail to the see the big picture.
Why?
Is it because we subconsciously reject the futility of our own existence in a massive universe? Or do we simply lack the awareness? Or do we even care?
You start to think about how insignificant you are and wonder what the point to anything is. Meanwhile, the person next to you is caught up in the inconsequential details of life, obsessed with the mundane. Don't they understand? Don't they realize? I don't think they would even if you told them. Before long you start to wonder why you feel this way in a world that feels the opposite? Am I crazy or are they? Or are we both? What can I gain in my 80 years that won't be washed away in another 80, like a footprint on a sandy beach? Aren't we all just footprints? Some are deeper than others, sure, but in time they all fade.
And it's not as if life were easy. On the whole it can seem very daunting, especially for someone in my shoes. What will change that? What can I hope to find that will make me think every minute on this planet is worthwhile? Is there anything? And even if there is, would it really change my mind or merely distract me from the reality of our existence?
What will tip the scales and outweigh the burden of life? I don't think anything will, not for me at least. Yet I continue searching for an answer in the dark, following breadcrumbs, searching for a light switch. And so does everyone else. And none of it makes sense. I have less than 80 years left to find that light switch. Or maybe I have less than 80 until it finds me.
1/31/10
1/30/10
1/18/10
EKGs, the Universe, and me making discoveries that have been already made
So I'm plugging away at some physiology notes last night. EKGs and heart rhythms and the like. Eventually I get to a lecture on the leads and how they are placed on the chest during an EKG. In a nutshell, if the polarization of the heart is parallel to the lead, it will spike up or down depending on direction, but if it is perpendicular the lead will completely miss the current passed through your heart. That's not important though. What is important, is that it got me thinking about how certain measurements can be effectively masked depending on where you measure them from. My initial response to this idea was a question, but to be quite I honest I don't know why. Said question was:
If you walk a day in forest, and at the end of the day return to your original location, is it absolutely necessary to have traveled in a loop?
I quickly decided the only possibilities to be either a) yes you traveled in a loop, or b) the ground followed you, and you traveled in a line. The loop answer intrigued me, because you undoubtedly would move, but never reach any new finish point. And then in a gigantic storm of lightning bolts erupting from my head, I realized that if we apply this thinking to time, everything makes sense. Essentially I came to the following conclusion:
1. The universe is expanding in 3 dimensions, X,Y,Z. Each dimension is analogous to the planes of a 3D graph.
2. The fourth dimension is time. Time dictates XYZ based on a temporal measurement. At any time XYZ will have a specific value.
3. As the universe expands, so does time. Thus we can plot the expansion of the universe as a function of time expanding in unison.
4. At some point the universe will reach its maximum distance from (0,0,0), and will begin to retract.
5. When the universe begins to retract, time will also retract with it. This will cause time to flow backwards.
6. Eventually the universe will erupt again and time will flow forward.
Essentially this explained to me why humans have such a difficult time quantifying the extent of the universe and time. We hear question like "What lies outside the edge of the universe?", or "what came before god?". We ask these questions because we naively see time a finite, forward-only measurement. On our graph, time never follows XYZ according to this line of thinking. Instead it just meanders aimlessly as a ray. Instead, think of time as circular. Think of it as a ball on a string that spins around and around, almost like a bola. If you look at it from the side, you simply see a ball moving back and fourth. This is analogous to how we see it, except our reference point is so temporally small that we see only a fraction of the spin; all we see is the ball moving forward or backward for an infinitesimally small stretch of a revolution. Thus, it appears as the ball is simply moving forward in an infinite ray. Instead, think of time as the picture of the ball from above or below. Its path is a circle that extends away from a point and returns to its origin. I think this is how time works. It simply moves in a circle from the moment the universe begins to expand, to the moment it begins to contract, and to the moment it reaches the start point again.
What does this explain? A lot, I think. If someone asks, "what lies outside of the universe?" don't think of the question in terms of XYZ, think of it in terms of our circular time. In this situation outside the universe corresponds to a point in which time doesn't exist, because it never makes it that far. Thus, there is no outside the universe. Alternatively, "before god" corresponds to before existence, which subsequently means before explosion of the universe. In other words, what happens before a circular revolution of time begins? Simply the end of another revolution. Think about it, it would explain a lot. Unfortunately, my thoughts of single handedly being the first person to decipher the universe were not to be, and a quick google search has shown that the idea has existed for a while. On the flipside, though, I must admit it felt good to put together some pieces I didn't think would ever fall together. Even if I wasn't the first.
It makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, understanding existence is possible to understand from our vantage point on Earth. Maybe "Lecture 21: Blood Flow Dynamics" holds the next key. Somehow I doubt it.
If you walk a day in forest, and at the end of the day return to your original location, is it absolutely necessary to have traveled in a loop?
I quickly decided the only possibilities to be either a) yes you traveled in a loop, or b) the ground followed you, and you traveled in a line. The loop answer intrigued me, because you undoubtedly would move, but never reach any new finish point. And then in a gigantic storm of lightning bolts erupting from my head, I realized that if we apply this thinking to time, everything makes sense. Essentially I came to the following conclusion:
1. The universe is expanding in 3 dimensions, X,Y,Z. Each dimension is analogous to the planes of a 3D graph.
2. The fourth dimension is time. Time dictates XYZ based on a temporal measurement. At any time XYZ will have a specific value.
3. As the universe expands, so does time. Thus we can plot the expansion of the universe as a function of time expanding in unison.
4. At some point the universe will reach its maximum distance from (0,0,0), and will begin to retract.
5. When the universe begins to retract, time will also retract with it. This will cause time to flow backwards.
6. Eventually the universe will erupt again and time will flow forward.
Essentially this explained to me why humans have such a difficult time quantifying the extent of the universe and time. We hear question like "What lies outside the edge of the universe?", or "what came before god?". We ask these questions because we naively see time a finite, forward-only measurement. On our graph, time never follows XYZ according to this line of thinking. Instead it just meanders aimlessly as a ray. Instead, think of time as circular. Think of it as a ball on a string that spins around and around, almost like a bola. If you look at it from the side, you simply see a ball moving back and fourth. This is analogous to how we see it, except our reference point is so temporally small that we see only a fraction of the spin; all we see is the ball moving forward or backward for an infinitesimally small stretch of a revolution. Thus, it appears as the ball is simply moving forward in an infinite ray. Instead, think of time as the picture of the ball from above or below. Its path is a circle that extends away from a point and returns to its origin. I think this is how time works. It simply moves in a circle from the moment the universe begins to expand, to the moment it begins to contract, and to the moment it reaches the start point again.
What does this explain? A lot, I think. If someone asks, "what lies outside of the universe?" don't think of the question in terms of XYZ, think of it in terms of our circular time. In this situation outside the universe corresponds to a point in which time doesn't exist, because it never makes it that far. Thus, there is no outside the universe. Alternatively, "before god" corresponds to before existence, which subsequently means before explosion of the universe. In other words, what happens before a circular revolution of time begins? Simply the end of another revolution. Think about it, it would explain a lot. Unfortunately, my thoughts of single handedly being the first person to decipher the universe were not to be, and a quick google search has shown that the idea has existed for a while. On the flipside, though, I must admit it felt good to put together some pieces I didn't think would ever fall together. Even if I wasn't the first.
It makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, understanding existence is possible to understand from our vantage point on Earth. Maybe "Lecture 21: Blood Flow Dynamics" holds the next key. Somehow I doubt it.
1/9/10
Choices
The other day I asked a friend a hypothetical question.
If you had the opportunity to plug into a machine that would generate a virtual world of your desiring (in this case I presented the fictional world of Pandora from the movie Avatar), but by doing so you would only live to the age of 50, what would you do? Any choice would be permanent.
a. Live your own life.
b. Live your own life in the machine.
c. Accept, taking with you the knowledge that your perceived world was false.
d. Accept, oblivious to the fact your perceived world was false.
e. None of the above.
He chose D immediately. I agreed. I find it interesting we both decided that knowing our worlds were false would be less desirable than not knowing. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case. I suppose the perception that said world was not "real" would dampen the experience, but why should we care? What is real? Is reality a finite thing, or is it subject to what we perceive. Is a dream fake and real life real, or vice versa? Or can we know? Does it matter?
What I found most interesting about this little experiment was the conversation afterward, concerning religion. In his religious belief we all go to heaven when we die, and essentially live out our lives in paradise. I asked him why he didn't kill himself and go to heaven. He replied that doing so was a sin that would keep him out. I responded by asking him that if persons of religion truly believed in heaven, why is death mourned and not celebrated. Why does a religious person look at death with fear and not anticipation? My answer is that they don't truly believe. They spend their entire lives living according to some set of divine rules, but can never find any true proof that their devotion is to a real thing. How can someone trust in something that has no form save word of mouth. Is this not the same sustenance of myth? On the other hand, one could argue that for millions of years life has been fine tuned to evade death, and that this phenomenon is simply a byproduct of evolution. It makes sense. But does that mean evolution overrules religion? Does our sympathetic nervous system have more pull than a sympathy to god? Should it? And aren't religion and evolution mutually exclusive ideas?
This idea brought me to another point that I have spent much time thinking about. If our own bodies play such a role in our actions and perceptions, what is man in absence of their effects. Truly, hormones and chemicals rule our lives from behind the scenes. If chemical X or hormone Y varies from its reference range, we cannot help but experience some change in how we operate. A cocktail of all the modulators of human mood exists in perfect balance to maintain us as we are. In reality, they define us. But do they keep us normal, or do they force us to a point where we are more capable of survival. What would man be without these influences? We consider persons suffering from depression the victims of disease because they have a deficiency in some molecule. But aren't they simply less effected by the pull of biology? Do they lack some essential part, or are they less effected by some modulator? Perhaps they see things clearer than we do? What would thought look like in a biological vacuum? I suppose in a vacuum man would think in terms of pure rational and calculated thought. Would he have emotion, or is emotion a result of chemical modulators? I think he would resemble very much a biological computer. His methods would be cold and calculated. They would be devoid of bias or irrational thought. Perhaps he would see religion , with its complete lack of rational evidence, and discard it completely. How would he view existence then? If there is no heaven, would we simply disappear when we die? There is no better evidenced explanation. And finally, which answer to my initial question would a computer choose? I can't help but think he would view life as pointless, irregardless of its appearance. I think he would see existence, as we live it, to be a chore. For this reason I say he picks e and shuts himself down. Is it any wonder then, that many depressed persons choose the same?
If you had the opportunity to plug into a machine that would generate a virtual world of your desiring (in this case I presented the fictional world of Pandora from the movie Avatar), but by doing so you would only live to the age of 50, what would you do? Any choice would be permanent.
a. Live your own life.
b. Live your own life in the machine.
c. Accept, taking with you the knowledge that your perceived world was false.
d. Accept, oblivious to the fact your perceived world was false.
e. None of the above.
He chose D immediately. I agreed. I find it interesting we both decided that knowing our worlds were false would be less desirable than not knowing. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case. I suppose the perception that said world was not "real" would dampen the experience, but why should we care? What is real? Is reality a finite thing, or is it subject to what we perceive. Is a dream fake and real life real, or vice versa? Or can we know? Does it matter?
What I found most interesting about this little experiment was the conversation afterward, concerning religion. In his religious belief we all go to heaven when we die, and essentially live out our lives in paradise. I asked him why he didn't kill himself and go to heaven. He replied that doing so was a sin that would keep him out. I responded by asking him that if persons of religion truly believed in heaven, why is death mourned and not celebrated. Why does a religious person look at death with fear and not anticipation? My answer is that they don't truly believe. They spend their entire lives living according to some set of divine rules, but can never find any true proof that their devotion is to a real thing. How can someone trust in something that has no form save word of mouth. Is this not the same sustenance of myth? On the other hand, one could argue that for millions of years life has been fine tuned to evade death, and that this phenomenon is simply a byproduct of evolution. It makes sense. But does that mean evolution overrules religion? Does our sympathetic nervous system have more pull than a sympathy to god? Should it? And aren't religion and evolution mutually exclusive ideas?
This idea brought me to another point that I have spent much time thinking about. If our own bodies play such a role in our actions and perceptions, what is man in absence of their effects. Truly, hormones and chemicals rule our lives from behind the scenes. If chemical X or hormone Y varies from its reference range, we cannot help but experience some change in how we operate. A cocktail of all the modulators of human mood exists in perfect balance to maintain us as we are. In reality, they define us. But do they keep us normal, or do they force us to a point where we are more capable of survival. What would man be without these influences? We consider persons suffering from depression the victims of disease because they have a deficiency in some molecule. But aren't they simply less effected by the pull of biology? Do they lack some essential part, or are they less effected by some modulator? Perhaps they see things clearer than we do? What would thought look like in a biological vacuum? I suppose in a vacuum man would think in terms of pure rational and calculated thought. Would he have emotion, or is emotion a result of chemical modulators? I think he would resemble very much a biological computer. His methods would be cold and calculated. They would be devoid of bias or irrational thought. Perhaps he would see religion , with its complete lack of rational evidence, and discard it completely. How would he view existence then? If there is no heaven, would we simply disappear when we die? There is no better evidenced explanation. And finally, which answer to my initial question would a computer choose? I can't help but think he would view life as pointless, irregardless of its appearance. I think he would see existence, as we live it, to be a chore. For this reason I say he picks e and shuts himself down. Is it any wonder then, that many depressed persons choose the same?
A Clockwork World
I've had a lot of ideas as to what I would type on this blog. I debated trying to write out a short book in blog-form, but decided not to. The major difficulty in trying to maintain that sort of structure is that I would have to build on subjects with each successive post, and the truth is sometimes that simply is not conducive to good insight. Instead, I'm just going to write about whatever I feel is important/recent/relevant when I come to the keyboard. That way I can take thoughts already in my head and not try to develop them on the fly. Hopefully it will lead to a little more success than my last try.
Lately I've been a little down, and have been having problems focusing on what I need to be focusing on. The onset of this spell was about a week ago when I was coming out of winter break. At some point I think I was mulling over the themes from Avatar, and I came to a realization that James Cameron has essentially created and immersed us in a world that was in so many ways superior to our own. Over and over I read and hear of how people go to see the movie and come out depressed when they remember that they have their own boring lives to return to. It made me realize that our own "happiness" is grossly limited by the shackles of our individual realities. Now, this is nothing new to me and admittedly I've spent many hours exploring the subject before. I guess the underlying difference was that it never really sank in when I debated it in my own head, as opposed to actually falling victim to the idea. Truly, I exited the theater with a cloud of depression over my head, realizing that instead of sleeping in trees I would be staying up at night studying for tests. I couldn't help but ask myself why this was the case and why we stand for it. I can't speak for everyone, but in my specific situation this idea is very disturbing. I began school at about age 5 I believe, and I will finish it when I hit 30. The next 7 years of my life will spent studying and living out of hospitals. I will never swing from the trees of Pandora, nor will I do anything of significance in my little reality. Yet I accept it and struggle through my difficulties, as do those around me. I find myself looking forward to the short hours of the night that I can sleep and, because they are the only way I ever enjoy this life. In a dream anything is possible, and we experience the outer edges of emotions far more often than in real life. This is what I find depressing. Reality. It is the sole limit on the happiness we can achieve in this life. In its absence our minds roam free to explore any corner of the realm of possibility. In its presence we grind through the day like machines. Some day I expect we will find an answer to this problem, as I expect that technology will eventually supersede the limits of what we perceive as real. The movie The Matrix comes to mind. Imagine a world that was completely artificial and yet completely convincing. A persistent dream. Our minds would decide what is and is not possible, and from there we would construct worlds lush with imagination. Who would want to return to reality? Who would choose their current life? I wouldn't.
Lately I've been a little down, and have been having problems focusing on what I need to be focusing on. The onset of this spell was about a week ago when I was coming out of winter break. At some point I think I was mulling over the themes from Avatar, and I came to a realization that James Cameron has essentially created and immersed us in a world that was in so many ways superior to our own. Over and over I read and hear of how people go to see the movie and come out depressed when they remember that they have their own boring lives to return to. It made me realize that our own "happiness" is grossly limited by the shackles of our individual realities. Now, this is nothing new to me and admittedly I've spent many hours exploring the subject before. I guess the underlying difference was that it never really sank in when I debated it in my own head, as opposed to actually falling victim to the idea. Truly, I exited the theater with a cloud of depression over my head, realizing that instead of sleeping in trees I would be staying up at night studying for tests. I couldn't help but ask myself why this was the case and why we stand for it. I can't speak for everyone, but in my specific situation this idea is very disturbing. I began school at about age 5 I believe, and I will finish it when I hit 30. The next 7 years of my life will spent studying and living out of hospitals. I will never swing from the trees of Pandora, nor will I do anything of significance in my little reality. Yet I accept it and struggle through my difficulties, as do those around me. I find myself looking forward to the short hours of the night that I can sleep and, because they are the only way I ever enjoy this life. In a dream anything is possible, and we experience the outer edges of emotions far more often than in real life. This is what I find depressing. Reality. It is the sole limit on the happiness we can achieve in this life. In its absence our minds roam free to explore any corner of the realm of possibility. In its presence we grind through the day like machines. Some day I expect we will find an answer to this problem, as I expect that technology will eventually supersede the limits of what we perceive as real. The movie The Matrix comes to mind. Imagine a world that was completely artificial and yet completely convincing. A persistent dream. Our minds would decide what is and is not possible, and from there we would construct worlds lush with imagination. Who would want to return to reality? Who would choose their current life? I wouldn't.
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