Will the real World please stand up??

Have you ever considered how we know about the real world that we live in? Let me share how I worked it out for me.

We take in input through the senses.. all 5 of them.
The input from any one of these senses connects to the brain and triggers a reaction which involves electrochemical and neurological responses. And the first one is.. do I fight or flee? Do I like it and embrace it or do I reject it because it might be harmful to me..and I run like blazes. This experience goes to the brain where a special part of the brain perhaps we call mind gives meaning and value to this experience and stores it for future consideration.

This whole process involves consciousness. As far as I know this does not go on during an unconscious state. Although there may be some states of consciousness, altered states, where this process or something like this does go on.

So we are conscious of this world and those things in it. What is consciousness then? Is it awareness?
But that doesn't seem to be an inclusive enough idea. So my definition above of the sense receptors and the interaction with the brain/mind seem to be a good enough starting point.

Then we have emotions.. these are the responses to those sense stimuli. When we are delighted with the result we smile.. when we get a distasteful result we frown or cry or some other way show our disapproval. So we always see the result of consciousness, emotion and the like but it is difficult if not impossible to measure in the way that other variables are measured like weight and height and so forth. Could it be that is because these things are energy and do not have mass or weight. Has anyone measured the speed of a thought or the weight of a smile?

It is accepted in physics that energy can never be created nor destroyed but must always be conserved.
What happens to that energy associated with the living processes when we die.. when consciousness leaves for good?

Well now readers.. let me have your thoughts on this as we forge ahead with that focus next week. Click on the comment tab and let me hear from you..

Reality is what Reality does...

The latest development of interest to the phyicists, at least the quantum phyicists, is the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider.  This experiment is expected to show the existence of some very exotic sub-atomic particles as well as black holes and perhaps the existence of multiple universes.

Michio Kaku in his book "Parallel Worlds" says ,,,"either there is a cosmic consciousness which watches over us all or else there are an infinite number of quantum universes."

For the sake of this discussion, let us focus on the infinite number of quantum universes.  Should this be proven to be something that is part of our reality then this opens up a lot of exciting questions.  How do we get from one to another?  Can we come back to our own(present) universe?  What effects can occur  with two copies of the same "me" in that one universe? But before I get off on that subject let me ask for your comments. What do you think of this possibility? What might you do with such an opportunity? or is it???

Spirituality... the third element

While driving to a doctor's appointment, my mother-in-law made an observation that stimulated my thinking.  She commented that "people don't  send their children to church anymore."  At that, my thoughts wandered around to the international scene where there was out-right battle between the Muslims and the Jews.  The Muslims had their own Jihad against the Christian world and the other religions were stirring to be heard.  With the growing financial crisis and the polarization between the rich and the poor, the middle class was disappearing.  And there went a large segment of support for a religious background for the young boys and girls as they were maturing physically and mentally.  There were many other factors impacting this struggle between Science and Religion, but the fact remains that as technology was producing more and more gadgets and conveniences, the Church as such was thinning out. 

Nature cannot tolerate an imbalance such as was developing between Science and Religion so that the time is ripe for the prominence of the third element. And the third element is Spirituality.

Spirituality is religion without the ritual.  We have made great strides when we went from a pantheon of gods to a monotheistic approach.  But we still have separate understanding and even names for that one god.  This has left us open to strife and struggle and even wars in the name of religion.  Whereas the Spiritual approach is to recognize the connnectedness of all things and our worship is the relationship of man, animal, environment and everything else that makes up our reality.

Spirituality is science without the arrogance to think that we "may know the mind of God".  Because without a belief in a higher power then there is no hope.  It is hope that urges mankind on to overcome difficulties and reach out to a better life.  And it is hope and a belief in a higher power that allows us to visualize a reality that drives us further and further toward our potential.

So in our trichotomy we need the facts of science, the belief of religion and the hope of spirituality to create a reality anchored in this existence.

Next week I will speak to this reality.

Trichotomy... a new kid on the block

Today I'm going to tell you about a trichotomy.  In most cases we can think of things in terms of opposites...'what is it? and what is it not?'  And that approach to philosophical thought has worked for millennia and still does work even to this day.  For instance, take black and white ... these are opposite concepts.  But they can't describe everything,  especially in this modern,
 high-tech, fast-paced world we live in today.  The third element would be a synthesis of the two concepts and it results in gray.

The opposites I'm going to touch on now are the concepts of Science and Religion.  Both of these begin with a thought or an idea.  In Science, the thought  or idea must be developed by an experiment or a reduction to some practical demonstration and preferably it must be measureable.  The demonstration must be reproducible anywhere at any time and it must produce the same results.  This is the so-called scientific method.  In Religion, all of reality was created by a Supreme Being and the understanding of that creation was provided by the spokesmen of the various churches around the world.  The authenticity of the particular doctrine most always was by divine revelation and ritualization was the means by which the revelation was encouraged.

So then Science required provable demonstration and Religion accepted events and outcomes on the basis of faith.  For example, the doctrine that the earth was the center of the universe was a carryover from the millennia when astrology was the only scientific procedure.  And it wasn't until Gallileo and Newton and others showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Sun was the center of our solar system and there was even more beyond that.  This left us with a cosmology that started with a Big Bang but Science could not say what there was before the Big Bang and Religion could only say that the Big Bang was the work of God.

The time was ripe for the introduction of the Trichotomy.  The Trichotomy represents a synthesis of both Science and Religion.  And this is what I will speak about in next Thursday's Blog.