Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Very Young Earth Theory

very young earth theory:

yes, i do know current scientific theory is that the universe is billions of years old, started very little and gradually inflated to the present day. there was nothing to begin with but much today. to loosen the mind, imagine the other extreme that everything only came into being an hour or so ago, in which case, our memories of the past are false, and the universe was in motion with everything existent already.

some Christians believe that everything is several thousands of years old. there is another distinct theory, posit that reality is only a few hundreds of years old. in this, there is the element that many things, such as nature, existed from time zero, that these things are eternal. there always were trees, there always were humans, right from the beginning, and there always will be. however, modern Earth did not exist. it was created both from the world of dreams and people's imagination, and perhaps even by design.

on Earth, some people are real, conscious beings, others are simulated characters, perhaps most, like in the movie, The Matrix. as you get older, you experience more and more errors and inconsistencies in the coding, so to speak. you may even think you've switched to an alternate universe, but no, these things are just errors.

i have thought perhaps Earth began in the 1800's and reality is only a few hundred years older, perhaps true Year 1 was AD1572, to give an example. the first people born on Earth had simulated parents but gradually Earth has filled with real people.

will the Earth end someday soon, when all have left?

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Do We Overestimate Reality?

do we overestimate reality:

to overestimate is a process of thought. first of all, the mind is imaginative, is it not? we can think of many things that are not real. we fade in and out of fantastic, even delusional, thought all the time. we may believe things exist that do not, we have capabilities that we don't have, there is the potential for things to happen that are actually impossible.

and because of time, many things have happened, it seems as though there were inflation, but the quantity of what exists cannot really have changed surely. what about the actual process of change? when we sense what seem to be different things, we may attribute to the mind a multiple number of sensory components. could they actually just be different states achieved by a fewer number? smell and taste are like, but we account for them as two senses. are there really so many shades of colour or could just one pixel of our eyesight become different shades? are we overaccounting when we consider perception?

am i just a little brain with an oversized 3D television set attached and loudspeakers too, who likes to fantasize and guzzle food and drink and pretend i am walking about on a material planet? the magic of television is that it can represent a seemingly infinite variety of life and suggest grand size of reality, but what is it really? just a few hundred lines of pixels rapidly changing.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Imprecise Nature of Words

the imprecise nature of words:

but think, if words were merely tools to manipulate thought, to shape concepts crystallizing in the conscious mind, it would seem they are often but a blunt instrument, lacking the precision to control the hoped for outcome of perfect realization of the truth. not only that, when misused, they can easily lead the thinker astray, into the realm of half truths and falsity, or even madness.

what is conscious thought? what is it to think? now this is a world of objects and feelings and sounds. in that the mind is actually connected to the very fabric of this world, these things are highlighted, so to speak, or thought about, by the conscious mind. i am conscious of, i am thinking about various scraps of images, events that happened in my world, places i have been to, and so on. it is a tangled mess. in real time, certain parts fall away, new parts appear.

now all of these things are labelled by words. what words mean to me may not be the same as what words mean to someone else. inevitably our own life experiences colour and ensure that our individual complexes of words and the personal events and things seen and heard and felt by us, to which they are connected, are unique.

however, let us assume that words can have some universal meaning. even so, words and their connections are wrapped up with the past of the universe. when something totally new happens, it has the effect of altering the language complex, for it is a disturbance. and so it always was. the mind, both conscious and subconscious or unconscious, makes and breaks connections continually. as the words in a sentence are read, each word amplifies whatever it is describing, like a live current passing through space. the very act of thinking alters the mind, and perhaps even what it is thinking about.

we all have various conceptions of what reality is, or may be. all are metaphysicians. it cannot be denied that that affects significantly how we define words for ourselves. if i believe that time is infinite, for instance, and this was the original use of the word, this affects what i think when i think about the word infinite when used generally. my argument is that it cannot be divorced from this original plank of belief. so later i may think about infinite numbers as supposedly a purely mathematical concept, but i am still thinking about time all the while. it is almost impossible to separate later thought from its original basis.

if thinking were like guiding a ball to a target, the truth, then words in a sentence hit the ball this way and that way, each word carrying its own "baggage" from the past. often it is difficult to hit bullseye. how did words come into creation? well, it is not hard to guess that merely they were the words people first thought of when something happened, that they were "in the air" at the time. the language universe has its own inflation. we know new words come into being. what may be disturbing, for as ever the new replaces the old, is that parts of the past are lost, and we have no idea how we got here.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, October 27, 2012

A World View Distorted by Schizophrenia

a world view distorted by schizophrenia:

what is a world view? the fundamental beliefs or assumptions made about the world, the universe even, and reality and life. what drives the philosopher in all of us is the need to know what is real and what is not. to be delusional or crazy is generally agreed to be a bad thing. people are supposed to be locked up in mental hospitals for this very reason. it may be argued that on earth, busy place that it is, such knowledge is not required to be a "success in life" and even that some confusion may not affect ability to "function in society", but this a weak argument, deflected away by the very overriding emotional demand to know the truth.

what does it mean to know? i know there are more complicated theories but two words stand out, "true" and "think", indeed, to think about true things. actually it cannot be further reduced as a concept. academically, if you had little confidence in your judgment on what to be true and what to be false, you would need to think about every theoretical possibility just to cover yourself, in the faint hope that at least you had thought of everything and at some point in time "knew the truth". happily, often the search for truth is a binary proposition, for it is either one or the other, though i am sure sometimes there are multiple theoretical possibilities, and therein lies the "third way" or fourth or fifth.

i don't think i am deceiving myself when i claim to know the conventional beliefs or assumptions on earth. i went to school, after all, i read newspapers and magazines, i've watched television and films, i have attended church before, i've sat through lectures, indeed i have consumed information and media. and i've seen what is technologically possible, telephones, computers, 3D virtual reality games.

let us deal with one of the most fundamental questions. what is motion exactly? it calls into question what you think about time and space, and ultimately decides what you conclude about the so called "external world" that may be highly convincing. can matter, a person, a mind, whatever, actually "move" relative to other matter, persons, or minds? happily, this is a binary proposition. it is either true or false. what are you thinking? i presume you are visualizing an object moving towards or away from another and thinking that might be actuality! in the model of the external world, this is entirely the case put forward.

but the whole question of eyesight, what i see before me, and to the sides, and i really do see objects at a distance in front of me, not in my head, if people were actually moving relative to each other on a round planet, how does the structure of my eyesight not crash into someone else's near me, so to speak?

i began hearing "voices" or "auditory hallucinations" and seeing visual hallucinations when i was 20 years old in my third year at university. after i had been sectioned or committed and released from hospital, i had the rest of the year off and returned to repeat the final year. in that year, i teleported twice. to anyone who has experienced teleportation, the concept of an external world is simply not believable anymore! the first time, i was at an ATM, i had got the cash, i turned away and then i was suddenly at the train station, about a mile away. i even started to worry what would happen if i teleported to New York without my passport on me and couldn't teleport back! if the external world were real, how could i move to another point instantly without feeling anything, even if it was at light speed? or was i a clone somewhere else in space, with my consciousness suddenly activated? no and no. Ockham's Razor would suggest the simplest theory is that, indeed, the external world is not real and that matter does not "move" relative to other matter, space is merely that that is occupied by matter, it is not a "vacuum" or "empty container", quite the opposite.

conventional thinking about schizophrenia is that it is a mental illness of perception, that sufferers are delusional, all voices are hallucinatory and so on. i suspect it is hinged on a belief in the external world, it is posited it is only our perception that has gone awry and reality is just fine, so to speak. if we eliminate belief in the external world, an explanation would be that schizophrenia is an acute instability of the mind, that our hearing and our eyesight are "turned up", which accounts for the "hallucinations", and the system that worked for so long to provide normality, is thrashing around wildly. if the external world is not real, then perception is reality, is it not, don't you think? anything can happen to a schizophrenic!

when i returned to university, i still heard people speaking without seeing them, the "voices". one day i was calmly looking at the door handle, making it move up and down slightly by thought alone. i was staring at the light bulb on the ceiling, adjusting the brightness, dimmer and then brighter, again by thought alone. objects disappeared, i never found where my dissertation went! you see the interesting dichotomy? on the one hand, hallucinating and delusional, on the other, maybe i was telepathic and had budding psychokinesis powers!

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, September 29, 2012

The Imaginary Map Scrolls of Separate Realities

the imaginary map scrolls of separate realities:

indeed, why would you or anyone assume that this is the only reality that exists? by the word reality, i mean everything that is here, in this space of ours, that is connected to each other. now the obstacle in thinking about other, separate realities is the simple question, where are they? you see the difficulty lies in escaping the referencing of everything to here and now in this reality.

what if every reality were as if a map scroll which could be laid out on a long table next to the others end to end? note the map scrolls would not touch. some might be large, some might be little. considering our own reality, would it be one of the larger map scrolls or just medium sized? it is easy for everyone to imagine like realities, with similar people, only slightly different.

there are specific things of our reality that we do not notice as peculiar or individual perhaps, for example, subjectively, gravity is downwards and our heads are at the top of our bodies. this is our bias. objectively speaking, the alternative upside down world with gravity upwards and the head at the bottom of the body is not that different.

i imagine the old wizard genius, who has worked out what every possible reality could be, its troubles and victories, the pitfalls each face and its limitations, its history even.

CLEARCHARGE

The Range of Time

the range of time:

when speaking of the range of time, i do not mean whether linear time is infinite or not. no, it could be interpreted as the general sum total in a macro sense of all kinds of events that happen in all time. i am sure, if we are vague enough in our definitions, this is not an infinite sum, for, after all, is the universe infinite? can anything truly happen? perhaps only the imagination is unlimited. for it is the integrity over time and specific nature of our personalities which limit our actions.

there is another interpretation. again, assuming the fixed spatial position of all matter, that is all that is in space, and yes, even are minds are to be considered matter here, is there a finite range of states that an individual least bit of matter can pass through? at this micro level, at any instant, this matter can only have one state, but when we think of the range, the sum total, we have something larger.

this naturally leads to the suspicion that everyone might be grossly overestimating the universe and themselves! in actuality we are not the sum total we may think we are, but only that which we are at any one instant in time. the argument that anyone can personally "grow" is at least somewhat of a fallacy! we may hope to retain the best of knowledge and wisdom, of course, and lose that which is false or bad.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Quantum of Change

quantum of change:

Zeno's paradoxes make use of mathematical theory of continuous numbers and the infinitesimal to put the case that motion is but an illusion. as discussed before, the key to understanding here is that continuous numbers are purely theoretical, they are not real!

now motion may be an illusion, if motion is thought to be the actual movement of an object or body maintaining its integrity or identity as it moves in the "external world", if the "external world" itself does not actually exist and we are all "brains in a vat". then such movement is merely the function of our eyesight, that is, the image of an object or body is copied to adjacent pixels and we see what only seems to be motion. however that was not zeno's point, i believe.

there are two questions here, one is about infinitesimal space, and the other is about infinitesimal time. the paradoxes arise when we consider the concept of the infinitesimal to hold. posit that there is indeed a minimum distance that has real significance in reality and that nothing smaller should be considered, that is, the size of the littlest least bit of matter, uniform throughout, that experiences individual change. there should then be no smaller "real" distance. can we use the general conclusion that the infinitesimal is not real enough when we think about change? for when we talk about time we are really talking about change. but what do we mean by change? yes, it is a difference in the same thing! therefore there are two things to be considered here, what it was, that is, the state it was in, and the difference. a difference means a sudden change! change is sudden! if we consider the infinitesimal to hold then logically a discrete change is in itself impossible and one second would never become the next second!

what could be true is the concept of quantum of change, that is, there are discrete "steps" of change. you can think of life like a movie's film negative, with 24 frames a second. but how is it that if, like continuous numbers, continuous change with an infinite number of "instants" is not real, it is so easy to think of? like somehow, something is always changing, so it is continuously changing, something like that. however, continuous change is not that easily definable or explainable, in a strict sense, as is discrete change, and there is the example of a movie's film negative. posit that the truth is always more explainable, with more real life examples, than something that is not true, a falsity. such we hope!

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, August 18, 2012

The True Population Puzzle

the true population puzzle:

we can say, yes, the human mind is flexible when thinking about the true population. it can seriously consider it to be anything from one, the self only, during a solipsistic phase, to billions, if not trillions. what do i mean by the true population? now obviously, my mind, or anyone's mind for that matter, bases many considerations or comparisons on the self, we cannot deny we are self-centred to a certain degree, and what we are may be most of what we can know. so, when this question is asked, everyone considers the same category, those that can be defined in the same way, that is, with a mind, a capacity to think, and a human body.

is this a worrying bias? to consider only those the same as yourself to be truly alive, perhaps? we worry very much about physical damage to the human body. it may be we are less concerned about damage to things we do not even consider to be alive, for they are so different, not human. perhaps it matters, perhaps it does not.

to suppose there are billions or trillions of souls out there is pretty much what earth presents. but where do they come from when they are born and where do they go when they die? do they go back to wherever they came from? onward to heaven? and is it possible to create a soul that did not exist? and if it existed, could the death of the soul happen?

now anyone who has ever experienced hallucinations, visual and auditory, can easily consider the possibility seriously that there are far fewer people who are real. once you start hallucinating, to put it simply, you are no longer sure what is real and what is not anymore. to give examples, you see text and moving images on the wall or floor, people suddenly appear and disappear, you hear people in the background and you can talk to these disembodied voices as well, are they truly hallucinations? i personally have seen a train schedule suddenly change completely before me, a train map of the country with the cities in the wrong places, and seen used underground train tickets that seemed dated in the future. i have teleported twice and i suspect several times not obviously as there was no sudden difference to be seen all around me, the explanation being that a distant street was visually smoothly connected to the one i was on. of course eventually, i was diagnosed schizophrenic and i admit i was crazy and delusional, but who wouldn't be confused with all that happening? in acute schizophrenia, the mind is so unstable, that anything can happen, which is why it is truly dangerous.

that i had truly teleported confirmed that the "external world", whatever it is, is not what it seems. most definitely, i cannot really "move" as such in the conventional sense, what i see happening when i walk is the world moving relative to me, not me moving relative to the world. my teleporting was a sudden change in my visual feed for my supposed location on earth. the frightening solipsism hallucinations induce, that you could be the only real person in existence and everyone else is an illusion, and the realization that conventional motion is a falsity, and merely theoretical, is what fuels theories that earth could be a kind of electronic computer simulation and the "external world" does not exist as such.

does it make any difference what the true population is? what if it were only 30? or 4500? everyone has considered billions. i have considered 1 quite seriously! whatever it is, if we ever get the true answer, we would have to adjust our thinking, "change gears" as to what we believe about reality. everyone has assumptions about existence and life, we assume we would function better with the truth, after all.

CLEARCHARGE

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Discrete Nature of Change

the discrete nature of change:

if change involves a difference in state, in that something becomes something else, any absolute difference, no matter how seemingly little, is still a change, and therefore change could be considered as discrete, for there is no "in between" as such. mathematical theory has its concepts of the infinitesimal or infinitely small or little, and of continuous numbers, however these things may not have a basis in reality, they are too abstract!

if, as explained before, all things that exist in this reality, fixed in absolute and relative position to each other in space, could be divided into least bits of matter, each uniform across its volume in space, then each experiences discrete changes uniformly.

the mind and therefore the thinker is quite capable of thinking about things that may not be true. this is the peril of thought. the thinker may not notice change when there are very little differences in state. big changes catch our attention, this is what discrete change seems, after all.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, August 4, 2012

The Participation Rate of Creation

the participation rate of creation:

assume the beginning was not so long ago, that actually, there are tangible shards of memory crystals in our minds, about the start of time and what progressed from there. various religions put it that there were powerful forces or powerful people, or one very powerful person, in the beginning. atheism holds forth the other extreme, that the human being is rather devoid of any real power, that there are no gods, that we are subject to the whim and random nature of a depersonalized universe. in those who are agnostic or believe neither completely, these theories may not agree with memory which may still be present.

often it is posited that there was practically nothing or very little in the beginning, by both religions and evolutionists. this is where they agree. then there was either rampant creation, that is, the participation rate was at a peak in the first few moments of time, or there was a rapid inflation and increase in complexity of the universe by impersonal forces, nothing to with any gods or God.

now objectively speaking, it seems there is rather a gap in between the two extremes of religion and atheism, if we were to consider the more theoretically holistic range of possibilities, from the all powerful god to demi-god, someone with lesser powers, to magician, someone with a few tricks here or there, to a person with no magical ability or powers, whatsoever, to someone who can barely move or even think, a cripple, mentally and physically. we could intuitively reason that throughout the whole range however, that the participation rate was higher in the beginning, as everything was new, that there was greater opportunity to create things at or near the start.

let us assume that none of us remember the beginning. theoretically, there are two possibilities, one we did not exist as such, in the beginning, and two that we have merely forgotten it. which brings us to perhaps the most important issue on a personal level, did we exist in the beginning or were we ourselves created, in some part or form? was consciousness present in us, whatever we are, at the start of time, or as evolutionary theory would have it, it is the culmination of a very long, tortuous process?

at our most emotionally vulnerable, we are unlikely to present such pride that we claim to have done this or that great deed in the far past. we may not even remember well enough to pass the threshold of doubt. but suppose that anyone who seems very familiar with anything right from the start, seemingly without any explanation, may have had a part in creating it!

though perhaps there is a stability to the universe, not evident always, that belies the theories of religion and evolution, that disproves the case that this much creation or evolution could even happen. perhaps the world was born quite complex and semi-completed already! indeed we could be fooled by the volatility and complexity of what we see, for it leads us to extend to the assumption that much change generally may happen for the universe as a whole.

emotionally, what happens in the process of creation at the human level? first we become excited about something, we think, what a good idea! then we busy ourselves creating it. but then we become cautious. we might even be afraid we've made a mistake! we wait for some progress to happen from others before we take the next step, we become dependent. considering all the inventions and creations of the past, it is not the case that any one being did it all, obviously. as people made connections and dependency grew throughout time, it leads us to the possibility that no one can take full credit for anything anymore. we are all levelled down and perhaps this is a good thing!

CLEARCHARGE

Instruments of Thought and the Inflation of Expectations

instruments of thought and the inflation of expectations:

our thoughts form a large part of our identity, even though the content of our thoughts may not be unique, they may seem highly personal to us. of course thoughts may be expressed in words and imagination in pictures and drawings. language is an instrument of thought. if only all thought could be expressed in language! language could be criticized as a blunt instrument, that words often express only what is obvious and clear to us, that they describe only that which is manifest, an extreme condition metaphysically.

very obviously so, no one wants to be crazy, to be a victim of insanity! however, whatever its shortcomings, language can still be used to express an infinite variety of thoughts. perhaps not infinite in every direction or area, but still infinite in others. therein lies the problem, infinite thought in a finite reality!

the human being is a social creature. and the mind naturally wanders. true thoughts about people mutate into untrue thoughts about people. that is inevitable in the thinking process. as we effortlessly make up our own fictions and add to that those of others, surely we must sometimes be living with a rampantly inflated concept of human activity in the universe?

imagine a little girl in a single room in a reality somewhere. this is a simple reality. to start with she knows nothing of language but as her imagination grows and her inventive nature dominates, she create words and then a whole language. and she draws pictures, lots of them. eventually she can imagine earth. but there is no earth in her reality and there never will be. it is all in her own mind. at best, she has overestimated things a little, though with the sense that it is her imagination, and is only somewhat crazy. at worst, she is insane, has hopes that could never be realized and she has grossly overestimated herself personally and everything else in her reality.

a word conveys a meaning. now whether a word was discovered or created or merely happened upon, it first changed our thoughts to form a concept, it channelled our minds through a certain pathway. perhaps there is no satisfactory explanation as to why a particular word means what it means, that each word is a peculiarity of this reality. it does not stretch the mind to imagine an alternate reality where the same word means something completely different.

some words we use a lot, some very little, if we use words at all to think. what is the current state of the language in the most real, metaphysical sense? words and phrases come in and out of fashion. can a word ever escape its original meaning? does precedence always determine validity?

like a musical instrument, where we can try different notes, in language, the act of randomly combining words together may not form a coherent concept to the conscious mind, but perhaps this is what is happening at the subconscious level anyway all the time? we are slowly trawling through the infinite space of thought! of course, all this is not to suggest that we began at the start of time with our minds a clean slate, for yes, there is the concept of original craziness!

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Change and Time

change and time:

what is time? there is time because there is change. as you are aware, time is measured by the cycles of days and years and it is assumed that it is valid to do so, that the concept of common time throughout this reality is real, that every bit of matter, everything that exists, moves in time together.

what is change? a different state in the same something that exists. i will avoid most of the philosophical debate as to whether something that changes can be considered the same thing. here are some words that may confuse the issue, fluid, infinitesimal, continuous, etc. the infinitesimal is a mathematical concept but i don't believe that it is a real one, in reality, i posit that the infinitesimally small does not exist. perhaps neither is real the idea that change could be somehow fluid or continuous. change could be discrete. a high definition television of 1920x1080 pixels may show a changing image that seems fluid and continuous but it is not, the mind is easily deceived here.

it is commonly held that time travel is generally impossible, but posit that past states of a bit of matter can be achieved again, that you can, in this sense, go back to the past exactly as it was and you can even go back to the state at the start of time. even if this may not be true, a similar state may be achieved.

what little is known about is how its neighbours affect change in a single bit of matter. what is obvious is the mimicking or copying effect. this is how we see an object appear to move across our field of vision. a change in image or state is passed on to the neighbour. after a lot of change in a bit of matter, perhaps it can be brought back too by its neighbour who has not changed or changed very little.

on another note, what of change and death? well, we must define what death is, first of all. originally, it was a word associated with a nebulous dread and a vague sense of "the end of it all". on earth it means the end of a life on earth or quitting the world of earth. if we apply the word to change, does change not mean the death of a bit of matter from what it once was? is time not then constant death? rule out the concept that something that exists, that has "mass" or substance, can cease to exist in any shape or form, become nothing, lose "mass" or substance. this is a slippery slope! only that, yes, it could cease to exist only in the sense that its state has changed. much thinking is all skewed in the vague feeling that we have all "died" long ago and ongoing change towards something very different is inevitable and that we can never recover what once was. but i have just posited that exact states can be regained, we can bring the "dead" back to life! on the other hand, what if change were something very "difficult", that a return to the starting position were inevitable, that the "gravity" exerted by the start of time position were altogether too strong, that we could be imagined as a statue in equilibrium, that we could never really move about too much? of course, these are extremes, but either or both could be relatively true at the same time for different parts of reality!

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, June 23, 2012

The Inevitable Abrasive Nature of the Web of Words

the inevitable abrasive nature of the web of words:

we may think of words as something insubstantial, perhaps just images in a book, text on a screen, sounds in our heads, but consider that they might be something more tangible, an essential part of the machinery of life and the universe. any procedure or social process in life on earth requires words, words make things work.

posit that words and their languages and meanings occupy their own dimension in space, that they are something as real and varied and substantial as the material of light or sound. they are an instrument of life. all words and their meanings form a web in space, all connected to each other. the ways they are linked and the conceptual distances between different words and their meanings are something we all know intuitively. and just by thinking and using words we shape and change this web all the time.

it is unfortunate that there are bad words, just as it is unfortunate that bad things happen. again it is unfortunate that we can carelessly trigger bad thoughts in others when talking. some words or phrases inevitably conjure up negative ideas, others, though neutral in themselves, may naturally lead to bad thoughts anyway, as they are only a short distance away. when they lead to bad thoughts about the person itself, calling into question its own beliefs about self, or play on its own worst fears, such that they might be true, the sometimes abrasive nature of words and language reveals itself. we are all party to fear and pride, such is the nature of the human being.

i fear this abrasive nature of words and talk is inevitable. often it is difficult to console anyone that frightened, or to validate anyone that proud. the perfect idealized conversation requires conditions of security and jolliness and mutual interest that cannot always be met. perhaps as the other person, you can only provide at best a sense that someone is not alone, that there is the other person who cares.

CLEARCHARGE

Sunday, June 17, 2012

On Numbers and Motion

on numbers and motion:

there is Zeno's paradox of motion that holds that travel from one point to another is impossible mathematically for if you were always to travel half the distance again from that just covered you would never arrive. although theoretically possible, could infinitesimally little numbers simply not be real? if we assume space is finite, we could not even write an infinitesimally little number down, there is not enough room!

but what is motion as assumed in this model? that an object really moves from one place to another relative to a fixed spatial location! the other view is that everything has a fixed spatial location, nothing can truly move. what we see, which i think could be agreed upon, is that there is a fluid change of the pixels of our eyesight which shows the object's recognizable configuration flowing across our visual range. this is just the same as what happens on a television except in 3 dimensions. therefore if only what we see is real and not based on any material world where the objects truly exist beyond our senses, we could conclude that motion is only virtual and the conventional model is false. i feel this a fundamental argument in metaphysics.

just as infinitesimally little numbers are not real, can we apply this reasoning to distance in space? everything that exists, let us call it matter, is in its own fixed space. surely an infinitesimally little distance is not real either? there are differences in matter. matter adjoins other matter. therefore, we can reason that, in isolation, neighbouring matter, by definition, is different matter, for if it were the same or subject to the same changes over time, surely you could not argue that it is indeed another separate bit of matter. we could reason that the littlest distance that matters is the size of the littlest bit of matter. it would seem obvious then, just as infinite space is impossible, that an infinitesimally little bit of matter could not exist.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, June 16, 2012

A Practical Approach

a practical approach:

earth is a complex world. it didn't always exist, i think that can be agreed upon. it may not always exist in the future. it is a belief, however, that the soul is eternal, that is, ever present in all time. how a soul can be placed upon earth, by forces beyond our control, is another question. in this view, we all come from other worlds to earth. and what happens when we leave? there seem only two possibilities, that we return from where we came, or that we pass on to yet another world, assuming that we are not fated to live again and again on earth, and that we never truly die.

earth can seem an alien place, always a sense present that this is not truly home and that it is only for a while. because life is complicated and we are required to make many decisions, some of which go wrong, it can be a cruel, hard experience. it would seem some people are driven by their ambition, they know what they want, but i am rather more sure of what i don't want, what i want to make sure does not happen to me. you could say i am more driven by fear not by want.

in every poor decision, there is often the failure to consider all the possibilities that could happen. we naturally make optimistic assumptions at first, but we need to be more aware of risk and the likelihood that such assumptions simply do not hold, that what we have thought about for much time does not happen at all. too often, i have assumed the best outcome and subsequently been sorely disappointed. ask yourself, first, what if it's not true and second, have i considered all the possibilities? what do i need to do? what do i need to not do?

unfortunately, regret is something we all suffer. we all make mistakes. to my mind, a life without error is impossible. however, we do become more intelligent about risk as we grow older, and a future of fewer lesser mistakes and without serious accident is something to strive for.

CLEARCHARGE

Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Search for Truth

the search for truth:

to anyone, the thought that you might be insane or even just a little muddled, is something deeply concerning. to not know the truth is bad enough, to believe falsity is at best embarrassing, at worst truly horrifying. to live a lie, and then to realize so, crushes the soul.

the whole problem with thought is that it is too wide in range and somewhat random. we can entertain ideas that are wildly distant from reality, not only easily, but too often. this range can be a strength, to be sure, we can happen upon true ideas from a short start sometimes, but the thought process is like watching a building being constructed haphazardly with different concepts that may or may not form a complex that is true. but thought never ceases, it continues throughout all time.

but how, if we arrive at a thought, do we know if it is true or not? we have the ability to consider all the combinations, quite carefully even. does the truth return something from the void out there, a confirmation of validity? it is frustrating when there seems no way to prove whether something is true or not. we hope that the truth will unlock the puzzle. if the mind is like a computer, trying all the combinations that fit, it would seem a slow process, and often it is.

the need to know the truth about life and existence is not just an exercise in vanity and greed, to know it all, so to speak, for how can we ever be secure in ignorance or dangerous insanity? for example, everyone knows they exist, but what do they know of others who exist, how many and who are they? the range of estimates of number, if not hardened belief, goes from zero to billions, from the world of solipsism to an entire plural universe or multiverse, but even this is confusing, for how do we define ourselves and what the other person is exactly, that is, what is a living person and can someone very different from me be a living other person as defined by myself? to believe that i am the only real person in existence, the solipsistic nightmare, is a horrific thought. basically, you are god, but you can't control that much, everything around you is an illusion and you are completely alone! alternatively, to believe there are billions of people brings its own troubling thoughts, personal insignificance, difficulties relating to so many others and so on. this leads us to assume there is a magical perfect number of people, perhaps, a "goldilocks" population, not too many, not too few.

which brings us to the perpetual thinking difficulty, if you had the power, would you want things to be a certain way, just as you think, that is, if you were God, is this what you want to be the case? there is the danger of confusing thought with emotion. caught up in our thoughts, we delude ourselves that we are thinking about what we want, when this is not truly the case.

is the truth a resonant thing? is the universe a wonderful machine where the truth is the only thing that "works"? the conscious thoughtful mind connects to the subconscious to the unconscious to the rest of surrounding reality. there is a process of testing hypotheses perhaps. we are ever closer to the truth.

CLEARCHARGE

Sunday, May 20, 2012

A Motion in Time

a motion in time:

the mind is an excitable creature and easily led by its own interests and concerns. when a lot happens, our senses force many changes in our consciousness. we are caught up in the moment. our minds are almost distorted by events, though these do not have a lasting effect on our consciousness, for like an elastic band, they revert to what they once were, or like sand castles by the sea, the tide washes them away, and our minds forget.

things could be divided into those that are volatile, like the life of our minds, where much happens, and those that are not, where very little happens. if everything could be represented visually and we could sit in a control room where everything was shown on a bank of screens, we might see such a difference, one mind's thoughts, the words and images on one screen, the passing of the day on another, perhaps a still image on yet another, which never changes.

memory and the future both relate to our emotions. when we are emotional we may remember things better. it is a motion in time, if you like, that is captured. and our emotions ensure that certain things must happen, things that we want, and that certain things never happen, things that we fear or hate. in the belief that the mind is eternal, that it always did and always will exist, the question of the start of time and our memory of it emerges. when there are many things unknown to us, we become nervous or even scared. on the first day, we knew very little, therefore logically, the day was one of great fear and emotion, so we should remember something of it.

CLEARCHARGE

Friday, May 11, 2012

A Note of Discord

a note of discord:

there were four of discord
to agree without hesitation was not the case
two were fearful
one was forceful
and the other silent
not that they differed on intention
but only in the execution
varying values of importance
where attention once held
so focus lay
and so set in alarm at conflict
in discussion
but together were they
and fearful became all four
but resolution came
in modifying their aims
so four became one
the same
and forward they went

CLEARCHARGE

Thursday, May 10, 2012

On Size and Complexity

on size and complexity:

on first impression, the world, and the universe, seem a very big place. there is the sense, to anyone born on earth, that there are many places we will never explore, many people we will never know, many things we will never try. we walk a narrow path in life, aware that we only sample very little of what seems possible. the world is large and complex.

but complexity is not always bound with spatial size. little things could be very complex and large things may be simple. the permutations of a spatial arrangement become increasingly complex with the number of objects. and though an abstract example, in mathematics, everything is achieved with only ten numbers. and spatially large things may only have a few states, while spatially little things may have many. a tv screen has only so many pixels but it offers size in complexity as to what can be seen on it.

is so much possible in one life? or even desirable? what would we wish to avoid? and what do we truly want?

CLEARCHARGE

Monday, April 23, 2012

The Place of Consciousness

the place of consciousness:

located in space are many, or few perhaps, centres of mental activity, each point being where individual consciousness lies, surrounded by a vivid, fluctuating field, different and to a degree separate from all others. was this arrangement always thus or was it created or was it shared?

what controls the flow of conscious thought? other than light and sound? raw data from the unconscious mind? we are so locked into thinking about what we see and hear that other things have less of a place in our thoughts.

consciousness endlessly mixes and matches ideas together to form new concepts. some thoughts are well defined, some only vague. we don't always know what we are thinking about! consciousness is a speculator, an explorer, a thing that is always chasing knowledge and understanding.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Rolling Complex of Life

the rolling complex of life:

perhaps because we are easily distracted and easily forget, for short term memory is fleeting, we like and do compartmentalize different aspects of life. family is one thing, work is another, popular culture is something else. but what is true is that all are concurrently happening in the universe and what we think is no little matter, for thought binds it all together. how it all fits together in the universe is not something we can see, it is not visible, how light is connected to sound, how everything is electronically wired, in reality.

the pessimist is trapped in a black hole of despair perhaps. but optimism is needed. the thinker is required to be an all rounder, so to speak. the law of attraction is a law of magic that speaks of the effect of thought on reality and that events are determined more by what we think than can be proved by science. and why not? current science lacks an understanding of consciousness and assumes that our minds are mostly perception, not capable of the opposite, that is, to somehow drive surrounding reality itself. there is even no term currently for what i am describing, apart from magic, a very old word. if we could be likened to a radio, surely we could send and receive, that is, be a two way wireless, not be just someone who can only sense their surroundings but not materially affect them?

the whole question of magical thinking is often dismissed as a symptom of craziness, but what if some of it is true? if i do such and such, the result will be good or if i do such and such, something bad will happen. we certainly don't know how everything works yet, what depends on what. can we prove or disprove everything? perhaps not and scientific hypothesis testing, within its limits, is impossible?

imagine the successful woman or man on earth, a meticulous planner no doubt, for do we really believe that success can be gained without it? they have filled out the possibilities, weighed the risks, become more businesslike in their lives. they think a great deal.

the very nature of consciousness is that of something malleable, volatile even, you can think of something and, within a few moments, find it incredibly hard to remember what you were just thinking of. perhaps it is a little like the flame of a cigarette lighter, dancing in a darkened room, illuminating what is going on subconsciously, and posit that the unconscious is indeed very larger than the wavering conscious mind. it highlights what is going on around us, it is a highlighter. the apparent power of consciousness is revealed in our decisions of course but what other secrets does it hold?

CLEARCHARGE

Between Fearless Optimism and Fearful Pessimism

between fearless optimism and fearful pessimism:

it all starts with a wish, a hope. we are happy, we think we can win at something, we can succeed, make progress. there is little or no fear, how can there be? we know nothing of the bad possibilities of the future. we are innocent. but those at the other extreme arrived by losing time and again, for they feel only fear and a conviction, deeply ingrained, that they just cannot win.

examining the path of the doomed gamblers of earth, where the odds are never in their favour, provides a useful lesson to us all. how does it all start, the want to gamble? there is the simple glamour of it all to begin with, the urge to prove to yourself that you are indeed a lucky guy or girl, that life can be exciting and easy, and, of course, everyone needs money. perhaps in the beginning, it is likely they won a little, or even a lot, which built a mindset, so set their minds to believe that they were a winner, and this mental setting was hard to shake off. beginner's luck became a curse. when eventually they lost heavily, they could not accept it, and gambled and lost even more, to oblivion.

i would say rarely does reality meet preconception for most. it always turns out slightly differently to what you thought. some you win, some you lose, sometimes something completely unexpected happens. in the end, it is about considering the risk involved in any venture. some risks are not acceptable. the only problem is, experience and mistakes and some misfortune are almost always required beforehand to accurately assess risk in life.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Nervous Animal

the nervous animal:

such is the nature of the human being, an animal born with fear, nervous from the very start. fear of what? it is said some of our fears are irrational but could we ever be completely rationally afraid? perhaps it is just not possible.

we have several words that imply horrible, dreadful things but, if we are lucky, and nothing truly bad has ever happened to us, can we really think about these things with any clarity of thought? we have only a hint of what they entail. this is to argue the case that only someone who has actually done or really experienced something can truly think about it. the rest of us live in a dimmed awareness of such things.

but fear remains, it is connected to our thought, it swells when we consider bad possibilities, when we worry about our future, it can lead to irrational panic attacks when the impossible horror seems either totally possible or real already.

a girl walking in the forest alone, she keeps looking behind her, it just goes to show state of mind. perhaps she is scared of getting lost and looking back to get her bearings straight, perhaps she is scared someone is following her and she is all on her own. indeed, a lot of nerves are about travel and other people. given that it is a universal truth we are socially anxious animals, easing others' nervousness is a skill.

there is in human nature an urge to explore and to create. this is in itself a dangerous thing, not everywhere or everything is safe. once we have made mistakes, we are nervous whenever it seems they might happen again. could we ever be so aware of danger that we can avoid the whole learning by making a mistake thing?

CLEARCHARGE

Calculation and Consciousness and the Unconscious Mind

calculation and consciousness and the unconscious mind:

the human mind is not merely an observer and audience of its surrounding world, it is also able to think about what may be purely abstract and theoretical, it can process information in order to calculate a result. so often, a person judged to be most intelligent, is someone who is a powerful calculator, so to speak.

whatever it is in the mind that calculates, is it truly only an aspect of consciousness? or posit that the calculating component might be something based mostly in the unconscious mind. indeed, when we concentrate, think hard, conscious thoughts merely follow the workings of the calculating unconscious mind.

CLEARCHARGE

Friday, April 6, 2012

Awake, Asleep and the Cycle of Thought

awake, asleep and the cycle of thought:

there is an interesting universal question, that is, was i born awake or was i born asleep? i mean, really? let us explore what we mean by these two words, awake and asleep.

awake, conscious, seeing light and hearing, thinking about the world around us. asleep, though the lights are off so to speak, this does not mean that our thoughts have died, and our thinking ceases to exist, only that it has become more abstract, less to do with the very real senses of sight and hearing.

well, why can't we remember what we dream of, and what we were thinking of before we fell asleep? when sleep fades in, our thinking becomes blurry, less controlled by what we see when awake, and it is an often wild, volatile sequence of thoughts, unto the state of being dead asleep, that we experience daily.

what is typical in the states of being awake and being asleep, probably exist simultaneously all the time. in a sense, we are never "100% awake and 0% asleep" or "0% awake and 100% asleep", at any time. which leads to a refining of the first question, well, how awake was i, at true birth, and how asleep?

dreams are a strange mixture of the two, a fluid state that is similar to the stage of falling asleep, in that thoughts are often abstract, for we cannot easily define what we are thinking about.

is this an important question, the nature of our minds at birth?

CLEARCHARGE

The Relative Inch

the relative inch:

what is an inch? put simply, it is something to measure distance in space. is it an absolute everywhere for everyone? or is my inch different to your inch?

what if on earth the perception of sight was so wired to make everyone seem of a similar physical size while in actuality true personal size differed greatly? this is assuming the virtual nature of the world and the quite fixed position of all people in space. put simply, we are assuming the 3D mechanical motion world construct is but an illusion. yes, what if the largest human body were actually a hundred times bigger than the littlest, but on earth they seemed the same height? although it is obvious to any reader what the 3D mechanical motion world construct is, let me express what it means. relative to the earth, humans "move" about, change their positions constantly on the ground, while only 3 dimensions are "allowed". the paradox of empty space arises when we consider seriously this construct to be entirely real. if motion is only virtual, we can dismiss such thoughts as a false dead end.

distance and physical size so far, but what about density and variety in true space? i think, superficially, if we can see and hear things that seem to be at more or less the same position in space before us, we can assume that our own personal field is rather dense with a great variety of things in it, can we not?

but how to overcome the rigidity in our minds that perhaps 3 dimensions in space are all that there are? it safest to say this is the minimum. perhaps there are 5 or 6 or more, we just cannot see them is the simplest explanation.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Change and Time and the Human Being

change and time and the human being:

from the perspective of any observer, things change. because things change, this gives rise to the concept of time. the primary sense in which this is evidenced is in our eyesight. this is something obvious we can think about, the field of our vision is ever changing, ever moving. this does not prove that all things change however, and we cannot assume it, perhaps there are parts of reality that simply do not, and therefore are without time itself yet still very much real in space. it is a great part of our consciousness that the sun rises and sets and days and years pass, indeed perhaps we overemphasize this natural cycle, chiefly because we can see it. however there are things that cannot be seen, we cannot easily think about yet, but they change nonetheless too.

what is a human? a mind with a body, that principally can see his or her interaction with a 3D physical construct. because of his or her mind, a human can think, process its movements within this construct, and even wander off into abstract thought! also a human has emotions tied in as well, which can explain his or her actions. can a human think clearly about real things that it cannot see or hear? everything is connected, so perhaps he or she can. what is consciousness and what are our senses? does one gradually become the other? the power of abstract thought is that it can consider all the possibilities that could be true of reality. the crazy person does not get very far, perhaps. we hope eventually that the truth will fit, will work so to speak, and drive the solution to the puzzle of life and the universe.

i think it can be said that not everything changes as much as everything else. this may seem obvious but actually can be quite a nebulous concept. they have different "speeds", different "distances", in the way they change. we might suppose that some things change so fast or move so fast that we cannot keep up, we cannot think about them properly. some things seem to be out of our control. it's like a part of life was born at 360 mph, and that dangerous too! we might hope to find a few "safe" courses of action which we could repeat. allow me to express something i think is mistaken. we must stop thinking of time as an endless mutation that can never return, as a linear one way passage on the mathematical x-axis to infinity. just as it is night now and the sun will rise again in the morning, and blue will be blue and red will be red forever, time is not a one way trip to oblivion, as you would think in a paranoid moment. posit that things revert to their starting point. but though it is highly unlikely, what if time were an infinite loop, somehow everything reverted to its original state at the start of time, at the same time? what makes this impossible?

consciousness is a volatile substance, and we can forget easily. assuming it always existed, everyone must wonder what it was at the start of time. lack of knowledge is an anxious making condition. everyone still worries about their future, that hasn't changed! we can only conclude the state of nervousness on the first day of time must have been extreme!

CLEARCHARGE

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Language, Meaning and Values

language, meaning and values:

are we speaking the same language? of course yes, but still...

do we mean the same thing when using a word or phrase? or do our own individual personal value systems conflict or vary sometimes so as to lead to misunderstanding or worse? the language is not uniformly contained in every one of us. we all use it differently sometimes, indeed we could so define the word "individual" from this aspect.

everyone has their own values or interests, stemming from, to put it simply, first what they do want, second what they don't want, and last what they would hate having. people's values are not ever constant, they are subject to change. but primarily, as human beings, we physically need houses, food, clothes, sleep, etc. these are basic wants, but superficially, we may crave other, less important things, which differentiate personality, so that we can conclude that we are individuals. we form our own values. we speak of what we want. and we hope we can find others with the same values.

that is not to say that words can mean radically different things to different people, but even if only in a little way, context and meaning can differ, to create surprise when talking. everyone, though they may not have have written it down or thought about it at length, holds a list of personal vocabulary, not far down in the subconscious and not far from reach, a chart, if you like, of words they have thought about, ideas and concepts with values and meanings attached to each. one person might say something with happy positive associations in his or her own mind, but heard by another, invoke bad or scary thoughts. such is the abrasive nature of contact with different value systems.

but how did language develop in the first place? was it rapid or slow? such is the pace of change in the modern world that you might suspect it was always fast. and what is it in the sound of a word that triggers meaning in the minds of those who hear it and how was it that many people could agree on a meaning? does it show like mind for all those who can speak a language? is this inherent?

and what is a word, in the metaphysical sense? it exists in handwriting, in print, electronically in the internet, and in recordings. in the sum of all minds in reality, it is linked to meanings, images, actions, and perhaps even other structures of which we cannot yet identify.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Eternal Environment

the eternal environment:

posit that some things are eternal, that they exist in all time. then other things necessarily are created. what can we observe around us that might be eternal? things that seem ubiquitous, things that the world seems full of. humans, trees, houses even? for if memory is not clear, the path of history lost from the mind, time can be an agent of confusion and indeed, crazy making.

what is this a universe of? were certain things made by God, or gods or goddesses, or men or women, in acts of creation or did they always exist in some form, even if only latent? what if they were always present in the unconscious or subconscious, urging people to make manifest?

posit that time does not always seem rational, by which is meant, the record of progress shows logical anomalies. A did not lead to B and then to C, perhaps the order was B to A to C. perhaps then we could conclude that B always existed, indeed is eternal, and what seems the logical starting point A, came later. visualize if you would, a world at the start of time, complete with simple houses and trees and land already, humans walking the earth from the get go, a land covered with mist in the dim dawn of the beginning.

what of things truly created? will they last forever or are they doomed to perish, lost forever, the effort to keep them alive too much? could they only recur like the flowers of spring? indeed, is that what life on modern earth is, a short trip to somewhere so far from the beginning that naturally, it cannot last?

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Measure of a Downfall

measure of a downfall:

many the reasons for failure or loss there may be, but the one often thought of, and what might be considered yet so unnecessary and yes, even avoidable, is pride, in the worst sense of the word. pride or arrogance, resulting in overconfidence and a complete sense of assurance, and of right, lead to tragic failure. pride before the fall.

it is easy to see how this develops in everyday life, not just in some ancient greek tragedy. an easy childhood and early adult life, several successes along the way, perhaps. it would build a feeling of success, things that to most would seem too risky or even dangerous, do not flash warning. and then something bad happens.

there are those that plan rigorously, no doubt, and carefully consider the risk in every situation. those that experience such pride perhaps cannot truly evaluate risk? they have never suffered setbacks that for most would make them aware of danger. it is always appropriate to question assumptions you make before deciding on anything. what if it's not true? there are always only so many possibilities. have you considered all of them?

"if only she weren't so proud of herself! she thinks she knows everything!" this describes someone who is so afflicted by pride, with a bad meaning. you can imagine such a person, proud, unsympathetic, unempathetic, self-obsessed and convinced of her own glory, unaware of hubris. and then the error that forces the situation to tragedy. when bad things happen, they are always prefaced by a bad decision, as anyone who has made mistakes is aware of, though of course, you could argue that this is overplaying personal responsibility for everything and that some bad things may be out of our control, though hopefully not. you could think that perhaps pride, in the negative sense, and insanity are linked. they are not fully aware of what is going on, so certain are they of their own infallibility.

some passages of life may be carefree and going about on auto-pilot may be fine for that period but there are also times when things come to a head and decisions must be made carefully, using the full capacity for critical thinking that you have, so as to avoid tragedy.

CLEARCHARGE

Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Lines of Enquiry

the lines of enquiry:

be it as it may that the present collection of knowledge after centuries of thought seems a lot, it is still continuing, for there are areas to explore yet, so far mysterious still to us, and truths undiscovered, hopefully soon reached. originally, as human beings, with the physical aspect of life being of overarching importance, we wondered about our bodies, their stable health and condition. the world to be seen around us excited an interest in our surroundings. we thought about other people. and so the various disciplines and subjects began, biology, geography, languages, history.

as an abstract subject, arithmetic was certainly practical, division a must when goods were to be fairly distributed amongst a group. interest in shapes led to geometry, and forming equations for unknowns led to algebra, and observing the algebraic function in the form of a graph, and its gradient, led to calculus.

once set upon this path, arriving at what we know today seems inevitable, the inception being the original questions in the mind of humanity and the urgent need to find answers to them. the precarious nature of the first few days of time rather influenced the way things are, indeed the impact of the start of time and the early years cannot be denied. even if memories were hazy, examining dominant themes in modern culture still provides clues as to the state of reality in the beginning. of course it begs the question, how much have things changed? if the answer is not much, then probably for all "what a relief". all theories of creation or evolution cannot avoid the singularity of the question, "what was i or what was i doing at the beginning of time?" evolution theories require there to be much capacity for change. creation theories require there to be much power behind will. here are some questions. "do people really change?" "is anyone that powerful?" "is the tree eternal?" "am i stuck being me in all time?"

so, propelled by an early intention to acquire knowledge, we were thrust along lines of enquiry that marked a trail of expansion into often highly arcane and abstract constructs. what was once pressing, in that the demand for knowledge was real, became a steady almost involuntary push into the frontiers of thought. to dismiss anyone's academic work as irrelevant at best, untrue to the original thinking agenda, is a cruel turn. as always all are still interested in social relations. isolation is a hazardous thing. for the fevered mind, busy thinking, the degree of truth in one's thoughts is not always plain, the initial steps into the unknown are hopefully correct. it is easy to be crazy. let's say anyone can think of all the combinations of possibilities. how do we know what is true? if we can test it, how do we test it? for those who have suffered from false beliefs and realized such, have experienced a kind of mental agony that scars the soul.

one subject that has always fascinated us is motion. what is it? what is a wave? how does one influence another? it is true like breeds like, like a universal game of tag, it is this that explains the wave. however, this is only one way that one influences one's neighbour. the wave is not the only form of motion. a wave is like a cue ball hitting a snooker ball straight so that the ball rolls on in the same direction as the cue ball did, it carries on the same. of course, there are other possibilities of hitting the cue ball in snooker or pool, such as the angle shot where the other ball rolls off in another direction, just as there are other types of motion beyond the wave. the signal is not carried, it is distorted or something completely different is the effect on what is nearby.

when we talk, we pass on what others have told us. gossip is contagious, just like a wave. where does the chain stop? naturally, we introduce our own stories, and conversation forms its own pleasing pattern of things the same and those different. of course, the easiest way to arrive at the truth is to closely observe the natural world, rather than an almost random thought process or heuristic of trying to find the remaining pieces of the puzzle of the universe that fit.

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Past Lost

the past lost:

if time is but an illusion in the sense that the bulk of reality is little changing, what does that mean for the conscious mind? is it an impulsive, forgetful, easily led creature, darting from one point to another, every part a transient experience? life's journey's effect on an impressionable consciousness certainly gives us the sense that time is real and of the loss of the past.

for the mind, in both its conscious and unconscious whole, is a quick vehicle. while the earth may not be changing, our minds are. it accelerates upon what it imagines to be a good idea, it has a value system that drives our decisions. unfortunately, we are not always right. too little thinking results in bad consequences. it is not enough to leap on what seems fine, we must consider the possibilities. in our haste, and in our enthusiasm, we often neglect to do so. look before you leap. what if that happened? what if something didn't happen? what if some person did that? it all reflects something common in our personality, the rush towards something that seems so good.

and so often the past seems strange to us. "what were you like?" it speaks of the ignorance of our younger selves and also of the volatile nature of the atmosphere or the mood or the zeitgeist over time, as though the universe distorts itself for a period and then rights itself, leaving only our memory as proof of the past.

for many things will not happen again. that is the effect of regret and other emotions, jadedness, dread and horror over mistakes. "what was that all about anyway?" of course many good things happened in the past, but it is difficult to reclaim that past. it is somewhat disquieting that something in the mood that seemed so vital, so real, perhaps for a number of years, came to an end and may never recur. you could weakly define a person as what they think about and what they do, what they obsessed about at the time. to think that such a period comes to an end involves a little death of the personality to some degree, does it not? perhaps this is overstating the case.

we invoke the concept of life balance as desired, indeed, to counter the tendency in us all to "go overboard" about things. "he's obsessed" or "she's obsessed" is not praise. we have it in us all to be excitable and cling to things or activities we think of as good or "really cool". a long time ago humans plucked the fruit off a tree and ate them. now we are "addicted" to food. not all addictions are bad! the danger lies in the promotion of something in our minds without considering the question of how long it will last. whether it is ultimately good or bad is unknown at the time.

if life is but a journey, we might have only the memories to keep. some people may prefer to remember the best things but the worst things are often well remembered too. it is hoped, the good things will last, as forever is eternal, and all to find peace with the past.

CLEARCHARGE

The Mystery of Other Realities

the mystery of other realities:

given that we are as of one large, complex reality, entirely connected, that we can account for it as one whole unit, the question arises, what of other realities that exist? well we can say that they are entirely separate, one does not influence or connect to another, by definition.

this leads us to the question, if they were separate at the start of time, will they always be separate? does the factor of time make a difference? obviously something that was with us from the start of time and always will be cannot be considered separate. that's just silly.

you could think, well, how far away are they? at an infinite distance? but this is too easy and is a product of our conditioning of thinking of the world in three dimensions with respect to distance and contact. if you were to think of charting the theoretical multiverse, with maps and such like, you might like to visually imagine that we are in our own particular universe, while they, the others, are in theirs. where on the map? we can only conclude that the other realities, for all purposes of affect, are not here simply.

now this may lead, by an inflamed imagination, as to speculation as to what these other realities might be like. might they be similar, or even parts the same? if they are the same, why aren't they here?

we have defined this place, here our home, as one reality, as there are, though they may be long and tortuous, links to every other part of this reality within it. we are all connected. but does this mean necessarily that everyone truly affects everyone else? or are some proceeding as quasi-independent sectors of reality?

to pick up a previous point, can it happen? can other realities become joined to us? if so, can they then be disconnected? can segments of this reality which were intact from the beginning of time become disconnected? there is a soothing argument that perhaps time, which you are worrying about no doubt, is somewhat insubstantial in itself, that time does not change the situation as per contact with other realities. indeed, once separate, always separate, once together, always together.

the problem in thinking about this matter lies in the way this reality has been set up, or perhaps is indicative of the way it is for eternity, the overrating of the concepts of distance and position. applying a mathematical model of number of connections between points comes to mind as an alternative. other realities have none to any here, indeed, their connection is zero.

i suppose, as a reality goes, this one you could say, is a highly involved reality, quite big, and rather complicated. hopefully all's well that ends well.

CLEARCHARGE

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Time and Equilibrium

time and equilibrium:

there is a philosophical question, how real is time? is it just an artificial theoretical construct or is it something more substantial, more real? it is assumed essentially that the quantity of what exists fundamentally does not change, and that there are constants in the universe, and perhaps change, which is what time involves, is unimportant.

imagine a simple reality, where the person is confined to a single room, where there are no doors, no windows, indeed nothing beyond this room. at the end of every day, when this person is tired, he or she goes to bed and, in the morning, gets up and stands by the bed, in the same place every time. the person thinks about everything that has been done, all the positions in the room he or she has stood, but cannot escape the fact that every morning, he or she will stand in the same place by the bed. there is an equilibrium in space and time.

even in a complex reality as ours, there are equilibrium positions in many senses. we are, for the most part, healthy, intact, and free from injury or illness. people strive for a "healthy balance" or equilibrium in life, not to pursue obsessively certain things, to be free of addictions, to do nothing to disturb the balance.

when we try new things, when we get away from routine, we are entering the unknown in space and time, uncharted areas if you like. there are risks but of course there may be rewards, which is why we strike into the unknown. the person in the single room may be trapped, but secure forever. we are allowed greater exploration, but the potential for danger is greater too. however, as curious animals, the longing for new experiences is common.

the question lies with satisfaction. will we ever be satisfied with what we have already?

CLEARCHARGE