Boxes Part 1: A Brief (Metaphorical) History of Me, You, and Us
This is going to be my stab at finishing the idea I meant to write under the earlier title of "Community: Individualism and Fitting In". We'll have to see how it goes..."I make no promises..."
"Everything Put Together Falls Apart" Paul Simon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv3fKGfEmxc
First, we are matter, or matter and energy. (Yes, I said it. Energy. It's physics, I think, and not an excuse to go all "woo-woo"). We share the same micro-data that makes up all atomic and sub-atomic matter in our universe. It's just arranged in our unique bits that make up our physical being at any snapshot in space and time. There are some varying theories about what that reality is as we get into quantum physics and all of that, but I have to deal with the reality as best as I can understand it. And it's every bit as valid as Stephen Hawking's. Not that he doesn't probably have a better grasp on the details than I, but it's the reality I have. It's the universe as well as I'm able to "grok" it. I realize that for reasons of lack of intellectual clarity (or discipline, or honesty), my universe is more limited than Professor Hawking's, but it's mine. From my point of view, my universe is shaped by my understanding of it. One box. My own.
Our little bits and pieces reside here on Earth and are "alive" (for better or worse, whatever "alive" may mean). From the first smudge of mold or virus or bacteria that appeared here, we share the related strand of DNA that goes back some 3 billion years. We are not inanimate matter on a planet circling Vega, or any other distant star. We are alive. Here. On Earth. One Box. Our common planet.
Then we get to where things just begin to get really complicated. Life becomes separated. Through time. Through mutations. Through terrain. Here a box. There a box. A box under the oceans. A box in a tree on the savannah. A box in a hole in the ground. Hundreds of millions of boxes. From the trunk, and the roots, we branch out on the "tree of life" and...well, you know the story. (Quick hint, even the guys that trace their particular box through the history of founding the original church of Christianity have thrown out the idea of the Biblical Genesis and Garden of Eden, and accept the Theory of Evolution, but that's for another discussion). Suffice it to say, that with some minor (more or less) differences of opinion, this http://tolweb.org/tree/learn/concepts/whatisphylogeny.html is our biological reality as best as we can understand it in this particular place and time.
Through time. Through mutations. Through terrain. We become the rather self-important (though maybe even insignificant) box of human beings. We developed bigger brains, opposable thumbs, complex tools, and so we built a giant mansion-like box, and separated ourselves from the other boxes. And our mansion became a huge, complex system of inter-relating box-like rooms as we wandered around the world in search of food, water, mates, space, welcoming climate, and what-nots separating ourselves through time, through mutations, through experiences, through terrain. (Metaphorically. I hope we all understand that... We did not really separate ourselves, and can't, considering, for instance, that there are trillions of separate microbes living inside of each of us. Trillions upon trillions of individual microscopic living beings, or little boxes. And we could not survive without them.)
I think that's enough for this morning. This individual in this particular box, is a human in the box labeled "lazy", so I'm reverting to my genetic nature. I hope we'll pick this up later.
"Everything Put Together Falls Apart" Paul Simon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv3fKGfEmxc
Morning, July 15, 2013
First, we are matter, or matter and energy. (Yes, I said it. Energy. It's physics, I think, and not an excuse to go all "woo-woo"). We share the same micro-data that makes up all atomic and sub-atomic matter in our universe. It's just arranged in our unique bits that make up our physical being at any snapshot in space and time. There are some varying theories about what that reality is as we get into quantum physics and all of that, but I have to deal with the reality as best as I can understand it. And it's every bit as valid as Stephen Hawking's. Not that he doesn't probably have a better grasp on the details than I, but it's the reality I have. It's the universe as well as I'm able to "grok" it. I realize that for reasons of lack of intellectual clarity (or discipline, or honesty), my universe is more limited than Professor Hawking's, but it's mine. From my point of view, my universe is shaped by my understanding of it. One box. My own.
Our little bits and pieces reside here on Earth and are "alive" (for better or worse, whatever "alive" may mean). From the first smudge of mold or virus or bacteria that appeared here, we share the related strand of DNA that goes back some 3 billion years. We are not inanimate matter on a planet circling Vega, or any other distant star. We are alive. Here. On Earth. One Box. Our common planet.
Then we get to where things just begin to get really complicated. Life becomes separated. Through time. Through mutations. Through terrain. Here a box. There a box. A box under the oceans. A box in a tree on the savannah. A box in a hole in the ground. Hundreds of millions of boxes. From the trunk, and the roots, we branch out on the "tree of life" and...well, you know the story. (Quick hint, even the guys that trace their particular box through the history of founding the original church of Christianity have thrown out the idea of the Biblical Genesis and Garden of Eden, and accept the Theory of Evolution, but that's for another discussion). Suffice it to say, that with some minor (more or less) differences of opinion, this http://tolweb.org/tree/learn/concepts/whatisphylogeny.html is our biological reality as best as we can understand it in this particular place and time.
Through time. Through mutations. Through terrain. We become the rather self-important (though maybe even insignificant) box of human beings. We developed bigger brains, opposable thumbs, complex tools, and so we built a giant mansion-like box, and separated ourselves from the other boxes. And our mansion became a huge, complex system of inter-relating box-like rooms as we wandered around the world in search of food, water, mates, space, welcoming climate, and what-nots separating ourselves through time, through mutations, through experiences, through terrain. (Metaphorically. I hope we all understand that... We did not really separate ourselves, and can't, considering, for instance, that there are trillions of separate microbes living inside of each of us. Trillions upon trillions of individual microscopic living beings, or little boxes. And we could not survive without them.)
I think that's enough for this morning. This individual in this particular box, is a human in the box labeled "lazy", so I'm reverting to my genetic nature. I hope we'll pick this up later.
Comments