My grandmother died at the age of 99 To her last days, she loved to tell the story, many times over, of a day when I was about four. I had been pestering my parents to go visit Grandma and had been repeatedly refused. Instead, we called Grandma and I told her my plight. In fact, contrary to my parents’ clear statements otherwise, I told Grandma that I was, indeed, coming to visit.
Apparently, somewhere along the line my parents relented and the visit took place. What was so memorable to my grandmother over a span of 45 years was that, upon our arrival, she opened the door to me tromping up the front steps announcing “I made it!”.
Why did my grandmother admire that so much? Were these traits ones she hoped others saw in her, that she liked to think she saw in her self, that could be extruded and preserved by recognizing them in me?
I love thinking of her loving the story. I love telling of her telling it. I love asking the obvious questions. Can I tell you again the story of my grandmother when she opened the door to me tromping up the steps . . . ?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Intersecting Waves
Evolution tells us to look at origins and see how unique and specialized functions are a natural result of the environment. If self-replicating proteins existed in an environment that often decimated them, we should not be surprised that the few that by chance had a protective covering continued to replicate many times over and are around today while their cohorts that were less environmentally able to cope ceased to be. In an environment antagonistic to proteins, we also should not be surprised to find entities of self-replicating proteins inside protective cell membranes. Neither should we be surprised that an environment more hostile to some membranous entities than to others should result in adaptive and differentiated cells, and so on. But yet, without the perspective of immense time and an understanding of how adaptive changes work in a naturally selecting environment, the complexity of our existence would seem intelligently designed.
Jumping by analogy, let’s think about possibility waves of quarks or electrons. We are surprised to live in a universe where possibility waves, only when they are observed, coalesce into discreet particles. It seems baffling and confounding. How can the universe of basic “stuff”, while unobserved, be described no more discreetly than as a field of possibilities, as a wave formula of oscillating fields, but, when observed, obtain a discreet particle aspect? It is incomprehensible. But would it be if our perspective were different? The problem, it seems to me, is that our comprehension is tainted by our perspective much as an end-product perspective of biology can leave us more mystified than if we perceived that biology from the perspective of evolutionary origins.
What if all that exists is nothing but possibility waves described by oscillating field theories? Suppose that these field theories describe infinite but bounded possibilities (and I think they must, based upon my feeble lay understanding of the science I have read). There can be, then, many infinite but bounded waves. This is different than saying there is an amorphous soup of undefined possibilities. There is still order. There are still distinctions.
Does the intersecting of two infinite but bounded wave possibilities create more a discreetly bounded wave or field? Can it be that the intersection of a certain set of waves or fields creates a described universe uniquely bounded by the parameters of that intersection? In other words could not the intersection of enough wave or field formulas start to represent what we call the natural law of one unique infinitely bounded universe? Such a universe, it seems, could not but produce a discreet set of formulae that we, who have evolved within that universe, would perceive to be unique and specially fitted laws of our existence. . . the Newtonian physics of everyday life. Evolving within these laws, we could not but perceive the world except within these set patterns or parameters. So much so, that we would perceive the set of patterns as the world itself, not as one set of an infinite number of wave intersection sets. We would perceive our unique wave sets as unique patterns, as particles following discreet laws.
What we would be unaware of is the vast meta-universe of possibility waves in which our one reality has coalesced. Until . . . our science leads us down to the quantum level where we are dissecting the particles into wave properties themselves. Wouldn't we then start to see the breakdown of those natural laws? Would we not lose that perspective that is unique to the greater combined intersection of wave possibilities that make up our existence?
Jumping by analogy, let’s think about possibility waves of quarks or electrons. We are surprised to live in a universe where possibility waves, only when they are observed, coalesce into discreet particles. It seems baffling and confounding. How can the universe of basic “stuff”, while unobserved, be described no more discreetly than as a field of possibilities, as a wave formula of oscillating fields, but, when observed, obtain a discreet particle aspect? It is incomprehensible. But would it be if our perspective were different? The problem, it seems to me, is that our comprehension is tainted by our perspective much as an end-product perspective of biology can leave us more mystified than if we perceived that biology from the perspective of evolutionary origins.
What if all that exists is nothing but possibility waves described by oscillating field theories? Suppose that these field theories describe infinite but bounded possibilities (and I think they must, based upon my feeble lay understanding of the science I have read). There can be, then, many infinite but bounded waves. This is different than saying there is an amorphous soup of undefined possibilities. There is still order. There are still distinctions.
Does the intersecting of two infinite but bounded wave possibilities create more a discreetly bounded wave or field? Can it be that the intersection of a certain set of waves or fields creates a described universe uniquely bounded by the parameters of that intersection? In other words could not the intersection of enough wave or field formulas start to represent what we call the natural law of one unique infinitely bounded universe? Such a universe, it seems, could not but produce a discreet set of formulae that we, who have evolved within that universe, would perceive to be unique and specially fitted laws of our existence. . . the Newtonian physics of everyday life. Evolving within these laws, we could not but perceive the world except within these set patterns or parameters. So much so, that we would perceive the set of patterns as the world itself, not as one set of an infinite number of wave intersection sets. We would perceive our unique wave sets as unique patterns, as particles following discreet laws.
What we would be unaware of is the vast meta-universe of possibility waves in which our one reality has coalesced. Until . . . our science leads us down to the quantum level where we are dissecting the particles into wave properties themselves. Wouldn't we then start to see the breakdown of those natural laws? Would we not lose that perspective that is unique to the greater combined intersection of wave possibilities that make up our existence?
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