"Here is the answer."
"The answer to what" she replied.
"The answer to everything..." he continued.
"What? ... You're mad."
"This is very possible my dear, but mostly because I believe it to be possible still...."
"I'm confused..., why would..." she started,
but he cut her off..."sorry darling, I have to continue this thought, so please bear with me..."
First, when contemplating an answer you must ponder the question... it is imperative to ask the right question.
...and Einstein once said that the most complicated theories must be understood by children or they are useless.
So the question must be simple, and it must be sensical, not be dissuaded by emotional attachment and have answers that will stand the test of time.
The question that haunts me is the one that ties the world I live in everyday to the world that I believe unfolds around me at my behest and without my permission. The question is this;
What is the foundation of the universe? If you had to describe it as an object, a reference or an thought experiment what would it look like. I have buried my head in my hands and wept at this question, for I believe it holds the key to an answer that will shape life as we know it from this day forwards.
Up until today I would say that we try and represent our understandings as a straight line. A timeline, a trajectory or an arrow pointing to the next event or unfolding. We can see this in science as time, distance, height, weight, diameter.... We perceive it the human experience by use of the idea of longevity, as separation, as duration.... We participate in it in our physical lives on sidewalks, roads, countertops and through door-frames. Our senses perceive it as color, sound, pressure.... Yet for some reason this understanding seems flawed.
Why you ask?
Well, recently I was trying to determine what has separated us from the forces of nature and how is it that we've learned to live in such disharmony.
The answer to me... is the straight line. Or better yet, the "vector".
...and one might argue that understanding and embracing the idea of the vector has propelled humans forward evolutionarily, after all it is one of the foundations of mathematics, or architecture, and of transportation. ...and this is indeed true. It has helped us learn to conquer the seas, learn to fly, and develop sophisticated technologies that make our lives easier.
My issue with the "vector" is that it is flawed because it does not hold true to the natural world and pays no dividends to whence it came.
The straight line does not exist in nature. ANYWHERE. The larger the picture you look at the more you start to see spheres, circles, repeating patterns, elllipses, and strangely, the smaller you go when looking at any situation, circumstance or physical element you see the exact same things. Everywhere you turn there are repetitive patterns. Take the earth for instance; a set of repetitive patterns that dictate night and day, the 4 seasons, el nino & el nina, ice ages, comets, eclipses etc.... Now look at the mirror effect that it has on the creatures on the planet, hibernation patterns, circadian rhythms, menstrual cycles. Better yet add those together and see ecology unfold; as predators increase, prey decreases which increases deaths in predators, which increases prey, which in turn increases predators.... Look at the elements that give us life; the sun we know goes through cycles of billions of years, water becomes oceans, oceans become rain, rain becomes our water. Or look deep into the human body and see what keeps us alive; the heart and circulatory system is cyclical, our breathing is cyclical, and the CO2 we breathe out cycles into plants and is returned as oxygen.
Which of these things has a straight line to it?
I thought I had truly found the answer when someone actually said very astutely... "But what about Light"?
I thought that I had found the kink in the armor of my thought experiment, the loophole that I knew was waiting to trip me up...
... but no, wait, Scientists now know that even light can be bent if there is enough "gravity", and if there is infinite mass there is no light at all because it pulls even the mass of the photons into it (we refer to these occurrences as black holes.) So why is it that we still live our lives with the straight line as being the creator of our ingenuity? The captain of our ship? The warden of our secrets?
I believe it is our undoing. I believe it is the devil that lies to us in plain light because it has fooled us into thinking we are separate. This devil has given us gifts, made us live easily, coddled us as we have become soft. Did you know that one of the main reasons for almost every injury humans face is the flat surface. Our feet are being destroyed by flat ground, our pinky toe is disappearing as a result. Distance tells us that we are separate creatures, with a boundary, our strongest attachments; a bloodline. We see distance only because of our senses. If air were colored would we see where you ended and I began? (is there even such a thing as a beginning and an end to anything?) Physics declares that energy cannot be destroyed (which can be interpreted as an "end"), it is merely converted into another form.
So what is my answer? The spiral, the circle and the repeating pattern (often referred to as the Fibonacci sequence). Which leads simply to more questions, but if this is the case then we are definitely thinking circularly and that leads me to believe we're on the right path. Maybe it is time that some of the mathematics of the circle, the Fibonacci sequence be added to our regular science and see what becomes of our understanding of the universe.
"The answer to what" she replied.
"The answer to everything..." he continued.
"What? ... You're mad."
"This is very possible my dear, but mostly because I believe it to be possible still...."
"I'm confused..., why would..." she started,
but he cut her off..."sorry darling, I have to continue this thought, so please bear with me..."
First, when contemplating an answer you must ponder the question... it is imperative to ask the right question.
...and Einstein once said that the most complicated theories must be understood by children or they are useless.
So the question must be simple, and it must be sensical, not be dissuaded by emotional attachment and have answers that will stand the test of time.
The question that haunts me is the one that ties the world I live in everyday to the world that I believe unfolds around me at my behest and without my permission. The question is this;
What is the foundation of the universe? If you had to describe it as an object, a reference or an thought experiment what would it look like. I have buried my head in my hands and wept at this question, for I believe it holds the key to an answer that will shape life as we know it from this day forwards.
Up until today I would say that we try and represent our understandings as a straight line. A timeline, a trajectory or an arrow pointing to the next event or unfolding. We can see this in science as time, distance, height, weight, diameter.... We perceive it the human experience by use of the idea of longevity, as separation, as duration.... We participate in it in our physical lives on sidewalks, roads, countertops and through door-frames. Our senses perceive it as color, sound, pressure.... Yet for some reason this understanding seems flawed.
Why you ask?
Well, recently I was trying to determine what has separated us from the forces of nature and how is it that we've learned to live in such disharmony.
The answer to me... is the straight line. Or better yet, the "vector".
...and one might argue that understanding and embracing the idea of the vector has propelled humans forward evolutionarily, after all it is one of the foundations of mathematics, or architecture, and of transportation. ...and this is indeed true. It has helped us learn to conquer the seas, learn to fly, and develop sophisticated technologies that make our lives easier.
My issue with the "vector" is that it is flawed because it does not hold true to the natural world and pays no dividends to whence it came.
The straight line does not exist in nature. ANYWHERE. The larger the picture you look at the more you start to see spheres, circles, repeating patterns, elllipses, and strangely, the smaller you go when looking at any situation, circumstance or physical element you see the exact same things. Everywhere you turn there are repetitive patterns. Take the earth for instance; a set of repetitive patterns that dictate night and day, the 4 seasons, el nino & el nina, ice ages, comets, eclipses etc.... Now look at the mirror effect that it has on the creatures on the planet, hibernation patterns, circadian rhythms, menstrual cycles. Better yet add those together and see ecology unfold; as predators increase, prey decreases which increases deaths in predators, which increases prey, which in turn increases predators.... Look at the elements that give us life; the sun we know goes through cycles of billions of years, water becomes oceans, oceans become rain, rain becomes our water. Or look deep into the human body and see what keeps us alive; the heart and circulatory system is cyclical, our breathing is cyclical, and the CO2 we breathe out cycles into plants and is returned as oxygen.
Which of these things has a straight line to it?
I thought I had truly found the answer when someone actually said very astutely... "But what about Light"?
I thought that I had found the kink in the armor of my thought experiment, the loophole that I knew was waiting to trip me up...
... but no, wait, Scientists now know that even light can be bent if there is enough "gravity", and if there is infinite mass there is no light at all because it pulls even the mass of the photons into it (we refer to these occurrences as black holes.) So why is it that we still live our lives with the straight line as being the creator of our ingenuity? The captain of our ship? The warden of our secrets?
I believe it is our undoing. I believe it is the devil that lies to us in plain light because it has fooled us into thinking we are separate. This devil has given us gifts, made us live easily, coddled us as we have become soft. Did you know that one of the main reasons for almost every injury humans face is the flat surface. Our feet are being destroyed by flat ground, our pinky toe is disappearing as a result. Distance tells us that we are separate creatures, with a boundary, our strongest attachments; a bloodline. We see distance only because of our senses. If air were colored would we see where you ended and I began? (is there even such a thing as a beginning and an end to anything?) Physics declares that energy cannot be destroyed (which can be interpreted as an "end"), it is merely converted into another form.
So what is my answer? The spiral, the circle and the repeating pattern (often referred to as the Fibonacci sequence). Which leads simply to more questions, but if this is the case then we are definitely thinking circularly and that leads me to believe we're on the right path. Maybe it is time that some of the mathematics of the circle, the Fibonacci sequence be added to our regular science and see what becomes of our understanding of the universe.
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