The humming universe

Science and Technology
1

I’m choosey about reading Atlantic articles because my access is limited. This is a good one. You may have heard that we have discovered waves that Einstein predicted and could help us trace the beginning of time.

After you finish reading this, take a look around you. Ponder how the solid-seeming ground beneath your feet is quietly shaking with the force of billions of years of cosmic collisions. Go outside, if you can, and watch the wind blow through the trees. Perhaps the experience will be different now that you know how the rhythm of giant black holes in distant galaxies also beats out a time in the trees’ gentle swaying.

Note, it says, “now that you know”. They didn’t confirm some internal awareness of how gravity works that you have. They built on centuries of work to present this to you. You feel different because of the knowledge you were given, not because they gave a name to something you already knew.

There may be a paradox here, that we couldn’t know this if we didn’t sense it from the time we were early hominids, or we were prokaryotes, or earlier. Or, does knowing grow out of a sense of something much more primal, like, what is here now survived, so we inherited survival from what came before? Did we get that desire from these forces and then add on the feelings of oneness afterward?

Unless they prove some hydrogen made a conscious choice 13.7 billion years ago, I’m sticking with, it just is.

2

No, what they did was open windows of awareness.
It’s up to our individual lens to observe what it can.

No and that is not what it’s about.

Once a suggestion is made,
and if, there’s evidence that harmonizes with said suggestion,
a world of imagination is possible.

This whole thing about our planetary globe orbiting really seemed to get your goat.

And your position is more defensible than mine, except that you’ve created a straw man out of it, and missed my point. Not that it was obvious or anything. (just saying)

Let me try to explain.
I had a personal experience early on, probably 19, admittedly I’m a modern guy who was already keeping up on common scientific and astronomical understanding.

Still one particular evening, just past sunset, on a walk, with a slice of a crescent moon, and me mediating on that recently set sun just over the horizon, and that sliver of moon up there, that I was studying, knowing that the sun was shinning on a complete half moon, trying to triangulate that sliver into the direction of the focal point of that the sunlit half moon compared to , that sun in a straight line way far away from me, just below that western horizon - when all of sudden (funny sort of like that crazy art work that flips from flat 2D to 3D if you gaze at it just right (no, just wrong actually) I ‘viscerally’ sensed being a speck on sitting on the edge of our globe, with a full view of both sun and moon and their respective positions to each other an me on the edge of the Earth. Something like that shoots through every fiber of the recipient and perceptions are slightly altered - you know what they say, once you see, you can’t unsee it.

And of course I have no clue if any ancients conceived or even sensed our planet as a globe circling the sun, but what I damned well do know - is that they had a way the hell richer understanding of what was unfolding in that natural world, that we moderns (hiding from as much as possible most the time), then any pompous knowitalls from a university can get close to conjuring, with their over simplistic defaults founded on an absolutely self-absorbed self-centered world view.

Simply the fact that you take such umbrage is an indication that I hit the proper nerve.

:wink: :v: :kissing_heart:

3

I started writing this earlier in context of another project, but it may be of some interest here. Or at least I want to put it out there. Always looking for pushback.

Climate science has receded from my focus, though it doesn’t take much prodding to engage again. Still it’s become too depressing and hopeless, too many tipping points behind us and the willful ignorance today is beyond the pale. I used to be driven by a faith in humanity taking some responsibility, but I can no longer be blind to the free fall era we’ve entered.

We are living under a new regime of increasing catastrophic climate roulette with a gaggle of black swan events threatening. I can’t pretend it away, the way so many can, this will catch up with us. Humans seem ever more self-absorbed and avaricious. The societal systems we depend on are straining to the limits and … then what?

For me, personal priorities have become more and more about getting solid in my own head. After all, in the end all of us only have one life to die, then there’s silence, the ultimate peace. That leaves coming to term with myself, dare I say understanding who I am, along with my place upon this Mother Earth as a main priority.

I find comfort in appreciating that I’m an evolved biological thinking creature. I possess this generation, but my being is the cumulative sum of the past millions and even billions of years of evolution. I am the product of a creature interacting with, and being molded through, all the turmoil that is living and surviving within an environment.

I am a self aware filament in Earth’s pageant of evolution. I appreciate the most fundamental and profound duality of the Human Mind ~ Physical Reality divide and its implication for how I view my(conscious)self and the world my body populates.

We humans have been offered the ability to go outside our bodies via science and understand creation in a way no other creature limited to their own senses ever has been able to before in Earth long history. That is something to glory in.

4

Leave my goat out of this

5

I like your story. I like the analogy about the 2D/3D flip our senses do. It maps on to neuroscience about what’s happening in our brains when we get insights. I have two issues with this though, and I’ll be as specific and succinct as I can be and hopefully, we can stay on track this time.

  1. I would like more on more “what’s next”, after this insight. It could be practical steps of actions to take, channelling this energy into work. I know you do that, but it’s not integrated into how you TELL the story. Or, be more poetic, telling the story in a way that inspires others. Maybe there are other options, that’s up to you. My issue is the story ends with the insight. I know your life goes on, but the story ends.

  2. I have done rituals, taught to me by people who learned them from people who had them passed down through generations. I believe in their value and their power. But I don’t think that the people who invented those, the ones who had it as part of their daily life, people who had the rituals and not the deep body of information now at my fingertips, had this way richer understanding that you talk about. Sure, some of them did, just as people alive now have a richer understanding than me. But I don’t draw a stark line between indigenous and modern knowledge and call one good and one bad.

6

I’ll have to chew on that, though a quickie answer for myself here at 68, watching the world slowly implode into a deplorable future on the one hand, and on the other, growing families with all the hopes and dreams of all the generations that came before.
This grounding affords me the ability to hang on to my sanity in this extremely dissonant time.

I’m at home in my skin of an evolved self-reflecting organic creature, and then I die.
Free of all the existential angst I see manifested all around me. I’m free to be more attentive to my inner body, and now (through education and new visualizations and renewed personal focus) it’s easier to tune into one’s living body, that connects with my body’s homeostasis systems. Makes me more attentive. Reinforcing the understanding that taking care of my body, as my body takes care of me.

I’ve been told it’s all in my mind. Indeed, it is. That’s the point. Being aware of it, is the bonus. No end of story needed.

The point is, its the journey not the destination, has been all along for Earth’s geology and biology, and look what she’s created.

Once we truly grasp that our gods are of our own making, it turns into an entirely different, much more humble undertaking. No need to worry about God, in one way or the other. Instead we learn to take responsibility for ourselves. With God’s back to representing our own human ambitions and needs, as opposed to being possessive Lords who must be obeyed.

Living with the appreciation of consciousness, being an interactive experience doesn’t change our interactions. But appreciating as we react to other people, places and things, those people and places and things are reacting to us and our presence and our behavior.

Nothing and no body is independent of the greater community and eco-systems.

Our consciousness isn’t simply draped over biological body, our body creates that cloak of personhood we individuals wear through our lives, til death do you part, the body to soil, your consciousness, soul gets absorbed back into the mystery.

Being daily appreciative of possessing this awareness, introspective, be a self-conscious living human, with an understanding of the universe beyond anything any other creatures or human generations have achieved. It’s just flash, I’m just a flash, then I’ll be gone, but I’m here now and have the sense to deeply appreciate the moments as they are dolled out, the crappy with the good, though I prefer the good so do my best to stack my odds, as best I can, given what I’ve got. So far so good, but I know nothing lasts forever, so literally take it one day at a time.

It’s for each to make of it what they can, given who they are.

There is no next step, we’re at home and enjoying the ride best we can is the next step, every morning we get up.

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Hey not that the world isn’t still full of amazing wonders and mysteries, that’s not what this is about!
This is about the big existential angst causing stuff, that stuff evaporates. Wonder at life from children to old people, families, biology, neuroscience, this Earth and this Earth as a living planet just keeps getting deeper.

7

Author James Poskett

Publisher Mariner Books

Publication Date 2022-03

—————

The history of science as it has never been told before: a tale of outsiders and unsung heroes from far beyond the Western canon that most of us are taught

When we think about the origins of modern science, we usually recall pioneers such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin.

But science is not, and has never been, a uniquely European endeavor. Copernicus used mathematical techniques from Arabic and Persian texts. Newton relied on astronomical observations made in Asia and Africa.

And when Darwin was writing On the Origin of Species, he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia. In this timely revisionist history, James Poskett recasts the history of science, uncovering the vital contributions of scientists the world over to what is truly a global story.

I don’t either, you’ve seen my reading list.

What have I called bad?

I’ve written about the Abrahamic Mindset permeating western and now global social and people, and science. Who funds science?

I have summarized its outstanding character feature self-absorbed intellectually and self-serving materially. History speaks for itself, and we won’t have empires without it.

Is that “bad”?

I don’t know, it’s done many bad things, but it’s achieved as many good things. All depending on what end of the deal you were on. It’s totally subjective.

Was it inevitable?

Probably.

Does any of that make it any less a valid observation?

That has produced the Lighthouse Syndrome of being isolated from the very environment we’re trying to study and understand.

It’s simply stuff like failing to mention that consciousness, quite literally and scientifically is our body communicating with itself - (the Hard Problem notwithstanding!!!)
{We can’t explain every facet and detail, but we now have the photographic observational evidence, so I think, enough with the contrived handwringing of philosophers.}

Our body creates the sense of Who You Are. As it does the frog and every other living creature. Which is why none of us can escape ourselves, no matter how we try. That’s valuable to understand.

“The Human Mind ~ Physical Reality divide” is about appreciating that we are the origin of all our thoughts - and physical reality is distinctly different. That inspires (informs?) a bit of humility to counter the amazing hubris we are capable of.

When discussing Evolution, it would be helpful for students to understand from right out the gate that we can not understand a creature without understanding its environment. The two are intimately interconnected. It would constructively color all speculate thereafter. This is a three generations old insight, so why hasn’t it percolated into common understanding.

8

But you bring up your story as a response to things I post. I thought it would be funny to say you would argue about the Theory of Everybody interview. The guy even jokes about himself and his book in the middle of the interview, saying how silly it sounds when he hears others present a sweeping analysis of all of humanity and claim they have come up with an insight that can solve all the coming crises.

He knows that’s not true. Most of what he says is non-controversial, like needing the balance of available energy and current consumption. He does some waving of the hand, like dismissing that further moves toward socialism go against human nature, I don’t know if that’s true or even testable.

It’s not the point. The point of my posts is not to provide a grand solution to create harmony for a thousand years. I had one major takeaway from the TOE interview, his idea about taxing land. With the humming universe, it’s just cool. It kind of confirms some things I feel, but I have no idea how to know how they did the science. I rely on the experts for that.

9

You posted that hoping for some dialogue.

Okay, you’re right, I didn’t comment on the Atlantic article, they don’t like me so all I get is a wall and I didn’t read the story but I’ve seen a little something about the “Ripples”, but I wouldn’t know what to comment on that.

I was responding to your earlier sharing, that I have listened to a couple times and found thoughtful and worth discussing. It felt like this OP was in regard to that.

His introduction was good, nothing wrong with it, it was informative and interesting.
But he missed the opportunity to point out the nonstop interconnected nature of evolving creatures and within evolving eco-systems.

Less looking out,
more of a bottom up organic evolutionary perspective, where all the pieces fit together.

That’s all I was saying.