On The Machine

The moon orbits the earth (along with satellites and space-junk) while the earth orbits the sun. The sun meanwhile is just one of who knows how many stars and nebulae and black holes and dust clouds that whirl around in our galaxy. Our galaxy moves in relation to other galaxies in out local cluster, which moves in relation to other clusters in our supercluster, which move in relation to other superclusters, and on and on. The presence and movement of everything in the universe has an impact, both direct and indirect, upon every other thing in the universe, no matter how distant the two parties may be.

Have you ever thought about how the entire cosmos is like a gigantic machine? In any complex machine, some input causes this gizmo to move in some certain way which creates another input to spur some widget into action which becomes the impetus for that whatzit to whir or vibrate or jump or oscillate or…you get the picture.

Think about a clock. Look inside one while it’s running and you see a confusing array of gears and wheels and arms and such, and everything seems to be moving at once and there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to the flurry. But once you understand what a clock does, you also see that all of that activity inside a clock is a series of parts that are working together. One action makes another action and so on until the final action of the precise movement of a hand that marks time is achieved. So you see that there is a purpose to the activity.

If we could see the activity in the universe at one time, we would probably go mad. We started with the orbit of the moon, but what about what makes up all these celestial bodies? Atoms make up everything and are in constant motion, but atoms are made of particles which are made of particles which are made of particles, etc. How could we come face to face with all of this at once and be able to comprehend it all?

But if we could understand it, I believe we would see it as a huge machine. So if we did, we have to consider: every machine has to be started. A crank gets turned, a fire gets lit, a stem gets wound or some such action as to provide the machine with the initial input. How did this mega-machine get started?

Some will say that there was a big bang where everything that we now see exploded forth from a single point of nothingness or unified everything or something that we can’t understand. We can’t really argue the point. How do you argue about something that didn’t exist…or did exist but only because there were no laws of physics by which we explain our universe? Sure some guys with lots of letters after their names can fill blackboards up with equations that they say prove that this is what happened, but the only people who can really understand all that stuff are other guys with lots of letters after their names.

A popular theory from the past is that the universe has existed as it is from forever ago. Again, not a lot of points there familiar enough to give us a firm foundation for argument. Of course, scientists say that the data do not fit this particular theory. Again, we have to take the word of the guys with the letters. Remember, it was guys with letters who came up with this theory in the first place. Are the guys with letters now really that much smarter than the guys with letters from back then?

And we also have to have faith in their ability to correctly interpret the data. Folks like to talk about “scientists say this” or “scientists conclude…”, but who are the scientists? They make it sound like this great collegial gathering of dudes in white smocks who as one interpret data, work together as one to formulate theories and laws and then, only when they are all satisfied, send down word from the mountaintop to us mere mortals who open our mouths and swallow it all because after all, they are scientists. They only seek truth and they only do it for the good of all mankind. They are a beneficent god-head who are above reproach and question. If “scientists” say it, it must be true.

Let’s get real. Scientists are people just like the rest of us. Sure, they’re intelligent. They have to be to get through school and be able to jump through the hoops required to become scientists. But haven’t you ever known anybody who was intelligent and could spit out the correct answers on a test because they had read them out of a book the night before, but couldn’t figure out how to do things on their own? Sure, there are bright, inventive, clever people who become scientists. Sure there are scientists who really do seek truth. There absolutely are scientists who come up with amazing discoveries in their fields. But there are also scientists who are idiots. Some are more interested in perpetuating political dogma disguised as science than they are in truth. Some couldn’t analyze their way out of a paper bag. This is just one reason why scientists don’t all agree. They are not one vast body speaking with one voice. They are a cacophony of different views, theories, data, and “facts” and they argue with each other, sometimes vehemently.

Given all this, our reaction to any kind of scientific pronouncement should be to say “show us the data.” It’s true that some scientific advancements speak for themselves. There’s no denying that semiconductors work. No need to see the data there. We see the results. But when all we’ve got is a theory of how something happened or will happen, a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted.

So ignore what “scientists” say for a few minutes and consider that the cosmos is like a vast machine. If it truly is a machine, then it is an artifact, for machines must be made, because there is a purpose as well as a builder behind any machine. What is that purpose? To know that, we would need to ask the One who made it.

Perhaps it is a gigantic clock or some such device, because it’s movements are very precise and very predictable if you can keep track of all the parts. Perhaps it was made to produce a livable environment for man. Maybe it’s a time machine, made to take itself into the future. Or a spacecraft. Or a scales. Or a merry-go-round. Or a computer.

Or maybe it’s a machine made to produce wonder. That’s what I feel when I look into the skies on a clear night and see past the stars and the vast spaces in between. When I look at the see-through veil of the Milky Way draped across the sky, I can’t help but feel awe and reverence for the One who designed and built this magnificent machine, no matter what method He chose to build it. I like to think about the startup. Every machine has that first time that it is operated, it’s successful operation bringing a thrill of delight to it’s creator as it hums or chugs or ta-pocketa’s along. The Creator gently bringing the machine up, delighting to what He had created, setting it all in motion, the motion that I see when I look up even tonight.

Real Reality

We often think of the here and now as reality. "Deal with reality!" they always told us, meaning, of course, what they considered reality. But how could we grasp reality through another's perceptions? I mean, if by reality they meant what they perceived as here and now, what if our own perception, our own conciousness presented us with some other here and now? 

But I digress...let me back up. 

 I've always wondered about this...does green look the same to everybody else as it does to me? If I could take a cable and link my brain to another person's brain so that I could peer into their perceptions, would I see purple or orange or cadmium yellow when they were looking at a pasture in springtime? They would call it green. We would (when unlinked) both agree that we were looking at the color green. But when I looked through their eyes and brain, I would see what I would call another color. Is that possible? I've thought about this a lot and I've come to the conclusion that nobody can ever know the answer to this question. I haven't been able to figure out a way to reliably link my brain to another without killing them (and more to the point, me).

It gets me to thinking about perceptions in general. Perceptions are funny things. Our senses like hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling....oh yeah, and seeing are really just signal sending devices. They're kind of like a doorbell. Somebody pushes a button, which closes a connection, which sends an electrical impulse along a wire, which takes said signal to a small actuator, which in direct response to the signal, rings a bell. It happens the same way every time. It's supposed to work like that. 

But when the bell rings, the response of the folks in the house is not necessarily the same every time. If the teenage daughter is expecting her boyfriend, she may leap anxiously for the door. If Mom is being hounded by collectors, she may hide behind a chair. If Dad is watching tv and on the verge of nodding off, he may jump out of his skin. At 3 in the morning, a doorbell ringing may fill everyone in the house with dread. 

So you see, our senses are like doorbells, but our perceptions, dear reader, are like the folks in the house. The ringing doorbell must be processed before it can be acted upon. Our minds are constantly dealing with the ringing bells, evaluating, making judgments, formulating responses. The way they go about this is as individual as each of us is. The reason for this individuality is the body all our own unique experiences. 

Nobody has experienced this world and this life in exactly the same way as you. There may be very many things that many of have experienced and can even related to similarly. But there is a preponderance of experience that is ours and ours alone. It is for this reason that we perceive things differently. Some brief examples: Sarcasm is lost on a small child because he has no learning experiences to allow him to evaluate it correctly. Those of us who are older however, will have some degree of sensitivity to it, the level of sensitivity probably being directly proportional to the amount of sarcasm we have been subjected to. 

A person raised by abusive parents may not find the slapstick humor of the Three Stooges humorous as their experience has trained their minds to respond to physical violence in ways alien to those of us from a more peaceful background. 

These are examples of filters (or the lack thereof). Filters are the automatic responses that we program into our minds for how we're going to handle the ringing of the doorbell. But just because we do not perceive sarcasm does not mean it is not there. And just because a person fails to see the humor in a Three Stooges short does not mean that the Stooges were trying to scare or trouble people. Perception can fail us. If our experiences and the training of our minds fail us, we may not accurately perceive a scene, a word, a touch, or any given ring of the old doorbell. 

Of course, much of our own experience is provided to us by ourselves. If we have bad experiences due to our own choices, then if our perceptions deceive us, we have no cause to blame anybody else. It's important that we try to understand. Once we do, we may see that the filters that we have built over years and even decades are not working properly. If someone says or does something that instantly makes us mad (and I'm not talking about somebody trying to be a jerk), it's a good indication that we're letting our filters do our perception work for us. Not necessarily anything wrong with that, but when we see our filters taking over, it's good to step back and try to figure out how that filter was built. 

In doing this, it's important to try to understand the signal itself. Look at the raw data. Just the doorbell. How was the button pushed? Why was it pushed? What was the pusher's intent? Then once we understand that, try to determine if the response to that was appropriate. This is the basis for real understanding between people. Sure, there are jerks out there that have an agenda and when you understand what they're doing, anger or indignation is a reasonable response, but most people are honest in their intentions. They just want to be understood. What gets folks in a foul mood is when they think nobody is listening to them, and rightly so. 

Perception is a condition of this world. We will be plagued or helped by it as long as we are here. When we pass from this life, the mind that we've had here will no longer be a part of us and we will for the first time truly perceive reality. I think that's what Paul had in mind when he said "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Cor 13:12) 

So when somebody urges you to "deal with reality", keep in mind that 1) - their "reality" might not be yours, 2) - your "reality" (and theirs for that matter) may not be real, and 3) - the real-est reality is not to be known in this life