Thursday, 29 March 2012

The Iron Lung 1

It can be easy to become seduced by the gradual improvement of image quality.  Each day we see new breakthroughs in reproduction of reality. Looking back we can see that Jaws could fool us in to fear but if you sent Avatar back to the early seventies it would have appeared as if it were from God.
The cargo cults that the young David Attenborough covered are a good example. Looking at those films of native people making aircraft from bamboo and vine to encourage the bringers of gifts to land shows how easy we are fooled by technology. It demonstrates to us what how our primitive sciences are ill equipped to get to the truth. 
There is much that I find hard to grasp. I only have a basic understanding of Einstein. Once the jumps from his theories are made to black holes and other deep space phenomena, my mind crumbles in the futility of even trying to answer the big questions.
Yet, as most will agree, once you grasp a concept you are able to communicate it in many ways. A concept you only just get requires a repetition of the words . Any straying from this brings your inadequacy to light.
So, a concept that is true may be beautifully simple. Darwins natural selection, evolution, has a simplicity and beauty most of us are able to explain to a child.
Might this not suggest that Darwin was right but Einstein was wrong.
Most good ideas 'feel' right. We have a natural predisposition to act to intuitive laws that no ammount of reasoning can prove. As more understanding of our minds accrues it seems our subconscious works at immeasurable speeds whilst our conscious mind is methodical but slow.

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