skreeworld: May 2012

Wednesday 30 May 2012

I can't decide whether to think genetic modification is the opening of pandoras box, and lets face it pandora has been the spirit of the age since we split the atom. Or to marvel at the possibilities of taking evolution in to out own hands. If we as a species have come so far that we are active painters of our own world.

Curiosity will always get the better of man so whatever side I choose makes little difference to the overall outcome. Having seen and listened to both sides I lean towards the scientists.

Shed

False Belief

To get well from negative habitual behaviour such as addiction, over eating etc. the secret is to look at your beliefs. Some things you believe are not true. Most people who find themselves unable to get out of these holes are incapable of not believing what their minds tell them. Most people have false beliefs but they aren't bad enough to trip them up. Trouble is once you know that your beliefs are not necessarily true it becomes hard not to listen to others views. Prime ministers need this lack of doubt but it makes them stupid people.

Morning Light

I love getting up to see the morning

Ground 4

Sycamore

Where do we go from here?

Having been raised with an understanding of Darwin I have not had to escape the shackles of such a profound false belief as some. Dawkins and Hitchens are right to spread the word and as converts perhaps can be overzealous in their approach. Our history and values were built on a belief in a supreme being and it will take time to disentangle ourselves from a belief system that has roots in superstition. We know that the soul, as we percieve it, is organic. Personality is brain related. Neurology is at a peak of developement and it is this fresh science, along with Darwin that will leap ahead now. There will be those that fight against progress but religious people, those who believe in an opinionated god are falling away. This knowledge has left us prone. The first world where religion is part of the past has seen a huge rise in suicide. An epedemic of depression. This is understandable. Consciousness evolved as a survival tool. To live a beautiful and highly precious life means you don't want to lose it. If death is all that faces us life can seem pointless and this is what we must tackle now. The history of the evolution of consciousness is tied up with the death problem that natural selection has given us no easy way to imagine not being. The workings of this survival tool are dependent on this. But now we know that the afterlife is unlikely how do we carry on? There is the Dawkins method of appreciating the beauty of nature and disindividuation. Bertrand Russell said something along the lines of as we get older we should become a broader river. I believe he meant that when we are young we barely accept others have feelings. At about 3 to 5 a child sees others have feelings and are enjoying being too. As we get older we may have children and put these first. Or seek immortality by contributing to culture through art, music, literature that outlives you.

Yet none of these, if we are honest with ourselves, satisfies as well as the survival of your soul. Life is solitary and this will end. We need to look to fill this.

Virtually all those at the spears tip of evolution are looking to fill this gap. On the telly such atheists as Brian Cox and Chris Packham are beginning to openly show their eyes are in the stars or on nature. Perhaps we can look the other way. Seek not to fill this gap but change ourselves. To become so engaged with the wonders of what we are surrounded by that death itself becomes meaningless.

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Time

I am told that time is not as it appears to us. I believe that consciousness evolved as a fantastic survival system. If life is beautiful and precious we want to continue. Some things we are better not knowing. The fact that one day we die causes problems. We know this is true but our consciousness must be designed to not truly believe it.

Reason helps us to avoid danger. It is dependent on an understanding of cause and effect. This, in turn is dependent on linear time. Because of this I do not hold with all of Einstein as I understand his theory. To some degree our perception of time must be true.

So I come to thick time. Around a person time becomes more viscous. As though you are in a sea that becomes treacle like around you but lossens up the further from you it gets. The recent past leaves a sort of echo; memory of the moment lingers, the recent past is still happening but a bit less than now and as it drifts further in to the past it is happening less. Through anticipation the near future is happening more than next week which is happening more than next year. Our appreciation of music is dependent on this. We hear not just the note that is now but the chain as it flows in to 'now' and out again. A single note is of little interest. Language operates in a similar way. As you read this you maybe on the current word but the foundations of understanding depend on the previous words. Another way to picture this is to imagine a stretched sheet of lycra. Now, imagine running your finger underneath it applying pressure to form a parabaloid cone that slides along. The point where your finger touches but because of the thickness of time recnt and soon to happen time is closer to now than other time.

Hell is Other People

Olympic Torch

Travelling back from Greece a Jew working for the planning of the German Olympics thought it would make a great symbol to have a flaming torch carried by an athlete from Greece to Germany to launch the Berlin Olympics that took place under Hitler.

Art and Being

Isn't all art, philosophy, most literature an attempt to describe what it is like inside. We all lead two lives, an outer life, a physical life visible to others and an inner life that is private that only you are party to. Bodies exist in space and are subject to the laws of physics. Minds do not exist in space and can not be said to be spacially anywhere. The hunger to tell people what it is like in here gets the better of artists.

My dream is to lose this hunger and to just be. To hear, to smell, to touch, to see. Art can seem almost autistic in nature. As if artists have not entirely accepted that others see too. That it is only they who are party to the wonders of consciousness. Since this is common to all why need to make futile attempts to illustrate it. Maybe it is the need for some verification. Some confirmation that what only I can see bares similarities with what only you can see.

Design is different. Problem solving has a different role.