Pondering Life

From my gift book (you givers know who you are and about which book I speak). My quote of the day:

"This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been jusiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and a least indeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestoed on me: or in future, to live for mankind, as I heretofore lived for myself."

Here's a guy who has been traveling uncharted and unexplored (by the old world) territory. This guy is a very gifted (leadership, wisdom, flying by the seat of the exploration groups's pants) 31-year-old. He's sitting at an encampment called Camp Fortunate very near the divide between the Columbia River drainage and the Missouri River drainage, and he's been hanging out with the Shoshone relatives of Sacagawea. Sacagawea had been kidnapped by Hidasta's when she was 13 and this is the first return to her homeland since her capture. She acts as chief interpreter to the Shoshones. It turns out that the first Shoshone chief they encounter in their intent to barter for horses is Sacagawea's brother. And this 31-year-old is sitting there reflecting that he has done nothing for succeeding generations. Who's the author of my quote? Capt. Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis & Clark expedition fame. So, be yourself, do what you perceive is yours to do in life, and you just never know.

Human Machine -- What if?

Rita Carter (1998), writing about the human brain revisits an interesting psychosociological question. It's not the first time someone asked or discussed these things, but she touches on it in light of what was cutting edge research 9 years ago. Some of us balk at the idea that the functioning of the human mind is purely mechanistic. We dread the thought that what we perceive as a separation of body and soul doesn't exist and is rather instead just a complex set of neuronal activity in genetic response to our surroundings. A very complex interplay of stimulus and response, all geared to enhance our ability to survive and reproduce.

Some say if we are hard wired, that if there is there is no "God", no "soul", no "conscience", we would fall into sociological chaos. What if we could live by acting out every whim of desire, fantasy, violence, and whatever we commonly think of as "sin" as moderated by our "superior species" thought pattern. What if we prove there is no "God", no "afterlife", that we are no more superior than any other biological entity -- that perhaps these concepts are just hard wired patterns of neuronal firing that confer some type of enhanced survival of our genes. Carter says the brain doesn't work that way. She says it can't because the concepts of God, afterlife, a spirit realm, are so hard wired into us that our brain actually dupes us into thinking it is true, so we act in a fantasy world of conscience, etc. which allows us the ability to pass on our genes and keep living the fantasy.

If we somehow become able to rationally accept that we, our brains, our spirits are some inceivably complex interaction of sensory neurons in concert with our environment, we will continue to feel and act as though the mechanistic part of us operates as if we have conscience, free will, the ability to alter our daily existence through our own thoughts and will.

This is all very interesting. I feel there are other dimensions that we interact with which gives us the perception of afterlife, God, etc. We cannot prove these other dimensions because they are other dimensions, able to be sensed by us but not touched or studied (yet, anyway). I think this concept, along with many other scientific concepts are out there waiting to be proven. For myself, even if God is a hard wired concept of our own making, I choose to live as if God, conscience, free will, etc. are real parts of the spiritual unseen universe. And we must keep asking, what if we prove the hard wiring and there is nothing else? I feel that whatever our relationship to a real or perceived God, we must conduct trustworthy research and be ready to accept what is real and not what we wish, even fervently with all our hearts to be fantasy reality.

Faith, anyone? I have it, though it's a scientific struggle within me.

Reference: Rita Carter, 1998. Mapping the Mind. University of California Press.

RE Rita's fine book: I'm sure there have been a wealth of findings about the human brain since this was published. Very interesting book, although somewhat awkwardly edited. Needs more diagrams, less sidebar discussions that tend to get distracting to the flow of the text.