The Progression of Pondering #2

It may be possible that “life” carries no determination or desire to explore whatsoever. According to the majority of life on Earth, the only critical aspect which must be attained is the ability to acquire food and produce off-spring most efficiently; whether or not that leads to pondering and exploration is entirely dependent upon the species. We can observe creatures of the Earth who possess near-human intelligence; which mean that they can co-ordinate, communicate, and solve trivial puzzles. Locating and identifying intelligence will also be completely reliant on how we approach and how we define intelligence. If we approach an alien entity as we approach each other, we're certain to frighten or intimidate. Seeing as we can't even see eye-to-eye with one another, as members of the same species, I would assert that we are ill-prepared to even attempt contact.

Easter: The celebration of the death of a fictional character conceived in the era of stone and simple-steel weaponry. An era when humans were savage, barbaric, carnage-craving primates with little to no fundamental basis in language, the simplest of disciplines which permits rational thought and second-opinion. I tell you there is a man in the sky observing your every action, even when I am not around to watch you, he is, so beware, be cautious of your actions, unless of course, I request you go to war for me, in which case, slaughter to your heart’s content and I'll just dismiss it as God's will. Oh, you want to rape and pillage that entire village? Let me just ask for God's permission, but sorry, he's only in my head so you can't speak with him. Okay, he gave us his consent!

Just the fact that we have thousands of deities, all conceived in the minds of humans who were yearning for purpose, yearning for a reason of existence. Why do I merely exist so I can squander, suffer, and then decompose in the dirt? That is the incinerating actuality of life that Humans are incapable of grasping... We are without purpose, we are microbes, and we are, essentially, worthless. Our purpose is to acquire nutrition, defend ourselves from predatory threats and ensure that we produce off-spring which is equipped for the struggle ahead.

Why would life evolve to a state where they harness the capacity to question other life forms, where they can experiment with objects and organisms around them to reach conclusions on the functioning of their surroundings, why would they evolve to the point where they begin aiming massive satellite dishes toward the sky to commence the beaming of radio signals in hopes of another race receiving the transmission and translating it? Why would a life form whose objective is to obtain dietary rations and produce off-spring; the most fundamental principles of living organisms, evolve to a point as we humans have? Considering that most animals are suited for their environments, or will alter itself to compensate for its surroundings or quickly get eradicated due to competition, who is to say that life will develop rational thought and language as we do? The only secure way to assume that life will evolve to develop a language, tools, technology of any sort, or even simple civilization, is to assume that they possess hands, or grip limbs in order to forage and apply their tendency for experimentation, a brain which has accumulated a great quantity of proteins which enable complex thought, and they are land mammals. A creature of the sea will encounter much trouble when attempting to invent technology utilizing the same circuit method which we've become very fond of; plus, sea creatures would probably never develop limbs with similar design and structure, they just don't require them for their environment. I use sea creatures as an example as all life originates in water, and a hefty percentage of life chooses to remain in the water.

We may be the passage to intelligence. The corridor of curiosity begins with upright primates. We first begin to communicate, we begin to comprehend each other as equal beings with equal potential, and then we begin to manipulate our surroundings and adjust them to suit our preference. That seems like a very reliable pathway for intelligent life to follow for it to successfully reach what we have, or anything relatively similar. 

Humans began their journey when they learned to plant seeds in order to induce the growth of crops, and learned to domesticate wild animals which produced a plethora of food giving us a diversity of nutrition, but most importantly, allowing us to settle. Allowing us to civilize and settle in a single area, which then permits the growth of the brain, rather than the growth of our body, as we cease hunting and cease our instinctive desire to hunt and assert dominance.

What irritates me most about “God” is how selective he is. God is well aware of how deceitful and evil humanity is and how we manipulate one another for personal gain... So why would he only communicate with those who have the power to send others to war for them? Or to the ones who use him as an excuse to assert their beliefs... If he is as powerful as he should be in order to create an entire universe, wouldn't he transmit his messages to each and every one of us to ensure that we don't deceive one another, as we are prone to? What's also a little suspicious is that he only seems to come and send us a message when someone needs something done for them, or a man requires an army to slaughter and maraud a village for him, or when we need reassurance that we're special and important, or when someone has passed on. I mean yeah, it validates our existence, but is it real validation? Or is it temporary? Accepting the truth of reality is integral to humans as we're the only known species capable of examining and experimenting with the world around us. We've been enveloped in a world of fiction; we've allowed our imagination to seize control of our perception. We've allowed an invisible entity to grant power to those cunning enough to utilize it.

What if God were a mere molecule? What if God were inanimate? What if God was the catalyst that triggered an explosion which led to all matter in the universe...? Why does God have to think and send messages to humanity; a miniscule speck amongst the cosmic ocean floating on a diminutive rock composed of simple matter which originates inside the core of nuclear powerhouses. 

Flesh and Bone

My skin is comprised of microorganisms whose life is completely centered around performing a specific action in order to survive, which makes my skin layer healthy and preserves its condition that is beneficial for both me and my little micro-buddy.  Every last micro-meter of me is a collection; a micro-colony that composes me and orchestrates the show.

They possess a nucleus, they possess some sort of thought reflex that enables their survival and allows them to avoid threats and obtain dietary nutrition. You see, there’s no difference between the two of us. He is micro, I am macro. Our key difference is merely our size, and the scale that which our organs operate. I’m not saying we’re equally or even less complex than these organisms. We execute the same functions just merely with different methods, different levels of intricateness and complexity. But the purpose remains the same. Ingest upkeep, dispose excess waste.

Of course we don’t only occupy our time with ingesting upkeep and disposing of the excess waste, we’re Humans! Our activities are significant and I’m invulnerable to dangers. I can relax in a city, completely protected from any possible threat that could end my life if we were to fight. We separate ourselves from the reality of what “life” is for the majority of “life” because we have it so lax; we never worry about death, even though we’re the only creatures capable of anticipating and avoiding death. We’re too caught up in our day-to-day nonsense most of the time fulfilling no greater purpose than if we were to be naked apes suspecting predators around every corner and still hooting at each other to show acknowledgement and engaging in a physical dispute over something as petty as status or rank.

How would we appear and be recognized IF in the very improbable and likely impossible event of visitation from an alien species, far more advanced than we were in every way, result of 200 million years of evolution. Let’s say they did discover interstellar travel and now they can slowly creep across a galaxy by jumping from star system to star system, seizing an inhabitable planet in each system and terraforming it. Then they begin to change the atmospheric composition very rapidly with specifically designed technology capable of achieving such a feat.

 This is not impossible, in fact: that’s how Earth gained its oxygen rich atmosphere, through the earliest microorganisms that learned to photosynthesize and began exhaling oxygen, gradually building up enough to alter the entire composition to a sustainable oxygen atmosphere. The benefits of oxygen? Well it’s toxic to plant cells, hence the disposal (same way we exhale Carbon Dioxide and it can become toxic in high dosages) So we exhale Carbon Dioxide, as a waste product, and then they inhale it, manufacturing our essential chemical compound required for healthy operation. So it’s not refutable to assert that without plants, there is no us, we radiate in perfect harmony. It may not even be insane to insist that were an inevitable by-product of simple plant cells. They permit the conditions necessary for our emergence and ability to thrive. Given the amount of time our ancestors were given to survive in order to drastically convert our atmosphere the way they did, we will be the inevitable response.

As we begin to evolve and diversify we gain complexity and the density of our cell colonies increases to execute more sophisticated functions. 3.8 billion years, that is the earliest “fossil” evidence of a living organism that was obviously microscopic. 3.8 billion years. Try to picture that number inside of your head using a picture to display the number, can’t do it? So now you must admit this time scale is beyond your understanding and accept the fact that evolution has had TIME. Okay, okay, let’s say a disaster, equivalent to the asteroid that annihilated the dinosaurs were to happen again, how could life become so complex, be wiped out, and still have the time to form entities as intelligent and coherent as we humans? Well the site of the suspected dinosaur-annihilating asteroid crater has determined that this event occurred 65 million years ago. Okay, now try to picture the number 65 million using a picture as to display the number, can’t do that either? 65 million years is an ASTRONOMICAL amount of time when put into the narrow perspective of a creature who will, and only if extremely fortunate, live to experience a century. We’ve seen cellular mutation occur in a few generations, which may span a few days, or possibly span years. But nevertheless, you can’t forget that cellular mutation can materialize very rapidly.

Given what I talked about previously, wouldn’t that indicate that even macro-organisms such as ourselves are constantly changing and evolving, considering we are completely comprised of these cells. Given the time life was permitted to evolve and expand, it becomes more and more feasible that life has very slowly, yet steadily progressed and enhanced its ability to process nutrition and manage bodily functions. It’s hard to even conceive these idea’s when you put little thought into them because at first sight, thing’s always appear simple. The intricacy of life and the universe is unraveling before our eyes through scientific innovation and discovery. The mundane things we ignore day-to-day have a very deep background to them. Your screen that you are using to view this writing took years of brainstorming to formulate and then it took time to be constructed and shipped onto a boat that was invented through science and math equations that show us it will be capable of carrying weights that are just absurd to imagine. Your music device that rests in your pocket, begin to speculate the effort put into that. The headphones, how does it transmit that mp3 file into a noise that is translated through speakers that snugly fit in your ear? A determined and devoted scientist had to invent what enables the possibility of harnessing such a powerful device containing the world’s entire known history in a case which is measured in centimeters. It appears simple at a glance, but there is a rich history within everything that surrounds you, some may not be as enticing to examine, but there is history in everything around us.

Where could of matter originated? You know, those atomic compounds that make up the very elements that compose everything else? Where COULD they have originated from, or what force created them? This is the designated target of science, and this is the incinerating conundrum yet to be answered. It’s the ultimate mystery, the perplexing enigma that we are incapable of currently solving.

It may be impossible to solve this, after all, we occupy this moment in time, not the moment in time where the universe spontaneously burst into existence. It may be accurately recreated, and strongly suggested through experiments that are semi-conclusive. A key aspect of scientific discovery is observation, now tell me how we’re going to observe the moment when everything we know was initiated. This is a difficult task, and you must understand that the simple fact we can’t confirm it with absolute certainty is because this is the most difficult task that exists. All I can say with absolute certainty is that God isn’t rescuing those cancer patients lying in a hospital bed, but science is pursuing the answer and achieving results, not a cure, but there’s monetary negligence from the government towards the organizations devising the cure. Not only is funding a detriment to the industry, but how many people are aspiring to become microbiologists in the search for the cure of cancer? They’re the minority, and that’s certain. Overcoming these types of defective conditions is a miracle, being actualized by the members of the science community.

So.. I watched a religion video

Well what's a lions purpose? They simply search for food, have sex, sleep, and then repeat the process the next day. We got to where we are by the same trial of evolution as any other creature and were made of the exact same organic matter. What gives our lives any more purpose than these animals that surround us? We may be intelligent and capable of questioning the world around us, but we did not always possess that ability. We live by the same principles, simply more accessible and more sophisticated.

Rather than have to painstakingly hunt for food, we can simply walk on over to Wal-mart or Save-on-Foods or Safeway, etc... We live to eat, supply our body with nourishment, dispose of the excess waste, and all else is entertainment. I just disagree with the fact that Humans intelligence has led to us irrefutably believing in some higher purpose, like our intelligence was some gift. Our intelligence arose because we were the feeblest creatures in the wild that relied on tools and foraged invention.

Religion provides the excuse to cease curiosity. I don't mind if you choose to believe in a God, we all need to feel like we're here for something, like we're not just here to squander and then die and decompose. In fact, I WISH I could share the same faith as you, I admire your faith. But if it begins to conflict with your curiosity to decipher the world around you, we've encountered a problem. How does it not spark your interest that we can render an equation to solve the planets orbits?

Religion is by no means evil, or bad. It is the people who abuse it that are evil or bad. You see, our species is very easily manipulated (SHOCKING). Through-out our history we only allowed a basic education to the privileged, wealthy citizens. So you can imagine that through-out our history as a species, we've had an abundance of barbaric, instinct driven people. What are you without your fundamental basis in English? You're no different than the other primates who can't communicate.. Without the ability to translate your thoughts into a rational, logical, and sensible reasoning, you'd be no different than our Neanderthal ancestors who relied on their primal knowledge.

The Progression of Desire

Desire. That burning inferno we all feel in our heart. Some, desire the riches, some, desire freedom. The majority of you reading this have a fairly concrete plan as to your future: You're going to get a job that offers a decent salary, you're going to get married, you're going to have kids, buy a house, get a mortgage, and pay your bills, and drive your car to work. It's not always that shallow, but that is the basic outline of it.

Personally, I have a far more optimistic desire with life. I don't want to tie myself down to a Human-constructed concrete habitat. When I go out into the forest's and experience the freshest air my lungs have come in contact with, and the sound of birds serenading my every step as well as a river that hasn't experienced any tampering from our species flowing right beside me. I don't know where this desire comes from, I know I'm descendant of a line of Cree Natives, that may be the original source. Or maybe it's just a very natural desire of any creature born to this beautiful, lush Earth that already offers all you need, without the need for human interference. Don't misinterpret this, I have a strong appreciation for all of man's accomplishments, I mean, we can fly you up to space just for leisure if we really wished it, that's revolutionary to all life. The human is revolutionary to all life. We all have such different and diverse thoughts that none of us are similar, yet we're all under the same category of Human, take a gander at any other species of the Earth, and then compare it to the behavior of even a slightly mentally deficient human, s/he would still excel in comparison to any other species. S/he may not outrun, or even come close to competing in terms of strength, but they'll certainly develop a tool to aid them. All of this has become too standardized, the knowledge of our intelligence needs to be praised far more than it is. I bet the average Human couldn't even build a stone axe anymore, the first tool we ever manufactured to assist us. We've become so dis-attached from the living organism that's right under the soles of our shoes at all times, Gaia. The Earth is still sustaining your existence, even if you believe that your clean water and food comes from Humans that have developed methods to transfer all your necessities to you, it still comes right from the Earth, the same Earth we're corroding through industrialization. Dammit, no matter how hard I try, I can never avoid falling back on the subject of the health of our environment. I just wish everyone understood that we're nothing more than intelligent ANIMALS. Yes, you are an animal, yes, you are a beast. You are a tamed animal that has become too familiar with the comforts of a civilization that is a complete detriment to the status of the Earth. 

Maybe I'm just one of those crazy environmentalists that cares about the Earth. Maybe it's completely irrelevant that ecosystems are collapsing at this very moment and holes are forming in the ozone layer that surrounds our planet like a blanket to protect it from harm from radiation and space debris, maybe it is completely irrelevant that the water we drink is becoming more and more scarce and the resources that are very finite are beginning to dwindle already. What does it matter, if we continue to obey the governments that only care about the amount of profit our country can obtain through extorting it's resources, and if we continue to concentrate on our path we've set ourselves on, we'll be but a distant memory of the Earth, and it'll have successfully battled cancer and won. We're supposed to be the guardians of this planet, not the destroyers of it, our intelligence has deceived us into believing that we can always find a fix for something or reassemble it later. The Earth doesn't work like that, and the only thing we're sure of when it comes to the Earth, is our own ignorance towards deciphering the intricate systems it has in order to sustain itself.