On Time, Space and Being, part two

The last blog post was about how we misinterpret time, it's flow and our existence through that flow. Having established that we do not exist within the confines of time as we think we do, and therefore our ideas about god and the religions that surround him/her/etc... must be mere constructions, we can now turn to the second part of the discussion, matter.
Matter exists. Unlike time, it is a physicality. We are made of matter, the earth, the stars, every molecule and quark is a form of matter. Matter is the stuff, when we talk of stuff. It is easy for us to live our lives knowing this never really giving the issue much thought, but as we do with time and it's flow, when we glance over the underlying structure of matter, we allow ourselves to construct strange pseudo-realities that, while based on the taken-for-granted underlayment of material structure, are nonetheless leaps and bounds outside of sensibilty. I am of course talking about the ideas that we are immortal, that our physical bodies can be ressurected, and go to live, after we die mind you, in a place called heaven, or hell, depending. So let's look a bit closer at that which you and I take for granted in our everyday lives, our bodies.

We can start with our bodies in general. On the surface, they seem to be a marvel of intelligent design. We have all that we need. Fingers for grasping, hands for support and extending the fingers, arms for balance and extention. Toes for precision balance, feet for gross balance, legs for upright stance. A skeleton for internal organ protection and motor movement. Organs for their various functions. You get the point. Our bodies are in an assemblage which allows us the maximum environmental involvement at the macro-level, by having the various organs work in consort with each other. However, our organs and body parts are themselves made of smaller things, without which none would be able to operate, much less provide the services they do. Let's descend to the cellular level. Each of our body parts is composed of a multitude of cells. Each of these cells is tiny, microscopic, invisible to the unaided eye, but there nonetheless. Together, they work in tandem to perform particular functions such as digestion (within the stomach and intestinal lengths), oxygenation (within the circulatory and respiratory systems, via lung cells absorbing oxygen and then transferring it to the red blood cells which co-mingle in the capillaries inside the lungs) and immunization (within the lymph nodes, and white blood cells which help to disengage foreign pathogens and infectants). Each performs it's duty if you will, albeit unbeknownst to itself. A cell has no brain, no thoughts, no ideas. It performs a function that is integral to body as a whole, but that on it's own would be a useless gesture. Our bodies would not live without cells, but the same can not be said for cells. There are many examples of single-celled organisms (yes that is a direct quote from 7th grade biology class, thank you Ms. Pedersen :-)) Cells don't require a larger host organism to operate, but those particular cells in our bodies do a much larger work when combined together. This does not mean the cells in our bodies are more complex necessarily than those single-celled organisms, just more finely-tuned to do particular things. Our bodies are similar to an ant colony in this sense. A colony delegates tasks to individual sections, which when combined together will benefit the whole colony. Of course, cells themselves are comprised of smaller entities, namely molecules.
Since our cells do not have individual brains, then it stands to reason that individual molecules also lack them (especially considering a brain is an organ comprised of cells, which are in turn composed of molecules). Molecules make up everything larger than themselves. Up until now, we have been reducing gross matter to ever smaller constituents. At the molecular level we begin to see matter for what it really is. Molecules are the last step we take before we encounter that which comprises all in the universe we know of. Molecules make up cells (again, thanks to 7th grade biology) but they also make up everything else; water, rocks, air, fire. Although we are bodies, we are more primitively organs, and before that we are cells, and before that we are molecules. So in this sense we are no more than that which surrounds us, living or not (we will come back to what we are).
I'd like to return for a moment to the level of our bodies and discuss solidity. Feel your arm. Go ahead, feel it, touch it. Does your hand go through your arm? No of course not. Why not? Because your arm is covered in skin, filled with bone and muscle. It is solid. So is the chair you are sitting in while reading this, right? Well, I can't push right through my arm with my finger, so there is a bit of solidity involved here, but what about the cellular level. Cellular walls are readily punctured, this is how infection occurs. And since we are made of cells, aren't we not as solid as we think we are? How about the molecular level? Well, molecules are comprised of atoms, which are the singular manifestations of the elements which make up all of the matter in the universe. These atoms are in constant flux, meaning they bombard each other constantly, knocking some molecules awry and replacing the displaced atoms with themselves, thus changing the molecule itself. Molecules are atoms attached to each other via electron-compatability. This means that two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom will attach together because the number of electrons balances and leaves a stable molecular configuration. There is a lot of space in between the specific atoms of a molecule. Molecules are mostly made of empty space; electrons orbiting the nucleus, which is made of protons and neutrons. The molecules which make up the chair you are sitting in disallow you from falling through them by repelling you (specifically the molecules of the cells in the skin which covers your butt). The solidity you feel is simply the electro-magnetic repulsion from billions of molecules pushing against each other.
Just as review, because we descended pretty quickly there: Molecules are made of atoms, atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Each descent takes us an order of magnitude smaller. While there is very little solid space inside a molecule, there is even less solidity inside an atom. Almost 99% of an atom is empty space. And whatever taken-up space there is so little as to be almost non-existant. And it doesn't stop there. Protons and neutrons are themselves composed of smaller particles (elementary particles) called quarks. Electrons are themselves elementary particles and are thus not composed of quarks. The space between quarks is even more ridiculously wide-spread. The only thing holding protons together are gluons (these are force-carrying particles, which transmit the strong nuclear force, which is what holds the protons and neutrons together). We are made of organs and there is space between these organs. Our organs are made of cells and there is even more space between these cells. Our cells are made of molecules, of which the space between widens fantastically. Our molecules are made of atoms which are held together by the stability created between the balanced number of electrons (nothing else), and the space between the atoms in a molecule is also immense. Our atoms are composed of protons, neutrons and electrons, where 99% of the space is empty. Our protons and neutrons are made of quarks, which are also almost completely empty.
On the sub-atomic level, we are comprised more than 99% of empty space! I'll say that again. On the sub-atomic level, on top of which all other components of ourselves are built, we are mostly empty space. This is as reductionist as you can get. reduce everything down to the most basic level and there is really nothing there, well almost.
As in the earlier post about time, this true nature of matter and how we are composed, makes it easy to see that all of humanity's endeavors are constructed as a house of cards. From politics, to religion, everything we think, we think from an assumptive standpoint. Since this particular blog is meant to derail religion, let's stay there. Religion says we are more than are parts. There is something that is non-physical about us. Religion would say of my deconstruction above that it is valid but irrelevant, because that which makes us is not part of the physical world, but rather the supernatural one. This is a stance that can be easily taken when one looks no further than the conglomeration which is our natural physical body. Like a person who listens to a piece of music and finds more than just the note patterns, the religious person looks at his/her body and finds more to it than what is there.
This can be done because the religious person assumes that the consort that the body works inside of is something that is greater than what the individual parts would be capable of. The complexity we see at our level is assumed to be an impossibilty for smaller much simpler component parts. This is the moment of truth, for it is here that the assumption leads some astray. The assumption is this: Complexity cannot arise out of simplicity. This is wrong. Complexity is the result of the layering and interweaving of simplicity. It can and only does arise from simplicity. Elementary particles are just that, the most fundamental constituent odf the known universe. when combined, they create a slightly more complex entity, the atom. There is no intelligence governing this intermingling, it is simply random in nature. But remember it is the intermingling that is random, not the coagulation. When combinations are made, it is because the combination is more stable than either previous singularity (not in the sense of the big-bang singularity). So the combination is purposeful, the purpose being a more stable configuration.
when simple atoms combine to form slightly more complex molecules, the process of intermingling is random but again the connection eventually made is not, nor is it intelligent. There is no decision made, nor recognition made that stability has been achieved. It is only that there are stable configurations and there are unstable configurations, those which are unstable break apart for obvious reasons and those which are stable stay together for obvious reasons.
When atoms combine to form molecules, they combine in a multitude of ways, one of which is DNA. The DNA molecule is a stable molecule, one which is also self-replicating. It is only a molecule, but by copying itself, it quickly gives rise to larger, more complex colonies which we call cells, which then give rise to our organs, also many times more complex, and so on. The complexity which we see sits atop the simplicity we can't. This blindness, which existed for millenia before the advent of molecular discovery and study, is what allowed religions to so fervently take hold of the human mind. Religion only exists as a remnant of the ignorance humankind lived with for so long. It serves no purpose beyond artificial comfort and dread. It lies as a testament to the need for further inquiry into the foundations of our world, because without this inquiry, assumptive practices can and most likely will destroy us. Next up, Location.

On the nature of our existence

Where do you live? I mean where do you exist? The natural world, right? When we refer to the most fundamental of fundamentals, we inevitably hark back to the "Nature" of things. In one of my other blogs I have pointed out how the word supernatural is a word that has, as it's root, the word nature, super having been added as a prefix to it. Whenever someone makes a comment about another person's behaviour, they always say it's their nature to do such a thing, or it's in their nature. Isn't it interesting that no one ever refers to the supernature of our existence? I mean, think about it, the few times you've heard the phrase " It's our nature, it's human nature, etc..." you never hear anyone say " well, it's our supernature" or " it's just supernature..." Doesn't it seem a bit silly to say such a thing? It certainly sounds silly to my "ear". So, let's try something, if we can. Imagine yourself without a body, better yet imagine no one with a body, even better still, imagine nothing (trees, sharks, bacteria, etc...) with a body. Imagine bodies never having come into existence at all. All we are is floating, noncorporeal thought-producing (in some cases) non-entities. Now, having no physicality, but still being, we are, at this point, the manifestation of the word "spirit" as most of us define it. I realize manifestation may not be the most accurate word to use, but you get my point. How else could we describe ourselves, but being spirits, essentially spiritual, if we were extant but non-corporeal?

In this state it would be difficult to find something to point to as being our generative source, for 1. how does one bring into existence something that is non-existent in every observable way and 2. since in such a state of reality, for all beings there really couldn't be the idea of "someTHING" to even take into account, things being physical, not aphysical. Furthermore, I think it would be hard to even have a way of finding such a generation point (or process) if there were one to find at all, which I don't think there would be. In such a state, the scientific method, which is what we use to describe the physicality of our surroundings now, would be a near impossibility, for there would be no physicality to describe. And remember it's not just us that have no bodies, but everything we know: trees, dogs, corals, everything is without a body. Again in such a state, a method of discovery like the scientific method just wouldn't be possible. There would have to be some other way of learning of ourselves. Perhaps some sort of extrasensory perception or something like it. This state of supernaturality, of being above, out of the realm of, nature, is what everyone is denying when they say " It's human nature". For sure, such statements are speaking exactly to what each of us truly understands over all else, namely the physical of us all, the nature, of us.

I don't know of anyone who thinks that we exist only as non-corporeal beings such as I described above, the operative word being ONLY. We all live as corporeal beings, replete with bodies, subject to the physical, natural forces of the universe. So again, where the rubber meets the road, we all agree that the natural is the medium in which we observe our states of being. That is because we actually do have bodies. We can see them, touch them, sometimes smell them (even if we'd rather not at times :-) ). We don't exclusively live in the misty, free-floating world of ghosts. Because of this we indeed have our method of decription of our physically-existing world, and consequently us; the scientific method. The method is what is valuable. The method is what provides answers and yes, even questions. The answers given sometimes may not be stable enough to survive for very long before being overturned by new information garnered by the same scientific method that gave us the initial "answer", but the method itself is what provides continuously updated information, with which outdated and incomplete understandings are rightfully discarded. The method of discovery, which is based wholly within the natural world is faultless, although it may sometimes give incomplete information. Really though, that is not the fault of the method, but the fault of the interpreters of the method's gathered information. If a conclusion is overturned by new information, it is not because the scientific method was wrong and should be discarded, it is because the scientists were to hasty in halting the information gathering process. They should've kept going with their experiments, but as the saying goes, hindsight is always 20-20.


So, what about all that stuff that the scientific method has nothing say about? ESP, picking up vibes, premonition, our souls, etc... Well, who says the scientific method has nothing to say about them? Infact, the scientific method has a veritable plethora of opinions about these phenomenon, it's just that those who "believe" in things of this sort may not necessarily like what the method says about them. To date there have been no substantial, credible, experiments demonstrating the existence of these abilities/phenomenon outside of the physical, natural world of our brains. What that translates to is, all of these things can be explained as being things that SEEM to be extrasensory, but in reality are only SEEMINGLY so. They may look and feel like they are outside the realm of nature, but that doesn't mean they are, it means that those who feel them to be as such are simply mistaken, no matter how true their opinions may resound to them. The whole world used to truly believe many things that seemed to be the case, but were found out to be not so, after more information gathering was done. The earth is not flat, there are no four corners of the globe as the bible says. Disease is caused by microbes not by demonic infestation. Again, more information was gathered and thus the faulty opinions were overturned. It was not the method that provided the opinion; no that was arrived at by the impatient scientists. The method was only the messenger, and you know what they say about hating the messenger. This leads me to think that those "unexplained" phenomenon that many are utterly convinced are proof of realms other than the natural, are actually premature, not fully-informed ideas, based on less than complete information. How, indeed can we claim to know what some of us claim to know about these phenomenon, when we don't even have a unified theory for explaining the universe yet? I think with more time, science will have good explanations for even these seemingly non-scientific abstractions. Actually science is beginning to formulate such hypotheses at this moment in the field of cognitive neuroscience. We know our brain is composed of the same elements the rest of the universe is, and with that knowledge, neuroscience is starting to be able to thoroughly map the brain's areas of activity. We can say with some degree of certainty that the amygdala is the area of the brain where anxiety and fear trace their origins. The hippocampus is involved with memory. We know where the sensory-motor cortex is. All of these structures are ensconced within mother nature. Although they may seem to be non-physical, because most of us cannot point o our amygdalas, not unlike our inability to be able to point to an air molecule, they are infact not non-physical. Our idea of them is wholly non-physical, but the structures themselves are completely physical. We are born with them. They grow because we eat food and drink water, physical processes both. We live our lives and they continue to grow, all the while operating so complexly that we are easily lured into thinking we are more than what we are made of. We die, and these die with us, rotting along with the rest of our bodies. Our thoughts cease to exist when our bodies cease to exist. The thoughts we generate during our lifetime are generated by the physicality of our brains, so when our brains die, so do our thoughts.

We exist in the natural world, as we all acknowledge, and rightfully so. There is no reason to invoke a supernatural realm at all. Any such course of action is one taken from a place of incomplete knowledge. Now, I know what many people will say at this point, " science doesn't know everything, there are so many things unexplained by science, etc..." which is is some ways true, but is not at all what these people are really wanting to say. They are really saying that SCIENTISTS, don't know everything, that Science is just another type of belief, that no one can see an atom, but we believe in them anyway. These types of statements betray just how little those who speak such inanities really know about what it is they are saying. Firstly, the outline of atoms has been directly observable since 1981. People have seen them, we don't need to simply believe they are there to know they are there. Secondly, for those who would say I personally have never seen an atom's outline, so I am guilty of utter belief in what the scientists say is the case, I will point out, that unlike the fervent religious folks who cannot substantiate their utter belief with any possible physical reconciliation of those beliefs, all I have to do is ask to see the outline of an atom, and it is there for me to see, provided I have the appropriate amount of economic freedom and intellectual clout. The evidence is available to see an atom, sorry to disappoint the fundies out there. And Finally, as I said before, scientists are the interpretors of the information gathered by the scientific method, which is why I say, the real indictment being made is not, nor could be against the scientific method, but against the scientists themselves for having the "gaul" to simply go against the flow of the commonly accepted practice of incuriosity for the sake of laziness. Non-scientists have little to no appreciation for what scientists are discovering everyday, instead we all happily lap up the benefits provided by scientific discovery, while simultaneously ridiculing those who practice it. It is unecessary to point out the irony of this situation, but I've done it anyway.