We live in the strangest of circumstances, billions of us milling about on Planet Earth, each familiar with the storm of emotion, from the beautiful and pure, through to the miserable and debased, raging within and watching it amongst others around and about us. Subject to the joys and vagaries of the human condition, our lives are theatre. Their drama unfolds on a global stage where we are societies in total disarray, for science and technology have unleashed circumstances that set physics and chemistry in the lab at loggerheads with life, in all sorts of ways. The social sciences point at the human cost and environmental science tells us of the havoc this wreaks. Yet, in the rarefied air of their disciplines, scientists are no more attentive to this than people in other walks of life? With regard to championing the brain´s pre-eminence, neuro-science demonstrates the confusion between intellect and intelligence and chronic ignorance concerning the integrity of the organism the brain belongs to, thereby endorsing the way each of us is at odds both in themselves and with Life, itself. More specifically, take scientific enquiry into correcting a child´s genetic disorder, a disorder that has evolved through several generations of its family, their peers and society itself, pursuing an increasingly dystopian existence, and where today´s society is preparing that child to take the abuse of our planet´s life and resources to the nth degree. Of course it is nice if a cure is found for such a child – lovely too for the scientists that do it to see their work bear fruit and feel how they have benefitted humanity, BUT….
Too much is presumed in the name of what we think science to be. Take Matter, for instance, and varied reference in these articles to what is known and what is not known about it. Where it is said that 95% of all matter in the Universe is Dark Matter, about which we know next to nothing, what is the basis for such a calculation and how do we know that what we know is 5%? Or, take the huge amounts of cortical activity and genetic potential that do not find expression through us or have any outlet within the stunted framework of our style of life! How on earth can one honestly quantify these things percentage-wise! How the devil can one measure unknowns, plummet the Unfathomable, calculate the Infinite, classify the Absolute or define Ultimate Reality! Yet that is exactly what we do in the name of science! On top of which, we then go about business-as-usual, within the confines of that knowledge and on the basis of those assumptions.
Think for a moment of the Absolute, for example! We are the ones who use numbers and logic in the attempt to frame it. Yet, there is nothing about it that can be classified. One just belongs to It. In being part of It, it is right there within one. One experiences that; gives oneself to the experience, and lives in accordance with the feeling at one´s core of the Heart of the World right there within one and of one´s being in the Heart of the World´s embrace.
So scientists are as much amongst the rest of us in our disconnect with Planet Earth. The use of what their discoveries and the inventions of technology, supposedly promise, feed the dichotomy of have and have-not; antagonise increasing numbers of people in huger sections of society; drive criminal pursuit to ever further extremes, and spread the engagement in violence. The societies within which we live contaminate the world we inhabit and tear the integrity of Planet Earth´s functions apart. This is the house of cards we call home.
We are but one form Intelligence has invested in. There are others, many, many of them. What would happen if they also burdened Life with expectations, made demands and tortured their way in the world, as we do? Take whale, or puffer fish, elephant or flea on elephant! What if they did so, too? Well, nevermind, Life just is not like that. Life is not a state, such as that of the form and physiology of the tiger one sees in a zoo. Life is in the deed. Being refers to a living thing´s behaving in a characteristic way and in its going on doing so. That is to say, it is not the form and functions of the body that make us human beings. It is our conduct, what stems from the use of our human intelligence that does so. Our behaviour, our being human is what makes us human beings. That is what life is about in us, if it is finding expression! If not, well that is exactly what is problematic in these times, is it not!
As we try to pin Life down (as if simplification would make the world a more manageable place!) the extraordinary thing that escapes us is how the penchant for self-organisation ever moves things out of the hands that so grasp at pinning it down. The 1st image/text series dwells on this. There is something intelligent at work here, an intelligence that gave us intelligence, an intelligence way beyond that of the futile attempts of the lesser intelligence of the human mind to pin it down. And Intelligence, which is the defining characteristic of the presence of life, is the subject of the 2nd series in this article.
Here is an image/text series in order to dwell on the matter a bit longer.
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