I am sometimes amazed at what our brain is capable of. At one moment it is grappling with Outlook, which is taking more time than normal, to come up, and the next it is wondering about the billions of years that have passed and the billions that have yet to come! It can float back and forth in time. It can go to the farthest corners of the universe, that are imaginable, and to the innermost nook and cranny of our own physical form, that we can think of, in a blink!
Brain is probably the only thing that can think of itself, everything else is thought of by the brain and not by itself. Is that not interesting?
What is my relation to my brain? Do “I” own my brain or does my brain own me or is my brain and “I” the same thing? I won’t know what would “I” be without a brain. Religions talk about “soul”, which is supposed to be “I”, but I find it easy to identify myself with brain than with “soul”.
Brain is a container and a factory, a container and a factory of thoughts. Brain is bound by the limitations of everything that is physical, it must age and die. But thoughts are not physical. These are impressions and will survive. Survive in some other container; survive in the form of effects that they bring about when they are acted upon. What my brain contains and what it produces is what makes me, me! That is the only thing that differentiates me from you and you from me! I am my thoughts!
Recently on my way back from States my brain took me in a direction that I had stopped thinking about for a while, till someone dear to me rekindled those thoughts in me. While I was getting into my seat in the plane, my thoughts started racing towards the question of “existence”, existence of everything. Put differently, using double negation, the topic is “why there is not nothing”?
Why did existence of anything come about, even that of God, if there is one? Why there had to be anything, anything at all?
I discussed, I read, I thought. I must say, I have not discussed enough, or read enough or thought enough, but whatever I could, it did not reveal any rational reason for the existence.
Just for the records, I am not negating it for the sake of negation. I am not a nihilist. I am just inquisitive.
I dwelled upon the question of existence some more, I realized my situation was not that bad, I knew a few things already, namely, that we exist! That I am! Taking that as a given, I had to start working backwards.
The thought journey that I will now take you thru’ has reference to God, but, I am neither propagating belief nor disbelief, because I myself do not know. I am just sharing some thoughts and hence a piece of me.
Here goes -
That we exist, we know. But why and what for is the question. Is it for His amusement? If we assume that it is, then is it logical to assume that He would likely to be more amused by more number of intelligent species than just humans?
Is there a reason for us to believe that we as a species occupy a unique and privileged status in His scheme of things? Did He specifically create the humans or did he only set the basic physical and governance laws and let evolution handle the rest, including evolution of consciousness?
Consider this, if I were to architect a system, I would create the basic building blocks and set some rules for those building blocks to come together to create more complex entities. That is the most simple and elegant way of going about it. Now, why should we expect him to architect this universe any differently?
If that is a plausible scenario, then can we deduce the following from it?
a) Is it not likely that in other places in the universe, which follow the same basic physical laws, as us, the probability of evolution of intelligent species, as ours, is same as it was in our case?
b) Also, if He did set the basic laws, is it not likely that He would have set some very different basic physical laws for different areas/ places / universes, just so that He has more variety and more amusement? What is there to stop Him?
Why should we not assume that the chances of existence of other intelligent species, that follow the same physical laws as ours and otherwise are pretty high?
What might happen when other intelligent species, following same physical laws, come in contact with us? What might happen when the intelligent beings, following different physical laws, come in our contact? This is assuming that the other intelligent beings have reached a state of intelligence and maturity, where they could cross over from one physical law state to another.
Why should we not assume that such communities, of other intelligent beings, already collaborate? Why is that we have not been discovered by them as yet? Is it possible that we have been discovered or rather we were always known and it is just that in the grander scheme of things, He wants us to evolve to a certain level before allowing us to become part of larger community? He wants our species to figure out how to use our intelligence constructively and not annihilate ourselves and others? Otherwise, we are no good for the grander community of other intelligent species.
So where does that leave us? Is He asking us to reach a state of maturity where we have figured out various basic laws of nature, and have made our peace with them, before we connect with others? How do we get to that maturity level? Do we think, reach within, and realize, or do we continue to experiment, reason and explore?
Probably both!
He probably does not want to bring two intelligent species together till both have reached a state of maturity, where they collaborate, instead of annihilating each other.
Given the fact that Universe is much older than our solar system, and there may be many more Universes, it is fair to assume that other intelligent species probably had much more time to evolve. Hence, it is fair to assume that whatever species are out there are much more mature than us. This leads to some very interesting conjectures -
a) Chances that we are discovered by other intelligent species that reveal themselves to us, are much more than us discovering them.
b) We have not reached a stable/ mature state in the grander scheme of things, and that may be the reason that we have not been “discovered” yet. Clearly, we as a species, have some ground to cover.
c) When the other intelligent species do reveal themselves, they will be benign. Since, He would have set the same condition of maturity for the other communities as well. Chances of scenario, like the one in the Hollywood blockbuster “Independence Day”, are limited, very limited!
Is it logical to assume that there probably is a hierarchy of such connected communities and also that there is an entry criterion, in terms of maturity and evolution, to go from one level to the next, leading ultimately to Him and understanding His game, which He is playing for His amusement!!!
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