The Final Frontier I
Human Beings are the pinnacle of creation, or so we tell ourselves. Scientifically we are just like other animals but with intelligence. That too is not true as animals are intelligent too. In fact the whole cosmos is intelligent. Intelligence pervades everything.
Every Atom knows how many of them are needed to create a certain element. Every particle has the intelligence to know how to arrange itself to exist in its preferred state. Every chemical knows what should be the outcome of a certain reaction with another chemical. No bacteria can cause disease if they do not work in synchronization with other bacterium to overwhelm one infected. Plants develop a whole ecosystem harmoniously. The fishes know its sea-waters and so do the birds know their course in the skies. The pigeon instinctively comes back home and the spider does not get entangled in its own web. No one teaches the weaver bird to weave its nest nor does the monkeys need to be taught gymnastics hanging from trees. I am dam! sure you may all have heard of the Beavers of Canada. Intelligence is the fiber of the inanimate as well as the animate world.
So how are we Homo sapiens superior?
A Monkey can know how to flip from tree to tree but he can never analyze his flips. On the other hand if we learn to flip we can ask ourselves can we outdo the last flip. Or can it be done without the tree? Or even better, was it worth it at all to engage in flipping?!
This is the unique quality of intelligence we are endowed with. It is an intelligence that can observe itself. The reason we can observe our intelligence and actions is because we can mentally recreate the experience we had using our memory and its associated words. These same words help us access the experience or even relate it to others, which is speech. This capacity to name things then is what truly is special in Homo sapiens which is absent in other creations.
This faculty to observe ourselves is our biggest gift and our greatest challenge! It helps us construct an idea of ourselves - personality, self image, or ego, whatever we may call it. It is this same faculty that helps us create literature, music, art, science and technology to master our environment among other things. At the same time it is our biggest barrier as somehow we start to function through the ideas and words that we create which limits us from experiencing life directly.
It is important to see this at work in ourselves. But it's tricky as we have accustomed ourselves to live our life through this barrier of information/words. Hence initially we need to see the effects of such a dynamics in our heads and slowly see the dynamic itself.
An excellent opportunity to do so is when you tour a new Terrain/Country/City. The first time will be magical. You will be alive to every stone and smell around you. But as you visit the same place repeatedly it looses its charm. The simple reason is that you are now watching it through the information that you collected about it during your previous visits.To see this at work you could use the sunset pictures below. The first time will be much more spectacular then the next time around.
Also there are times when immediately on waking up your intellectual faculty is still dizzy and you look at your surroundings as if they were more beautiful and alive, but it’s the same home!
Another time is when you are alone with your beloved and energy is running high. But chances are that you miss it because then you are focused on something else….!
It is very important to become aware of these states of observance. As only when you become aware of them you become aware of the problem experientially, not just intellectually. This experiential observing is the seed you plant to be inspired with a solution.
Have fun observing!
Every Atom knows how many of them are needed to create a certain element. Every particle has the intelligence to know how to arrange itself to exist in its preferred state. Every chemical knows what should be the outcome of a certain reaction with another chemical. No bacteria can cause disease if they do not work in synchronization with other bacterium to overwhelm one infected. Plants develop a whole ecosystem harmoniously. The fishes know its sea-waters and so do the birds know their course in the skies. The pigeon instinctively comes back home and the spider does not get entangled in its own web. No one teaches the weaver bird to weave its nest nor does the monkeys need to be taught gymnastics hanging from trees. I am dam! sure you may all have heard of the Beavers of Canada. Intelligence is the fiber of the inanimate as well as the animate world.
So how are we Homo sapiens superior?
A Monkey can know how to flip from tree to tree but he can never analyze his flips. On the other hand if we learn to flip we can ask ourselves can we outdo the last flip. Or can it be done without the tree? Or even better, was it worth it at all to engage in flipping?!
This is the unique quality of intelligence we are endowed with. It is an intelligence that can observe itself. The reason we can observe our intelligence and actions is because we can mentally recreate the experience we had using our memory and its associated words. These same words help us access the experience or even relate it to others, which is speech. This capacity to name things then is what truly is special in Homo sapiens which is absent in other creations.
This faculty to observe ourselves is our biggest gift and our greatest challenge! It helps us construct an idea of ourselves - personality, self image, or ego, whatever we may call it. It is this same faculty that helps us create literature, music, art, science and technology to master our environment among other things. At the same time it is our biggest barrier as somehow we start to function through the ideas and words that we create which limits us from experiencing life directly.
It is important to see this at work in ourselves. But it's tricky as we have accustomed ourselves to live our life through this barrier of information/words. Hence initially we need to see the effects of such a dynamics in our heads and slowly see the dynamic itself.
An excellent opportunity to do so is when you tour a new Terrain/Country/City. The first time will be magical. You will be alive to every stone and smell around you. But as you visit the same place repeatedly it looses its charm. The simple reason is that you are now watching it through the information that you collected about it during your previous visits.To see this at work you could use the sunset pictures below. The first time will be much more spectacular then the next time around.
Also there are times when immediately on waking up your intellectual faculty is still dizzy and you look at your surroundings as if they were more beautiful and alive, but it’s the same home!
Another time is when you are alone with your beloved and energy is running high. But chances are that you miss it because then you are focused on something else….!
It is very important to become aware of these states of observance. As only when you become aware of them you become aware of the problem experientially, not just intellectually. This experiential observing is the seed you plant to be inspired with a solution.
Have fun observing!
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