LIFE: Love Infinitely Furthers Evolution by Sander R.B.E. Beals (buy e reader TXT) 📕

said: "They never touch!" (so only signals get across)

Is it? You betcha!!! As far as the little infant (and for that matter you) are concerned, there is no essential difference between a pixel on a screen and a spark of light reaching it from somewhere out there in the world you call your reality. "But that's like comparing oranges and apples", I hear you say. True, and yet I will continue on this path if only to make a further point: how many pixels does it take for you to recognize something as either an orange or an apple? How small can I make the picture on the left until there is no longer data enough to recognize either of them?

True, you can walk towards it and grab it, but the impression you get from it (no matter how much more convincing) is still only sensory data fed to you through your nerves and synapses. Or at least, that is what our scientists have decided happens inside a human body, based on other inputs and outputs, which we call scientific writings. And theirs is just one of the countless systems which aim to account for the design of the All!

But just how much of that do we need to convince us something is as it is described? As it is perceived by us personally even? Even though the image on the left is only 33x23 pixels, most of us have no problem in recognizing it as the pyramids at Gizeh, when seen from a certain direction and distance. We may not know which direction, we may not even know the distance, but we know quite certain that those are the pyramids, period!

And with that, the image connects us to any bit of info we ever took in regarding the pyramids. But still, its only input data prompting the arousal of already present data. You thought Cloud Computing is a new thing? Heck, we have been doing it forever, each actual input signal from the cloud out there kicking up a storm of ideas (Hmm: Incoming Data Evolves Awareness.... ) inside our minds. And basically, that is where the third law of Creation can be made clear most elegantly: Because we perceive inputs, and weave them together into the web of knowledge that we have about our environment, our minds become mirrors of it first. If we follow up on that with behavior, the environment will have to handle that in turn. So it will form an image of us based on our behavior, and will treat us as such. That infinite two-sided loop is just like an Infinity sign, straddled across the boundary that separates us from our environment. And the mutuality of it is just what the 3rd law of Creation is all about: You receive what you put out!

OK, so we have convinced ourselves that some stuff is 'real' whereas other stuff is not. But even on that area, we do not agree: a scientist will consider something real if it can be proven based on scientific publications that in turn are based on other scientific publications. Their web of knowledge is based on science, and nothing else.

Now this scientist has a friend, who is a researcher of psychic phenomena. Although they both are dedicated followers of rigid rules of investigation, the scientist does not hold for real the exact same set of concepts the psychic researcher does. In fact, it is a bit like the image on the right: two overlapping circles, one part on which they both agree, and two parts on which they don't. This says nothing about their merits, just about their chosen fields of expertise. Kinda like apples and oranges: it's just which taste you prefer for the moment. It is said that generalists know a bit about a lot of things, and specialists know a lot about a bit. There is no difference in brain capacity there, just a difference in focus: you just twist the head of your own personal Mindlite to either have it make small or large spots of curiosity. I went for screwing the head off, and focussing everywhere as a true generalist should....

(and thus knowing nothing about everything? ;-)

So, if it is all just data, should we consider God as just another stream of it? Maybe, and maybe not, but the analogy with the previous example begs for a clean and simple solution: humans aren't all that different despite their beliefs in whatever deity. It is just that they consider Him or Her to be part of their reality or not. But if (S)He is infinite, (S)He cannot be outside the All. Some people may consider Him or Her the great operator in the heavenly datacenter (see above), but personally I don't figure She'd go for a 9-5 job ;-)

Talk about syncs: from the 7217 tracks that are played right now, the player just randomly selected 'One Oh Oh One (1001) Nights' by Chipz, as if to emphasize the DATA nature of our Cosmos..... Although I don't think it is binary, we may yet find out more if the syncs keep coming.

OK, so let's see where this data concept leads us. According to the diagram on the right, I am claiming data has a Source, a Destination, and a Medium through which it gets from one to the other. Since the Medium may not always be non-distorting, sending just the data is not smart. Besides, what is data if it does not mean anything? Static, right? So yes, the other trinity in this diagram is that of Language, Primer and Integrity, which together make sure the data and its implied meaning make it across the divide of the Medium. Mind you, a bank of memory can be a Medium too, if the Source writes the data into it, and the Destination system reads them out of it. Actual physical movement of the data is irrelevant, but since data transfer from Source to Destination does not imply removal of the data from the Source, it almost always implies duplication of the data and its meaning. And that's how ideas thrive!

But of course that is not how it ends: upon arrival at the destination, the data is seen in the light of the experiences the destination being (or System) has undergone so far. The reality it has developed as a result of those experiences is instrumental in the processing of the newly arrived data: it may be discarded without a second thought, given proper consideration, or in opportune cases be accepted as the absolute truth if it happens to match seemlessly with what is already there. And then the process of improving the communications begins, with the destination being ready to make its move:

When receiving data, this may or may not be meaningful to the receiver, because if it comes to that, we are all Fools:

Fundamentally Objective Observers Looking for Solutions

So reception of the data (observation) is the first step, if you even came as far as recognizing it as actual data. You may have noticed that it has structure, but if it does not look like any language or protocol you have experience with, it is hard to find the meaning in it. Now I'm talking about language, but in effect it is meaningful for any set of data, be it language, vision, smells or touches.

On the other hand you may have recognized the language, but that does not mean you are fluent in it. Typically, the average Western human knows how to recognize quite a few more languages than he or she can actually speak properly. If we do, we can immediately proceed to the green spot, and establish two-way communication. Likewise, in the broader picture, we can only handle data coming in in a sensible way if it matches knowledge we already have available. Otherwise it may not even be recognized. And of course, my side input (Species IV) comments on it as well: her uncle tells our Species megababe that she doesn't have to read books like humans do, but just needs to hold them. And in a dramatic way, he shows her she can know all about the rental car they are driving, just by him handing her the users manual. Now you may say that does not prove or disprove my claim uttered right now, and you are right. I just said 'comment' because I meant to show the synchronitiy of the two lines of change (movie and writing process) right now....

If that is not the case, we try to reply in a different language, or at least try to reply in the given language to indicate we do not speak it. It kinda depends on whether we want to propose an alternative language ourselves, or give the Source of the data the choice of languages...

But even if we do speak the same language, that does not mean we can actually communicate flawlessly. I'm quite sure we all have people in our environment who are 'hard to talk to' as you might call it. That says nothing more about them as it says about us. I have a colleague who is a brilliant programmer, but if I ask him a question I must prepare for an answer which is technically completely correct, but which I do need to rephrase for myself, or which even requires some more questions to get to the core of the matter. It took me a while to figure out that his matrix of verbal expression is fundamentally different from mine, which results in clashes of understanding. Still though, we both claim to speak Dutch flawlessly....

Sidenote: while rereading the book, I just started the Italian Job, because to me, Italian is one of those languages: I can recognize it, speak a few words, but consider it highly meaningful to me because of its mystery.....

Common Consensus Reality: the Great Restrictor

It might be called the Great Attractor as well, because let's face it: most of us are engaged in or attracted to this thing called culture. We may fear being left out of it, or continuously fight to be rid of it. Regardless of what our angle is, we're all Fools with Tools following or fighting Rules. We may not like the rules, but these in turn regulate Society, Business and Warfare, in which all of us are engaged in one way or another.

Why isn't politics in this diagram, you ask? Obvious: that aspect of culture (like religion) is so interwoven with the six colored satellites on the right, that it influences all of them! Even its name suggests such a position, because by definition it should bring the poles of Culture together: "Pole-Ethics". Too bad the last part isn't always the case...

But let's for the moment look at our Culture from the outside, which we normally don't do. Our world is usually that which we as a people consider to be 'Real', for any and all of us. We usually ignore the fact that some of our fellow humans might well like bigger spheres to be real, and those 'other ones' in turn mostly acknowledge that reality is what it is, even though they may not like it. In fact, Culture can be considered the common denominator of that which we call our complete collection of personal realities. It is much like the scientists described earlier: their circles of reality are offset from one another, and more parties just cause more borders to be created...

At the same time, we use our numerous tools to create distractions or further tools for our fellow fools, in the hope they are amused by them or find them useful. Some sing, some act, and guys like me write simply because that is the most fun for them. Now I write about the general mechanisms, trying to inflate that Common Consensus Reality sphere so it matches what I figure Reality really is. I don't do so for those who are completely at ease in their current reality, for I do not wish to go against their free will. But they are completely free to leave my books in the library, or burn them even. But