Reflectivity and Certainty

As I write, I listening to Orbital's The Altogether again. Seriously people, if you buy music, check out this album. It'll challenge your imagination and make you knod your head at the same time. It's techno, but if this puts you off, don't let it. This is just my philosophy: All music is basically the same - sound frequencies and timing. Only the sounds are different. Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of acoustic instruments, but the sound spectrum of electronic music is literally out of this world (see how far you wanna go with that...). Electronic instruments can tell amazing stories. Anyhow, I digress...

Well..., so, I'm in this crazy role shift thing. I'm going back to school. At one point, I had sworn off school. Who needs it, really? Especially now, when you can get so much information for free in society. All you gotta do is figure out how to apply it to your life. No one NEEDS school, but for perhaps obvious reasons, society requires it from an indiviual wanting to "plug in." The institution truly sucks... and now, here I am back in it. Nothing has changed, save one thing...

I'm going to spare you the suspension of thought cliche and confirm your cynicism... ME!
Ain't that a relief?

So now, school becomes the game and the victory is success as acknowldeged by society. Got to get the degree! On a real personal note, I'm shooting for a masters in anthropology, but that's a more long term thing. Baby steps... as they say. My world will soon consist of algebra problems, essays, and history reports. I'll try to make them fun...

This has been on my mind alot lately. It's an idea that I love because it makes so much sense in light of world affairs. The idea is that our world is illusory at it's very nature. You can read RA Wilson's book, Prometheus Rising and he spells it our for ya in a quasi-scientific fashion. You can also read many books on the modern philosophical theories of consciousness, such as Consciousness Explained by Daniel C Dennet. I think this basic theory grew from the early discoveries of quantum physics, I'm not certain of this, but it makes sense to me. In the quantum world, which represents the very foundation of our material universe, there is no certainty. Probability rules. It knocked the wind out of certainty. Hey, know one knows the future, this is even Biblical. In this regard, ultimately all we have is faith. But then, there are also those random "surprises" in life, like 9/11.

Notice how our "war on terrorism" is basically a war between civilizations. This isn't the first of it's kind in history, oh no, we gotta do what everyone's else is doing! Now think about the state of current global politics, and slide the "illusory world" paradigm over your perspective. Anybody hear of cultural relativism? How about post modernism? These are only words; they are symbolic reflections of a much larger concept: the "universe" provides the matter and energy, and we provide the meaning and, therefore, the labels. Thus, reality is born and defined through the words we use. There is research coming out of linguistics which suggests that language shapes our understanding of the world around us, and this perception varies from culture to culture. Remember our "war on terrorism?" We fight because we don't see the world the same way, and we're not willing to realize this. In an "illusory" world, our world makes sense.

But this is just a thought. I find it fascinating. As I scan the news and science journals, I see reports from research of all disciplines which support the idea. I'll probably write some more on it, as there's so much more going on with it...