आफै जस्तो हुन नपाउदा कहि कस्तो उकुस मुकुस भए जस्तो महसुस गर्नु भएको छ? तर म आफु जस्तो म जस्तो कसरि भनु? के मलाइ यि अनगिन्ती बाहिरि तत्व हरुले प्रभाव पारेको छैन त? के म, म हो भनिरहदा तिम्रो म ले मलाइ प्रभाव पारिरहेको छैन त? के म छु त म जस्तै के म साचि म नै हुन सक्छु? आखिर म कस्तो छु? कस्तो नजर ले हेरिएको छ मलाइ मलाइ म देख्ने पनि त कुनै म होला? के म ले मलाइ फेरि देख्छ त? म जो स्वम म छ उस्लाइ माध्यम किन चाहियो म को उपस्थिति दर्साउन , के यो म म होइन? म किन माध्यम खोज्छु आफुलाइ खोज्न , म बाट नै मलाइ देखिन किन जरुरत छ? मलाइ म हो भन्न कस्ले सिकायो, के त्यो सिकाइ बिना म साचै म नै हुन्थे त? म ले साचै आज आफ्नो अस्तित्व एकल भन्छ होला ! सायद म अनबिग्य छ कि त्यस्ता अनगिन्ती म को उपस्थिति द्वारा नै म को जन्म भएको! अनगिन्ती म ले मलाइ बनायो र यो म ले त्यो म लाइ! यहाँ हरेक म आज म हुन चाहान्छ्न ! खैर म अनबिग्य छु आखिर म मा त्यस्तो के छ?

What is quantum physics? Put simply, it’s the physics that explains how everything works: the best description we have of the nature of the particles that make up matter and the forces with which they interact.

Quantum physics underlies how atoms work, and so why chemistry and biology work as they do. You, me and the gatepost – at some level at least, we’re all dancing to the quantum tune. If you want to explain how electrons move through a computer chip, how photons of light get turned to electrical current in a solar panel or amplify themselves in a laser, or even just how the sun keeps burning, you’ll need to use quantum physics.

The difficulty – and, for physicists, the fun – starts here. To begin with, there’s no single quantum theory. There’s quantum mechanics, the basic mathematical framework that underpins it all, which was first developed in the 1920s by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and others. It characterises simple things such as how the position or momentum of a single particle or group of few particles changes over time.

But to understand how things work in the real world, quantum mechanics must be combined with other elements of physics – principally, Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which explains what happens when things move very fast – to create what are known as quantum field theories.

Three different quantum field theories deal with three of the four fundamental forces by which matter interacts: electromagnetism, which explains how atoms hold together; the strong nuclear force, which explains the stability of the nucleus at the heart of the atom; and the weak nuclear force, which explains why some atoms undergo radioactive decay.

Over the past five decades or so these three theories have been brought together in a ramshackle coalition known as the “standard model” of particle physics. For all the impression that this model is slightly held together with sticky tape, it is the most accurately tested picture of matter’s basic working that’s ever been devised. Its crowning glory came in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson, the particle that gives all other fundamental particles their mass, whose existence was predicted on the basis of quantum field theories as far back as 1964.

Conventional quantum field theories work well in describing the results of experiments at high-energy particle smashers such as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs was discovered, which probe matter at its smallest scales. But if you want to understand how things work in many less esoteric situations – how electrons move or don’t move through a solid material and so make a material a metal, an insulator or a semiconductor, for example – things get even more complex.

The billions upon billions of interactions in these crowded environments require the development of “effective field theories” that gloss over some of the gory details. The difficulty in constructing such theories is why many important questions in solid-state physics remain unresolved – for instance why at low temperatures some materials are superconductors that allow current without electrical resistance, and why we can’t get this trick to work at room temperature.

But beneath all these practical problems lies a huge quantum mystery. At a basic level, quantum physics predicts very strange things about how matter works that are completely at odds with how things seem to work in the real world. Quantum particles can behave like particles, located in a single place; or they can act like waves, distributed all over space or in several places at once. How they appear seems to depend on how we choose to measure them, and before we measure they seem to have no definite properties at all – leading us to a fundamental conundrum about the nature of basic reality.

This fuzziness leads to apparent paradoxes such as Schrödinger’s cat, in which thanks to an uncertain quantum process a cat is left dead and alive at the same time. But that’s not all. Quantum particles also seem to be able to affect each other instantaneously even when they are far away from each other. This truly bamboozling phenomenon is known as entanglement, or, in a phrase coined by Einstein (a great critic of quantum theory), “spooky action at a distance”. Such quantum powers are completely foreign to us, yet are the basis of emerging technologies such as ultra-secure quantum cryptography and ultra-powerful quantum computing.

But as to what it all means, no one knows. Some people think we must just accept that quantum physics explains the material world in terms we find impossible to square with our experience in the larger, “classical” world. Others think there must be some better, more intuitive theory out there that we’ve yet to discover.

In all this, there are several elephants in the room. For a start, there’s a fourth fundamental force of nature that so far quantum theory has been unable to explain. Gravity remains the territory of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, a firmly non-quantum theory that doesn’t even involve particles. Intensive efforts over decades to bring gravity under the quantum umbrella and so explain all of fundamental physics within one “theory of everything” have come to nothing.

Meanwhile cosmological measurements indicate that over 95 per cent of the universe consists of dark matter and dark energy, stuffs for which we currently have no explanation within the standard model, and conundrums such as the extent of the role of quantum physics in the messy workings of life remain unexplained. The world is at some level quantum – but whether quantum physics is the last word about the world remains an open question.

-Richard Webb

::::Relativity and Plato’s Cave::::

👀💚

We now have an answer to Heisenberg’s question: Why does relativity exist, with all its complicated distortions of time and space? It turns out that relativity exists because our science is actually a science of what we experience, and not a science of a universe “out there” that is independent of us as observers. The philosophical implications of what relativity reveals about this nature of science are staggering. Have we in our long scientific endeavour, all this while, been watching a shadow play, like the characters in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave?

In this famous allegory from Plato’s Republic, Plato describes the strange plight of beings who, since childhood, have only been allowed to stare at shadows on a cave wall. Plato presents this allegory in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and one of his students:

         And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened and unenlightened: Behold! Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at the distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see if you look, a low wall built along the way like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

Yes, he said.

And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.

And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

No question, he replied.

To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

How would the prisoners know or even suspect that what they perceive are only shadows and not the reality? And if they developed a science of what they can perceive and experience, how would they know that their science is severely constrained by their perceptual limitations? In particular, how would they know that their science is only a science of their experience and not a science of a reality that is independent of themselves as observers?

If they are unable to perceive any more than the shadows before them, they certainly cannot gain direct confirmation of the severe limitations of their perceptual ability and hence of the limitations of their science. Nonetheless, if they are alert enough, they may recognize clues that such is indeed the real state of affairs.

One such clue may be that the shadows directly in front of them appear broader than those at the extreme sides of their visual field. This occurs because, at the extreme left and right, they are viewing the wall from an acute angle. The reason for this phenomenon is the same reason why we prefer not to have the extreme left or right seats in the front row of a movie theatre. From those seats, our view of the movie will be distorted because we will be watching the screen from an extreme angle. Thus, Plato’s cave prisoners may well notice that the same shadows, when they appear at their extreme left or right always appear narrower than when they are directly ahead of them.

Now, should these prisoners communicate with one another, they may come to realize that the part of the wall where the shadows appear the broadest depends on where each of them is sitting. The shadows are always broadest when they appear directly in front of the observer; and this part of the wall is different for different observers. In other words, it is an observer-dependent phenomenon!

Upon reflection, this clue should suggest to them that their information of the world is only a reflection of what they are able to experience of it and hence is constrained by their perceptual limitations. This, in turn, should also lead them to the conclusion that their science is really a science of their conscious experience and not a science of a reality that is independent of themselves as observers.

Now, are we not in a similar position? Both relativity and quantum physics inform us that the scientific data we receive are actually observer-dependent phenomena. And observer-dependence in the very foundations of its structure must suggest that our science is actually a science of our experience, and not a science of a universe that is independent of us as observers. In other words, our science, even at a foundational level, is only an investigation of what we humans experience.

And what we experience, like that of the characters in Plato’s cave, must necessarily be constrained by our perceptual limitations. Why is it so important for us to acknowledge this truth about our science? Here is one compelling reason. Until we acknowledge that our science is merely a science of our experience, we will not even know to look at our own perceptual abilities and at our own mind as a possible means to get beyond the confines that shackle us. As a result, the doors to new avenues of research and new methods of probing the universe may well remain closed to us.

Acknowledgement of our limitations, on the other hand, will spur us to search for the means to overcome these limitations. If the prisoners in Plato’s cave remain unaware of their limitations, they will have no incentive to find ways to break free from them, but will remain blissfully content watching shadows on the wall, and fooling themselves that that is all there is. It is crucial, therefore, that we acknowledge the limitations of our science and where these limitations lie—for this will provide the incentive needed to push our horizons beyond the current confines that are keeping us in the dark.

We thus have to acknowledge that the observer plays a critical role in our science, and that all the scientific data used to formulate our scientific theories come through the observer. In fact, we do not even know whether the perceived entities and the perceiver can be separated. From relativity, we know that how time and space manifest depends on the observer; and from quantum physics, we know that how particles manifest also depends on the observer (see “A Direct Experiential Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics”).

So can the perceived entities and the perceiver even be separated? We actually have no scientific evidence that the perceived entities can be treated as separate independently-existing entities. What we do know is that, even if they can be treated as such, we have no idea what these entities would be like without the observer. We have no access to a universe that exists independent of the observer. To deny the role of the observer in our science is thus to deny the truth, and that is both illogical and unscientific.

Acknowledging the role of the observer, however, means that we need to study closely the mind and the attributes of the observer through which all our scientific information is obtained. And that means taking into consideration, our human physiology, our human perceptual abilities and limitations, and, particularly, one aspect of the human observer that is poorly understood in scientific terms but which plays an overarching role in our experience of the universe: our consciousness.

A science that ignores consciousness, or artificially relegates the conscious mind to that of a secondary—and hence, unimportant—phenomenon, is actually an incomplete science. All our scientific data relies on the conscious mind as a necessary component. Both relativity and quantum physics tell us that we cannot blindly assume that the conscious mind—that experiences what constitutes our scientific data—has no effect on the nature of the data itself. So, a discipline that willfully chooses to ignore the conscious mind as a vital component of our reality, must be viewed, at best, as an artificially restricted discipline, or, at worst, as a distortion of the truth.

Just as the water reflects the stars and the moon, the body reflects the mind and the soul. – Rumi

Have you ever noticed that time flies when you're having fun? Well, not for light. In fact, photons don't experience any time at all. Here's a mind-bending concept that should shatter your brain into pieces.

As you might know, I co-host Astronomy Cast, and get to pick the brain of the brilliant astrophysicist Dr. Pamela Gay every week about whatever crazy thing I think of in the shower. We were talking about photons one week and she dropped a bombshell on my brain. Photons do not experience time. [SNARK: Are you worried they might get bored?]

Just think about that idea. From the perspective of a photon, there is no such thing as time. It's emitted, and might exist for hundreds of trillions of years, but for the photon, there's zero time elapsed between when it's emitted and when it's absorbed again. It doesn't experience distance either. [SNARK: Clearly, it didn't need to borrow my copy of GQ for the trip.]

Since photons can't think, we don't have to worry too much about their existential horror of experiencing neither time nor distance, but it tells us so much about how they're linked together. Through his Theory of Relativity, Einstein helped us understand how time and distance are connected.

Let's do a quick review. If we want to travel to some distant point in space, and we travel faster and faster, approaching the speed of light our clocks slow down relative to an observer back on Earth. And yet, we reach our destination more quickly than we would expect. Sure, our mass goes up and there are enormous amounts of energy required, but for this example, we'll just ignore all that.

If you could travel at a constant acceleration of 1 g, you could cross billions of light years in a single human generation. Of course, your friends back home would have experienced billions of years in your absence, but much like the mass increase and energy required, we won't worry about them.

The closer you get to light speed, the less time you experience and the shorter a distance you experience. You may recall that these numbers begin to approach zero. According to relativity, mass can never move through the Universe at light speed. Mass will increase to infinity, and the amount of energy required to move it any faster will also be infinite. But for light itself, which is already moving at light speed… You guessed it, the photons reach zero distance and zero time.

Photons can take hundreds of thousands of years to travel from the core of the Sun until they reach the surface and fly off into space. And yet, that final journey, that could take it billions of light years across space, was no different from jumping from atom to atom.

Eternal Recurrence

Consider all that you have experienced in life so far, all the good and all the bad. Think of all your fortunes and misfortunes, all your blessings and all your miseries, all your triumphs and all your failures. Carefully weigh them all against each other; attempt to judge whether the desirable outweighs the undesirable, whether all your struggles have been equally rewarded, whether there is a bright side to all the suffering you’ve endured. Then, ask yourself “Would I willingly live this life all over again in exactly the same way?” 

Frankly, my own life is full of mistakes, all of which are my own, and all of which I regret. Some mistakes are more difficult to escape than others, and some have even led me to hate my very existence. It’s those mistakes which often keep me awake at night, wishing that I could somehow go back and change them, or else imagining how much different my life would be if I had simply acted more prudently. Regret truly is a burden. I sometimes wonder why it is that we are able to experience it at all, but that is a question for another time. The message I want to share is that regret never solved any of my problems. No amount of regret can change the past. 

Friedrich Nietzsche lived a very difficult life. No doubt, he made choices which he regretted and endured hardships that many people never will. Despite this, he made an effort to live his life in such a way that he would willingly live it all over again, entirely unaltered, infinite times over. He developed a theory by the name of eternal recurrence in which he claimed that all we know as reality has been recurring eternally and will continue to do so for all time. This theory serves not as an explanation about the true nature of reality, but rather as a thought experiment for an individual to evaluate their life. If you ask yourself whether or not you would willingly live your life again without any alteration and answer no, then you can be sure that you are not living correctly, as judged by your desires. While I will not claim that there is any one correct way to live life, I will assert that each individual must learn to love their life in its entirety, embracing both the good as well as the bad, so much so that they would be happy to relive it an infinite amount of times over.

I share this thought experiment because of the great benefit it has brought me. It has helped ease some of my burden of regret, and has allowed me to evaluate my life in its entirety, valuing all of my previous experiences, both positive and negative, since without them, I would not be who I am now. Perhaps my life would be better if I had acted differently or avoided some of the decisions I now consider mistakes. But how could I ever truly know that? Regret is often inescapable; as humans we sometimes can’t help but to feel it. However, for all its inescapability, regret is an unnecessary pain. My past mistakes lie beyond my control, I cannot change them, regardless of how much I may want to. My future choices, on the other hand, are mine alone to control. I must live life in such a way that the good outweighs the bad. And when misfortune arises, as it inevitably will, I will overcome it and move past it, with neither hate nor regret. This is the advice I give to all: love your life in its entirety, learn from your mistakes, but do not give yourself needless pain by dwelling on them, and live as if you would relive; for, a life which is not worth reliving is not worth living once, and the life which is worth living once is worth reliving a thousand times.

The Value of Philosophy

I’ve been asked if philosophy has any value outside of an academic setting. I believe this is a fair question. From an outsider’s perspective, it may seem as nothing more than abstract formulations, impractical guides for living, or simply the mindless ramblings of people who have too much free time. Therefore, I will try to answer this question by listing the reasons and benefits that make the practice of philosophy an invaluable good.

That all men must know what they believe and their reasons for doing so. When it comes to matters of philosophical importance, such as the questions philosophy considers fundamental, most, if not all, men have some belief or another, and if not can easily derive one based on those beliefs they do possess. Yet when asked to defend these beliefs, most men attempt to do so by relying on tradition, custom, the testimony of others, etc. in short, they cannot justify, either to others or themselves, why it is that they believe what they do. Philosophy allows for the creation of a justification of beliefs. 

That man needs a rational assurance that he lives correctly. In the words of Socrates “The really important thing is not to live, but to live well.” I will add that there are few things more difficult to endure than the belief that one’s life has been wasted or otherwise used incorrectly. Philosophy allows man to define what it means to live well, to create values. Thus, philosophy allows man to live well by first teaching him what living well is. For no man can live well unless he believes, unless he has a rational assurance that he is living well. 

That philosophy covers the most important of life’s questions. By this I mean questions such as the distinction between right and wrong, the validity of one’s morality, the belief in God, the definition of beauty, of art, of living well, and countless others; questions whose answers can neither be learned or taught and must instead be discovered individually. These questions cannot be avoided and must instead be answered carefully through reason. 

That man must understand the world and his place within it. This may be the greatest of all philosophical tasks, as well as the most rewarding. Our understanding or interpretation of the world, our belief of who we are as an individual, as a society, as a people, and as a species, and our belief of the place we occupy in this world are perhaps the greatest factors in determining a chosen course of life. The world we live in is one of interpretations; man cannot choose not to interpret. However, I feel confident in the assumption that a prudent interpretation is better than an impulsive, thoughtless one. 

That reason must be cultivated. Reason exists solely as a tool for the creation of justifications; in a world of interpretations, reason can never derive facts. The purpose of reason is to justify, to explain, to convince both ourselves and others of the validity of our thoughts and acts. In other words, reason defines good and bad, right and wrong, true and false. Even if one rejects such dichotomies, it is done through reason. Thus, it is an invaluable tool, perhaps the most valuable of all the mental faculties. If one can understand and appreciate the value of reason, then it should be easy to recognize the importance of its refinement. Such refinement is a corollary of the practice of philosophy.

That man must guard against common sense, tradition, and convention. Circumstance alone has decided the world in which we live in and thus the truths of that world. By nothing more than chance, indeed by a mere accident, do we live in the age, state, culture, etc. in which we do. It is by that very chance that we were raised in a particular way, taught certain values, and indoctrinated by convention. The practice of philosophy allows one to rationalize beliefs and thus decide which of these should be believed, which should be refined, and which should be rejected. 

That philosophy provides an intellectual joy. Of all the reasons stated here, this is perhaps the most important of all. For whoever does not recognize that living well requires a stimulation of the mind, as well as the body, will not benefit from the practice of philosophy. 

Finally, I make a distinction between the practice of philosophy and the study of philosophy. Everything stated here refers to philosophy as a practice, as a mode of thought, as a way of living. The study of philosophy, such as in an academic setting, can be done quite well by even the most unphilosophical minds. Conversely, philosophy as a practice requires very little, if any, academic insight. The practice of philosophy does not require a rigorous study, the writing of long essays, or a familiarity with all major works. To philosophize, as the gadfly taught, one only needs to know what one believes, to know why one believes, and to live according to those beliefs.

::The Milky Way Spiral:: 🌀

If you’ve seen an image of the Milky Way from above or below, you will certainly notice that it has a spiral structure. Not all galaxies are created equal, though, as there are many, known as elliptical galaxies, that are blob-like, while others have irregular shapes. Ours is of a class of galaxies called barred spirals, because it has a rectangular bar in the middle of the galactic disk.

The Milky Way has four main spiral arms: the Norma and Cygnus arm, Sagittarius, Scutum-Crux, and Perseus. The Sun is located in a minor arm, or spur, named the Orion Spur. The galactic disk itself is about 100,000 light years across, and the bar at the center is estimated to be about 27,000 light years long.

Why is the Milky Way a spiral? This is due to its rotation, or rather, the rotation of matter inside the galactic disk around the center. It’s not as if the stars themselves stay in the spiral arms, and rotate around the center of the galaxy, though: if they did this, the arms would wind in tighter and tighter over time (2 billion years or so), since the stars in the center revolve faster than those further out.

The spirals are actually what is called a density wave or standing wave. The best way to describe this is the analogy of a traffic jam: cars travel on a busy road in a city, bunching up in jams over the course of a day at certain sections. But the cars move through the jam eventually, and other cars pile up behind them in the jam. The wave is at a certain location, with bunches of matter piling up there for a while, then moving on to be replaced by other matter. As dust and gas is compressed in the spirals, it is heated up and results in the formation of new stars. This star formation makes the trailing edge of the spiral brighter, and places the density wave “ahead”, where dimmer, redder stars are starting to be compressed.

When you see an image of the Milky Way like the one above, it’s not actually a photo of our galaxy. Since we inhabit the disk and have no way (currently) of going above or below, images of the Milky Way are generated by computers or artists. Astronomers have determined that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy by mapping the movements of stars and hydrogen clouds in the disk.

The Milky Way is far from being the only spiral galaxy in the Universe. To view images of other spiral galaxies, go to the aptly-named Spiral Galaxies website, or NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day Spiral Galaxy Index.

To learn more about the Milky Way, check out Episode 99 of Astronomy Cast, or visit the rest of the Milky Way section in the Guide to Space.

Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison News

Eternal Recurrence

Consider all that you have experienced in life so far, all the good and all the bad. Think of all your fortunes and misfortunes, all your blessings and all your miseries, all your triumphs and all your failures. Carefully weigh them all against each other; attempt to judge whether the desirable outweighs the undesirable, whether all your struggles have been equally rewarded, whether there is a bright side to all the suffering you’ve endured. Then, ask yourself “Would I willingly live this life all over again in exactly the same way?” 

Frankly, my own life is full of mistakes, all of which are my own, and all of which I regret. Some mistakes are more difficult to escape than others, and some have even led me to hate my very existence. It’s those mistakes which often keep me awake at night, wishing that I could somehow go back and change them, or else imagining how much different my life would be if I had simply acted more prudently. Regret truly is a burden. I sometimes wonder why it is that we are able to experience it at all, but that is a question for another time. The message I want to share is that regret never solved any of my problems. No amount of regret can change the past. 

Friedrich Nietzsche lived a very difficult life. No doubt, he made choices which he regretted and endured hardships that many people never will. Despite this, he made an effort to live his life in such a way that he would willingly live it all over again, entirely unaltered, infinite times over. He developed a theory by the name of eternal recurrence in which he claimed that all we know as reality has been recurring eternally and will continue to do so for all time. This theory serves not as an explanation about the true nature of reality, but rather as a thought experiment for an individual to evaluate their life. If you ask yourself whether or not you would willingly live your life again without any alteration and answer no, then you can be sure that you are not living correctly, as judged by your desires. While I will not claim that there is any one correct way to live life, I will assert that each individual must learn to love their life in its entirety, embracing both the good as well as the bad, so much so that they would be happy to relive it an infinite amount of times over.

I share this thought experiment because of the great benefit it has brought me. It has helped ease some of my burden of regret, and has allowed me to evaluate my life in its entirety, valuing all of my previous experiences, both positive and negative, since without them, I would not be who I am now. Perhaps my life would be better if I had acted differently or made some of the decisions I now consider mistakes. But how could I ever truly know that? Regret is often inescapable; as humans we sometimes can’t help but to feel it. However, for all its inescapability, regret is an unnecessary pain. My past mistakes lie beyond my control, I cannot change them, regardless of how much I may want to. My future choices, on the other hand, are mine alone to control. I must live life in such a way that the good outweighs the bad. And when misfortune arises, as it inevitably will, I will overcome it and move past it, with neither hate nor regret. This is the advice I give to all: love your life in its entirety, learn from your mistakes, but do not give yourself needless pain by dwelling on them, and live as if you would relive; for, a life which is not worth reliving is not worth living once, and the life which is worth living once is worth reliving a thousand times.

I just wonder how nature plays all its role, she is an amazing artist. 💚🙌🏻👀

How can we be so sure that we are sure?

The day you are born you are weak and frail: can’t stand upright. Time moves slow as molasses. Sheer moments feel like a lifetime. Everything is fresh and new. You take your sweet time soaking all of the details up and internalizing it. But as you learn to walk, you start to realize that there is a lot more out there than you had previously thought and you can’t leave it unexplored. So you walk faster and faster until you learn to run, searching for more and more, chasing that high of discovery. Minutes merge into hours and hours merge into days as you gain more momentum, running faster and faster. What else is out there? What else is new? How can I get where I’m going? What used to fascinate you fades in to the back. It’s far too mundane to pay attention to as life starts to blur past. At some point you start to worry about senseless things such as “am I going the right direction?”, “am I sure this is where I want to go?”, “should I slow down?” but stopping is not an option at this sheer speed. The only option is to go faster to keep from stumbling. But after some time you will realize, this is okay. It is alright if I have only run down one path in my whole life. You know that feeling regret is unnecessary as you have lived as hard as you could. At this point, time is going past so quick that you can’t see much at all but you feel calm

As suddenly everything halts

And you finally witness the sweet relief of something entirely new

This is what it means to be human

A paradox of time and existance

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you had a time machine. You get in that time machine and let’s say you went back, oh, 150 years or so. Before you existed. BUT being that you exist (let’s take the simple route here), you now exist in a time where you don’t exist. Do you both exist and not exist at the same time? Or is this time now a time where you now exist? What if you went through all of the past and existed forever? For example, what if you went back in time and shot Hitler before WWII. Yes, Hitler may be dead now, but those actions may lead to you not being born. Therefore, if you were never born so you could go back in time and prevent mass genocide, did it ever really happen? Hitler would be dead because someone shot him, but the person who shot him doesn’t exist so nobody could have killed him. Maybe time is similar to quantum mechanics. Maybe that event happened and didn’t happen at the same time. Like Schrodinger’s cat, it’s both alive and dead at the same time in that instant when we don’t know. That one moment where, according to Murphy’s law, anything that can happen, will happen.

Questions

We, as a human species, will most likely never know how big the universe is. We, as a human species, will probably never know how old the universe is. We, as a human species, will never know how the Big Bang happened. We, as a human species, will never know when or how the universe will end or what will happen in the ephemeral aftermath that follows. We, as a human species, will never know if a new universe will form when ours dies. We, as a human species, will never know why life exists and how it even began in the first place and it bothers me that there are so many questions that will go unanswered that will still be unanswered when we, as a human species, all die out when our puny, little, planet is engulfed by the sun.

CONTACT

Feelings are often thought of as something “inner.” But when you feel something, you are in fact making contact with the outside world more directly, forcefully, and vividly than usual. Given our everyday numbness, feelings register the extent to which we break out of our protective shells of familiarity and touch exterior life—real life—for the first time.

“At 19, I read a sentence that re-terraformed my head: “The level of matter in the universe has been constant since the Big Bang.” In all the aeons we have lost nothing, we have gained nothing—not a speck, not a grain, not a breath. The universe is simply a sealed, twisting kaleidoscope that has reordered itself a trillion trillion trillion times over. Each baby, then, is a unique collision—a cocktail, a remix—of all that has come before: made from molecules of Napoleon and stardust and comets and whale tooth; colloidal mercury and Cleopatra’s breath: and with the same darkness that is between the stars between, and inside, our own atoms. When you know this, you suddenly see the crowded top deck of the bus, in the rain, as a miracle: this collection of people is by way of a starburst constellation. Families are bright, irregular-shaped nebulae. Finding a person you love is like galaxies colliding. We are all peculiar, unrepeatable, perambulating micro-universes—we have never been before and we will never be again. Oh God, the sheer exuberant, unlikely fact of our existences. The honour of being alive. They will never be able to make you again. Don’t you dare waste a second of it thinking something better will happen when it ends. Don’t you dare.”

— Caitlin Moran (via theaurore)

I’m not scared

I’m not afraid of death. I never have been. Of course, I don’t want to die; I’m not suicidal. I’ve just never been scared to die. This doesn’t mean I’m reckless or dangerous. I’m not trying to die. I’ve always found it interesting how people cry at funerals. I’ve been to plenty of funerals but I’ve never cried at one. I think there are multiple reasons why people cry at funerals. Some people are mourning the loss of a loved one, they cry because they miss them. A while back I accepted the fact that people die and there’s nothing I can do about it. Death is just a part of life and I’ve learned to accept that. I think other people cry, not because they’re sad that the person in question died, but because being at that funeral, seeing someone dead, reminds them that one day, they’ll die too. They’re scared of dying. They want to live on this planet longer. And why? I think it’s because they have regrets. They’ve made mistakes and they wish they could take them back. They don’t want to die with that guilt and regret in their heart, in their soul, in their minds. Selfish. That’s why I’ve never cried or been sad or scared or mad because of death. Why be scared of something you can’t change? I feel the same way about regrets. Why get upset about something you can’t change? If you made a mistake that resulted in your life changing, and you can’t do anything about it, why be upset? Why regret it? If you believe in destiny, to you I say, well then that’s just where your life was meant to go. If you believe in God or some other higher power, I say, well then that’s just what God meant to happen. If you’re a nihilist like me, I say, your choices define you. Many of your choices are based on impulse and I have the philosophy that your impulse decisions show the true colors of people. Have no regrets, don’t be scared of death. It’s like the old saying goes: don’t cry over spilled milk. Don’t be scared of the things you can’t change.