I have never been found.
Some people believe that I am just a set of nerve cells, or some other bodily set of things.
Other people believe that we have souls.
Still other might believe that I am dream in their imagination.
But no one can pin point my exact location.
They can know which part of me is necessary for me to speak, to perceive visual objects. If they take away certain of my brain I will not be able to do certain things.
Animals have been experimented, widely, and we know all sorts of things about brain functioning. If it were not for the Nazis loosing the war I'm sure they'd be plenty of subhumans to make even more experiments. As it is, we restricted the set of conscious beings to which we are prepared to inflict unimaginable suffering.
Humanity... oh well...
Other people say it is possible to find me. It is like finding the "court" in the physical building. It's a mix-up they say. One thing is the building, another is the logical entity. It cannot be found in the building for it is an entirely different thing.
However, these people are speaking about the person Pedro. Whereas I'm speaking about the consciousness Pedro. The person Pedro, who has plenty of attributes, could eventually be re-enacted in some other point and time in the universe. Perhaps someone who had studied me very well could make an indistinguishable replica of me. So the person Pedro can be cloned, replicated, destroyed in many ways, rebuilt in many ways, combined and recombined an innumerable amount of times.
But I am aware, I am conscious, and that eye of the mind, the I of the mind, does not seem to change much through my personality changes. The act of will, the freedom I feel inside, may be annihilated by strong impulses, desires or simple "hormonal unbalances". But whenever it exists it is kind of a "light", an inner light, so much spoke of in less knowledgeable kinds of literature. And this does not seem to change.
Where does creativity come from? Where do thoughts come from? Where does love come from? And that immense sense of beauty when we look at the universe around us?
Of course, there are billions of well-thought out explanations about the mechanisms that brought us to what we are. But I am not speaking about that.
I am speaking about consciousness itself, which, as far as I know, no one was able to properly define (quite contrary to England's courts).
Perhaps it is here. Perhaps it is somewhere in my brain. Perhaps.
Syd Barret once wrote
"It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear
That I'm not here"
Well, I never got to that point. I don't know if "I'm here" or not. I'm not even sure about what that would mean. Perhaps it means we are free to travel anywhere, as long as we don't feel trapped, an indissociable part, in this world. Perhaps it is just a metaphor for "don't believe and you will see the immense abilities of the psychedelic mind".
Whatever it means, however, I would like to add to it a further piece of gibberish: Perhaps I don't belong here, but, since I am, in fact, here, perhaps I am really somewhere between nowhere and everywhere, and, "therefore" (had this made any sense) I AM also here.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Power over nothing
Power... the eternal struggle of the monkey (especially the male).
We see all through those glasses: we see all life as a struggle to power.
Look at all the species, the better are the stronger, the best predator, grass, trees, snails... oh! so immensely powerful. How wish to be the apex predator.
Obviously, apex predators are far from being very successful in the story of our planet. If we look around what we see is cooperation and differentiation. Cells gave rise to sets of cells, which gave rise to all sorts of organisms, some with different organs, etc. Plants are one of the most successful kind of organisms, they are not "powerful" in the sense of the growling monkey with lots of females and submissive allies. They don't have even the concept of territory, they don't go to war.
How many species, successful species, have frontiers, go to war, mistreat even the females?
We long for power, that's where we came from, that is our inheritance. Had we come more from bonobos we would have a whole different kind of civilization.
But we are martial. We crave for power...
And although we can easily understand why (because gestation times are very prolonged, so if a male fights for the control of many females his genes will be more spread out in the long run, which leads to a preponderance on that kind of violent disposition) it is also very easy to see that such a disposition can never lead to very technologically advanced societies.
If you get a bunch of animals all trying to enhance their frontiers, they will tend to use their assassin powers on "the enemy". As technology evolves so does the means of mass murder. So it is simply a matter of time between we destroy a large part of what is now humanity.
The good news is: there's still at least a thousand more million years before Earth becomes to hot for life (our sun is getting brighter). In that time, just as life as previously developed photosynthesis, through all forms of organisms, so life will develop increasingly more expanded minds. We discovered symbolic language. We were able to speak it, then to write it, now to digitize it.
We have created many images of Gods. We are very slowly on a path to become like those that we describe.
So, even if our killing instincts use our technology to destroy ourselves, in the long run, those genes will be less frequent. Precisely for the same reasons that they were selected before: there are others better equipped to survive in the long run.
Beauty, cooperation, integration, sharing, love... are other qualities that will work much better now. The more advanced the technology, the more advanced must the "heart" be, so that we can direct ourselves to the goals that truly bring us happiness and ecstasy.
Of course, many of us think that power is the best way for ecstasy and pleasure.
But what do you control really? If you have a slave, who is your slave? What dreams, aspirations, creativity, everything that makes one beautiful... what does he / she have? In the measure he / she is a slave, there will be nothing of that, just a willingness to obey every order, to fulfill every one of your desires.
By creating slaves you surround yourself with misery, with hollow specters, with adulators and parasites. You will become alone.
You have power over nothing really...
The world, out there, is much more beautiful, even the simple waves and the sea, have a music that escapes you, surrounded, as you are, in the prison of your own crusade for glory.
Loose yourself, understand that there is nothing over which you are powerful. You can die at any moment, you don't even know why you live, or what life is. You have control over nothing really, not even your self. You are a perfect unknown.
Look at the world outside...
it's full of mysteries... no one really understands it...
come... let's explore it, together, among all things of which we are part...
like brothers, like parts of a gigantic whole which we are just beginning to understand...
let's LIVE
We see all through those glasses: we see all life as a struggle to power.
Look at all the species, the better are the stronger, the best predator, grass, trees, snails... oh! so immensely powerful. How wish to be the apex predator.
Obviously, apex predators are far from being very successful in the story of our planet. If we look around what we see is cooperation and differentiation. Cells gave rise to sets of cells, which gave rise to all sorts of organisms, some with different organs, etc. Plants are one of the most successful kind of organisms, they are not "powerful" in the sense of the growling monkey with lots of females and submissive allies. They don't have even the concept of territory, they don't go to war.
How many species, successful species, have frontiers, go to war, mistreat even the females?
We long for power, that's where we came from, that is our inheritance. Had we come more from bonobos we would have a whole different kind of civilization.
But we are martial. We crave for power...
And although we can easily understand why (because gestation times are very prolonged, so if a male fights for the control of many females his genes will be more spread out in the long run, which leads to a preponderance on that kind of violent disposition) it is also very easy to see that such a disposition can never lead to very technologically advanced societies.
If you get a bunch of animals all trying to enhance their frontiers, they will tend to use their assassin powers on "the enemy". As technology evolves so does the means of mass murder. So it is simply a matter of time between we destroy a large part of what is now humanity.
The good news is: there's still at least a thousand more million years before Earth becomes to hot for life (our sun is getting brighter). In that time, just as life as previously developed photosynthesis, through all forms of organisms, so life will develop increasingly more expanded minds. We discovered symbolic language. We were able to speak it, then to write it, now to digitize it.
We have created many images of Gods. We are very slowly on a path to become like those that we describe.
So, even if our killing instincts use our technology to destroy ourselves, in the long run, those genes will be less frequent. Precisely for the same reasons that they were selected before: there are others better equipped to survive in the long run.
Beauty, cooperation, integration, sharing, love... are other qualities that will work much better now. The more advanced the technology, the more advanced must the "heart" be, so that we can direct ourselves to the goals that truly bring us happiness and ecstasy.
Of course, many of us think that power is the best way for ecstasy and pleasure.
But what do you control really? If you have a slave, who is your slave? What dreams, aspirations, creativity, everything that makes one beautiful... what does he / she have? In the measure he / she is a slave, there will be nothing of that, just a willingness to obey every order, to fulfill every one of your desires.
By creating slaves you surround yourself with misery, with hollow specters, with adulators and parasites. You will become alone.
You have power over nothing really...
The world, out there, is much more beautiful, even the simple waves and the sea, have a music that escapes you, surrounded, as you are, in the prison of your own crusade for glory.
Loose yourself, understand that there is nothing over which you are powerful. You can die at any moment, you don't even know why you live, or what life is. You have control over nothing really, not even your self. You are a perfect unknown.
Look at the world outside...
it's full of mysteries... no one really understands it...
come... let's explore it, together, among all things of which we are part...
like brothers, like parts of a gigantic whole which we are just beginning to understand...
let's LIVE
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