Complexity

How can you look at the universe and not be filled with awe at the vast mystery that unfolds before you.
 
We are just beginning to understand how wonderfully complex it all is. Trillions of suns like our own spinning around billions of galaxies. 125 million miles of encoded DNA data in the nuclei of each and every one of our cells. Strings at the quantum level that fluctuate matter and energy, an earth that seems aware of itself, and human beings that can build computers and explore space but who only use 10% of their brains and whose consciousness is just beginning to open up to even more infinite possibilities.
 
But why is there such complexity? What purpose does it all serve? And most surprisingly, why are we conscious of this complexity?
 
Our ancestors stared at the universe with the same awe and encoded their visions and mysteries in remarkable ways through myths, architecture, astrology, astronomy, art, alchemy, music and religions. They tried to explain the complexity as God or Super Consciousness or Buddha nature. They saw that the complexity seemed to have its own consciousness that seemed to express itself in everything, from the spiral of the nautilus shell to the swirls of giant galaxies.  
 
They mapped the heavens and found seven bodies that seemed to be dynamic and living in cycles around us at the center: the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They gave them divine powers to affect us. They turned this sacred seven inwards. They reflected what they saw in the heavens within their own bodies and found seven spheres, heavens and Chakras that if concentrated upon would tune them psychologically and biochemically into different states of consciousness.
 
They saw that the stars in the background formed patterns that become constellations. They found that these numbers were to be found in everything in nature – the cycles of the moon 4 by 7, the cycles of precession – 21,600 years to complete one full round of all the star constellation, 60 years to complete 1 degree of precession, 1800 years to complete 1 house, 432, 108, 9…all these numbers became sacred.
 
They looked at the earth in the same way and saw her as a mother that gave nurture through gestation cycles of the seasons. They developed mysteries to celebrate the cycles of nature and gave them divine dimensions. They developed ritual and hallucinatory experiences for their devotees to experience the mysteries of nature. From the Amazon to the plains of Mongolia, Shamans and mystics developed techniques of inducing trance states to commune with their internal nature and in turn the external universal nature.
 
Psychologically, our ancestors found ways to control their bodies and minds and unleash amazing internal experiences and transformations. Through fasting, rhythmic dancing, meditation, prayer, drums, music, art, breath, silence, darkness, plant hallucinogens and concentration. Mankind was able to tap into supernatural realms through its own mind. Whether these were actual journeys is difficult to prove but the psychological and spiritual transformations gave birth to all religions, mystical practices and spirituality.
 
In these states man found creativity, mysticism, God, angels, demons, art and the stories that make up our myths.
 
All these techniques are still available to us, but in addition our knowledge of the universe has expanded to incredible new heights and our emerging knowledge of consciousness, microbiology, genetics, cosmology is all opening up new languages for the mysteries.
 
Do we still need God? Perhaps we should leave the door open for the possibility of her existence.

Reposted from Raja Choudhury’s Blog http://themodernmystic.typepad.com/themodernmystic/

Meet Spinnaker - Hal, is that you?

Ever since Hal decided to take things into his own hands in the seminal science fiction novel/movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, we have been fascinated with the idea of an artificial intelligence (AI) built into a man-made computer. The difficulty was not just in computer processing speeds and chips, but also in replicating the shear complexity of the human brain and consciousness. Now, scientists in the UK have unveiled a project called Spinnaker which takes us into a new age in the evolution of AI. Could this be an early ancestor of Hal and finally succeed in overturning the Turing Challenge?

According to Discovery News:

A computer with thousands of microprocessors is being built to mimic and model the function of millions of nerve networks in the brain.

The Spinnaker — short for "spiking neural network architecture" — system will not only help scientists better understand the complex interactions of brain cells, but it could also lead to fault-tolerant computers that, like the brain, work despite malfunctions in tiny circuits.

"You lose one neuron per second during your adult life. As they die, there doesn't seem to be any gross underperformance in the brain," said Steve Furber of the University of Manchester in the U.K., leader of the Spinnaker project.

(Read the full article: 'Brainbox' Computer Mimics Human Brain by Tracy Staedter, Discovery News at http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/08/02/brainbox_tec.html?category=technology&guid=20060802143030&&clik=news_main)

Discuss this subject further at the Universal Quest Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/universalquest/

The Value of a Human Life

These past few weeks have seen a very interesting revelation of the value of a human life in our modern consciousness through media and our self-interests in the developed western world. On the one side we had President Bush vetoing the Stem Cell funding bill on the basis of protecting a 150 cells that could one day form an American life and at the other end of extremes we had 650 die in a Tsunami in Indonesia, 500 in typhoons in China. While most of the news media outlets covered the Lebanon war (640 Lebanese dead versus 50 Israelis) and Bush’s veto, the daily death tolls of hundreds of Iraqis (over 2000 have been killed in the past month alone in sectarian violence), Indonesians, Indian, Sudanese and Chinese human beings. And this does not take into consideration the millions of people around the world that go to bed hungry and homeless and may not see the light of the next day.

I remember reading a UNDP report in 2003 that calculated the cost of managing a human being in different countries of the world from birth until death – health, education, housing etc. The numbers were staggering. A single American was equivalent to 1.5 British citizens, 77 Senegalese and well over 100 Bangladeshis. An American or British or Israeli life is considered more valuable and gets more media attention than 200 Indians dying in a terrorist attack in Mumbai or the poor Tsunami Victims of Indonesia. I guess the value of a human life is completely dependent on the wealth of their nation and the good fortune of their gene pool.

All perennial philosophies seek to find the common thread in our myths around the world and yes, DNA and universal philosophies say we are all the same at the core. But the reality today is that we are not equal at all.
 
What myth is being created here when a mere 5 – 10% of the world’s population consumes the majority of it resources, dominates its media minutes, and sees it self as more valuable than an equivalent human life across two thirds of the rest of the world. I guess we could compare it the myths of Olympian Gods playing games with mere mortals from high on Olympus and coming down from time to time to intervene in human affairs.
 
These are fascinating times we live in and while we obsess over what makes the middle east such a a breeding ground for conflict, we must really consider what role we play in perpetuating a world of divisions, disparity and the demeaning and devaluing of human lives. It will be interesting to see how perspectives change as China and India emerge as economic super powers towards the middle of this century and what value human life will have then based on their values and ideas of the human mythic experience.