Do you know what I mean when I say that it is shocking, stunning, marvelous, mysterious, unspeakably amazing to be alive?
I suspect you do.
It's a realization too tremendous to be captured by something as puny as an intellect. When it hits you, there are no words for it. Fearing losing the epiphany, you struggle to commit it to memory. I must not forget this. Not this time.
But of course you never quite capture it. You're left with words, ideas. "Remember, being alive is great." A mere whisper of what once left you ravished, now confined to the narrows of the mind.
And you're left with questions. Where the hell did it come from? How could it come to be? And when? But having failed to capture the "it" in question, your questions point slightly -- and thus infinitely -- in the wrong direction. Not wrong by anyone else's standards, but ultimately, by your own heart's.
Perhaps you try to pin down "life" through biology:
Or maybe you try to answer the "where did it come from" question through physics. We're just stuff, and if we can figure out where all the stuff came from, we can regain the splendor. Getting ever-closer to the start time of the Big Bang; to the smallest stuff of existence. Almost there!
A more refined approach might be to notice that the splendor of being alive is really the splendor of experiencing -- i.e., of being conscious. And since, as we all know, consciousness is created by brains, we'll probably find the answer in neurotransmitters. Or, as the current thinking goes, it's just an algorithm, in which case it can be captured by a sufficiently complex lambda expression.
You desperately want the big answer to be something more grand than just "dead stuff randomly bouncing off each other" but you don't want to be naive. And so you quietly settle for an imitation, patiently waiting to be roused again.
Alas, the more I harp on it, the further I take you from it. So, as frequently as you can, return to the realization that sparked it all.
You cannot capture it. You will not explain it (i.e., find closure in words or formulas). But you can regain it. Which is a great relief, because it's the one thing you ever wanted.
I suspect you do.
It's a realization too tremendous to be captured by something as puny as an intellect. When it hits you, there are no words for it. Fearing losing the epiphany, you struggle to commit it to memory. I must not forget this. Not this time.
But of course you never quite capture it. You're left with words, ideas. "Remember, being alive is great." A mere whisper of what once left you ravished, now confined to the narrows of the mind.
And you're left with questions. Where the hell did it come from? How could it come to be? And when? But having failed to capture the "it" in question, your questions point slightly -- and thus infinitely -- in the wrong direction. Not wrong by anyone else's standards, but ultimately, by your own heart's.
Perhaps you try to pin down "life" through biology:
The capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.Is that what you were once gobsmacked by? Something growing from four feet to five? Splitting from one to two? Being able to lift a box? Graying hair? Not to take away from the wonder of those, but be honest: is that what you were after? Close, but still infinitely far.
Or maybe you try to answer the "where did it come from" question through physics. We're just stuff, and if we can figure out where all the stuff came from, we can regain the splendor. Getting ever-closer to the start time of the Big Bang; to the smallest stuff of existence. Almost there!
A more refined approach might be to notice that the splendor of being alive is really the splendor of experiencing -- i.e., of being conscious. And since, as we all know, consciousness is created by brains, we'll probably find the answer in neurotransmitters. Or, as the current thinking goes, it's just an algorithm, in which case it can be captured by a sufficiently complex lambda expression.
λn.λf.λx.n (λg.λh.h (g f)) (λu.x) (λu.u)
Fig 1: Consciousness. Or close enough. Just need to add a few terms....Or perhaps you've moved past the passé phase of believing that we'll explain it, and onto the hip new phase of hand waving it out of existence.
"Let me be as clear as possible: Consciousness doesn’t happen."Oh, whew. For a second there I thought there was a profound mystery at the heart of existence. But... words on a page.
You desperately want the big answer to be something more grand than just "dead stuff randomly bouncing off each other" but you don't want to be naive. And so you quietly settle for an imitation, patiently waiting to be roused again.
Alas, the more I harp on it, the further I take you from it. So, as frequently as you can, return to the realization that sparked it all.
You cannot capture it. You will not explain it (i.e., find closure in words or formulas). But you can regain it. Which is a great relief, because it's the one thing you ever wanted.
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