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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Human architecture - Part I

"Miracles can be explained."

And yes, my fingers are right now tapping on a keyboard and how many 'things' are going on, from my mind to brain to my 'nervous system' that 'makes' my fingers tap the 'correct' keys, and then the human invention that I am tapping on, the keyboard, and tapping what? Oh yes, letters and words and sentences -- thoughts. All too miraculous these symbols/codes that other humans are able to decipher, to recognize, to assemble and reform a semblance of my thoughts in their minds. And each step of the way -- how many steps? -- science could explain most of those steps, I believe. But many steps are still out of reach of today's science, understanding not yet understood. And understood? All the understanding is ours, created by us, within this human package that we find ourselves dwelling within. Of course an understood miracle was at one time a not understood miracle. In both cases, the 'miracle' is independent of understanding or not understanding. Understanding is just a nice 'gift' that 'nature' cares not about, or I should say, nature -- the physical world -- is ignorant of. For as far as we know, we are the only ones with the wherewithal to organize our sense data and recreate a semblance of the physical world within our skulls and to ponder and muse about it as well as wonder how we fit within this world and too, even imagine a different world. I like to think that this is what Genesis 1:27 means by "So God created man in his own image..." -- God muses and so we too.

1 comment:

Bijhan said...

"For as far as we know, we are the only ones with the wherewithal to organize our sense data and recreate a semblance of the physical world within our skulls"

Uh, wow, no, we're not. You see, if other animals didn't do that, they wouldn't really be able to interact with their environment, would they? The difference is the level of complexity in the construction of that idea. We can be sure a mosquito has a much simpler sense of spatial relationships, something suited to its minimalistic nerve-cluster-and-chemical-receptor brain, but if it didn't see that fly swatter coming it wouldn't move out of the way.

The way humans think is in fluid abstracts. Animals react on rigid stimulus-response systems. That's the difference.