Fond Musings, Akimbo!

         Behold the Man; Behold the Universe

Before continuing to read this post, I strongly suggest that the reader contemplates, and digests (not literally, of course, that would be just silly) an old post of mine, first penned in 2019, titled: Biocentrism. The topic of biocentrism has been expounded and expanded by a highly renowned scientist and stem cell researcher, Dr Robert Lanza. Essentially, the theory hinges on the concept that without biological entities perceiving the world, the universe and everything, there would be no world/universe/everything. He outlines his approach in two well-written and thought-provoking tomes. His theory enlists current quantum theory and dynamics to support his highly controversial musings. For instance, consider the 'Double Split Experiment'. I will not describe the experiment here, as I have already written about the investigation and its findings in the post on biocentrism. However, I will reiterate that the findings defy rational interpretation and are, frankly, rather unsettling to the cogent mind. However, interestingly, the concept of biocentrism has been put forth as a possible explanation for all this strangeness. When I wrote the 2019 post I intimated that further posts on the topic would follow....... Three years hence, I have decided to pick up the thread and continue where I left off. Consider this post as an introduction to the posts to come.  

In this introduction, it is important to state that I wasn't always the uncompromising and hard-headed rationalist that I have become. In my frivolous youth, I was very open to the possibility of supernatural worlds and occurrences. In part, this was due to an experience I had when I was but 3 years of age. As I distinctly recall to this day, my unsettling and profound experience is as follows: I remember awakening and observing an apparition, close to my bed. The apparition took the form of an old lady, seated. The experience was in vivid colour, clear and distinctly defined. She wore her hair in a grey bun and was clothed in old-fashioned garb, somewhat reminiscent of the early 20th or late 19th centuries. She also wore a pair of half-moon glasses. My ghost appeared very solid and real, to me. There was no animation and I remained transfixed and horrified. The experience, was perhaps, just a few seconds, and then my 'lady' broke up in a mosaic myriad of colours and disappeared. The spell was broken, and thereafter I ran screaming into my parent's room. 

It is possible to rationalise my experience. It is relevant that my vision occurred just as I awoke- remnants of a lucid dream, perhaps? All that said, there remain certain interesting elements to my experience. Thus, 'The Lady of the Council House' has aspects that remain rather intriguing. For instance, the old-fashioned dress and appearance would fit with the age of the house. As I understand the house was built sometime in the latter half of the 19th century. As a 3-year-old, I would not have made the connection at the time. Indeed, it was only when I was much older that I found the whole episode, anachronistic. Spooky, mayhap, although it is conceivable that my unconscious mind altered the experience, over time. But, regardless, the 'scene', taken in its entirety, was evocative of solid reality.

Undoubtedly, my experience influenced my subsequent beliefs and I became prey to various unsubstantiated paranormal phenomena. By my early 20s, I had become immersed in a raft of weird and strange ideologies. This was not to last. Imagine a fresh-faced, young Flaxen attending his first year of  'Big School'. Twas at university that my intellectual life paradigm evolved to things rational and coherent. As my science education progressed I began to grasp that the key to understanding, almost everything about the world, required mastery and appreciation of data acquisition and interpretation through the scientific method. And yet, we have the 'Quantum World' with its own nest of 'reality'. Biocentrism is not the only interpretation that has been put forth. The 'Simulation Hypothesis' has also been considered as a possible explanation for quantum oddity. Predictably, I have written about the simulation hypothesis here, back in 2016. According to the simulation scenario, the strange quantum world is but a glitch in the computer code controlling our 'existence'- Nick Bostrum and Elon Musk are leading exponents.  

I freely admit the bizarre findings attached to all things quantum disturbs my mind, more than I can say- that is why I have to write it down. There is a serious point to be made though. Our ancestors evolved a large brain for a reason. It seems that having an intellect is a positive quality conducive to survival. And here is the rub. We may be smart, but are we smart enough to fully contemplate the overwhelming universe in all its overwhelming and manifest complexity?  We may have to accept, that perhaps, our intellects are simply not attuned to understand and unravel the deep mysteries of our existence. Or perhaps, Biocentrism has the answer(s). Let's take another look at this fascinating concept, at least according to Dr Robert Lanza. Once more into the rabbit hole of DOOM (or enlightenment?).