Rivers of life flowing behind the scenes: Faucets, Eternities, and Probabilities Undefined     8

August 19, 2009



"Take these roses off of me
Let me live, let me be
for a little while
Let my eyes
see everything and nothing in their time
I do not mind"

Excerpt from lyrics of "Forever" by Vertical Horizon



         So it would be from such a tilted perspective looking at what would have to be 4D objects differently than we see them, our seeing only the 3D aspects of them, but not in any sense would it be 'seeing through' matter. It was all so simple at that moment and the 'paradox' just vanished. This does not get into all of the details, though that chapter you can see by clicking here. But it occurred to me then thinking over the problem again and again while sitting at my “thinking spot,” on Maui that I suddenly realized this, or sort of, without exactly thinking of it in these terms yet.




         Here I sit writing this in a spot of great meaning for me, my favorite beach, where I watched the beach-plant in Deconstructing the Universe form, struggle to survive, and then perish, where I first came to understand the misinterpretations of 4D sight (3D plus away) of being able to "see through" 3-D objects, and where I could close my eyes as the sun went down and see clearly cities I had never been to before, yet did go to later. I know of this spot's significance to me in things that did not actually happen. It was here in this spot I would have written RCP3 if things had gone differently in the external environment.




         Recently on the beach I noticed a tiny beach plant growing far from any others. It was this standing out from its surroundings which made it noticeable. Were it to have been among others like itself, it would have been indistinguishable and barely seen, yet because it stood so far apart from where one might have expected it to be, it suddenly appeared or registered as interesting. That it had the misfortune to be on a frequented path made its existence even more unlikely. For awhile it withstood these great odds but then suddenly but predictably was simply gone. Given the number of things that are required for life, existence at all is far more unlikely than even the most isolated or unlikely individual lifeform. For any species to continue living over time, it is beating the odds and one day will vanish without a trace, just like that tiny beach plant in the sand. It is this seeming ability to be beating the odds or overcoming obstacles which makes living interesting. ...
          Life is like water through indoor plumbing. It flows through something unseen and into something which appears as useful to us. The tap may be turned on and off but that is just one instance. It is not any more there than it is potentially anywhere else the pipes run. Turn off one and it just increases the potential for coming out somewhere else. No matter how you judge it, if you can conceive of the length of time or of eternity, you know that the faucet will not be open for long for anyone or any one species. Yet how far one makes it relative to how many or how great the odds appear against it is all that make its existence the least bit interesting over any others which only might have been. ...

Deconstructing the Universe: Addendum 5:
Probability Undefined



          So in this sense, the "lens" I was trying to define or imagine was the source of life or consciousness, and trying to play around with that concept more than just the "shadows", and trying to understand life "flowing into" each person from a higher dimensional viewpoint, or outside of the 3 dimensions we perceive point of view. ...




          As I have written before about things like this, I can see how the same concepts and ideas have crossed my mind and criss-crossed my experiences at different times in my life, and this idea of curved space has come up at various times and various ways in drawings and other things. I did not see it clearly at the time, but they connect together, different aspects of the same elephant so to speak. Eventually forced to deal with or meet these concepts head on, I have a bigger experience pallet to see how they fit together over time and the perspectives I was being moved towards, sometimes quite unwelcome, but in a logical progression. ...
         You can't run away from something that is a part of you. Wherever you go, there it is. It is in a sense inside of you, and integral part of what you are. Everything that you have experienced, could have experienced, what you are experiencing now or might have been experiencing now, and all that you will experience or could possibly, all of this is a part of you. You can focus on some parts and forget others. Indeed, you cannot see all points from any one point anyway, but all and everything else you can and sometimes do affect by your existence, all this or these "other" things in your realities are all a part of you. Moreover, without them, you are not or nothing. How they all must fit together, the organizational structure you define them by, and they you by, is what connects which points to any others, or which "theres" you can get to or see, from which "heres".




          I did not go back to adding onto Deconstructing the Universe for a few months, probably the longest gap, after the high water point of "Measure all things together." Seeing everything I was thinking suddenly clearer or from a different perspective, having all the pieces seemingly magically falling into place in front of me, gave way to a very difficult period.

          February and March of 2003 were very, very difficult, and hard on me. Doubt, fear, anger, sorrow, many things all at once. A very dark cloud over the future seemed assured. The War in Iraq and all the horrors it would unleash were becoming inevitable, and with it, seemingly any good future was unlikely. Many things were grinding my hope for the future down, harder and lower than almost ever before.

          My "thinking spot" beach as I would later refer to it was my oasis. My routine became to ride by bike along the beaches, sit in a spot leaning back on the concrete slabs and watch the sun go down over the water in front of me every day. When no one was around, just me and the sun and the sea, I could pour out all my hopes, doubts, fears, joys and sorrows before me. No impending war, no fall out or blowbacks to come, no past or future history at all, just me and a big yellow ball going down over the water. I could smile or cry or both at the same time, and just for awhile enjoy a private slice of timelessness outside of what was before or what was to come.

          There with my quiet contemplations, any number of things seemed simple. Nothing seemed too complex that a little thought and effort could not make clear. All futures I had hoped for were wiped out, yet I still was. The future was becoming increasingly improbable, yet the world still was. It was a long time, it seemed, before I would again acknowledge hope, however seemingly misplaced or unlikely.

          This daily ritual which was not all bad, suddenly became more interesting. Most of the time I would sit there, throw pebbles at the sand dune in front of me, trying to hit the same spot twice, and search for some way forward, through what might be coming down the pike. The beach plant I just noticed one day looking down right in front of where I was sitting in the sand.

          As I said in writing about it, it was the probability of its existence that made an impression upon me. There was nothing growing around it, just feet of barren sand, and that it was where people walked made it interesting. It was certainly doomed where it was, yet that is why I began to focus on it, looking forward to seeing it each day to see if it survived. Some days I would have to dig around to find it, prop it up a little bit after it had been stepped on, but began to not be detached from it. It was hopelessly screwed, yet it was still there, day after day.

          I was so focused on what was being lost of the future, the narrowing of choices, of ways forward, I was confronted, even surprised by, new life, improbable, unlikely, yet though fragile in each instance, indomitable on the whole. It was something not to be denied.

          That tiny plant became a focus of hope for me, like someone in a prison cell would make a pet out of a cockroach. In addition to making me think about probability and how life pushes through into wherever it can find a way to, it gave me hope again for other things. If that small speck of life could defy the odds each day, was the future more unlikely than the present? Do any methods of probability really have actuality if we cannot see the frame around which the universe exists within? The lengths of time or the number of possible universes?

          The entire life of that plant probably did not last more than a few weeks. Yet it was. And though there were no other ones like it nearby, even if no other ones came there again, by existing it redefined what was possible. Before that and for a few more months, my health was all over the place. My situation would become just as unstable and erratic and even improbable, yet watching and rooting for a tiny sliver of life on a barren beach made me focus again on the fact that new life was forever appearing around me which I was choosing not to see, new avenues were opening up I hoped would not be chosen or if so, long followed, and that new life was within me as well. The improbable would have its day, and I would accept that it would be beyond estimation on what was probable or improbable without knowing the frames. But regardless, my focus now was not on life, but fully on what makes life, that unknowable (seemingly) frame that makes life undeniable and unstoppable, and therefore rejoins even the unlikeliest circumstances to pop up and jolt us from our "odds" and expectations about or for it.


Probability Undefined

What is can only be seen, known, and
understood in relation to how much
and how often it is not.

          There are two ways to believe that probability is irrelevant or does not exist. One way is to believe only one future can or will exist as real, and all others will not. Though as I said before, some do not believe that this necessarily invalidates the notion of probability; that just because something will happen only one way, the way that it does or will, it still might have occurred some other way though that can never be proven because by that viewpoint, no alternate endings or versions exist anywhere else in the Universe to prove that they might have occurred any other way. Such an outlook, though not requiring it, that only one definite future will be real, compliments the idea of predeterminism. If only one future will be real, if there is in the future only one way things will go, then one only needs enough info on the variables to determine how it would go. Probability depends only on having inadequate information for accurate prediction, for with enough information, though some would still cling to the fact it could happen some other way, if those who believe in one single future universal reality were correct, if enough information existed about that future reality by knowledge of all potential variables, it is conceivable it could be deduced.

          Many leaders of nations as well as individuals use the idea that the future is preordained to justify doing something in the present they know otherwise they ought not to be doing, that such a future state of being is inevitable and they are merely doing what they must to make that state occur. Believing that only one outcome will occur makes every decision become that much more critical as if the world will exist or not exist, become a utopia or a hellish slave state, depending on the outcome of every action those in a position to make or prevent such states of being occur by how they act or fail to act when it becomes required of them. Even if multiple realities exist, it does not necessarily diminish the responsibility to get it right this time, for in a sense this time may be all we see or get, by our own individual points of view existing in or shaped by this somewhat unique run through or common reality. But those who dare entertain the notion that only one reality or version exists in the future can think themselves to be guided by a state of being or planned existence no more real or definite than any other, and the sacrifices for that one future, not being the only possible future, might outweigh those required by an alternate alternative future they would never consider as possible.

          This limiting to thinking some versions of the future or future events to be inevitable or more probable limits one in acting other than in accordance to the realities built from and required within those very expectations. The more one believes one knows or understands the future, the more one limits oneself to acting within a way that would make or create such an intended state. When this is done consciously, it is called planning and acting in accordance with such plans. When it is done subconsciously or in accordance with religious or paranormal beliefs that one future or possible state is inevitable, it is to become a pawn or slave to those ideas. For thinking one can know or experience the one, and the only one, future is to absolve one from fearing the consequences of what they must do in order to make that one future, and indeed any one future over any other, to have to occur for they think it can happen no other way. Nothing is written in stone if there is more than one way the future can go, not even the present or the past.

          The other of the two ways for thinking probability is irrelevant or non-existent is to go completely in the other direction and say that if any possible future event or reality or outcome can occur because it does occur in some or any possible realities, it must have always either a probability of one (or 100%) in those realities in which it did actually occur and a zero percent chance in those realities in which it did not occur. Because it both does and does not occur, its probability exists in an indeterminate state because it itself is in an indeterminate or multiple states. This can be adjusted by saying that because it can or would happen more in one way than others, or in some realities more than others, probability can be preserved by saying in one in six possible realities after a roll of the dice, only one reality exists for each possible outcome, and if one intended or required a particular number, in five of those realities one would be disappointed and in only one would one be satisfied. Yet if there are six realities in which you made that one choice at that one moment, there would be countless others where you never were in the position to roll that dice at that one moment. Any different decision anywhere along the line would have opened up a whole new reality where you were anywhere else doing anything else than making that one choice at that one time.

          If there is no limit to how many times a given reality could occur, how could one ascribe probability to any one event? Existence or non-existence from the individual's point of view either occurred or did not occur. If it does occur in any reality there would then be countless subsequent realities where one lives and no longer lives, where one took one path and another version of oneself took another path, and if the present run through is not the only one, potentially many infinitely more probable realities which did not or will not even lead to ones existence at all. In the face of such innumerable alternate realities, the chance of anything happening in any way at any one time becomes impossible to measure without knowing how often such a set of circumstances can or will occur which would make such subsequent chances even possible. If one were to repeat something of random chance an infinite number of times, it would happen an infinite number of ways. If the odds of a dice coming up a certain number are always one in six, there is nothing to say that after a billion rolls, there might not be periods where it came up the same number or never came up one number after thousands of tries. The larger the number of potential run throughs, the more skewed any observable results can be, even over thousands of observations when the number of attempts is without limit or uncountable, no odds are provable or concrete.

          In this reality what draws our attention is what stands out from or apart from anything else. We seem to be different or apart from our environments, with some autonomy in our movements and in our choices. Our planet seems to stand out from or apart from the empty space surrounding it. We define things in opposition to or apart from that which we think they are not. Once in existence we have no relation to that time or state of existence in which we are not. (Once past occurring it must seemingly always occur that way or it becomes what is not, a dead branch with no life which is ultimately unreal. Once admitting any other possible alternate reality or outcome diminishes the realness of the currently experienced one). Without knowing how many times or ways we can occur, we cannot affix any probability to it. We simply and suddenly are. It seems given the age of the Universe, and the countless ways we or Humanity or Earth might happened differently, any one of us most likely as an individual might never had existed. Your parents or theirs might never have met, and so on. You can think this reality you are living in was meant to be and predetermined because it is the only one you know and in no small measure, the only one YOU as you exist now, could ever know, or you can see it as an infinitely small branch of a branch of a branch of trillions time trillions nearing infinity of other ways the Universe not only could have gone but does go in the overwhelming majority of other instances where you never exist within it, ever.

          Yet it is this very improbability, or if you prefer, fragility of existence which makes it seem to us in the way that it does. Countless mistakes we might make today could lead to our ruin tomorrow. We run the gauntlet of chance just by existing and if you believe that multiple versions of reality exist, we are far from always successful or even always still alive at this point in time. Yet the more predictable our lives become, whether through sensing of other more common potential futures over others from endless run throughs of similar realities or by our choices and methods of choosing becoming more narrow and predefined, we often instead of following those same known paths endlessly through infinite time, we seek out the new and completely unknown ones, if at all possible that any can stay unknown indefinitely since time itself can almost be infinitely occurring in any of an almost infinite number of ways, even if its birth date and end date were to be predetermined or prescribed.

          Recently on the beach I noticed a tiny beach plant growing far from any others. It was this standing out from its surroundings which made it noticeable. Were it to have been among others like itself, it would have been indistinguishable and barely seen, yet because it stood so far apart from where one might have expected it to be, it suddenly appeared or registered as interesting. That it had the misfortune to be on a frequented path made its existence even more unlikely. For awhile it withstood these great odds but then suddenly but predictably was simply gone. Given the number of things that are required for life, existence at all is far more unlikely than even the most isolated or unlikely individual lifeform. For any species to continue living over time, it is beating the odds and one day will vanish without a trace, just like that tiny beach plant in the sand. It is this seeming ability to be beating the odds or overcoming obstacles which makes living interesting. Were every potential run through equally real and experienced at whim, there would be no death, no failure not desired, and no odds to be beaten. We cannot get that feeling of triumph without having those all too frequent failures or the entire experience of living becomes a farce. Without the real possibility of failure or death, success becomes reduced to merely the continuation of monotonous existence.

          Life is like water through indoor plumbing. It flows through something unseen and into something which appears as useful to us. The tap may be turned on and off but that is just one instance. It is not any more there than it is potentially anywhere else the pipes run. Turn off one and it just increases the potential for coming out somewhere else. No matter how you judge it, if you can conceive of the length of time or of eternity, you know that the faucet will not be open for long for anyone or any one species. Yet how far one makes it relative to how many or how great the odds appear against it is all that make its existence the least bit interesting over any others which only might have been. Take away improbability and impermanence, and you lose the most important defining aspects of what it means to exist. One simply cannot always win or one tires of the need and the desire to play the game. We ask the Universe two things by existing, to always surprise us and to never let our existence or success be assured. If we think we have the need or potential to do, be, have, or create something which its existence or state of being is far from assured, we can experience that movement, dance, or flow we call living.

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