A reminder of your unlikelyhood.

It's been brought to my attention through some recent reading, that our existence, yours and mine and your dog's, is extremely unlikely. In fact if time were to start over again, humans wouldn't likely exist. Not homo sapiens, anyway.
~Go back 100 years, no world wars, no radical upheavals, sexual revolutions, modern political dramas, television...
~Go back 1000 years, no Renaissance, no revolutions, no Dark Ages, no butter churns or steam powered autos. I'm leaving a lot out for brevities sake. Try and stay with me.
~Go back 10,000 years, things could have happened differently for the earliest tribes of pre-historic hominids.
~Go back 100,000 years and you introduce potential for an entirely different kindgom of animal to dominate and adapt.
Restart time going back eons, and you could would see different forms of life on every continent.
Keep going back in this way and you could replay things over and over like a record and not see life ever come to be on this planet at all. The window for DNA reproduction would close before a successful replication ever took place, and Earth would die sometime billions of years later when our sun goes nova. Never to be heard from, never to have known itself existed. In the Eastern philosophical traditions, this means the same thing as never having existed at all.

But that's not how it happened. It all happened such that we are. We eat. We think. Most of us communicate, most of us are mobile. The majority work, play, and continue to reproduce. We do these in ways which vary from traditionally simple and rudimentary, to the novel, arguably excessive and complex ways that present knowledge and technology allows. We're the only intelligent life that we are likely to ever know about. Even if there is life elsewhere in this galaxy or it's neighbors (which seems likely) it's nowhere near as likely that it'll be close enough or capable of establishing communication, let alone travel, in between worlds. The space is just simply too vast. That said, we are effectively alone here. We a few sad exceptions, none of us wants to end our time here early, but we do know that it will, someday, all come to and end.

Just like how our time here as individuals is limited, our species cannot last on this planet. I'll save the rant about current situation for another post. Let's just pretend that we were to find a way to co-habitate here peacefully and sustainably. Even if we manage to accomplish this (and that's a big if) we still have outside factors to consider. Even if we survive our magnetic pole shifting, comets falling from the sky, and numerous other cosmic disasters we've seen happen all-too-often in other solar systems, our source for life, energy and heat will one day expire. Before that it will explode in a ball of fire that will probably destroy all of the other planets as well. From what we can tell, there is no way to stop or even stall this process.

The only reason I mention this is not to scare you. A doomsday in 30 billion years is hardly alarming. Quite the opposite, really, when you consider all the more pressing issues we have to consider. It's just that no matter what we do, our species will one day fade away with nothing left behind. We cannot turn back the clock on this. Our only real option is to evolve to a point where we outgrow these sorely limited three dimensions and exist in all dimensions simultaneously. Okay, you're probably saying, "Okay whoa, slow down bub." Then you ask "I only know about three three dimensions, and Time."

The only path to true immortality is to be one with God. Existing in all places, in all ways, throughout the entire temporal matrix.

See, if you understand basic shapes, you can understand the three dimensions we are capable of perceiving. Dots (points) make lines which in turn, make triangles, squares, circles, pyramids, cubes, spheres. You, me and the trees.
Take that pattern of adding directions and follow it's progression, to the next step and you see that conceptually, another dimension could exist beyond the third. It's not possible to properly image a "shape" in the usual sense and this sort of concept is very difficult to understand because it escapes intuition. But try and follow with what you know already about the dimensions that we can see.

From zero to one, two, three, then four. If you continue this pattern, it's not hard to understand how there could be an very large number, or perhaps infinite number of dimensions (why stop at 11?). It's not a practical thought, because we can still only perceive the first three, and unless we gain radically new understanding of how the universe works, that won't change, no matter what technological advances we posses. But this link might help help you in the right direction. Just keep clicking links to get deeper into the idea. Don't forget to open in new tabs, so you don't stray away too far, just yet.

So you start to see that unless we can transcend this physical form; become a formless consciousness existing only as energy in the ether or to put it differently;

If there is a "fabric" of space, we must become it's fibers

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Unless we do this, our time is absolutely limited.

Ray Kurswell suggests we achieve longevity by becoming one with The Machine. I think we need to take that one step further. There are measurable forces that exist in our universe that have an instant, measurable force on every other atom, albeit an infinitesimal one. Our goal should be to harness this phenomenon through understanding it better, and find ways to store information in these forces themselves. What Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" would be our posterity left for all of known existence. Gravity would be our language; electromagnetism, our chariot.

Let's just hope we're the first ones to think of it.

Consciousness as Information

If the future is what you make it, and is therefor predetermined by the character of the those who shape it, than is that character quantifiable through examination of the events in history? How do we separate cause from effect in observing human behavior?

This question dates back to the earliest philosophers, and crosses with a deeper conundrum, which for brevity purposes, will not be expounded here. That is, The nature of human experience. Still, it's worth noting that science and philosophy, and the careful study of history have brought us closer to explaining how things happen in life, and why. At the root of the issue in determining the nature of our experiences in time, is assigning responsibility to events happening in the world.

Lets say that the two sides of the great debate can be settled thusly:
From Day 0, Hour 0, Minute 0, second 0.000....0001, our Universe has moved forward as a result of the natural forces at work in it. The origins of which generally, we cannot, and perhaps never will, fully understand. Who created God?

Recent scientific discoveries demonstrate infallibly that a photon of light, while observed, will take a specific path along it's trajectory. Seems about right.
However because it's a photon, and not say... a piece of toast, it's also got the strange habit of going through all possible trajectories when it is not observed.

If a tree is in the woods, it's both standing and fallen until it is observed.

A cat in a box with a precarious vial of deadly poison is both alive and dead.

The fundemental natural forces that define the movement of energy and matter in the observable universe could have been different. Even if just one of these universal forces were to deviate in strength, area of effect or charge, even a slight amount, life on Earth, and perhaps anywhere in any galaxy, might never have been possible.

Bring us now to planet earth, page 1, chapter two, 4.7 billion years ago. A silly little molecule goes and does something nobody would expect. It creates an exact replica of itself. Life begins. Even more surprisingly, both "copies" survive to do it again. This is where things get a little tricky. This molecule's little dance will begin a chain of events that will eventually give rise to the earliest forms of single cell organisms, and from there, to the beginnings of what we commonly term 'Consciousness', in it's most basic form.

Click ahead a few thousand chapters to the day before yesterday, when you're sitting at your desk or table wondering "Why are we here? Where did it all go wrong? Is the tea ready yet? Who's to blame? "

In the courthouse, it is not a sufficient argument to state that the "universe made me do it" so we must then look at the individual, and try and determine what makes a person who she is, and what makes him do the things he do (so well). In order to find an answer, we've got to further define the question:

"Would I have done the same thing if I lived the same life she did?" Or
"Does my mind have some unique nature separate from my environment that drives me to behave according to particular traits of my character?

In other words, could Jesus have walked on water if he had been born with no legs?

Privacy vs Security

In the order of importance on the index to human needs, safety is second after meeting the basic requisite life giving forces (Physiological needs).

This makes sense when you think the need for safety is so important that without it, we are in immediate danger. For the purposes of this discussion, consider safety to cover preserving all matters of morality, family, possessions, health, and resources/employment.

So with the need for all this security and consciousness, we rely greatly on the systems in place by authority to protect us and ours. Enforcers (mall cops, RCMP, OPP), Judges, Policy Makers, Politians, Military Command, Military Intelligence, Secret Federal Agencies, Secret International Agencies, Seatbelts, Hospitals, Backround Checks, 911. A lay person would not be hardpressed to find minor improvements in any of these systems, but few could think of complete alternatives.

One system this web logger loaths, shuns, and particularly reviles, however, is the CCTV system in place in some of the world's larger cities. Governments and some mainstream media would have us all believing these systems are in themselves secure from tampering and abuse, that they prevent crime, and somehow keep the streets safe.

I understand, also, the opposite stance which would have me looking like some sort of paranoid maniac. Why the hell would anybody care about me? Well, in Canada, we are very fortunate. There have hardly been any conspiracies, let alone facts, tying our government to any abuse of snooping. I'm neither rich, nor famous, so who would be interested in learning everything there is to know about me, including that which I'd rather they not know?
Well, it's probably nothing, but once you start giving up your rights, it's a slippery slope to giving yourself up to somebody else's control.

CCTV
Does being on camera make you uncomfortable?

Computer programs now run 24/7/365 logging patterns of behavior by tracking certain "grey list" individuals, trying to catch them in the act of some eventual crime. So this is good, right? When she goes in to buy the 8 ball from her coke dealer, there'll be a boy-in-blue-waiting outside the door with cuffs. One less drugged up whore on the streets, right? Oh and we'll tack on those reported petty thefts the make-up store reported last month based on slightly out of focus security camera captures and imperfect facial recognition software.

Okay, I'm exaggerating to prove a point. Instead of relying on traditional crime reporting and investigative methods which assume, as our constitution states it should, that all users are innocent until proven guilty, we are simultaneously investigating all of the individuals captures by modern surveillance systems. Cameras, Cell Phones, Credit Card statements, and now powerful sattelittes with uncanny surveillance and tracking capabilities are the tools of modern governments used to spy on your average Joe.

This sort of power should not be entrusted to any organization. It shouldn't be allowed to operate in the first place. It's all well and good to have "Watchmen" who can see and react to a situation. It would be nice if we didn't have to pay each of these Watchmen a full-time police officer's salary. However, a key difference here is that if police were stationed on every corner, of every street, every hour of the day, but did nothing to stop crime that is happening right now, we'd call this a gross misuse of taxpayer money.

I, for one, am not willing to give up my rights to privacy to Big Brother in order to feel marginally safer. I prefer to look after myself.

The publisher edited some of the earlier posts for readability.