The Great Tide

 Nietzsche asked, "Do you want to be an ebb in this great tide?" He is talking about the tide of evolution. Of how a creature struggles and works towards creating something better than itself. But what's great about this tide? It's just a play of nature. A nature with infinite resources and infinite time. What does it lack? It has created countless worlds like ours. So nature doesn't need it. Now let's talk about ourselves. Humans need it, for themselves. And that's the source, the basis of Nietzsche's conviction. "I love mankind", Zarathustra said. It was his love for humans that gave him the basis, the ground to stand on. It's the identity thing. Whatever we identify with, we work for that. You identify as Indian, you work for betterment of India. You identify as Hindu, you work for and according to your religion. You identify as Mumbaikar, you develop hate for Biharis. You identify as human, you develop a philosophy for the betterment of mankind. But I don't identify as any of that, I don't get into this game. I don't like giving labels to myself. I am just a being. 

    So, what's great about that tide? It's a great as any of other nature's plays. The only other way I can think about this is: it's my desire. I created this tide in my past because I wanted it. What was I seeking back then? I don't know. But my present can't find a basis to be part of this tide. It was a desire. It is desires that create worlds, Buddha as well as Walter Russell said that. But in current human form, desire needs reason as well, else desire can't move forward. And I find no reason to continue this tide. It's not great for me. For what purpose I give my effort, my energy in continuation of tide? What are the prospects, what are the results? There is no worthwhile result.

    If it's all about me, all that matters is me and my desire, then I would rather not continue the desire, I would rather not continue the tide. I don't find it worth the effort it takes.

Why is there urge in me to "do something"? I think I should accept the non-worthiness, the meaninglessness of outside doings instead of struggling against it. By now for fact that there is nothing worth doing in the outside world. Nothing equals the effort it takes. The active energy of my mind is only spent on useless things. I know it, and that's why I either seek them or when I do one of them out of urge or something I only feel disappointed later on.

My conclusion on life

 So far, this is my conclusion on life:

Life in its fundamental sense is free energy. Brain/mind tries to direct it, in a way that it thinks is beneficial for organism. Because that's how evolution developed it, that's how replicating organisms evolved on earth. The tragedy of humans is that we had good memory and more mirror neuron so became capable of reflecting and being aware of things and our actions in hindsight. While it helped us getting better at survival it also increased our suffering to level no animal had ever seen. We saw death! Development of religion is one of the most primitive traits of all human tribes, why? We had to develop an afterlife. We had to develop gods that take care of our crops, rains, floods. Otherwise it was just chaos in front of us upon reflection. It rains anytime, flood comes anytime destroying our crops, animals attack out of nowhere. Above all, we die. How could any human reflect on these things and keep a healthy mind. He had to find solutions to these problems.

Mind is a result oriented machine. That's why the conclusion that "life is meaningless" is perceived negatively. Such people then draw up another conclusion, that if life is meaningless then eat, drink and be merry. That's often the philosophy of atheists and nihilists. But it's again another conclusion of mind, because there is some is perceived benefit in 'eat, drink and be merry'. They bring good feelings, they are pleasurable to senses. But it's not Truth of life. Truth of life is that life is. Now it doesn't give us about origins of life. Yet it's complete truth. It's complete in the practical sense. Origin of life is a past thing, something that already happened. Knowing the story of origin is merely that - knowledge of a story. The practical thing, the reality is the present life. Knowing about that reality is the main thing. Thus the truth about present life is complete truth in practical sense.

The energy is flowing. The mind tries to direct it towards a supposedly beneficial thing. I spent a lot of my time, too much of my time, analyzing, believing or chasing its various conclusions, either my own conclusions or of others. But I was probably lucky because my will to truth used to take me out of those loops eventually.

The directionless of energy, the is-ness of life, comes with another consequence: freedom in answer to question:"what to do?" What to do? No matter what the truth of life is, I still have to live my life in some way. I am existing with the energy and the apparatus of evolution. I have to do something with it. The is-ness of life gives me freedom to do anything. I had this freedom earlier too before finding truth of life, but I didn't know it, I wasn't sure of it. 

So that's my point, that's my conclusion regarding the fundamental, the practical question, the only question that actually matters: 'What to do?' This is actually the most important thing, more important than knowing the truth about origin of life. How life arose is not important. Important is what to do. What should I, as an individual do, how should I live my life, that's what's important for me. And when I seek truth I am actually seeking the answer of "what to do?" in the hope that maybe past and truth about life and evolution will give me the answer to it. The story or truth of life in itself should be irrelevant to me. I am living now and I have this life, this energy, this ability with me and the only question is what to do at this moment. 

Again I am amazed at the loop. Because this is the same conclusion that I reached to 10 years ago, in my post 'Decoding Life'.

Subjective side of replicating molecule and its Evolution

The replicating molecule that was precursor to first cell must have felt urge to combine with particles that were similar to itself and that it was capable of attracting. When it succeeded in combining molecules to itself, it must had a sense of relief, of tension subsiding. (Naturally, charged chemical molecules always are tensed and are in search of a way to ease this tension. The tension eases when they combine with opposite charged compatible molecule.) Such feelings/sensations of tension and relief were the subjective side of those molecules.

When one molecule came and attached to replicating molecular structure, it was feeling one type of forces around it. When another molecule came and attached to replicating structure next to this first molecule, first molecule feels a change of force around it. Its feeling changes. Now its destiny is linked to the other molecule. With each coming molecule, the force around first molecule changes and that's reflected in change of feeling it feels. Its urge, its attracting power changes. Finally when all molecules are attached to replicating structure, they are in shape similar to original replicating structure. When new structure separates from original structure, the overall feeling it feels is similar to the overall feeling of original structure. That's because molecular composition and shape and structure is similar. So the force around it is similar. The attraction and charge it has is similar. Now the feeling of our first molecule is morphed in a way that it is part of overall feeling of structure. That's because the force and charge our first molecule has around it is morphed due to other molecules around it. That overall new molecular structure has a resultant force and charge (attraction).

The world of a charged element or molecule must be quite chaotic. It feels a constant craving to satisfy the deficiency (in case of negative charge) or excess (in case of positive charge) it constantly feels. It attracts the first compatible opposite charged element/molecule that comes near it through electromagnetic force and combines with it to form a new molecule. The resultant molecule may be stable or it may also have some charge. If it has charge, it will again seek to combine with any compatible opposite charged molecule. All this leads to many different molecular structures with different properties. One such structure may have been a bit long and may have a property of replication. It attracted only molecules similar to its own constituent molecules, but when they all combined, it felt a repulsive force and released the new structure away. Once alone, it again attracted, then again released. Thus the cycle went on and the original structure became a replicating machine. All the structures it was releasing were similar to itself and they all became replicating machines too and thus the number of these replicating molecular structures increased exponentially, provided constituent molecules were available in abundance.

Replication with protective layer: Now, naked molecules may have gotten easily destroyed due to a variety of outside forces but lets say some of them accidentally got inside oil bubbles or other form of protective bubble. Those inside the bubbles were safe from variety of destructive outside forces. So bubble ones survived and naked ones got destroyed. Now we only have bubble enclosed replicating structures. They again started replicating if constituent molecules were able to flow inside those bubbles. When new structure separates from parent structure, it moves away with speed and as it reaches bubble boundary, it takes half the bubble with it. (Or it may be that bubble/molecular membrane was part of original molecular structure in the way it attracts molecules around it. Maybe, in addition to attracting similar constituent molecules, it also attracted some type of molecules around it in a circular fashion, like soap does around dust particles.) So when replication completes, bubbles/membrane also splits into two, around each structure. The bubble may be smaller at first but it would retain original bigger shape because of property/force of molecular structure and availability of raw material of bubble/membrane nearby.

Evolution: Lets say original molecular structure didn't have the property to form a protective membrane around it. The replications aren't perfect and error leads to some change in molecular structure of some copies (error may be due to a new molecule coming near and attaching somewhere to parent structure because it had properties similar to constituent molecule and thus was mistakenly accepted). Now let's say one such errored copy had a property of making molecular membrane around it. So this copy and copies of this copy had membrane around them while all other structures were naked. A destructive force or wave came from outside in the pool where all our molecular structures were propagating and killed all naked structures. But the structures with membrane survived due to protection from membrane. So from now on only membraned structures will be available in pool and they will replicate. Membrane became a fundamental part of our structure. This is evolution. A simple game of numbers and chance. All sorts of changes occur and propagate for time being, but only those changes that help in survival and propagation tend to survive in long term.

We today only see RNA and DNA, i.e. combination of nucleotides, but not any other simpler replicating structure. There must have been series of evolution of replicating structure that lead to RNA but probably previous ones didn't survive and only RNA ended up surviving or was stable enough to survive in long term. How did things come to RNA? RNA duplicates itself as well as releases proteins (made of amino acids - carbon based molecules) that help RNA in many ways - helping in replication as well as carrying out functions of RNA. How did it come to be? 

We do what we feel to do. To relieve this eternal craving we feel. Fill the gap / fill the hole as they say. Feelings change with events. Replicating molecule initially feels hunger. But when it manages to attract and attach all necessary particles to form a copy, maybe for a moment it is relieved, but then it feels the need to detach the complete copied molecule. Isn't it the same with us? We move from desire to desire. Once we attain a desire, for some small time we feel good but soon move on to next desire. Today's food can't satiate tomorrow's hunger. Why isn't the molecule ever satisfied? Because the day it is, it will be the end of its lineage. In the past, many forms of replicating molecule may have gotten satisfied/stabilized, then they no longer felt need to replicate and that was their lineage's end. Maybe even today they lie somewhere, gratified; more likely - external forces fragmented them away. 

But how did events turn into feelings? They were already feelings, only the feelings are now more segregated, specialized, as per the evolution. The hunger of molecule changed its "taste" as its shape changed. 

(A side idea that just came to me: Maybe particles don't 'have' feelings, maybe particles 'are' feelings.)

Initially the molecule controlled its structure from its own force. Then it started sending out smaller messengers/carriers/agent molecules to carry out work for it. How? An anomaly in molecule would've made it attract and then repel specific molecules and those molecules had some effects, say, weakening the protective layer during replication. Such change would've made that cell reproduce better/faster increasing its number and consequently chances of survival in a chaotic world, which it clearly did. Now that cell is bigger and has many molecules involved other than original replicating one, the feeling/force of cell as a whole is equal to resultant of feelings/forces of individual molecules. BUT only those cells will survive in which this resultant feeling is still of hunger and desire to replicate. This principal keeps eliminating those changes that lead cell to behave in any other way (i.e. cells with such changes don't replicate/survive). It may look difficult or improbable, but when you consider that those cells had many million years at their disposal, it becomes probable and even natural.

Life and Subjectivity

The question that I began with was: Which is bigger/which came earlier - Will to Power or Will to Live? Basically Nietzsche vs Schopenhauer. Or is it Will to Freedom (Buddha)? Which of these drives the life? Organic life was created by a molecular structure that was able to replicate itself. It was able to attract particles from the organic pool in a shape similar to itself and thus created its copies. So it clearly showed property that it wanted to live, that's why it created copies of itself so that they can live incase it dies. Basically it made copies of its soul so that it can live through them even after its own death. So there is clearly a will to live. But why do that? Why so much thirst for life? To exert its power over the world? I don't think so. I think it just wants to be, and is doing everything so that it can.

But then came to my mind, is there really a strict difference between living and non living? that molecular structure merely happened to have a shape that attracted other similar particles and led to its copies. There are trillions of other molecular structures in which no such thing happens. "Conway's Game of Life" video game shows how a few very simple rules can lead to inanimate particles making copies of themselves. So maybe (organic) life is not the culmination or purpose of universe, it is merely an offshoot, a branch of it, just one consequence of universe's rules.

What do the particles want? What does the universe want? How does a planet view the world? Does it have a subjective world? How does it perceive law of gravity? scientific logic tells us that human's subjective view of the world cannot be a supernatural thing, so maybe everything has a subjective world, something Schopenhauer also said - that subjective cannot be separated from objective and they always co-exist.

Does everything just want to live, to be, or can it have some other motive too?

Maybe it is an ongoing, decentralized process. In the beginning, that molecule structure making copies of itself was merely an event, something that just happened because of its properties. But as that thing evolved, became more sophisticated, this reproduction property became its god, became an unbreakable rule for it. In us, it gives the feeling of sexual drive. Acquiring raw material for reproduction became another necessary rule. In us, it gives the feeling of hunger. Earlier, making a copy was merely an inanimate event that happened to that molecular structure; In us, it is a whole subjective feeling. Because we are children of that event, we are beneath it, we are created from it, so for us it is a god. Making a copy became an essential rule for this whole lineage of organic life because without it, the entity would no longer be part of the lineage, the legacy. To disconnect from lineage is called DEATH.

The legacy of that molecular structure is called organic life on earth. Recurring events of previous beings of lineage became subjective feelings for next beings of lineage.

So pain and hunger and sex drive are all subjective things? I would say yes. They sure feel objective. Event of father is reality of son.

So is that how inanimate turns into animate, non-living turns into living? Because of the subjectivity and similarity of subjectivities. The copying mechanism made subjectivity of lineage similar and  similar feelings emerged and thus led to regarding each other as living. We share a similar past and roads that led to present are similar and thus our subjectivity is similar.

So yeah, that structure of molecule was alive. And it did have some properties. Its property of attracting similar molecules can be called rudimentary form of hunger or sex drive. It must feel that hunger. Evolution of body is parallely accompanied by evolution of feelings/subjectivity. I am not sure if they are one and the same thing but it's like from outside an alien sees that we eat food but from inside only we know that we feel hunger and need to eat food and that's why we eat food. The structure of molecule, from outside, appears to be just attracting particles, but from inside it must have felt a hunger to bring particles close to it.

Music and Body

We can't sing without moving our hands. Singers know that. Similarly orators need to move their hands while giving speech. With some singers, different and subtle nodes are accompanied by different and subtle movement of hand and fingers. This shows that thoughts and words are actually movements of body. When the body wants to execute a thought, it can do that through only one way of execution that it knows of - movement. Our body is still not used to speaking. Our body, which was formed under millions of years of non-speaking era and knew of only one way of executing its needs/desires - movement, has not fully accepted speaking as another form of executing tasks yet, as speaking is a recent invention.

 

Humans can sing and produce music by subtle movement of hands. We make music, hear back the music, and when it resonates with body, it sounds pleasant. All great musicians say that music comes to them, they don't create it. They say it comes from god and they merely act as vessels to it. When the music resonates with body, body starts dancing. Dancing is an activity that I always found strange. I mean ok, maybe we learned music from birds or hollow wood sounds or echo, and it can have practical uses too. But why dance? why waste energy on a non productive activity? When music resonates, body starts dancing in rhythm. We also feel like dancing when we are happy and elated. That happens without music. It opens a correlation that music or musical notes are basically a picture or pattern or map of our inner body and show the pattern in which body is most happy. Maybe this is our resonance frequency. People of different personalities like different type of music, although basic theme of all human music is same consisting of seven basic notes. Animals rarely dance to our tunes. They sometimes do but rarely. Maybe we can experiment in this area and find at what music frequencies different animals dance or their body shows rhythm. Sufis use dance as a way to god.

 

An argument commonly given is that music and dance is used by animals to attract partner. This is an incomplete argument. Why would partner get impressed by useless sounds and moves? Maybe he/she wants to see how 'in tune' you are with your body? Those better synced with their body can make better/quicker decisions.

 

Words are thoughts expressed/executed. Body hasn't fully recognized act of speaking yet so it produces a movement to execute those thoughts. Thoughts are brain recognizable body needs/desires/fears.

 

It is a myth that people can think without moving. People can ‘remember’ without moving. Thinking is a different process. New thoughts arise when you’re in motion. That’s why we have rocking chairs which are favorite of writers and thinkers. Nietzsche said he got all his best ideas while walking. He used to go on a mountain walk everyday and suggested walking method to others as well. Idle body cannot generate new thoughts, exceptions aside. If nothing else, we move the eyes or head. When people become clueless in a situation, they start moving their head and blankly stare at meaningless objects, as if seeking a new idea from them. The objects don’t give them the idea, the movement of head and vision does. When we dream, our eyes move. This phenomenon is called REM. The deeper the dream, the faster the eye movement. Why would eyes need to move for a purely brain activity? The movement generates creative dream ideas.

 

Thoughts are brain recognizable body needs/desires/fears. Brain acts as an intermediary between inside world and outside world. Thoughts aren’t exact body desires. They’re outcome of how brain interprets those desires and quantifies them in thoughts. Brain learns from outside world. Whatever brain knows, it has gathered from outside. So when brain translates body desire into thought, this is what it does - it scans all the knowledge it has gathered from outside world and tries to relate it with desire. And creates thought based on whatever it decides as the best possible combination or relation. It is a learning process. In the beginning, it is really a hit and miss. The thought brain settled upon may actually have nothing to do with body desire. An example of this is the classic teenage angst and the outcomes it produces. Hormonal changes occur rather suddenly creating intense body needs/desires and teenager’s brain tries to interpret them based on whatever it knows. But it knows very little. So the thought brain settles upon is most of the times a miss. And what thoughts they are! It can be anything in the world. Controlling parent, school groups, boyfriend/girlfriend, sports, politics, race, capitalism/communism, state of planet etc etc. Whichever of these the brain decides upon, the teenager lashes on it with all his might. He wants to satisfy that intense body desire. And how often it happens that he returns disillusioned? Very often. Because the thought was a miss. The things he thought will satisfy him, do not, even if he manages to achieve them. The body didn’t want them, the body wanted something else.

Meaning of life is found in tiredness

Life and Purpose

Potential: Jordan Peterson

Great video. It seems to reveal the nature of life and humans in a very clear way. He says that life has a purpose, intrinsically. We tend to adopt nihilistic views when we interfere with life's natural processes. And that adoption itself interferes with life's natural processes. It is a form of perversion. His talk on how adults interact with child and what happens in love are very clear and true. That's what really happens. When we fall in love, a new window seems to open in our life. We see a purpose. We get a clear view of great life ahead. And it opens us up. It removes all self imposed barriers and burdens we had on our shoulder and which clouded our thought process, which were imposed because of a closed view on life, because of whatever philosophy or complex we had enclosed ourselves into for various reasons. 

When we have a purpose, it's a great thing, and a very important thing. That purpose doesn't have to be tangible and clearly defined. It is just the movement and striving towards something, movement and striving forward. 

He also talks about reality. So it's not like we should choose this way of life because it's beneficial. It's not like we are choosing it over the other alternative that is nihilism, which science reveals. Maybe this is reality, the only truth. It can't exist without us, without a purpose. It makes sense.