Chapter one – the first letter
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Zzzzzzzzzz…..Many, many sleeps and dreams later….tappity tappity tap tap tap tappity tap…
⇓ One
…well because I am a human being – just like you are – and ever since the first human being we have all been wondering and arguing about what’s it all about, how and when did it all begin.
Some people say there may have been no beginning and no ending. Some people reckon that time and space just simultaneously popped into existence.
Some say both beliefs are wrong while others say they are both correct.
Me? I really do not know the truth – it is all a rather wonderful and fun mystery to me…
⇓ Two
Ah, space and time or, as some people call it, spacetime. Now there is a fun mystery if there ever was one.
It’s a great paradox: we all continually experience space and time with every cell of our bodies and yet none of us really knows what they are.
Try and grab some space or time or spacetime in your hand and what do you get? Nothing even though they are everything.
Ever notice how some days flit by and seem timeless, others drag and seem stuck in time?
Sit by the local snotty bully on the school bus and the seat-space seems like a tiny coffin. Sit by your best friend in the same seat and its space is as big as the universe.
So it seems we each have a different point of view of the universe and none is all right and none is all wrong.
⇓ Three
When space-time happened, stuff formed and formed and formed … a bit like stuff forms all over the place in some of your bedrooms.
Imagine, if you will, stuff forming and forming on a humongous, cosmic scale, filling the universe with countless tiny, tiny forms. And these forms continuously transformed into other forms, some as minuscule as atoms, others as massive as galaxies…stuff transforming other stuff, stuff being transformed by other stuff…
Depending on your point of view, existence becomes a very exciting place or a very scary place or a very boring place. Whatever, it becomes a very active place.
⇓ Four
It is super tricky to know when and how forms of life came to exist on Earth. Some people believe tiny life forms arrived with a boom and bang, carried here on asteroids that crashed into our planet.
Others believe a supreme being or God of the universe created a great array of life forms for the fun and joy of it or for company and plonked us all on Earth
to see how we would behave together.
Others think a random bolt of lightening may have hit a puddle of certain chemicals, changing their chemistry so they took on a life form.
How long have life forms have existed on Earth? Stories vary. Some say forever, some say just now. Geologists and astrophysicists, people who try to read the stories of the rocks and stars, well, they say over 4,000,000,000 years.
⇓ Five
Who knows what life is? It can be manifest in such a great multitude of forms. People of some cultures sense life exists in some microscopic forms because they seems to have the capacity or spirit to adapt to changes in the universe and to procreate themselves. We call these “living cells” in English.
These tiny cells form societies like we do – in fact you can say you and I are each a unique society of living cells. Most people recognize plants, insects, fish, birds and animals as life forms. Some people sense mountains, rivers, oceans and even the whole planet are forms of life.
People in many cultures believe sharing and cooperation enables life.
People in cultures like our English society believe life is all about competition and fighting.
Some believe life involves joy and fun while others argue it is all about grinding work and desperate survival.
Most people agree living forms arise (gather together) and pass (spread out again) and this involves some form of suffering.
⇓ Six
Every form of life is a form of awareness of the change occurring in and around it. For example, you and I constantly sense what is happening by seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, touching and other means of information transfer.
A living form uses this information to conserve its form amidst the universal transformation going on – especially the transformation occurring on this planet.
What is really fascinating is even as a life form is informed by all other forms it uses the information to inform them all too. In other words, it is conscious – it is aware it is part of a great flow of information and is using it to adapt to change.
⇓ Seven
We cannot begin to count the number of types of life-forms that are possible. There are microbes, trees, birds, insects, animals, fish …you name it. Every major type of life-form consists of myriad different types. For example, the “animal” type consists of cows, monkeys, cats, pigs, elephants… you name it.
Every different type has its own unique type of consciousness or special way of making sense of what is going on. And here is what is amazing: every type of consciousness is part of some other type of consciousness…they are all in some way interconnected.
⇓ Eight
It is tricky beyond tricky for us to know when human consciousness occurred.
Some say it is forever. Some ask if it occurred with the formation of the universe? With the formation of planet Earth? With the first ocean on Earth? With the first living cell?..
Geneticists, people who study the information systems of cells, believe this information can help us better understand the behaviour of the billions of cells that make up any type of life form such as a plant or microbe or insect or fish or an animal type like you and me.
They believe the DNA information stored in our cells tells the story of all life forms and how they inform each other into existence. The latest version of this story is that about 2 or 3 million years ago there occurred a new form of life. It was shaped and acts just like us humans beings.
⇓ Nine
As mentioned, it is super tricky to know exactly the true story of everything. It seems a fantastic mystery to me.
Is this sentence in the middle or the beginning or the ending of the story? Maybe this paragraph is the whole story and more.
And who is really telling this story?
Maybe I imagine and dream you ask these great questions about existence.
What say self-awareness is a dream and, if so, does it matter? How can we imagine and dream a life that is not a nightmare? Does the answer to that question reside within us or outside us in the universe. Or maybe everything is all a paradox: any answer resides both within and without us because each of us is the universe?
Dear GUD Letter 2 – Paradox Fun
Dear GUD Letter 3 – Human Consciousness
25 JAN 2018 First draft completed