What is reality? Ancient Aliens edition.

           

            Watched something recently that blew my mind. I don’t always use that phrase but it was really the first thing I thought. The first thing I though after putting my mind back together, of course. You can get that feeling too – but hold on, I don’t want to give it away. Let me build it up for you: Imagine giving two people general guidelines for the creation of a fantasy world. Then have them fill in the blanks for each of their worlds, make up histories, trends, etc. In the end the major details of the two people’s fantasies will be the same. The minor details, however – the ones that they made up – will be different. Now tell the two people in the experiment to convince the other that their details are the correct ones.

            Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzqDVOjtNhg. Now I’m just wondering to what degree my thought experiment is actually being conducted in this video. If you don’t watch it (but I suggest you do) here is what is going on: two sets of UFO researches are arguing for their particular views on what UFOs are and to what extent the government is involved. It is truly far out stuff. Have to say I’ve watched a few videos of fringe provenance lately. In order to garner ideas for sci-fi stories I might potentially write. That is what I tell myself, anyway.

            I feel like I’ve got to a point in my life when I have divested myself of illusion, where my world view has been whittled down as well as enlarged, finding the right balance of skepticism and belief. Something I think everyone would manage to claim about themselves. We all think that we know what is going on. What the score is. What our relationship is to the world. How, for example, we relate to society, to the power structure in society. “Yeah, this is who I am. And I am who am because that is who I want to be.”

            This is possibly the beginning of a path to conspiracy theories. People desire to know what is going on. They want to know how they for sure fit into society. No, people don’t want to know how they fit in society, they actually (purport to) know how they fit in society.

(For the sake of argument?) First, let’s consider that the debaters in the video to be radically out of touch with reality: let’s consider them to be daft (radge). Unable to succeed in the real world they have found a niche that gives them control over reality. It is a made-up reality, however, and the only reason they can continue down this path is because their delusion is shared by a certain amount of people in a community of like-deluded people. Is that your response to the video interview?

            What got me was the specificity of their arguments. Contrary to considering them mad, consider them to be informed. Let’s say that they know what they are talking about. The doctor has talked to informants. There is some energy source that could alleviate the world’s energy needs. On the other side of the table, perhaps the doctor is acting some kind of agenda, mixing truth with delusion. His interlocutors have good reason to be suspicious of his motives. Their concern is in service to all of humankind. It turns out not to be arguing all about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

            So, what is it? My first reaction holds strong – reticence to believe in what they talk about, the specificity of their arguments nails in the coffins of their madness. My imagination asks, “What if?” What if they are not operating out of selfish agendas. A drive for mastery over the world so much that a separate world has been created. What is reality? What little worlds of fantasy to we all create? Worlds of fantasy writ small. I’ll give an alien researcher himself the last paraphrased word. Giorgio A. Tsoukalos has said the only way we will really know if aliens did or did not play a part in humanity’s past is to ask them once they arrive/return.

Thoughts on population and beauty

Robed and bearded transcendental figures.  Arms raised in blessing.  Can I walk outside and bless my neighborhood?  Instead I have a feeling like “Oh, you silly ragamuffins who happened to find homes – what a rag-tag bunch.  How about those semi-random events that have seen us living side by side in this terrific neighborhood”.  There they go in their car.  There they go in their car.  There they go in their car.

Thinking along these terms I start to wonder about population.  So many people in the world.  So many people living around me – and I live in a smaller-sized city.  Wouldn’t a decline in population mean a better standard of living for those that, um, those that . . .  having trouble finishing this sentence.  Those that remain?  The remnant population?  Those left after some cataclysm?  The changed population level is just a hypothetical so I guess I refer to a hypothetical smaller population.  (Everyone will be hypothetically really smart if not straight-up enlightened, too.)

The arguments go that the hypothetical smaller population would live in a less polluted environment.  They would have stronger community relations.  They would make conscious decisions instead of going around being cajoled by trends and advertisers.  But overall, and this is where my thoughts on population initially went, the hypothetical smaller population would live in a world of beauty.

            A side note on community.  Does community, having a strong community (def.?) equal beauty?  More community, more beauty?  Years ago I was fired up about community – if only people would talk more – surprising that I would get involved in such a manner given my innate introvertism.  Lo, I went forth and actually did a thing at a local movie house, sponsoring a viewing of a film and a subsequent discussion.  Let’s all get together and talk about it. 

            So my thesis this morning was that with less people we could have more beauty in the world.  This impulse, for full, immediate, disclosure, was wrought by my dislike of cars and the inhealth that is pervasive in this country.  A big topic while running in town and encountering others (generally, in their cars).  The other facet of my argument was a concession to the fact that currently, as the population stands, people are, quite simply, living.  The billions are supported, albeit in widely differing levels of comfort.  There is some talk that a reallocation of resources could see everyone living at a wholesome level –upper-end outliers (the American way of life (AWOL)) of course being reduced.

            That caveat countenanced, how can I move on?  A world with less people.  Perhaps something to get riled up about: the perfect thing to get riled up about in that the force at play is so large.  Picking such a topic has its own inherent appeals.  It goes hand in hand with politics: it is politics.  Insoluble problems that get settled in favor of either those in power or get settled in favor of lightly-steered semi-impersonal trends.  How often do our thoughts tend in this direction?  Is a seed planted by insecurity?

            Rumination on the world and my place in the world.  From someone not necessarily living in the lap of luxury but at least having enough time to think about things. 

Towards a national dialogue: Soviet reflections

Daydreaming today.  Thinking of what it would have been like to live in the Soviet Union.  Thinking of what it would have been like to live there and have it be successful – would human nature have to be different?  That led me to think about life in the US today.  The US won out, beating the Soviets.

            Always going in the background there is the idea that we live in an imperfect place.  This is an attitude that may manifest in countries – think about realpolitik – but has a root in our everyday life experience.  Actions happen in the world, countries deal with each other, interact.  And it is not always consensus.  Immoveable objects and unstoppable forces and time ticking away.  The strong may see things swayed in their way – and then write the history of it.  This is on the world-scale but on the personal we encounter dilemmas and have to play the cards we are dealt. 

            Why not consensus?  I link the personal and the world at large because I think they are linked, each affecting the other.  Think how difficult it is even in families for concord to be reached.  Hopefully parents provide guidance because they take on – should take on – the de facto power position.  And so too in the workplace, most jobs, I think it is fair to say, being boss-run operations.  Could it be another way?

            Going back to my Soviet-US daydreams I think of Khrushchev Nixon’s Kitchen Debate.  And an anecdote about (Khrushchev?) being flown over the (Los Angeles?) and seeing all the swimming pools in single household houses and saying that the USSR was finished.  Can’t find a reference for that so maybe it was someone’s metaphor.  Anyway, it was a time of competitive ideologies.  Now who are we?  Are we defining ourselves in relation to a common enemy or common competitor?  Terrorists?  A lot of negative comparisons to European socialism lately, come to think about it. 

            This all leads me to think that it was good to have a mega-competitor, like the USSR, insofar as it made us at least reflect on national identity and goals.  It seems today that we are operating with an idea that we are all Americans: but what does that mean?  Ron Paul people point to our union with respect to the Constitution.  While I like their arguments it still seems to me that they are missing the point.  Well, not missing the point: the whole idea during election time is to not only bring forth one’s policies, but also what informs those policies.  We live in a country founded on the Constitution but . . .   This is where Ron Paul people miss the point – and where my yeah-but’s are founded.  The world has changed, the game has changed.

            So what is the real state of things?  What is behind the matrix?  First I would say we like living the way we do.  Whether this is inertia or thoughtlessness or lassitude or something else I’m not sure.  Even though (I emphatically believe) it kind of sucks to work all the time we do it and want politicians to bring about full employment.  Consumerism must be mentioned somewhere in this equation.  In a sense we all like to be numbed all the time by diversions.  Is that fair to say?  “I just want to work and create a better life for my family,” people say.  Got to pay for that important car/house/cable subscription.

            When was the national conversation were we at least got a majority to pick a national path?  It almost seems that we are living in set patterns, just going along thinking that this is just the way that it is and that things will never change.  Implicit acceptance of the status quo.  I suppose that elections are a form of such a national conversation.  That is really their purpose, I guess.  So I shouldn’t complain?  Or question? 

            Living in the USSR would have been different.  Undesirable to myself, I infer.  That is why in my thoughts I wondered at living in an idealized Soviet realm.  People happily supporting one another.  The USSR or some 19^th century Christian commune.  Utopias – no wheres.  Brinksmanship and realpolitik – if we don’t get those resources another country will and they will be more powerful: that defines our lives.