Saturday 29 January 2000

Pic of the day: "just because I choose to scratch my head ..."

Today I had planned to make fun of socialists (a fairly safe thing to do). It started with the weather. "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it," said people when I was young. But now the Norwegian Labor Party is doing just that.

I looked outside, and the rain had washed away the snow. I trudged to the local grocery and bought some food. Not much, they were nearly empty on the yoghurt that I prefer. And I had some already. I reminded myself to thank all you folks who have left your car engines spinning and contributed to the greenhouse effect. (Not that it seems to be very effective over in America at this time.) And I thought about how the Norwegian Labor Party (Social Democrats) have suddenly come around and want to build some freaking huge gas power stations as soon as possible, regardless of new and more environment-friendly technology being in the works. It could be that they just want to harass the current centrist government. Or it could be that the greenhouse effect does not seem so intimidating in the middle of the winter ...

I must admit that making fun of socialists is not as fun as I had hoped. That may be why I put off the whole writing and spent the day swapping between Pharaoh (the strategy game) and e-mail. I am happy to say that I got a few e-mails to me. I love personal e-mail, especially when it is constructive and encouraging and thought provoking in a good way. All of these mails were some or all of the above. Nobody told me that I am going to burn in hell. (I still might do just that, though, as it is not up to my readers to decide. But if so, probably because I cannot forgive someone. That's the real dangerous thing. You may notice that if you hate someone, you are already in hell while alive. It is a fire that is not quenched and a worm that will not die. I have tried it.)

As I sat down in front of a loaded plate with three sorts of pasta and three sorts of cheese (and a dash of olive oil), I said to God: "I guess I can skip the 'give us today our daily bread' thing and move right on to the forgive ..." -To which God drily replied: "It says us, not me." Duh! There are probably still quite a few people who don't have their daily bread. If you feel like doing something about it, you may go to the Hunger Site and read some ads in exchange for giving a hungry person bread for the day. And if you feel like praying, there is no one stopping you from doing both.

I don't all the time converse with invisible, omnipotent spiritual beings. I guess the whole idea sounds rather disconcerting to the rational mind, if indeed there is a rational mind.

All sciences connect, merge, seamlessly into one another. There is no point or line where chemistry ends and atomic physics start, for instance. Chemistry is just the way atoms connect. And there's not really any line between chemistry and biology either. Rather there is a vast field of biochemistry, and it blends right in with medicine and even psychiatry. It is strange to think about how each little thought means the connection and disconnection of uncountable small atoms. There is simply no way we can keep account of them all. Inside each little brain cell a hectic activity goes on day and night, molecules forming, moving, interacting, dissolving. How can I just decide to do something and then just do it, without having the foggiest idea of the billions and billions of atoms interacting in complicated ways just because I choose to scratch my head and go get some chocolate milk?

Have you ever tried thinking consciously on which muscles you use when you do something? If so, I guess you too have noticed that it interferes with actually doing it. The more detailed your awareness of each single move, the harder it is to coordinate them. Just doing it is so much easier. Now if we were to consciously direct each and every cell ... not to mention each and every molecule in that cell ... or each and every electron in the electron "cloud" around each atom ... Well, you get the picture.

Objectively, I must admit that it is hard to prove that God exists. Then again, as seen above, objectively it is hard to prove that I exist. There would seem to be just billions and billions of elementary particles, each playing by the rules, following simple laws of nature, completely unaware of my existence. They certainly don't do anything of what they do to please me. They just attract and repel each other based on their electric charge, as is their nature. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, I exist. I can sense, I can learn, I can reflect, I can choose, I can plan. Right now I plan to upload this while I'm still awake. If it works, we can presume that I do indeed exist.