Saturday, November 8, 2014

The Others

Perhaps it is a strange fellowship that navigates the sea of space as well as being inhabitants of distant communities, much as in the centuries past where local communities isolated from one another faced similar puzzles only variegated by the adaptations necessary to suit a variety of ecological settings
We focus on the harvesting and presumption of ownership toward natural resources, plant,mineral, vertebrate, invertebrate,bacterial etc. Another resource that falls into this presumption are our fellow members of our own species. We project this upon “the other” as a inadvertent mirror, self referential and intimately familiar.


We seek visions of ourselves in what we project what these others may be in their nature by confusing knowledge with intelligence, as if we presume they came upon us their technology would provide us with a variety of solutions in of themselves and yet, on the surface of this world, we have made an error in the divisiveness of our uniqueness and that uniqueness would make us an object of an exceptional form of distinction to the others. Perhaps not.


Uniqueness may not be an arbiter in this case, it may be we share a common heritage that is not genetic. In think Joseph Conrad pinned this relationship between ourselves as young inexperienced captains of a ship and our visitors would be stowaways searching for something and in this we would have a lot in common.


I think a visitor here unlike ourselves knows that,we too are visitors in another sense. Our issue is the nature of thought itself and to somehow find a way to see ourselves as we are ….not as we imagine ourselves to be. We own nothing but what we are given. Perhaps these are common issues.
A visitor would see what we have been given without what we have been given requiring what thought says must have a reason.
A visitor ( perhaps) would say life is bootstrapping ourselves between beauty and threats like all of this planetary nature, the only exception being  our race achieving a balance between choice and humility.
I don’t think , nor do they perhaps, that our situation is unique in that sense. I think a visitor older and wiser than ourselves would appreciate this as well as what is incommensurable in the self evidence of nature. Perhaps our visitors are much like the character in the plot of Conrad’s The Secret Sharer like Leggatt, the stowaway on another’s vessel.


Nature’s  beauty in always adapting under what would seem, in certain places, impossible habitats, like the undersea vents spewing what for us are poisonous gases, bacterial life within us, all of this driven by our nearest star in a vacuum of space. One would be tempted to say a visitor would comment we have grown blind to just how miraculous all of this is, how unappreciative we are and yet...who would not be drawn into this with a sense of wonderment, regardless of circumstances? 

Both others and ourselves in a gravitational field of realm without boundaries falsely misaligned in our own thoughts as  perhaps seen by others as local, finite, with a competing series of monarchies ruled by the fallacies of thought ..it’s finite knowledge arrayed in a spectrum of fantasies to be overcome, and yet evolution would seem to suggest the others may have found themselves in a similar quandary not yet prepared to balance the dreams of thought in whatever form so different from ourselves, and yet in a bootstrapping effort found a sincere reflection of what they represent as part of the whole yet knowing that knowledge is not intelligence. 

This cannot be taught, it must be experienced and while our questions may differ, I suggest to you that their questions are as open as our own.

8 comments:

  1. It reminds me of our thrust to not only survive, but to thrive while doing so. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a universal condition. In fact, it appears so on every level I can think about. Good thoughts.

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  2. Knocker
    I wrote this as a rebuttal to all of the projected human qualities we fear in others and in ourselves toward the possible nature of an extraterrestrial. Another aspect is the fantasy they were past teachers of humanity. Anyone who has read LeGuinn's "Lathe of Heaven"or Lao Tze immediately realizes that there are always unanticipated consequences when it comes to tampering. In this case, the fallacy of a knowledge base equating to the intelligence to use it wisely. In this case of the extraterrestrial, it would be like handing a loaded hand gun to a child.
    I think what we would have in common is not a matter of A being superior to B or vice versa. To me this is a juvenile framework. What we would have in common is a struggle with our natures and our place within a greater one. The concept of omniscient extraterrestrials, a concept stolen from 2,000 year old religious dogmas is also incredibly naive. I respect Ibn Al Arabi concept of "One" which he describes as "incommensurable" to its constituent parts, relationships etc. I thnk that is a wise insight. Ufology is so full of juvenile aspirations, sometimes I have to just hold my head in awe.

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  3. Yes, I'm there with you. I haven't any faith in wisdom of beings with superior technology. We're not doing much to better the human condition in our current state of technological growth. I like to address the potential, however. If I can progress from a know-it-all knucklehead to a more humble version of prior self myself (any improvement is notable,) the potential exists for change on a universal scale, wouldn't you think? It's an iffy proposition, I know. Regardless, having followed ufology down the rabbit hole for a good many years, I still don't know what I saw in the sky and I don't find any comfort in how people bend all aspects of it to a preferred end.

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  4. Knocker
    Overall progress due to...? I don't know if you were referring to extraterrestrial visitation or substantive progress occurring toward long standing issues without it. Or..both?

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  5. Sent by Knocker via e-mail:

    Excuse me for responding to your question in email, but my browser is still freezing up. Email seems to be fine so I don't have much choice.

    You mention trusting an ET presence to have an answer to our problems would be akin to handing them a loaded gun. How is that so different than handing our trust to religious institutions, organizations designed to control? I suppose you could mean that their fundamental natures may be so very foreign to ours, but I didn't read that in your post or response so maybe I missed something important. I often do.

    It seemed as though you were suggesting some common ground between two species evidenced by thought toward technological advancement and I suppose I took it a step beyond, that perhaps their nature in the cosmos is not very different than ours, and possibly subject to potential for change as well. Is consciousness only the realm of the human? I'd never dreamed it might be. Unless we are talking about machines, my imagination may be limited and I'm proving your point!

    If there are advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, maybe the operative word is "civilizations" which connotes organized society not completely unlike ours. I wouldn't bet the farm, and I wouldn't knowingly hand them a loaded gun, but maybe we share a universe where growth in terms of emotional evolution is as natural as it is difficult to achieve. I think the chance is worthy of thought if not action.

    To be clear, I wouldn't trust an ET as far as I could throw one, but my emotional evolution is hardly a shining example of virtue. I'm still scrambling for a foothold beyond my insane upbringing, but I've made some progress. I just wonder at a universe, seemingly designed to promote and enable life so generously, being cold to emotional growth as well. Seems like a natural offshoot even if it might take eons to achieve. I think humanity has proven the difficulty, but we really haven't been around for very long. So if I'm attributing potential where none exists, (anthropomorphism), forgive me. I see it as another of those things we just don't know.

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  6. Knocker
    What I wrote was that any advanced technology given to us by others, would be the equivalent of handing a loaded gun to a child ( us ) and not the other way around. Religion as it is constructed by it’s root words in origin is “to re-link” by definition. As you know this history of religion has progressed ( regressed ) into dogmatism in order to create a power base, much like it’s counterpart, which is territorial governance by separate countries, like various religions...which in both the history of “civilisation” and “religion” has led to suffering endless wars, persecutions and prejudice., I am sorry to say that it’s likely if there are “others” they are keenly aware of this. I do think that if UAP represents “others” they are simply monitoring us. Why? For the above reasons attached to our technology making it possible for us to import this to other planets. We are seeing the very early stages of a Mars “land grab” ….much like the exploration that led to the colonisation of the American West.
    As far as similarity of anothers planetary civilisation in its organisation being similar to ours, I doubt that. I think the need for governance and religion as we use those concepts would be foreign to them. The reasons for this are too lengthy to post here.
    In terms of emotions and instincts, again I think its likely they are hard wired genetically in a much different fashion but use the same building blocks so to speak. Its likely the relationship between emotion and instinct as in ourselves is similar but different. As an example, have you seen the experiment where the same movie segment is given different soundtracks musically?
    the same scene becomes comical, sad, mysterious, or highly dramatic depending on the tones associated with the same scene. That is a good illustration of instinct and emotion.
    I suspect they would have been able to develop whats called divided attention which we lack. In other words we cannot observe ourselves while we are observing, similar to being in a state of suggestion, a semi-hypnotic state. Driven by unconscious instincts and emotions in a waking state that has some mild resemblance to a dream state. I dont suspect they would be cold or sociopathic but rather more self aware ..if advanced.

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  7. Knocker
    BTW..its nice and enjoyable to have a dialog with a kindred spirit who shares the same wonderment and curiosity about what remains mysterious. Thank you.

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  8. Bruce, as usual you are way beyond me which is why I keep coming back. You've given me things to chew on which is just plain cool. Thanks much.

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