Re: Eternal Return

(This is an overly long reply to Dawn’s post Eternal Return.)

I want to present a different view of the ocean and the stars.

Is it lonely to think of the stars only as far away fire balls in a black expanse?

Personally the lonely feeling I've sometimes had while looking at the stars comes not from the replacement of imagination with science but with the thought of distance. Something so distant leaves so little time for connection of any kind. If light can't get from here to there in 200 million years than what hope do we have of understanding what it is like to be so far away? If there were something there how could we possibly hope for a connection when the time for interaction is so vast? It also bring to mind how fast time passes here. Moments pass in just that, moments, with no hope of stretching them beyond their given time, a mere instant in the life of a star. That is the loneliness I feel when I look at the night sky.

As for the Earth being more than atoms... Well, this is going to be a bit difficult to explain so bear with me.

I don't really identify with the classic religious belief that there are two parts to the world, spiritual and physical. For me the two are integrated, one and the same at different times and perceptions. The thing that's so crucial about this for me actually has to do with what we know about atoms.

By now it is apparent that atoms are not the smallest pieces of the puzzle. High school science will tell you that they're made up of protons, neutrons and electrons but physics delves much deeper than this. There are many subatomic particles that make up these pieces of atoms and even that exist of their own but what even more is fascinating is what even these are made of.

Energy.

Again, back in high school chemistry we learned the laws of conservation of mass and conservation of energy but one of these is merely an oversimplification of the other. There is no conservation of matter (or mass) only the conservation of energy. Experiments with extremely sensitive measuring equipment detect a loss of mass during a reaction that gives off heat and a gain of mass when there is an intake of heat.

Energy from mass and mass from energy. They are the same thing; transitory elements of one another. That Earth made of atoms and that “something more”, the extra energy and meaning, are one and the same and they constantly interact.

~*~*~

I hope you don't think I've overstepped my bounds and I will say right away that this is directly my opinion and only for your consideration, no matter how strongly worded it was during its delivery.

Much love,

Dina