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Created on: May 28, 2008 Last Updated: August 25, 2011
“Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.” ~Albert Einstein
Understanding the supple mysteries of our mind is surely no less difficult than understanding the flexible structures of the physical world around us; the rhythm of our mind mirrors the rhythms of our universe.
And our minds reach out creatively into the universe much farther than our hands will ever reach or our feet can follow; a milieu of mystery that describes us well—the mortal rising to our feet reaching out into sparkling images of the infinite.
Potential summons us forward, our visions pierce the vastness while our theories race to keep pace at the mere speed of light; and even with our feet planted firmly on the ground, understanding our exploring mind is like grabbing a puff of smoke on a windy day; the daunting task of understanding the mind that mirrors and understands the universe.
Our mind is an engine of perceptions and thoughts propelled by fuels of passion and free will; a complexity of transient imagery where reality evolves within our expanding awareness of systems around and within us: the target of our intention and purpose is always to understand.
But our mind isn't the origin of an infinite reality stretching beyond our sight, it is the origin of our limited comprehension; our awareness is the definitive appearance of our finite duration—beyond that is nothing; what is a thing unknown to us?
“… duration means invention, creation of forms, continuous elaboration of the absolutely new.”
The infinite is not our creation—comprehension of the new is.
We seek out the unknown, we pursue it with the instrument of our mind and by creating the new, giving reality new forms, we intentionally push our hands and feet and minds further and further out into this finite ‘place’ encircling us.
But while we blaze a steady trail into this mystery of life we will never know its whole- pure energy or intelligence or God- each of which are variously proclaimed by various people as the ultimate identity or purpose or meaning of our existence here.
The ‘whole’ of reality packed into our finite understandings would need to be known before any ultimate identity or purpose or meaning could be ascribed to it—impossible.
And even if we could pack the infinite within our finite mind such an explanation would be the end of our journey; a denial of the eternal we fleetingly sense; a dismembering of reality into a meaningless spark of finite human tragedy momentarily interrupting nothing.
An end of human growth, the end of the search, a folding of the hands, a nodding of our head… a contradiction in my mind, a denial of our striving as an end in itself that could not exist within boundaries, or offer meaning without deliverance from our inevitable errors while seeking the new and novel.
It is our human striving; the extension of our Mind that endlessly probes outward enveloping the vastness of life and concurrently expands inward defining our growing understanding of this vastness that is our individual meaning and purpose itself: human growth.
The Minds of Mankind: our created creators, endless hunter of life and meaning; from an abyss of ignorance come the Minds of Mankind following this light…
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