Monday, February 18, 2013

Life

Life is fucking weird. I mean seriously, think about it. Why are we alive? What is our purpose? We as humans don't really have a purpose when you think about it. Even if we explore the ends of the Universe and know all there is to know, what then? If there is other life forms in our universe, which there probably is, what will we do when we meet them? There's a very familiar trend when foreigners go to a new land, they take it over and colonize it. So will we be the ones to take over another planet or solar system? Or will we be the ones being colonized by beings from space.

What is sight? Really though, how the fuck can we see stuff? Yes we have eyes that process light and our environment around us which then gives our brains an "image" and we "see" it. Did you know that you actually see everything upside down? Your brain processes the upside down image and puts it right side up so it looks "normal".

What about sound? Our ears translate sound "waves" into information to give to our brain which allows us to "hear". But what are we actually hearing? We've found that other species of animals can hear different frequencies of sound, so are we as humans really hearing the whole "picture"?

Taste is an interesting one. Why does some food taste good to some people but terrible to others? Sometimes we call it an "acquired" taste, where after you eat a certain food for a long enough time, you will eventually enjoy it. But why does food taste the way we think it does? Well obviously it is made out of certain chemicals and materials but why do those taste the way they do? Did our bodies just all of a sudden start telling us what food tasted like...but what does it actually taste like?

Touch. We are always touching something. But not technically. I mean you most likely have clothes on, but you don't realize that feeling of the clothes touching your skin, because you've gotten used to it. But again, technically you've never touched anything. On an atomic level, only our electrons are touching the electrons of other objects. So yes, you are "touching" things but also not really when looking at it on an atomic level.

We are aware that we are alive, whatever that means. But what does it mean to be alive? I mean, think about it...we wake up every morning and just live our lives. But why are we alive? And why can we think and have emotions which aren't really anything but nerve impulses reacting to situations. When you think about it, we're a lot like computers. They have I/O impulses which make them run, a very simple concept yet computers let us do some of the most advanced things on the planet. We also are run by similar I/O impulses  which give our brains information, theses are also surprisingly electrical nerve impulses. Again very similar to computers.

I'm not suggesting anything *cough* matrix *cough*, but seriously...I just wanted to get my thoughts and ideas out in the open. Feel free to comment and share with whomever.

-Eli

TL;DR Life is fucking weird.

Friday, February 1, 2013