Monday, December 08, 2003

Flying pans, room service, and mothmen .


Do you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun don'-go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -

-Wayne Coyne, Do you realize?, 2002.


How much longer till we leave ? How fast have the last five years ripped past ? How much faster will the next fifty go ? Things are so much easier when you know you wont be around to face the music. A free ride. Escapist ? Don't think so.

Is it any different, the phase after life ? Will we know ? Did you die yesterday and are "living" only in some projected universe concocted by your mind ? Well, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, would you ? Does my overuse of question marks irritate you ? or does it ?

Some believe that the flow of time is just the mind flitting from one universe to another parallel one. This begs the question: "Is there time across parallel universes?". Can my mind jump from Tuesday here to Monday night in another universe? That depends. Are parallel universes static? Once in existence, does a parallel universe exist forever? If it does, the mind could just jump into an older parallel universe. And I'd be in the past. And some mind from last week could jump straight to next year.

Nice. Very nice. However, there is a fatal flaw. Well, more a gap than a flaw. It is this: "Why should the mind be above parallel universes?". How can something be outside of a universe ? Well, just because human intellectual self-promotion is shamelessely infinite. Its a human mind, after all. Not some frying pan flying between parallel universes, grease dripping down its sides. The human mind can do anything. It is above science, unlike the frying pan. We don't even have to graduate from school to be taught that the human is the most intelligent creature on the planet. The largest, most intelligent brain, scientific thought, art, literature, room service, complementary breakfast, 24-hour coffee shop, the works. And why not? Has any other creature tried to communicate with us yet? I'm sure the cockroaches down in the sewer think the same way. Nobody has tried to communicate with them either[1].

Their minds also flit between parallel universes, I'm sure, deftly avoiding being squashed against the frying pans.

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[1] As Alexander Leek so sarcastically stabs John Kliens skepticism, in Richard Hatem's version of John Keel's "The Mothman Prophecies" .

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