Niranjan,
We do pretty much spend our lives squished and cycling between the big picture and the details. In which many people paint diagrams and pictures on the surface of their bubbles of individual existence, rather than let everything in. Much of which can be outright delusional, but is in many cases, quite necessary, to either not be totally overwhelmed by a world looking for the weak to consume, or subsume. When the world is often either a volcano, or a desert of the senses, with either the heat or the light burning us up, we seek shelter.
What really seems to be lacking is a basic framework to make sense of this dynamic, as many of the old forms of identity are crumbling and a lot of the new trends are often toxic.
I would argue the essential dynamic of reality is the dichotomy of energy and the forms it manifests. Galaxies are energy radiating out, as mass/form coalesces in.
As such it is a cosmic convection cycle, between the energy driving the process, versus the forms condensing out. So that energy is expansive and universal, while form is local and particular.
As biological organisms, we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems, processing the energy driving us on, along with a central nervous system to sort through all the forms and information precipitating out, as well as referee all the various passions and desires bubbling up.
As societies there are the multitudes of factions and interests pushing forward, while civil and cultural forms coalesce in, to give some overall structure.
Consider monotheism, for example; The logical fallacy is that a spiritual absolute, the source of being, would be that essence of sentience from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The new born, rather then the wise old man. Consciousness seeking knowledge, than any particular formulation or brand of it. The light shining through the film than the images on it.
Yet this raw element of being needs some focus and direction, in order to sustain itself as complex beings in a large and complex society, so the top down, father figure lawgiver is a useful narrative device for instilling in generations of the community a respect for cultural forms, especially authority. The problem is that by confusing the ideal with the absolute, it encourages a cultural narcissism, by predicating that one’s beliefs and cultural frames are universal, rather then unique and a node within the larger network.
A more fundamental aspect of our modeling of reality is the nature of time. As mobile, intentional organisms, we experience reality as flashes of perception and cognition, in order to navigate our environment. We then narrate our journeys to one another and build civilizations out of the collective knowledge. So the narrative flow, from past to future, is built into the very soul of our being and civilization. Physics codifies it as measures of duration, to correlate with measures of distance, creating the mathematical geometry of spacetime.
Yet the reality is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. Potential, actual, residual. Duration is this present state, as events come and go.
Which gets back to that dichotomy of energy and form. Energy is “conserved,” because it is always and only present. It’s changing configuration creates the effect of time, so there is no physical past for it to recede into, or physical future for it to arrive from. There is no “dimension” of time, because the past is consumed by the present, in order to inform it, aka causality.
Time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, etc. We could use ideal gas laws to correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but they are only foundational to our emotions, bodily functions and environment, not the sequence of thought.
Different clocks can run at different rates, because they are separate actions. Think metabolism, or frequencies. Much of human history has been a function of trying to get all humanity on the same frequency/narrative. What started as monotheism and is currently manifest as globalism.
Yet as a doctor, you can understand that while harmony is good, a monotone is not so good. It’s the diversity, tension and friction that makes reality real. That convection cycle of energies bursting forth, as diverse forms settle out.
For example, good and bad are not some cosmic dual between the forces of righteousness and evil, but the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken and there is no middle ground, other than the energy of the chicken becoming a fleeting aspect of the fox.
So the evolution of social and moral frameworks is not ultimately a quest for some ideal state, as it is this dynamic of forms settling out, as energies and desires probe their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Which are then patched over, spreading that underlaying pressure around and pushing out in other directions.
My own little Sunday sermon. Hope you don’t mind.
