Bond of Awareness

   

    Empathy and cooperation between species becomes evident as common traits if we focus on the universal similarities of awareness instead of the great diversity in physical forms. Natural Selection has responded to the diverse and ever changing environment in which life must struggle to survive by letting genetic adaptations run free to produce microbes, magpies, minnows, mollusks and mice, but it has been restrained in the creation of adaptive forms of awareness by the limited ways in which a living form can sense and react to its surroundings.

     Life can’t exist, even in its simplest form, without some way to sense and respond to internal conditions and environmental situations. Early awareness may be only simple chemical responses, (the gene being prompted to separate and reproduce), but awareness has evolved in concert with biological complexity to become the eye, the ear, chemically sensitive buds and pressure and temperature sensitive cells. These essential sensory paths can be traced back to single celled life, some possessing primitive eyes some a sensitivity to temperature some to vibration etc. From plants to mammals the natural selection of pathways for awareness and the natural selection of nerve clusters to utilize environmental sensors more effectively, follow a common and narrow trace.

    We are related to all other living things more closely by our common ability to sense and respond than we are by genetic histories of form. Genetics has played a major role in the selection of our common abilities to sense, respond, learn, remember and choose. The limited ways in which we can gather and utilize information from our surroundings has made all life more alike in common pathways to awareness than in any other.

    Recognizing awareness in others, even other species, is the core of our cooperative and empathetic responses. Natural selection is not a formula or directive, it is simply the way in which life persists and adapts. The natural world around us has made us very different and very similar. To appreciate our similarities we need to begin to define our common awareness in more basic terms. My book, “Darwin’s Paw” introduces these ideas in a fictional lecture series. The book “The Other Half of Evolution” (see by blog series with the same title), explores these ideas in a formal non fictional format. When we find life elsewhere in the Universe, classifying it in terms of its level of awareness may make more sense than looking for differences or similarities to earthly forms.  Emphasizing awareness over form may also allow us to dampen the inevitable reactions and religious revolutions the discovery of extraterrestrial life will certainly evoke. Seeing ourselves, (Humanity), as the result of three billion years of naturally selected advances in awareness, (with the ability to usurp natural selection itself), mandates that we think beyond ancient moral precepts. We need not give up our moral foundations, but as humans, (the only life form determining the future of all life on our planet), we need to understand our responsibilities. Nature has empowered us with an advanced state of awareness and three mandates for its use:  Explore and learn; Be of good council; and be a good steward. The future of all life on our planet depends on an understanding of the lessons of adaptation and cooperation taught by evolution.       

How Nature Builds Things

Combinational Directives

To build a concrete block wall we first have to build the concrete blocks, and to build the concrete blocks we first have to make concrete and so on. There is a series of combinational steps required; mix ingredients to make concrete, make a mold and pour in the concrete, let chemical reactions take place to harden the concrete, separate the hardened block of concrete from the mold, transport it to the job site, mix other ingredients to make mortar, stack the blocks in an arranged order and bond them together using the mortar to create the block wall but, if the block wall is to act as a foundation for a house, we’re not finished, and the process of further combinations continues. All of the steps must occur in order. You can’t lay up the block before you remove the mold or before the concrete hardens etc. There must also be an ordered chain of combinational directives, patterns that must be followed at each step. The proper proportions of cement and aggregate must be mixed together, the mold must be of a standard size and shape to allow the combining process to continue. We observe the process of making concrete blocks and concrete block walls without amazement because we see the process all the time, and we create the combinational directives that lead from raw ingredients to a block wall. This is what humans do…. they build things….. but what about Nature?

Nature is filled with combinational directives, and like our block wall they are arranged in an ordered chain from the simple to the complex, and like our block wall result in structures very different from the raw materials that began the process... and here, we should be amazed!

The combinational directives we are discovering in Nature use enormous amounts of energy and raw materials, amounts far beyond our ability to measure or comprehend, and unlike our block wall, they are self assembling. Nature’s combinational directives are innate in energy and matter itself. The assembly directions are a part of the raw material itself. If we humans had the ability to infuse the raw ingredients of concrete with self assembly instructions, we could stand back and watch concrete blocks form themselves and then assemble themselves into a block wall, which would pretty much make us useless and expendable.

Nature’s combinational directives are truly amazing. It starts with an expanding plasma that, (as it occupies a larger space), cools and precipitates basic solid bits of matter, (fermions) and condenses some of its energy into (bosons), including a key energy particle, the Higgs (a graviton). Then Nature continues its self directed assembly by naturally creating composite elementary particles, (hadrons, baryons, and mesons) and further self assembles these into the first atom, (hydrogen).

With the basic ingredients now self assembled, the expansion continues and residual energy abates as the Higgs, in opposition to the expansion directs aggregates of hydrogen to gather into clouds and condense and as gravities grip grows stronger the density of the hydrogen clouds increase and the cooling effect of the initial universal expansion is reversed and billions of small local hydrogen clouds become tiny furnaces each forging in their interior, (following Nature’s combinational directives), atomic composites of hydrogen atoms. Step by self assembling step, hydrogen is mashed into helium, helium into oxygen, oxygen into carbon and silicon and more, and at each step the self assembly releases some of the energy stored in the basic particles from their condensate origins and with the Higgs in opposition, holding these tiny furnaces closed, the process of atomic assembly continues until iron is produced and, acts as a “stop production switch” (iron releases no residual condensate energy when formed), and shuts down the furnace and  Higgs, (gravity), wins the pushing contest, (the same pushing contest it started in the first place). Without the fusion fire burning hot enough to resist gravity collapses the furnace to become either a weird dense ball of matter or an explosion and, (following Nature’s innate combinational directives), produce even more complex atoms like lead, gold, uranium etc.

One would think that after all this self directed expanding, mixing and exploding that the process would be over, but Nature’s combinational self assembly directives have much more in store. Like our concrete block wall being only the beginning of a house, Nature continues to build things. 

As a key player in Nature’s combinational directives, Higgs, (gravity), never gives up, even when it swallows itself to form a black hole. As Higgs continues to gather clouds of hydrogen it also scoops up the results of its winnings from the collapse and explosions of the renegade furnace stars while they try to escape and return to their plasma beginnings. Seemingly at odds with gravities end game, Higgs continues to form new stars, (new furnaces) from the residue of the first round of the contest, which it has already won. As Higgs continues endlessly to collect and condense everything it can reach, it has to contend with another residual element of its efforts. In addition to having to contend with fusion push backs in the stars it creates by mashing hydrogen atoms to form other atomic elements, Higgs also has to contend with spin, the residual effect of being unable to gather a misshaped cloud all at once in straight lines toward a central gathering point. Higgs is initially spread thin reaching out into amorphous hydrogen cloud as far as possible. Like a large randomly organized crowd of bean pickers holding hands while trying to pick beans being drawn into an, as yet unestablished center point. With all the bean pickers pulling their neighboring picker closer a messy rotation results and a lot of beans are left in the field. The pickers eventually swirl around each other faster and faster like an ice skater pulling in their arms. Eventually they are all mashed together, spinning around at a point somewhere in the field locked in a tight embrace. The beans they missed are gathered by other gravitational pickers onto planets, moons, asteroids and comets

Higgs method of collection is messy. As gravity creates a star it creates rotation as a natural by-product and spins off lots of material it can’t collect. When a balance is created between Higgs pull and the rate of rotation keeping the rotating material at the same distance from central gravitational points a stable orbit is created, and orbits are everywhere. Our moon and our man made satellites orbit the earth, the earth orbits the sun, the sun orbits around the center of the galaxy and galaxies orbit each other. Round and round everything goes and orbiting appears to be, like Higgs and star formation, another key combinational directive.       

One would think that after all this additional mixing, exploding, gathering and spinning that the process would be over, but Nature’s combinational self assembly directives have much more in store. Like our concrete block wall being only the beginning of a house, and the house being only the beginning of activity within it, Nature continues. The chain of events that has created atoms is filled with amazing steps, mostly violent, and all take place in such large numbers and in time scales we can’t comprehend, a self actualizing chain of events directed by innate combinational directives far beyond what we can understand but can't deny and they, like a congressional filibuster, go on and on and on 

Beyond atoms, (has anyone ever tried to calculate how many there are in the universe?) are the next combinational directed products; molecules, and from molecules the next combinational directed product; compounds and from them; minerals and from them a really amazing self directed combinational product called life, and from life, awareness, and from awareness a whole new chain of combinational directives as we, and probably other life forms in the universe, take charge of the next level of combinational directives.

Were all these amazing events instilled as combinational directives from the beginning? Was so much randomness needed and were so many missteps necessary? Is an end product programmed into Nature’s combinational directives or are we, and other advanced life forms, the last step in Nature’s built in guidance program, leaving the future of the universe open and in our hands, or tentacles, or whatever.?   

   

Legislate, don't manipulate. A plea to politicians

EXPLOITING DEMOCRACY

By

Vern A. Westfall

      Politicians have always brought special agendas to congress for consideration. It is an essential part of any representative democracy, but it only works if the agendas are open for review by the voting public. Hiding priority agendas from the public during elections, cloaking them in misleading language and burying them in unrelated bills to become a law, are subversive acts that undermine a free and open government. Some closed door negotiations are necessary to coordinate political campaigns and to assemble blocks of votes, but underground campaigns to recruit and finance politicians in order to infiltrate our legislative bodies for narrow personal agendas is a subversion of democracy, not an exercise in democracy.

     After many failures to gather public support for narrow views, extremists have begin to manipulate primary campaigns by sneaking their candidates into the system with carefully coached rhetoric, money from secret donors and very sophisticated gerrymandering. Secret agenda politicians concentrate on primary elections because primaries attract very little public scrutiny have low voter turnouts and are party oriented. With agendas hidden in the only platform available in a following general election, puppet candidates are nearly assured success and take their assigned agendas to the next step.

     This undermining process of rigging the system has resulted in a loss of public trust in the workings of what should be the most effective government system in the world. Strong views have a place in democracy, extreme views do not. Open debate and reasonable compromise are the bedrock of democracy but intolerance, based upon strict ideologies, is quicksand and will swallow all our freedoms. When pledges are signed by our lawmakers that take precedence over their oath of office, they become an appointed surrogate, not an elected official, and should be required to rescind their pledge or leave office.

      “We The People” means all of us, not just the pious or the wealthy or the well educated. There is an innate wisdom in our diversity that needs to be respected by all lawmakers and put before fraternity, region, or religion. Stop preaching, stop blocking debates that might expose a weakness, stop pointing fingers and looking for ways to discredit others with different views, and stop fostering paranoia by demonizing others in order to get votes. If holding office, or your view on any specific subject, is more important than the integrity of our Country, you should not be in office. If you let competition supersede compromise in all debates, you should not be in office. If you love this Country love all of it, not just your close circle of like minded friends. Ask yourself why you are in office, how you got there, if you have the perspective and wisdom to govern well, and most important, ask what or who determines your position on matters before you. Any answer, other than your own best judgment of what is best for the Country, should give you pause. We didn’t elect you to represent Wall Street, your church, big business or labor. We elected you to guide and govern a complex and diverse association of people with divergent ideas struggling in a complex world. You may not be able to understand all of us, but please try. Please--------- put our best interests before your personal ideologies and political aspirations and legislate, don’t manipulate, govern, don’t dictate.

Motion = Time ?

Motion and Velocity

By Vern A. Westfall

 Unfortunately we have woven our misconception that time is a real quality into our formulas with misleading terms like speed and velocity, both of which are defined as “distance” divided by “time”. Formulae for motion have been so useful in identifying past and predicting future relative positions, we assume they also prove the legitimacy of the terms; time and distance, but do they? Having a three legged horse listed on a betting slip doesn’t prove the horse really exists. If we really want to be accurate, or at least complete, we should recognize “D”, distance and, “T” time, are only comparative terms. The muzzle velocity of a bullet is described by our time/distance formula as 2,200 feet per second, and as long as we compare it to other velocities using the same time/ distance convention, we create a useful and accurate comparative concept. For example: A satellite in low earth orbit travels at about 26,400 feet per second or about 12 times faster than a bullet, but if we are after a clear and complete concept of these velocities we need to include the hidden comparisons used to arrive at the terms; (a second) and (a foot).

Most of our “time” increments are based on how far the earth turns during an artificial increment of a full revolution. For a second it is 1/86,000^th of a full rotation. Keep in mind that the rotating earth is a movement, not a time and to arrive at a velocity, (in feet per second), we are dividing a comparative separation, “distance” (in this case the length of a king’s foot) by a very small fraction of one full rotation of the earth, (a comparative movement) so we are really dividing an arbitrary separation by an arbitrary movement. Distance, like time, is only a comparison and velocity, like time and distance, is only the derivative of other arbitrary comparison. All we can do is compare. Everything is changing and nothing seems established, until we get to light and then what do we do? We use the movement of a photon of light through space, (which may not be a universal constant), to measure both time and distance by inventing something we call a light year and compare one trip around the sun by our planet to a photon’s speed, which we learned above is made up of two other comparatives, time and distance. When we use the speed of light as a standard we are comparing a comparison to a comparison to arrive at a standard measurement for a (time- distance), What ever that is?  

Even Einstein got tangled up in these comparisons of comparisons when formulating his field equations and arrived at his universal constant, (a concept he later called his greatest mistake). It’s difficult to think outside the practical concepts and artificial comparative standards that guide us through life. They have made us great engineers, but occasionally a human mind escapes from our conceptual traps and catches a glimpse of the magnificent swirling universe beyond our formulae and is inspired to search further. We measure distances we cannot fathom, time periods we cannot imagine and speeds beyond our comprehension and delude ourselves into thinking we are close to final answers, but, if we ever find one, will we be able to appreciate it?  Look at a star and try to appreciate the fact that you are observing, not the star, but a small trace of radiation emitted so long ago that the earth has rotated 73,000,000 times since the bit radiation you are witnessing was sent out in all directions long ago.. Star light is sent out in an expanding sphere for observers everywhere in the universe, not just us. Have other observers also adopted The Light Year as a standard but based it on the orbital period of their planet? I doubt it.   

Who Stirred The Pot?

Who stirred the pot?

By Vern A. Westfall

For a very long time we, (mankind), assumed that we were living on a static flat surface and the sun, the moon and the stars were moving through the sky and then diving into the underworld only to reappear on the other side. For a very long time we envisioned the sky as a dome with the sun dominant during the day and the stars dominant at night. It was a grand show made especially for us and we accepted it in much the same way we later accepted the video game, asteroids. When the little space ship disappeared when it reached the edge of the screen and reappeared on the opposite side, still moving at the same pace, I doubt if anyone ever turned the game over to see if the little space ship was racing across the back of the game to get to the other side. But curiosity finally got the better of us and, like my dog occasionally trying to squeeze behind the TV to see where Lassie had gone, we took a closer look and started to track the motions above us. It took a lot of stone monuments to get the intervals right, and I wonder if we were trying to measure the heavenly movements or capture and control them by trapping them between bigger and bigger stones. My dog still hasn’t figured out where Lassie goes when she walks off the TV screen, but we humans have figured out why and how the sun, moon and stars move, and that we don’t live on a flat fixed earth. Explaining to the general public and to the church, how a round earth orbits the sun with the moon orbiting the earth, in the early renaissance was almost as difficult as me trying to explain Lassies TV disappearance to my dog. Eventually most of humanity got the new concept and now we throw ourselves into orbit, try to measure everything, and have found that everything in space seems to be going in circles.

I am getting older and occasionally I feel a bit dizzy, especially after a martini. I attribute these periods of dizziness to having spun around on the earth 27,375 times since I was born and I suppose being a bit dizzy is to be expected, but why all this circling and spinning. Planets spin on their axis and circle stars that are spinning and ride around in circles inside galaxies that are circling each other. I understand the concept that an ice skater turning slowly will spin faster when her arms are drawn in, but if she wasn’t turning at all when she pulled her arms in nothing would happen. So what started all this rotating and orbiting? Who, or what, stirred the pot, and when? Was the singularity spinning just before the big bang, did it blow out on opposite sides like a fourth of July fireworks pinwheel, or was the initial angular momentum built up from the inside as a natural consequence of attractive forces as energy condensed into atoms, atoms were gathered into a stellar dust by electrostatic attractions and dust particles were gathered by gravity to form stars, planets, comets, asteroids and galaxies? Even black holes spin. There is an enormous amount of angular momentum in the universe and as Einstein pointed out, angular momentum affects time the same way gravity affects time, it makes it run slower. It would seem that as gravity creates great centers of mass and causes them to spin ever faster it also slows all natural processes. Radioactive elements decay at a slower pace, I age slower, and as a fortunate consequence, I have time for one more martini. But all this is occurring at macro scales. What about at micro scales? According to our atomic physicists every thing is spinning in their world as well, and angular momentum is at the core of quantum mechanics where things don’t need time to move about or change conditions. Whoa!

I think I’ll have that martini now.

Whats Happening?

 What’s Happening?

By Vern A. Westfall

“What’s happening?” or “Wie Gehts?” or “的情况怎样?” is a familiar greeting used around the world. It isn't a sincere inquiry made to illicit a full explanation, if it were, we would be hard pressed to explain everything going on in the universe at that moment. The greeting asks only, what is occurring in your life that is significant at the moment, or in the recent past? It also assumes that the greeter knows your location. If I ask you “what’s happening? And the last I knew you were in Denver, I expect your answer to reflect your recent activities in Denver. But as we have learned in previous blogs”, position and time are comparatives which are affected by motion and we have invented conventions that allow us to ignore most of reality’s swirling confusion. But if I ignore reality, and call Denver from London at 8:00 AM, I will wake you in the middle of your night. I am setting in the sunlight having a cup of tea, and if time were a real static thing you would be awake and having a cup of coffee, but instead you are trying to sleep. Your static position is relevant to my static position only in that we are sharing a ride on the surface of a giant ball that is spinning and traveling in an orbit around a star.

When I ask, “What’s happening?” and you answer, “Nothing much,” you make a universal understatement. We are bobbing up and down while we spin around on the outer arm of a spiral galaxy, racing away from hundreds of billions of other galaxies, except Andromeda, (with which we will eventually collide) and, (because of our newly invented methods of en-masse communications), are evolving a new type of living awareness.  If I accept “Nothing much” as an answer to, “What’s happening?” as a sufficient answer, I am not really expecting an answer at all, and if I explain this to you by pointing out that we are bouncing our voices off satellites in geo synchronous orbits, you will probably tell me to go to Hell, and hang up.

The point is that we are tiny specs on a tiny planet lost somewhere in space, busy feeding and breeding, trying to remain oblivious to the discoveries of our curious scientists as they expose miracle after miracle for us to explain, or ignore. We don’t have to climb to the top of a mountain on a clear night to marvel at the stars, or travel the world to marvel at the diversity and persistence of life because the curious among us have captured these marvels in language nets and as digital information and made them ready, on demand, as shared synaptic realities. Our scientists, mathematicians and philosophers are fisherman, catching facts with intellectual nets drawn through inner and outer space by tools invented to let us see further and think faster.

We have become a significant part of the many miracles that make up the magnificence around us, and when another advanced awareness from elsewhere in space eventually contacts us and asks, “Hey, what’s happening?” How will we answer?  

Hopefully it will be with something more significant than, “Nothing much.”

Size Matters

Size Matters

By Vern A. Westfall

The complex interaction of all movements and changing conditions in the universe is well beyond measurement or prediction. There is just too much going on. To compensate we restrict our comparisons to things and comparative positions that fit within our observational capabilities, (our scope of awareness). We focus on small parts of the universe and have invented numerical relationships and formulae to compare one point in a group of changing positions to another as a way to isolate past relationships and predict future relationships. Two of these comparatives are distance and size.

A fixed distance is the space between objects moving at the same rate on parallel paths. (If there is a true fixed point somewhere in the universe, we haven’t found it.)  Everything is in motion. Even New York is in motion as it rotates with the earth at about 600 mph, goes around the sun at about 6,000 mph and rotates with the galaxy at about 60,000 mph.

A varying distance between objects occurs when objects are moving at dissimilar rates and/or are on dissimilar paths. We measure both fixed and changing distances using artificial comparatives, standards we have created so we can make comparisons, and we have a lot of them; a foot, a meter, a furlong, a link, a chain, a mile, a kilometer, a parsec, etc. We divide our standard comparatives into smaller pieces in arbitrary units like twelve inches to every foot and 5,280 feet to every mile, and for reasons we have long forgotten, we, in the US and England, have trapped ourselves into using these historical remnants. We have also trapped ourselves into using the convoluted mathematics that goes with these remnants. In most of the rest of the world more rational units, that reflect the girth of the earth and are multiples of ten, are the norm. All the systems we use as a standard comparison, however, are arbitrary, (even the metric system), there is no standard universal macro separation comparatives in nature. If any universal standards exist, they exist at atomic or light speed scales and to be useful for our everyday applications become numbers with such very large or very small exponents they have little practical value.

Fixed distances, like the size of a room, (expressed in feet or meters), or the distance between cities, (expressed in miles or kilometers), are extremely useful comparisons. We are able to visualize these distances and we use them so frequently we forget they are arbitrary constructs. When we attempt to extend our common comparatives to very large distances, (like the distance to Mars or the nearest star), or to the very small, (like the size of a hydrogen atom), we find our comparative conventions inadequate. Our concepts of distance, like our concepts regarding time, are very useful, but if we want to understand more of the reality around us we need to remember that they are arbitrary constructs, and avoid assigning them a reality they don’t possess, especially in mathematical formulations where we often misuse them as universal constants.

Distance has meaning only as a comparative that is relevant to the human scale of awareness, or to the scale of a human inquiry. Time has meaning only as a comparative relevant to motions being observed within the human pace of awareness, or to a pace relevant to a human inquiry.

Are there any natural static distances or rates of motions in nature? Einstein gave up the idea of a universal constant calling it his biggest mistake, but what of the speed of light?

We use the pace of light through space at 670 million miles per hour as a standard in our cosmological examinations and consider it a constant. But is it? Has light always traveled at the rate we measure today or, when examine light that began its journey billions of years ago, are we using comparative variable distances and movements as constants when, in fact, they have changed as the universe expanded? If so we may be drawing false conclusions as to the actual age of the universe and as to its rate of expansion. Dark energy may be a false conclusion based on the false assumption that time has always been a constant.

When Time Is It?

When time is it?

By Vern A. Westfall

I find it curious that we don’t have a proper interrogative to ask for the current time. We use Why to get an explanation of purpose, Where to get a location, How to get an explanation of process, Who to get the identity of a person, Why to get a reason for an action, When to get a time specified in the past or the future, and What to get an explanation for a process or an explanation of an object, but we don’t ask; “When time is it?”, instead we ask “What time is it?” It’s as if we were asking for an explanation rather than specific current moment, and maybe we are. Time is a curious thing, especially since Einstein pointed out that acceleration changes the rate at which things happen and motion can go faster or slower depending on where you are. Even gravity can slow things down, but time is only a rate of motion and it’s obvious that things don’t all move at the same rate. Some things move faster and some things move slower. The only motion limits we know are a temperature of absolute zero, where everything stops and the speed limit of light which nothing can exceed. So what happens to our concept of time at these extremes? Curiously time comes to a dead stop at both extremes and none of this makes any sense to a life form with a pace of awareness geared to the slow rotation of a small planet.

If we want to know what is happening on the surface of the sun we have to wait for the Earth to rotate 1/160^th of a full rotation for the news to reach us. The reason we have to wait is for the information to cover the 93 million miles between us and the sun. Light from the sun, and all other electromagnetic radiation, travels fast, but things in space are far apart and our only link to what’s happening out there is from light traveling at 670 million miles an hour. Even at this speed, when we look at distant galaxies we aren’t looking at what is happening now. Instead we are looking at what was happening millions or even billions of years ago. Current events aren’t possible in space. Real time surveillance isn’t possible for distant objects.  

The most accurate clocks yet invented are two atomic clocks located in Bolder Colorado. They run at a rate determined by vibrating ions. The pace of vibration running these clocks is also determined by their location in the earth’s gravitational field. As an experiment one clock was raised above the other which created a very slight difference in gravity and caused the higher clock to run measurably faster. More gravity, (G force), produces slower comparative movements. Acceleration, (G force) also produces slower comparative movements. If you want to outlive your grandchildren go on a long space voyage under constant acceleration, both on your way out and on your way back or, strap yourself into a centrifuge and endure a very long period of high G’s, or move to the crushing gravity of a large planet. You won’t notice any difference in your heart beat or aging process but they will be out of sync with those still living in a one G environment. To reverse the process and let your grand children catch up, move back to Earth and put them in a zero G environment for an extended period. You will need extremes to make any significant difference, but the effect is real and it wouldn’t make any sense for you to ask your grand children “What time is it?

        When or Where time is it?” would be more appropriate.      

KILLING TIME

Killing Time

by Vern A. Westfall 

We measure time only as a comparative. We compare one interval of change to another. If a ball takes X amount of time to roll down an incline and another ball takes less time when the incline is elevated we make a comparison, a larger interval for the first ball to get from top to bottom and a smaller interval for the second ball. We observe the difference by using our own pace of awareness which introduces a third comparative that allows an estimated quantification. Ball two seems to arrive at the bottom of the ramp in about half the time required for ball number one, but to be more definitive we need another more reliable and regular motion produced interval to use as a standard. Our most basic standard interval is the rotating Earth and our latest, more accirate, interval standards are the vibration rates of the certain atoms.

The point is; the intervals we call time are only changes in position or condition. If nothing moves or changes its condition, including our synaptic awareness, there is no interval to measure and there is no time. Time requires motion and is meaningful only if compared to another interval of motion. Fortunately there is plenty of motion going on around us and comparative intervals are everywhere. The movements around us keep our awareness busy and delude us to into thinking we are passing through time when we are only observing, in synaptic intervals, motion and changes in condition. Time is a construct created by awareness. Without awareness, even at its simplest level, even the awarenss of a plant, time is only motion or a changing condition, nothing more.

Motion is displacement from one position to another  but it, like time, needs another marked position as a comparative or it is meaningless. Motion without a reference point is the same as a static position. If you can’t measure a displacement nothing moved and no motion interval was created. From this viewpoint time and motion seem so interdependent that they become the same thing. Motion, time and their derivative, velocity, are all one in the same and have meaning only as comparatives to other motions, intervals and velocities. Stop all movement and time also stops.  

The earth rotates at a pace we call a day, and makes one revolution around the sun in an interval of motion we call a year. To be able to measure the blur of motion around us we have sliced up these standards to create smaller standard increments.  We have chopped the rotational period of our planet into twenty four pieces, and then to match other mathematical and geometrical constructs, further divided these increments by sixty and then again by sixty to arrive at an even smaller comparative increment of motion. We are now so used to using these increments of earthly rotation to coordinate our activities that we loose sight of the fact that they are not real bits of time. The minute is a comparative we use to gage and coordinate our activities, but it is not an increment of time. It is the motion taking place around us while the Earth turns 1/1,440^th of a full rotation. The minute is a motion comparative, (what happens while the earth turns 1/1,440^th of a full rotation).

We further delude ourselves by using our motion comparatives to specify activities taking place ‘Now’, in the ‘Past’, or in the ‘Future’, intimating that these terms are descriptions of an entity called time through which we drag our awareness. We specify segments of motion comparisons by assigning numbers and names to the earth’s rotational positions. For our 24 artificial rotational segments we use numbers from 1 to 12 with AM and PM or 1 to 24 and consider all activities occurring during the specified rotational segment as an hour of coincidental movements. We further specify coincidental movements or activity by segmenting our 15 degree, hour, rotational segments into sixty smaller rotational segments of 1/4^th of a degree of rotation, (minutes), and sixty even smaller segments of 1/240^th of a degree of rotation (seconds)

We confuse comparative and coincidental motions with a concept (time) because we have filled our vocabulary with words connected to the concept, and because the concept is useful. Phrases like “In the past”, “Two hours from now” and “Be there at four o’clock”, are a lot simpler and easier to deal with than, “Before we began this rotation around the sun”, or “When the earth has rotated 30 degrees”, or “Be there when the earth has rotated 60 degrees beyond the prime meridian”. Our awareness has also led us to believe we are on a continuous passage from one moment to the next when we are really just interacting with the mix of movements we cause and those we observe and remember. Time is a useful concept but October is only an arbitrary 30 degree orbital segment of the earth named after a roman emperor and a year is only one trip around the sun, and 4000 BC is a religious marker indicating an orbit 6,013 orbits before the current orbit. Time is motion observed and measured against other movements, nothing more. With time demoted to being a construct of our awareness it no longer has any real qualities. Time has become comparative motion instead of an invisible dimension through which things move.

Time as an original element in the universe does not exist. Only motion and energy fluctuations exist and this mix of motions and changes in conditions continues until observed as unmeasured and irrelevant leaving traces of previous movements, but never stopping or backing up.

Time, as a construct of living awareness, began when chance motions and conditions produced a self replicating, self energizing combination of molecules called life. With life added to the moving energy mix the universe began keeping track of conditions and movements. Using replicating molecular combinations as monitors, bacteria, began observing changes in the environment around them. Time is of significance only to a living awareness. Awareness is however of great significance and adds another dimension to reality. With the advent of life (awareness), creation continued in a new direction and at a new pace.     

Beyond Identity Theft - Identity Death

     Using a laptop as a weapon, skilled information manipulators are now capable of not only stealing your identity for the purpose of misusing your credit, obtaining a second mtg. on your home, or filing a false IRS claim, they can also have you declared dead, raid your bank accounts and redirect life insurance payouts. For the victims, these are more than an inconvenience. They require the victim to prove they did not initiate the declaration or claims and to prove they are still alive.
      These are serious crimes. Crimes that demand serious investigation, victim compensation, and strong penalties for not only the perpetrators, but also for the institutions that allow themselves to be manipulated and then refuse to offer serious help. These crimes deserve the same media attention as violent crimes and the same investigative diligence. Identity crimes are no longer simple theft, they are being used as intimidation tactics by opponents in court, by zealots, against individuals with different beliefs, and as a new intimidation technique to illicit protection money from individuals and businesses. 
      Once targeted, even with arrests made later, a victim can be targeted again and again and changing one's SS # is allowed only in witness protection cases and changing one's name is not simple and usually not effective. If you are pissed off at someone it is no longer necessary to kill them, just get them declared dead. It's more effective and involves much less risk. Identity assassins are on the rise and an unsuspecting alliance has created a mafia type "pay for protection" between hackers and providers of protection software. I sincerely hope this 'hack to intimidate" and "pay to avoid" relationship is unintentional."
  

Why it Takes Two

    Sex and death are intimately related.
    Before sex, life was immortal, or sort of. Before nature thought of gene swapping as a way to expedite new attributes by way of DNA mixing, life was only single cells that reproduced by dividing. One cell simply split in two taking half the genetic material with it and growing the other half after division to become two perfect replicas. One cell became two, two became four etc. and no one had to die. Unfortunately we humans can't do the divide thing and I'm not sure I would like to have myself as a roommate anyway. Yes, twins, triplets etc. happen, but still at the single cell level and still require two to happen.
     The disadvantage of immortal cell division is slow adaptability to environmental changes as cells wait on random faulty genes to produce, by chance, an attribute that will help them adjust to their new environment. Fortunately single cells are good at playing the numbers game and produce billions of cells very quickly by doubling. If two cells become four in one minuet it doesn't take long before ten thousand cells become twenty thousand cells in a minuet etc.
      Gene swapping probably started when single cells with one attribute found it advantages to hang around  with another group of cells with another attribute and began to swap DNA as a way to make the union permanent, a kind of primitive group sex. These cell parties soon led to the first multi cellular life forms and DNA transfer methods were perfected as multi cellular life became more complex.
      Even plants have sex, of a sort, and plants like animals all die after, hopefully, reproducing. Immortality is reserved for the single cellular,   sequential replacement for the multi cellular,   and with it sex and death. At the single cell level one becomes two. At the multi cellular level two becomes one. It makes one wonder if sex is worth dying for.