A Privileged Access To Reality

     We have assumed a privileged place in the universe since we became self aware and appointed ourselves to a divine position. Unfortunately our inflated self importance has clouded a realistic assessment of our actual status for most of our history and still separates us from the reality around us by assuming we have a special access to reality that is all inclusive and of a different order than other living forms. We are beginning to penetrate our egoistic fog using scientific tools that are revealing a reality that is complex beyond our ability to assess and more amazing than our best collection of miraculous occurrences. The view we get through our scientific tools and manipulations is, without assessment, a jumble of astronomical radiation and movements, genetic puzzles, quantum surprises and biological mysteries. As we step down from our self appointed throne in the clouds, however, we are learning that our past assumptions of a privileged access to reality through our senses alone is unrealistic in the extreme We are also learning that the only way we can deal with the blaze of a total electromagnetic spectrum, unexplained gravitational anomalies and strange atomic structures is to create visual and mathematical analogies that we can process in our synaptic net molded to  accommodate sensory inputs only. We are explaining the reality being exposed using visual cartoons, digital reductions and symbolic manipulations. We are incapable of a total interaction with reality because we, like all other living forms, have had our attributes of awareness naturally selected in a long term, random "best fit" survival test that has sorted and resulted in our current  limited aware state. The wide view of reality we have opened with our tools is easily seen as threatening because we have not been equipped to deal with the broad perspectives and unfamiliar information from sources outside the range of our senses. Recognizing our disconnect with actual reality opens several doors, some beneficial and some detrimental.
      Our escape from a self assumed privileged ability to access reality through our senses alone or through revelations from a higher power has led to an organized examination of the reality around us and many resulting technological benefits. It is also slowly leading us to a recognition that all living forms possess some level of awareness each with their special advantages and many beyond basic human abilities and that this realization is fostering a greater empathy and appreciation of all life.
      On the detrimental side, by pointing out our disconnect from total reality and by challenging the idea of privileged access, the door is opened for those threatened by such notions to reach out to others feeling displaced from a universal center and through rhetoric radicalize their discomfort into narrow and extreme religious views. The fear and discomfort fostered by a sense of no longer belonging to or understanding a universe being exposed by investigatory tools and scientific methods is  fostering attempts to return to a pre-scientific era using revolt and violence..We cannot, however, undo a civilization built on new understandings without destroying ourselves and most other life on our small planet. We are the product of a universe with more stars than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on earth, and of matter becoming animate and alive through natural processes, and have become what we are through the same random process that has produced every other living thing from microbes to mollusks to man, each one aware of the reality around it in its own special way.
       Moral codes formed in the fog of our egocentric past are still relevant but no longer sufficient. We now control, and must use wisely the fusion power that is the energy of stars and have the ability to intervene and control the future of life through genetic manipulations. If we turn back civilization will collapse and if we wish to survive the current imbalance between the powers we have gained by observing nature and our inability to act in accord with natural processes we must recognize new mandates imposed by our advanced evolved state. We can survive our petty perspectives and egocentric views  only by continuing to explore and learn, recognizing the sanctity of language and by always being of good council, and by being good stewards. All living things have access to reality and our access is not privileged nor complete, only more encompassing and with greater responsibilities.



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