Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Why humans (and all animal kingdom species) are bilaterally symmetric.


Why do humans (and all animal kingdom species) have a two-sided symmetry built into them (brains, nervous system, skeletal structure, etc.)?

The not so striking thing is that symmetry in ALL its forms and formats is a basic characteristic of nature, living and non-living.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry:*
"The "precise" notions of symmetry have various measures and operational definitions. For example, symmetry may be observed:
  • with respect to the passage of time;
  • as a spatial relationship;
  • through geometric transformations (scaling, reflection, rotation);
  • through other kinds of functional transformations;
  • as an aspect of abstract objects, theoretical models, language, music and even knowledge."

What IS striking though is that only in living forms WITH free mobility (the animal and insect kingdom and also the functionally movable parts - seeds and leaves - of the plant kingdom) that this symmetry is bi-lateral only:
They have a front and a back, as well as an up and a down side, but in one direction only: either horizontal (along the back and forth axis) or vertical (along the up and down axis) - but not perpendicular (along the from-left-to-right axis|), while in say the flora symmetry is multi-sided (except for a plant's mobile and motile parts such as seeds and leaves).

Why would that be?
  • Just quickly for now and without any explanation: the one direction of sun rays (also  the sun moving clockwise in the northern hemisphere);
  • the singular direction of attack approach by enemies (beasts of prey) or the escape route of potential victims (preyed upon beasts);
  • for now also and only quickly focusing on the brain, could that be why one side of the brain has a more temporal / sequential and the other side a more spatial / linear character, or the one side is passive and the other side reactive?
Note:
* "In bilateral symmetry (also called plane symmetry), only one plane, called the sagittal plane, will divide an organism into roughly mirror image halves (with respect to external appearance only[ ]. Thus there is approximate reflection symmetry. Often the two halves can meaningfully be referred to as the right and left halves, e.g. in the case of an animal with a main direction of motion in the plane of symmetry. [ ]
Most animals are bilaterally symmetric, including humans [ ], and belong to the group Bilateria. [ ] Most bilateral animals have an identical shape on either side, as if bisected by a mirror. Bilateral symmetry permits streamlining, favors the formation of a central nerve center, contributes to cephalization, and promotes actively moving organisms. Bilateral symmetry is an aspect of both chordates and vertebrates.
[Only certain] flowers such as members of the orchid and pea families are bilaterally symmetrical [ ]. The leaves of most plants are also superficially bilaterally symmetrical"

(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_%28biology%29#Bilateral_symmetry)

A binary view

A binary view leads to unity not duality

Although the binary counting system has received the appellation "binary" there is no 2 in that system: 1+1 becomes 10. Whenever a single addition is made place-value comes into play... something like VAT (value added tax) except in this case there are no taxes (no intermediate consumer losses) ... instead of that there are value added benefits (direct consumer gains).
When we compare the decimal system's 1+1=2 with the binary system's 1+1=10, we can see that in the binary system a complementing fuller wholeness is expressed... as though 1+1 is already pregnant from 1+1's intercourse. Even the 'feeling' of the mathematical signs + and = start connoting more than just a simple (meagre) addition or exact (thin) equation: 10 (binary) feels more complete than the decimal number 2.
Not sure yet how this view will impact on dualist notions... although I am getting very promising inklings about a possible change in paradigm. 


I first came upon this idea when I wanted to find out when in the history of the development of the human psyche dualism worked its way in. I began to imagine how things must have been for humans before they started counting the way we now do. I'm not saying that they used the binary system... but it seems to me that ancient texts (Genesis?) possibly try to come to grips with the idea that somehow two becomes one, etc... (The Gospel of Thomas is not very old but it tries to deal with this as well I believe.)


Friday, April 08, 2011

Overlapping Multiple Universes

What's called the "Multiverse"
it consists of myriads of 
overlapping, mutually interfering
unique universe perspectives...

I call it the
"Omniverse"


A few years back I was staring at a cover of a science magazine that featured an article on parallel universes which made me wonder whether there would be:

• either many parallel universes,
• or just one universe.

As I was staring at that cover (it must have been Sci-Am or Discover or even Popular Science), it suddenly dawned on me that it was not an "either-or" thing at all:

"Myriads of overlapping Universe Perspectives..."
 That does the trick!

Simply said it goes like this: 
You and I (and everyone and anything, from the smallest to the largest and anything in between... but let me keep it simple), each of us experiences a distinct relativistic universe perspective ¹. Mind you, these universe perspectives (and all other infinitely many distinct universe perspectives) are not parallel or apart from each other, they overlap each other, or, to say it differently and better, they are so intricately superposedly entangled that all parts and dynamics (the ones we can be aware of) occur in "one single universe only".
We are calling it "Our World"... but that is a very limited, incomplete characterization, because all these overlapping "worlds", they altogether form what I like to call the "Omniverse".

Using the analogy of waves (and simplifying it), waves do this overlappingly superposing all the time, except it is called "interference".

A Duck With Blinders In A Windy Pond...

Imaginatively visualize two waves in pond that are coming in from different directions: depending on when and where they meet..., there are locations where their interferential combination is twice as high, twice as deep, where they cancel each other out or something, whatever, in between. HOWEVER when we focus on JUST ONE particular spot in that entire wave pattern — that is LOCALLY and SPECIFICALLY in the "Here & Now" of spacetime — it can be seen (experienced, observed) as ONE REALITY ONLY, experienced locally time- and space-wise, as though having nothing to do with the entire pattern around it and the dynamics that caused the wave pattern to be so. A duck, so to speak, in that one spot might not know in any way, why its spot has its particular configuration, a duck might not have the tiniest of inklings about what influences exactly caused that spot to be precisely what it is... Consider it a duck with blinders, it only knows it own situation oblivious of the dynamics of systems close by and any and all systems around anywhere.

To say it differently, unbeknownst to the duck, the "pressure" of 13.7 billion years of causes and effects made her to be what and where she is at that current moment in space and time, even that we gave her virtual blinders in our metaphor.

Now imagine this to take place with plenty more waves, a maelstrom of waves in an oceanic environment...

Now imagine that this takes place with universes, infinitely many universes, a maelstrom of them... ... ... To me though, my situation appears as ONE actual factual scene  my local reality... not knowing though, or realizing, or being oblivious of the myriads of concurrent players in infinitely many superposingly entangled universes!

In MY distinct and unique universe view:
•   I RELATIVISTICALLY ² mutually and reciprocally cooperate and conjugate ³ with the entire infinite number of distinct universe perspectives, including the myriad of distinct ones WITHIN me, right down to the tiniest most fundamental particle level... 

And you, in YOUR distinct and unique universe view, that is from your "I" perspective:
• YOU RELATIVISTICALLY ² mutually and reciprocally cooperate and conjugate ³ with the entire infinite number of distinct perspectives, including the myriad of distinct ones WITHIN you, right down to the tiniest most fundamental particle level.

¹ I should review this, rephrase it:
Every entity from the tiniest (the smallest fundamental elemental particle) to the largest, has its own relativistic world perspective. Each component of complex entitites within its complexity has a unique perspective. The sum over all perspectives within a complex entity, amalgamatically represents a greater, more all around perspective.
Thus, the entirety of the universe—the Omniverse—is the grandest amalgam, in which  all individual perspectives are dynamic. They relativistically shift forward in spacetime. 
Thus, the Omniverse is a multidimensional interference pattern always in flux.
² It is here where Einstein's relativity theories meet with quantum theory.
³ "Conjugate"... as though "copulatingly"!