When Neurons Collide
I've had one of those weeks this week where one idea or concept has taken hold in my mind and I can't let it go.
It all started when I caught Cosmos on TV on the weekend after a lazy sleep in. My mind was still half asleep. I turn on Carl Sagan and start absorbing the concept of hindu philosophy comapred with that of big bang science.
Now, please do not attempt this at home folks. Unless you wish to spend the rest of your week continously thinking.
This is the premise that I started to absorb into my sleep fuddled mind (and I do apologise in advance if I offend anyone out there with my very basic explanations). The Hindu's are unique in their cosmology in that they believe that the universe was created with an explosive sound (AUM). They also have a unique idea in the age of the universe when they describe both the day and night of Brahma lasting 4.32 billion years. While other creation myths had the age of the universe in throusands of years, the Hindu thought the same as what scientists have determined.
Now that is interesting yet the one idea discussed by Carl Sagan that Hindu's belief that the universe will die and be reborn at that time currently matches current scientific theory that instead of the universe expanding and expanding til all the starts burn out, it will actually collapse back on itself and start off another explosion and universe. I am of course using a very simple way to explain two very complex and well discussed issues.
How can a spiritual belief be so similar to science? I have long wondered if science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. Yet are the two intrisically linked or opposed? If the universe does indeed have enough matter to cause a reshrinking rather than a never ending expansion than perhaps the Hindu beliefs are on the right track. Yet if this is theoretically what will happen this then poses further conundrums, both scientifically and spirtually.
If the universe constantly expands and contracts, a new universe forming each time, does life form the same why each time? Is life an easy occurence in the universe? What happens to me? If I go along with the Hindu belief then I will have reincarnated again and again but what happens to the 'me' that has reincarnated countless times when the universe shrinks back down and the day of Brahma ends? Does some remnant of myself still exist at this stage? Do I evolve into a cloud of gas? This may seem terribly selfish to consider what it means for me (i.e. one person on a planet full of billions) but I cannot relate what this means for even another individual, let alone the whole planet and forget the rest of the bloody universe!
My mind has also worked overtime on why I am so enamoured about an event that will not occur for billions of years and of which I will never truly know the outcome. What is the human compulsion to be so concerned about an event that will not occur for billions and billions of years? Why can I not instead focus on the moment that my consciousness is in right now. And now. oh and now. There it is again. Now.
And now I have a headache.
Hence the do not try this at home warning. Regardless, I cannot get my mind out of this conundrum of cascading events and what it means for me spiritually. Scientifically I'm not so concerned, cause if think it in scientific terms, it is definately not an event in my lifetime , unless I get offered a lift in a TARDIS.
Does the fact that this part of Hindu believe matches up with scientific fact/theory make it more valid than any other religion? After a week or so of pondering and a week or so of constructing this blog, I still don't know and I fully suspect that perhaps I never will.
So we live in the dreams of Brahma yet who dreams of Brahma? Perhaps we are all Brahma, dreaming a universe that we don't even know about.