Wednesday, July 27, 2005

perception and time

Apparently, this country is on its way to hell in a handbasket...but hey, when hasn't it been? Cable companies consolidating, a corporate friendly congressman (as if there are any other kind) to be voted on for the SEC chairmanship, the on-going race to the bottom between MTV and most of the other crap on TV, an entire administration that is still in office as we are still in a war of false pretense and the deathcount and number of war crimes keep rising...

But thinking on all of this I can't help but think of the sequoia forests of northern california. How many civilizations have crumbled as they've reached for the sun? Planets take billions of years to form. Solar systems take eons to condense from swirling clouds. These are the respective scales of their lifespan. How do they percieve? Do they percieve on these time-scales?

Given that perception is simply interaction with the rest of the universe, I'd say yes.

It's impossible to watch a tree for five minutes and watch its life in motion. Is it possible to sit in a forest for weeks and watch life in motion? I think so, with the right patterns of thought.

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