Natures wonders: clever tiny wasp controls another (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, February 01, 2017, 00:56 (2851 days ago) @ dhw

BBELLA: [...] on some level somehow I do believe all is connected. I may not be cognitively aware of a star forming in some far out galaxy, but somewhere within all that I AM, I am effected by that star forming. I do believe this, not just because of the science I've studied, but more because the science I studied confirmed what I experienced.
dhw: Without in any way questioning the authenticity of your experiences, may I ask: Do you believe that the star forming in some far out galaxy is affected by you?
BBELLA: Yes, since I believe all that IS is connected.

dhw: There is no doubt that all of us are affected by the sun, without which we would simply not exist, so that is a clear connection. But I wonder how many of us believe that anything we do has any effect on the sun. By the same token, if the universe didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist either, and nor would anything else, so in that sense, everything in the universe is connected. But you are obviously thinking of a deeper, “spiritual” kind of connection (morphic fields etc.), and although I myself can understand and accept the possible reality of such immaterial links, in all honesty I can only do so in relation to living things. I don’t for one second believe that anything I do will affect a distant star, and I don’t think a pebble on a beach in Australia has the remotest connection with me or I with it. Where does one draw the line? Perhaps it boils down to the question: are we and our fellow organisms uniquely alive in an impersonal universe, or is the universe itself a living organism?

BBella is really referring to the quantum connected universe, I'm sure, not what you are discussing.

BBELLA: I don't know if you had an opportunity to read the article I posted, 'Where Is Time?' but the article hits on the very reason I have this belief.

dhw: I’m sorry to say I lost patience with it. The author covers so many different individual areas (the brain, time, the electric universe, noise) that I could not latch on to a central argument at all, and it simply goes on and on and on. But I am currently very pushed for time, so that may be unfair. However, when you come across such articles, it would be very helpful if you could select relevant passages as David does, to highlight what you consider to be “the very reason” we need to latch onto.

I lost patience also, but he seems to be saying, on skimming it, that time is a construct in our brains as we all have discussed.