superconcepts

  Photo by Alazar Kassahun on Unsplash Matter Evolution Since the first particles were set in motion, every action has been part of a chain reaction. At first, there were the simplest of elementary particles in an empty universe. Hydrogen atoms — single electron entities, were the pinnacle of complexity. Eventually, a few of them collided, stuck together, and f o rmed more complex atoms, and then molecules. Well, it was a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. These molecules accumulated until there were so many that gravity and magnetism began to have a significant effect. As the gravity increased, the mass increased, and nuclear fusion commenced. Star systems were born. The planets continued a sequence of their own. Eventually molecules increased in complexity by way of chemical reactions in order to form amino acids which then combined to create proteins. These proteins and amino acids increased in complexity until living cells emerged from the chem...

The mind is curious thing. We believe the perceptions from our awakened state to be the ultimate reality - the be all and end all of our existence. The way things work in our day to day world, our interactions, our actions, their implications, and our understandings, appear to be the true representations of reality. So when we sleep, why do we not question the random strangeness and non-realities that perpetuate our slumber? What causes dreams to be so bizarre compared to our awoken reality? Dreams make no sense It's not just a sensory thing. In dreams, even concepts are twisted and stretched and mixed together. I was once in a state of half-asleep dozing and had someone dictate what I was saying - and it was complete nonsense, quite hilarious with absolutely no reference to my experiences or thoughts of the day (or reality in general). Dreams seem to be a regurgitation of our minds but absent of any of the framework to hold it together. This made me wonder. Did humans dream b...

If we were to replace our bodies, one atom at a time, would we be the same person? One would think this would be the case. Every 10 years, every cell in our body will have been replaced at least once, with bone marrow taking the longest to renew. Most of the body renews every 7 years. Our bodies are an ecosystem not unlike any other. Take the sea – remove and replace it one atom at a time and no fish will notice. Replacing larger pieces will cause problems for its inhabitants, but it will soon renew itself. Replace a large proportion, and this will likely have huge implications for the entire ocean. As it is with humans, replacing one small section at a time would be easily accounted for and would not have any dramatic effect on the system as a whole. This is a dramatic realisation – for what are we if not our bodies? We are not single entities. We are systems, and we are made from smaller systems, which in turn are made from smaller systems. Cells take in matter from our food ...