I guess I had won a contest or something because I was scheduled to accompany a space shuttle crew on one of their missions.  I was pretty stoked about it – my son-in-law taught me that word, stoked — and was trying to make mental plans for how to snap some good photographs through the shuttle’s little portal window once I got into orbit.  But then my doctor called to inform me that I had a condition that could basically end my life at any moment.  I was pretty sure this would disqualify me from the shuttle mission, and that made me sad.

So (still dreaming, and therefore magically transported) I was standing and talking to some friends at my church telling them about the lost shuttle mission and the impending death, and this wonderful woman — I know who it was in the dream, but it could just as easily have been any of my wonderful friends from church — was telling me how very sorry she was, and I said something ridiculous like “Don’t worry about it.  Everybody’s gotta die sometime!” Then my head started to shake, sort of a Parkinson’s kind of shaking, and it was definitely the beginnings of a seizure, and my balance started to fail me, and I started to fall.  I felt my friends catching me, and I couldn’t speak to tell them to just let go.

That’s when I woke from the dream and began the process of staring at my ceiling for hours on end, thinking about the dream and its possible meanings, and memorizing the dark shadows in the nighttime version of our bedroom until the sun started to rise.  (This was not the kind of dream you want to have on a regular basis.)

I’m only 50 years old, or I will be in a few weeks.  I suppose increased thoughts of mortality are to be expected at such milestones, but I suspect my dream last night was also triggered by the loss of my father-in-law one month ago.  My own father, a very good father, died when I was 20, so my father-in-law became the father of my adult years, covering the second half of my life thus far.  He, also, was a very good father.

Dogs are simple and pure, so the grief after losing them is immediate.  But when a person close to me dies, the grief is often delayed.  I need time to reflect, to carefully examine the person’s life (as I knew it), to think about the things he or she cared about, the people he loved, the things he did and the things he never got to experience (such as space flight).

Then the night comes, usually weeks later, when I can finally cry, sometimes after waking from a dream, the dam finally breaking, the quiet tears soaking into my pillow and cleansing some part of my soul.

Billy Jack, 1930-2008

I also believe in God.  I realize the concept of God doesn’t compute for many people, but for me, there is simply no alternative.  Correct or not — I know I’m correct, but you might not — I have always sensed an overriding and attentive presence, and when I look at trees, or clouds, or animals, I see creations.  And I can’t believe the forces — or the concepts — of good and evil are no more significant than positive and negative magnetic forces, or that the spiritual implications of good and evil are simply a product of erroneous human perception.  I just can’t think that way.  Good is clearly good, and evil is clearly evil.  To me, at least.  (On the other hand, I think it’s very careless to label individuals, or groups of people, as being “evil.”  Evil, like good, is a force that can, and does, live in all of us to various degrees.)

Now, I know it’s wrong (in the eyes of many, many believers) to suggest that God doesn’t do everything with absolute perfection, right from the very beginning, but sometimes, when I think of dinosaurs and the various other creatures from Earth’s past, I wonder if some of them might have been created in order to test a wide variety of biological attributes within the unique parameters of this planet’s composition and atmosphere.  And at some point, a particular set of attributes (perhaps partially selected based on those previous test results) was used to create human beings, and then human beings (for reasons that might be debatable, given our record of stewardship) were given dominion over the earth.

Creation and evolution (not either/or)

So what am I getting at?  Within the context of intelligent design (and my own limited understanding of said design), I very much believe in evolution.  In my mind, the evidence of evolutionary improvements (or adaptations) having occurred over the millennia is irrefutable.  On the other hand, and perhaps because I have that tendency to believe in a creator, I just naturally see those periodic changes as being the result of an actively creative influence.  Even if a particular evolutionary change could be proven to have been spontaneous, i.e., not the result of direct creative interaction at the time of the change, why would it be a stretch to believe this ability to adapt could simply be a component of a creature’s original design?

Anyway, human beings, possibly as a result of having been created in God’s (i.e., the Creator’s) image, have managed to come up with some creations of their own.  Chief among those creations — because of their various resemblances to “creatures” — are automobiles, airplanes, space craft, and computers.  All of these creations evolve over time, and the evolutionary changes are implemented by the human creators.  We often speak in terms of the “next generation” of each of these creations.  (For example, I’m personally looking forward to our getting the next generation of space shuttles off the ground, assuming they’re still called space shuttles when it finally happens.)

On the other hand, when we speak of human generations, we automatically think of children, parents, grandparents, Generation X, Generation Jones, Baby Boomers, etc., in spite of the fact that humans do not exactly tend to improve every 20 years or so.  But sometimes I wonder what Jesus might have actually been referring to when he spoke of “this generation.”

“I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” – Mark 13:30 (NIV)

Could he have been referring to an evolutionary design change that might directly impact the physical design of human beings at some point in the future?

I know this is wild conjecture, but I’m just sharing my thoughts, after all.  And so…

A merging and melding of creatures

When we create our own version of birds (airplanes) and our own version of land animals (automobiles), we have a tendency to insert ourselves (pilots/drivers) into the brain cavities of those creatures.  Our eyes, ears, and brains become the eyes, ears, and brains of the birds and other animals we create, and so they come to life as soon as we take the controls.  Or, to look at it from another perspective, the airplanes and automobiles become exoskeletons for human beings, they become extensions of our own bodies and limbs, and we actually become those large birds and fast-running land animals.  It seems we have found ways to accelerate the schedule of our own evolutionary advancements.

Silly, huh?

But all of this leads me to a discussion of computers, because it’s our frustrating inability to create just the right versions of artificial brains, eyes, and ears that necessitates our continued reliance on human drivers or pilots (or at least remote control by humans) whenever instant reactions are expected from machines that are operating within rapidly-changing and/or unpredictable environments.

Computers are a relatively new (infantile, really) human creation, but they have already outpaced human beings in many areas, particularly those requiring high-speed and/or high-volume data processing.  Computers can do many things better (or at least faster) than humans, and humans still do many things better than computers.

Of course, as human creations go, and in spite of their newness, computers are still very special (that is, when they’re not just aggravating or frustrating).  They help us do things.  They help us to learn.  But most importantly, they resemble us.  In a very rudimentary way, they think (or at least process a wide variety of information), and they have the ability to memorize things.

These commonalities between humans and computers have given us an opportunity to view ourselves from a new perspective, and possibly to learn some things about ourselves.  In other words, while computers really only “know” what they are told by human beings, and while computers in turn can help to make a vast amount of information readily available to humans, I believe we can also learn something about our own human condition simply by observing the more basic nature and physical composition of computers.

So what can we learn?  If you’re still reading this post (and your eyes aren’t glazing over), please indulge my computer analogy:

Primary components of the human machine

Our brain is the computer that operates and maintains the machine that is our body, with all of its input devices (the five senses), output devices (facial and other muscular expressions, voice, etc.), and fuel and waste management systems (oxygen, food, drink, etc.).  In addition, the brain acts as physical processing and random access mediums (for the manipulation of active thoughts), and also as a storage medium (for storing memories).

Our mind is the operating system that runs within the brain (and some evidence involving cellular memory suggests it might also run, at least to some extent, in other bodily organs as well).  The mind is a special set of programs that is mostly built and maintained by the self (see next paragraph), but it can often also be modified, sometimes adversely, by influences outside one’s own body.  The mind sets the context and determines the perspective from which all other information is processed.

Our self (or personality, or soul, or psyche, or spirit) is both the primary user and, usually, the primary programmer of the mind.  I personally tend to think of the self (or soul) as having been attached or assigned to a particular mind (and brain) at some point during gestation, perhaps as early as conception.  To carry this personal mini-theory one step further, once this single drop of life has been added to a human embryo (or fetus — how could we ever know which?), its process of learning how to use and build the mind begins.

(The personal computer does not have its own self.  As with an airplane or automobile, the personal computer’s closest thing to a self is the primary user.  Or maybe Mac’s have a self, but PC’s don’t.  Who can really say?)

If you don’t believe in souls, perhaps you can think of the self as being the extension of the mind that is (or has somehow become) self-aware, sentient, intelligent, creative.

Our thoughts are the smaller programs that run within the context of our mind.  They are the surface programs used by the self to initially process new input (and/or previously recorded input), to rearrange selected portions of that information in an infinite possible number of ways, and to [optionally] produce some kind of output (i.e., expression), such as spoken sentences, writing, music, etc.

The input devices of the body (eyes, ears, skin, taste buds, olfactory) are our sources of all incoming information.  The self utilizes thoughts and mind in order to filter, process, discern, interpret, revise, organize, and ultimately store selected portions of this incoming information.

The output devices of the body (the voice, facial and other muscular expressions, etc.) can be used to extend programs outside one’s own body (e.g., spoken words and sentences, writings, arts & crafts, music, etc.) and make them available to the input perceptions of others.  This networking/communication process is susceptible to all manner of interference, noise, incompatibilities, and misinterpretations.

Themes.  You set the background (perspective) from which to live and work.  You choose to believe in something.

Purpose.  You decide which programs (thoughts and ideas) to install, which to avoid, which to delete, which to run, how often to run them, and how to use them.

Maintenance.  To a large extent, you choose the quality, quantity, and composition of your energy sources (food and drink and air).  You set the scheduling and choose the forms of exercise that will be applied to your systems (both mind and body).  You manage the avoidance of potential inhibitors (certain substances and influences).

Implications of the computer analogy

Maturity is a measure of growth, integrity, and efficiency (of the mind), combined with a programmed ability to discern potentially damaging information and process it accordingly.  The challenge to the self is to develop the right combination and levels of discernment, filtering, and selection processes (i.e., a value system) that will keep the mind from becoming infected with the mental equivalents of computer viruses, spyware, adware, and malware.  Although other people can exert peer-pressure, the self still makes its own choices regarding the types of information that get priority levels of attention, as well as the quantities that will be deemed sufficient from each type.

Just as a computer can become sluggish, ineffective, and corrupted when exposed to the wrong code, a mind that has been flooded with inordinate quantities of certain persistent thoughts, ideas, concepts, and/or images can become extremely inefficient and counterproductive.  An infected mind will likely taint new information with unfair (or unkind, incorrect, inconsiderate, disrespectful, malicious) preconceptions, then attempt to spread the corruption to others via its own forms of outward expression.

On the other hand, the best firewall and anti-virus system is not the one that simply closes off all incoming ports and proceeds to eradicate any incoming information that is even slightly unfamiliar or uncomfortable.  This is the reaction of the closed mind, the self-righteous or fearful mind, the mind that seeks only the familiar, and simply criticizes, condemns, and/or completely avoids anything that is different.

So how to choose the books, movies, TV and radio programs, games, images, music, language, and ideas (i.e., all of the potential incoming information) that will be given higher priority as you continue the ongoing process of assembling and reassembling your own mind?  All of these expressions (of others) comprise potential fuel for the mind, and the quality of this fuel should be just as important to you as your choice of foods and exercise regimens.  All of these expressions can have the power to lift or depress.  To inspire or corrupt.  To heal or hurt.

If you happen to be interested in building at least a portion of your mind around the theme of compassion, I would suggest keeping most of your firewall ports open.  Give higher priority to the more uplifting and strengthening influences, but don’t live under a rock or close yourself off from other people or other ideas (with some possible exceptions, most of which can be found at the left and right extremities of the political and religious spectrums — even an open mind should not feel obligated to expose itself needlessly or excessively to the most extreme forms of stupidity that exist in this world).

Instead, focus your programming energies on strengthening your ability to discern.  Without building a rigid grid of preconceptions and prejudgments against which to measure all information, nevertheless construct a flexible yet highly reliable information vetting system (value system) that will protect the integrity of your personal convictions (and desired worldview) while extending respect and reasonable consideration toward the different values expressed by others.  Be open to new ideas, but actively neutralize, file away, or discard (with all due respect) any ideas that you deem to be incompatible with — or potentially harmful to — your own chosen themes and beliefs.  Where differences are sure to remain between yourself and others, create the capacity for understanding, acceptance (or at least tolerance), and continued participation in mutually beneficial communication.  And in order to grow, be willing to change when all reasonable evidence suggests it is time to do so.  Never allow yourself to believe that all of your opinions and positions are infallible, especially if they are hurtful to others.

As a shirt recently worn by one of my favorite people very succinctly says:  “Don’t believe everything you think.”

Final thoughts

When viewed as an advanced computer, the human being is unbelievably superior to any other computer that exists today.  Although computers can be made to excel at certain tasks that leave humans in the dust, the fact that humans created and control them is evidence of the absolute supremacy humans enjoy over their creations.  Today’s computers exist solely because of the amazing ability of the human computer to self-program, to optimize and reorganize pieces of past experiences in order to visualize things that have never existed, and then to create them.

Perhaps one day, personal computers will attain some semblance of a self.  Computer scientists, engineers, and developers dream of nothing less, but the attainment of this goal will still be an accomplishment of the creator, not the created.

So rather than looking down at our creations and attempting to infuse them with more human qualities such as intelligence and self-awareness, might we benefit more by learning from the selflessness of those same creations?  Should we spend less time attempting to glorify ourselves through our creations, and instead aspire to become, like our own personal computers, totally dependent on an external source of power?  Should we learn to look up instead of down, with the hope that we might actually lose our sense of self entirely, and commit ourselves completely to the cause of serving others?

Oh sure, my body is aging, seriously impacting my ability to get around in a quick, pain-free manner, and yes, my brain is quite apparently aging, affecting my ability to access my memories as efficiently as I once did.  Or at least I think I did.  Didn’t I?

And I don’t mean to imply that I’m not growing.  I’m still learning and gaining experience.  My perspective on life is constantly evolving.  These and many other good things are still coming to me with the passage of years.

It’s just that, sometimes, in spite of these changes, I feel like the most essential part of me has never really changed at all.  I’m talking about the person I am, my personality or my psyche.  Perhaps you would call this my spirit or soul (which occupies and drives the vehicle that is my body), or my mind (which uses the computer that is my brain).  However you might define it, it’s just the thing that is me.  It’s not physical, it’s just tied to the physical (or so I believe).

And it hasn’t really changed.  Essentially, I still have the same strengths, talents, weaknesses, and insecurities I’ve always had.  I may be a little better at managing some of those aspects of myself, but I’m still the same person I always was.

I guess I’m suggesting that this essential part of a person is not really subject to the ravages of time.  It may be forced to struggle with how to operate an aging body that is breaking down, or an aging brain that is becoming less efficient at processing sensory input, or at organizing thoughts and words well enough to communicate effectively with others in this world.

But if a cell phone connection begins to break up, or drops altogether, you don’t automatically assume the problem originates with the person on the other end of the connection.  Likewise, if someone sends you a document that is completely or partially corrupted or garbled, you instinctively understand that the original message was intact.  The problem is not with the sender; rather, there is simply a breakdown of communication tools.

Why, then, do we assume that an inability to communicate effectively or coherently through an aging body is necessarily indicative of a psyche that is equally scrambled?

I’m sure most scientists would disagree with me, but I don’t think you can discount the possibility that, within those aging bodies, there are ageless souls who, having possibly lost contact with the outside world, are nevertheless intact and whole within the confines of their increasingly internalized worlds.  What appears to be confusion or catatonia to the rest of us is merely a melding of their very real internal worlds with the fragments they are still able to retrieve from the outside world.

And within those internal worlds that we can never see until the day we go there ourselves, these ageless souls are just the same as they ever were.  Just as young and vibrant.  They still find ways to love, to be loved, to laugh, to make others laugh and smile, to be amazed, to experience wonder, to experience and share life.

And someday, just perhaps, they will finally abandon their old broken-down vehicles and move on to something new.

Maybe sucide bombers are scarier.  And urinary catheters.  But there aren’t any roller coasters that can compete.

Within a very short time, however, she became an exceptionally good driver, and I was amazed at how safe I felt while riding with her.  But now I was thinking, “Is she just driving this way because I’m in the car with her?”  (Her mother, as a teenager, never seemed to be happy when all four of her wheels were touching the road, or the grass, or the sidewalk, or whatever, at the same time.)

Anyway, my daughter and I were both driving standard transmissions (i.e., “stick shifts”) around this time, and I began to notice a huge difference in our driving styles that caused me to reevaluate my own driving:

I had always preferred to stay in lower gears for as long as possible in order to maximize acceleration.  You know … stay in first gear until you’re going about 60 mph, and the tachometer is only one inch into the red zone, and the engine sounds like a blender on the “pulverize” setting, then quickly change into second, third, fourth.

My daughter, by contrast, and from a dead stop, would stay in first gear just long enough to get the wheels barely turning.  She would switch into second gear at about 2 mph, into third at about 5 mph, and into fourth at about 10 mph.

(I’m exaggerating a little.)

She also slowed way down for turns and just did everything very … safely.  As her passenger, I felt secure, and, to my surprise, the car seemed to be happy with the early shifting pattern.

I think that’s when I started to make a number of changes to my own driving habits that, while possibly hastening my inevitable role as an “old man,” have definitely turned me into a safer (and friendlier) driver.

So now, naturally, I have become a self-righteous critic of people who drive too fast.

(Don’t get me wrong.  I still drive the speed limit plus 5 or 10 percent, depending on the flow of traffic, of course.)

So you might hear me saying to some fast-driving person, “You’re endangering yourself and others unnecessarily.”

Or maybe, “At the most, you will only gain a few minutes at your destination.”

Or, “You spent all this money to purchase a car you love.  Don’t you want to maximize and savor the time you get to spend in it?  Slow down and smell the roses!”

To which they reply, “Driving fast is half the fun of driving!”

At this point, I have no hope of winning the argument.  Why?  Because I use this exact same point whenever people tell me I should eat slower:  “Eating fast is half the fun of eating!”

[Senseless change of subject here.]

“But it’s hard on your digestive system.  You should chew your food until it’s basically liquified.  Only then should you swallow.”

“I’m supposed to avoid as much processed food as possible, yet you’re telling me I should turn my teeth into a food processor.”

“If you chew sufficiently, you will be forced to eat more slowly, and your stomach will better be able to signal when it’s full, so you won’t over-eat.”

“Is that a fact?”

“And if you continue to eat large burgers in three bites without chewing, you’re going to choke!”

“I’m comforted by the fact that one in every four Americans has successfully performed the Heimlich Maneuver.”

“What!”

“I heard it on ‘The Power of Ten,’ so it must be true.”

Splicing theory

Memory loss leaves holes.  However, remaining memories do not play back like a tape on which areas have been erased, and on which the “empty” spots or silent areas still take up time when played back.  Rather, the remaining memories are “spliced” together, leaving no time gaps.  This results in a “condensed” memory continuum.  Because the frequency of memory loss increases each year, leaving fewer “fragments” from which to construct the memorized year just past, each year that passes seems shorter (in memory) than the one that preceded it.  (Or at least it would seem shorter if you could still remember the one that preceded it.)

Absorption vs. Deflection theory

As children, we pay close attention to everything happening around us, and we absorb sensory input like sponges.  As we age and begin to take a lot of familiar sensory input for granted, we start to “deflect” or “discard” large portions of our daily experiences.  This is a different take on the splicing theory above, in which involuntary memory loss is the culprit.  The deflection theory contends that at least some of the memory loss is a result of our consciously or deliberately discarding portions of our sensory input.  To use a computer analogy, we choose not to write/save some of our experiences to “disk.”

Constant-forever theory

If “forever” is defined as the period of time from the beginning of your personal memory (conception, birth, infancy, or whatever) to the current time (or “now”), this theory contends that the perceived length of forever is constant, so that as each year passes, the beginning of memory (or the beginning of personal time) never seems to be any farther in the past.  In other words, as a child, possibly even from within the womb, the beginning of personal time seems just as far in the past as when you are old.  Whether you are two years old or ninety-nine years old, the length of your life just seems like “forever.”

In youth, a year still seems very long (and slow) because it takes up a very large and significant percentage of the constant-length reverse-looking “forever.”  (I believe this perception of years advancing slowly contributes to the common — and incorrect — belief among youth that they have all the time in the world to plan for career, retirement, etc.)

As you age, each year that passes takes up a smaller percentage of the constant-length “forever continuum,” and is therefore perceived (in memory) as taking up a shorter period of time.  This often results in ever-increasing amazement regarding the speed with which years seem to pass in later life.  Of course, increased awareness of — and concern about — one’s own mortality can also contribute to a desire for the years to “slow down again.”

Final Word

I’m sure the right people could easily discount, disprove, or ridicule all of these theories, but who cares?  It’s fun to think about things like this, isn’t it?