Sometimes, when I am sitting alone in my room, lost in emptiness, I wonder – “who” am I? Do I really have any identity? My scientific bent of mind reminds me of the so called “probiotic soup” & the evolutionary theories that have been scribbled through ages in dust laden books stacked in the library shelves but then again the grey matter tries to convince me that such a dynamic, self evolving, highly regulated complex system can not simply come out of random molecular interactions governed by probability statistics and must be “engineered” in some form, at one stage or the another. Everything around me points to an intelligent design but then the scientist in me tells me that considering the evolutionary timeline, accumulation of one beneficial mutation after another can indeed produce amazingly complex systems!
I was looking at the stars so far away and when I tried to capture a constellation with my 2mp mobile camera, I found that my mobile can’t even resolve those stars and just captured them as big dull spots of light, nothing more! This made me appreciate the amazing technological capabilities our bodies possess for our eyes can not only see so far away but can resolve them with such a great resolving power that we can see such brilliantly clear images of this world! I look at the images of tympanic membrane in my textbook and get dumbfounded at the brilliant mechanistic design of an amplifier and a splendid system for conducting signals and processing sound waves!
Numerous such examples force me to appreciate the power of evolution and things it can do. What amazes me is the coordination and regulation of these physiological processes by the unexplained umpteen cognitive processes including consciousness! May be the answer to “I” is not in the mechanics and dynamics of this body but in the consciousness of “being”!
Further, even an individual cell in itself is functionally analogous to a complete individual, be it humans or a bacteria. Dr. Guenter Buehler has provided substantial evidence, along with so many other groups, in support of how physically responsive and intelligently curious a single cell is to its immediate surroundings. In one of my posts in Scientific Information Sharing Resource, I had cited a paper by Japanese scientists in which bacterial culture has been found to produce sound waves of 6-38 KHz frequency and another paper where bacterial cells have been shown to regulate their temperature! Chemical modes of inter-cellular communication are well documented and there are reports about non-Chemical (sonic and electrmagnetic) modes of inter-cellular communication too. There are papers reporting learning by asociation and maze solving abilities in amoeba (Physarum polycephalum, for those who are curious!), altruism in dicty and what not! The point here is that each individual cell behaves like a complete “individual” with functionally analogous organelles and their actions are governed and modulated dynamically in a remarkably intelligent fashion or at least in a manner that suggest logical decision making abilities!
So, over time, I have developed a belief that “I” am not just a product of random molecular interactions, but “I” am a highly organized conglomerate of independent but extremely coordinating living entities selected and shaped over an evolutionary period of time. The amazing part is – this ensemble is capable of thinking, being conscious of itself as a unique entity, that has been engineered specifically for some purpose. Now there are some questions:
1) Will this machine be just disposed off into nothingness after it has done what it was made for or will this machine be rewarded on the basis of its performance? I have a theory here: Since our childhood, the next steps in our life are decided by our performance at previous phases. For instance, when a person fares well in the Grade 12 and Entrance examinations, he get a better position in the College of his choice as compared to his friend who never bothered to study. Then when he works hard in college and comes up with excellent scores, he is given college color. On his further performance, he gets a better position in Grad School at a Top ranking University. If he fares well there, he gets a high paying job with exciting perks. When he exhibits his talents, he gets a promotion and so and so forth ……..Now the question is, If at every step, we are rewarded or punished according to our deeds in the past, wouldn’t it matter how we fared all our lives? I personally believe that it does. So this takes us to our next question:
2) What is that task for which this “machine” has been engineered? What is the Purpose of our Life? I have expressed my views about this in the post: Purpose of Life?
3) How should we live our lives? What should we do and what we shouldn’t?
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20 Dec 2008, Chandigarh
Today I recieved some comments from a 70 years old irish lady about her queries and views about life. She asked “Am I in essence the same person who theoretically functioned well for years and say then suffered a brain trauma and resulting loss of cognitive function?”
Rather I have been thinking on similar lines for last few days. I would recommend watching this movie called ‘The Trueman Show’ by Jim Carry. It presents a very simple idea very lucidly – We percieve the world the way it is presented to us!
I tried to extrapolate this idea a little further – We percieve ourselselves the way world presents ourselves to us! From the very moment we are physicaly born, a world is concieved around us – we are given a name, we are told that “these are your cousins – Micheal and Michelle”, this is your family, your grandpa was a freedom fighter and so and so forth… and we start building an identity for ourselves! After few years, we start associating this identity with the real “Us”! So, even if a traumatic event happens, it just washes away those set of notions that we develop about our identities. The real “us” remains the way it has always been. We just have to find “what” it is!
The other day, I was talking to one of my readers about Life. At one point she said – “Its so fascinating how life arises from inanimate things!” What she meant was how a “living” cell originates from “non-living” chemical compounds. However, I would disagree with this statement for there are no inanimate things as far as I can see! Individual molecules, outside cells – in cell-free lysates – are fully functional! Even the so called inanimale non-living inorganic compounds have subatomic entities that are very much animated – electron spin is just one example! One may chose to name it as “quantum spin induced by charge interactions” which in simpler english would translate to “force due to some energy”! If we go by this definition, I am again reminded of one of my talks with a graduate student from University of Madras according to whom “Life is Energy”! So, I strongly feel that “I” am an ensemble of energies! And what we called consciousness is a connection with a supreme energy/creator that guides this ensemble!
What amazes me is that this ensemble of life represented by our bodies is given this unique gift of channelizing this energy the way this ensemble wants while many of so called “essential life processes” are self-regulated by these energies! May be that’s the only reason I am sticking with a career in Biology despite of financial insecurity and gruesome work hours! It just fascinates me to see the way we have been designed! And it certainly is a way to have a glimpse of the “creator’s” mind!
-To be Continued…..
