The original idea

Let’s start with a thought experiment. What does a horse see when it looks at its rider? Does it see another animal, different from itself? Does it see some awkward, misshaped speciment of a horse? Maybe it doesn’t see anything special, just some hairless ape that sits on top of its back providing wanted or unwanted company in its daily routines of eating, and physical activity composed of running and pulling things? Things that it was always doing. Someone that is and was around but the nature and habits of it is so strange, that really is beyond bother?

How would you know if you don’t have such rider on your back? Something that always was around you but it is so different, that you don’t even see it? It is always beside you nurturing you, but also expects you to work hard for its benefit, making you do things that sometimes you don’t really want to, like in case of a farm animal? First thing that might come to mind is alien life forms that invaded Earth, like in John Carpenter’s “They live” SF movie, where the ruling class of extra terrestrial were manipulating humanity by disguising themselves as humans and producing subliminal messages that were brainwashing true population. It is interesting idea, captivating, something that you can believe, reason about, carry with you where ever you go in a safest, most secret and sacred place that you posses, inside of your skull. You can contemplate it, own it, you can share it to others, maybe even, like the hero of the movie, do some drastic actions to resist it? It’s an idea, like 5G network conspiracy.

Both the horse and the rider share lots of traits, their DNA is mostly same, both are mammals, have the same amount of limbs, organs, drink milk in infancy, like to run, pull weights, work muscles. Share some of the foods they eat, share some of the diseases, both die, but before they do, they produce offspring. Both have a quality of being alive. What is a life form though? You’d think it is an easy thing to say, as we are alive, it has to be something that resembles us, all the creatures that we interact daily, they are alive. It is not at all that straightforward though. You’d think that all it would take is to extract some fundamental, obvious characteristics, but the devil is always in details and we as usual settle on homo-centric definition of life, relate our daily experience. In great simplification we assume that living creatures need to have following set of features: movement, respiration, sensitivity, nutrition, excretion, reproduction and growth. Living creatures run around doing things, breathe, experience, procreate, eat, grow and poo. That’s our definition of life.

But is it all there is? If you try to look for the answer to question “are viruses alive” you will find that it’s a philosophical discussion, some will say yes, some will say no, because viruses, don’t breath, don’t obviously reproduce, they do multiply, they don’t do that independently though. They might in the past, but they don’t any more, but they might share the same ancestry as creatures we consider live. But, but, but… with arguments on both sides it seems that the jury is still out on that subject. It is similar discussion about consciousness, with all that matter in the universe, at which point does consciousness emerge from matter? With all these abstract definitions we settle on limits of human reason.

What viruses share with a horse and a rider is that they have genetic material, they all are protein based entities, they rely on amino-acids, which rely on specific form of matter, but matter is energy as we found out last century. I think it is fair to ask: if everything in this universe is some form of energy, at which point the energetic form could be considered a life form? For sure a human-centric point of view would suggest that the form should be physical at least, that something should have a material shape. You should be able to see it, touch it, sense it. If it can’t be sensed, it doesn’t exist. But as with gases it might just mean that it is there but we just can’t see it. We can and do experience it, but it is so different that we ignore it.

Long time ago I stumbled upon a quote from Carl Jung: “People don’t have ideas, ideas have pepole.”. I found it fascinating, but didn’t give it much thought. I don’t know much about work of Carl Jung, so I didn’t try to interpret what he meant by it, but it did linger. It does seem to redefine the relation between the human being and this abstract term: “idea”. We got used to that we are the object and the idea is the subject, we have them, which for Carl Jung wasn’t the case. He seemed to claim that the idea is the rider in human-idea relation.

Let’s check what is the definition of idea. By Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition is: “a formulated thought or opinion”, “whatever is known or supposed about something”, “the central meaning or chief end of a particular action or situation”, “a plan for action”, “a standard of perfection”, “a transcendent entity that is a real pattern of which existing things are imperfect representations”, “an entity (such as a thought, concept, sensation, or image) actually or potentially present to consciousness”, “an indefinite or unformed conception”, “an image recalled by memory”, “an image in Mind”, “archaic: a visible representation of a conception : a replica of a pattern”.

There are many things that are fascinating about these definitions and the terminology used. How I read it or interpret it is as follows: for sure it is in the domain of the mind, as it is a thought or opinion. We tend to believe that knowledge comes with experience, it grows over time, therefore idea, to represent valuable knowledge has to grow and take shape over time. It does force actions, our actions, as we act on ideas and it has a chief end of an action. It has a pattern, shape and form, it’s perfect, it exists and it is represented. It is an entity present to consciousness, you do can sense it like a phantom limb, in brain, but it does have an image recalled by memory. And it replicates. So in summary, idea exists in your mind, it consumes resources provided by you to exist, it triggers your emotions, affect your body chemistry, make you do things, it can multiply when you share it, it can adapt to environment, change shapes and forms, it can grow. They are around at least as long as humanity exists. Doesn’t it sound like ideas are essential to our life? Are they alive and living in our minds, like bacteria, viruses and parasites in our gut? They seem to meet more criteria than viruses, they just lack material bodies and are not DNA based. If they would have some physical form, they would be, by definition, considered parasites.

Although not material, ideas do exist as they can be shared, and we act in their presence like they were a real thing, they visibly affect and shapes our ecological system, global warming is caused by idea-based human actions. We know that information has energy and energy is mass. The idea that ideas are independent form of life that coexist in our reality in a form that is incomprehensible is a strange one, but also very entertaining one. It does have interesting implications and rises lots of questions. The same questions that you’d ask about an alien that would visit Earth in a flying saucer: is it a friend or a foe, does it want to harm us, how did it get here, where did it come from and what its purpose? It is not material, can it travel like light through space and did it come here in that form in some form of radio transmission? What kind of relation do we have with them as a species, are they symbiotic, or parasitic? We do seem to farm them in some shape or form by cultivating the interesting and useful ones. If they are parasitic life form, can you inoculate yourself from ideas? Should we lock and regulate platforms that are used to exchange ideas, social media for instance, like we would in case of virus or parasitic spread? It’s not a strange idea, that’s what “Index of forbidden books” was about. I mean, when you open your mouth to speak, who is really talking? You didn’t have ideas as a newborn. They colonised your mind and now you spread them. It looks like shedding of a virus. Although it looks more like the ideas spread seeds, or spores, which grow in host’s head until they take over and are ripe to be shared. If they are symbiotic, what is the best food for thought, maybe oat, brains and horses do seem to like them. Do ideas ride humans like we did ride war horses in their conflicts? Are we a part of some intergalactic conflict? How about the origin: was human race created by some original idea with the first word spoken?

That is lot to think about, so I will stop with the last thing that came to my mind. If we are separate organisms, can we stop having these ideas, bring an end to the parasitic relationship? As silly as it sounds it seem that’s what meditation is partially about, to quiet the voice in your head and connect to your real experience. To understand that the voice and pictures in your head is not real You, to stop doing things that your mind tells you to do, stop acting on its behalf. Only then you supposably exprience and observe the reality around you in it’s true form. But it is just a strange idea, that we might not be alone in the universe, never alone.