Forgive the navel-gazing...

This particular semester I'm hit with 4 lectures back-to-back that provide a weird perspective that I sometimes wish the rest of the world would introduce themselves to. I do not mean that in a "higher and better" context, b/c I'm all about realizing my humility on a daily basis. I wonder sometimes, if people would have their heads up their @sses less if they stopped and thought about what actually takes place in the world on a molecular level. Then again, that's assuming occasionally I *don't* have my head up my @ss due to my classes, but let me assure you, I sometimes most certainly have my head up my @ss. I think that's a product of being human...but I'm rambling here...

Basically it's a combination of genetics, adv. o. chem, cell phys, and botany. Most of it is molecular stuff...stuff I really like to chew on mentally. We watch animations of how we think DNA polymerase work, etc. We have the cute shaped "enzyme" structures, the color-coded T's, A's, G's & C's..but we also forget that all of this is all molecular, and it happens without our conscious thought having a hand in it.

O.Chem tends to have a hand in re-emphasizing why all the reactions take place...and by the time you're sitting in cell phys, a deamination of alanine to pyruvate doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Botany rounds out the whole experience when it hits you over the head: it's happening with plants too (well, not deamination, but the whole TCA cycle, chemical reactions, yadda, yadda, yadda).

You sit in your seat and start to wonder...when is it just a chemical reaction, and where and why does the "conscious" come in? Are we just the by-products of chemical reactions...some sort of thermodynamic by-product that we can't perceive b/c we're it?

I really think it all boils down to physics. That's the whole reason behind the chemical interactions...how all of the elements even came to BE in the first place as well - unfathomable amounts of heat & pressure - all formed in a star, and that's what is constantly buzzing and interacting that we use and consider "our bodies." Does that mean the stars are alive and conscious as well? Where do we get the arrogance that we're better than any other combination of chemical reactions? Is it the thumbs? Should we not be even eating carrots? Do they have souls too?

Take for instance hormones. Rather large complex chemicals that make us grow, make us irrate, moody, irrational..(not just estrogen here, but also testosterone). What is the chemical reaction that takes place in our brains that leads to an emotion? Is that emotion valid? Are we kidding ourselves when we think it is?

I'm driving and thinking to myself...we're all the product of all of the chemical reactions from day one. Why do certain chemical rxns make someone want to create music, and if they do, why do I feel a connection with it? I'm left with the resounding notion - how arrogant we are. Humans, collectively...for us to think we have it figured out. Maybe that's why people find comfort in religion - they need to rest assured that somehow, someone must have everything figured out.

I don't ascribe to that philosophy. And yet I don't think that we as a species or combination of events (earth forming) and reactions (our evolution) has enabled us to understand it all. I like to believe that there's something important there when two people connect, something that can't be explained, something bigger than everything we know. I like to feel what I feel, and have the gut feeling that all things are tied together. There's part of me that really enjoys the fact that the materials that make my body were once atoms inside a gigantic star (please review your astrophysics if you think I'm speaking hippie talk here). I think that's really neat.

But at no point in time will I ever let what I "want" or choose to believe interfere with the process of evaluating data. Everything we know, all our understanding and technology comes from the hard facts science. No where are we allowed to just stop and say, "oh, it must be giant spaghetti monster...he is wise..."
It's bad enough our society is dumbed down by celebrity worship, idiot tv, and a whole lot of terrible music spurned by creative marketing. I'm doing the sciences a disservice if I ever just say, "it must be god's hand." Not that I ever would say that, in particular.

I think that's why I really dig the hard core physicists. I always joke they're not human...most of the ones I've met work on a different level than most other majors, and I have a lot of respect for them, b/c I don't really speak that language. But a lot of them are dealing with the most fundamental questions we have - not how we have consciousness - how does this world work? And there's a lot of ambiguity in what they find, and what they "know" or perceive to be accurate. But I've never heard them attribute what they don't know to any deity, and I think that's pretty damn important.

I guess I always hold in mind that we don't know everything...we can't possibly understand everything...but we'd better keep plodding along until we can't anymore.
Thankfully I'm a big believer that it's about the journey and not the destination.

Hmmm...I'm not even sure if all of this is coherent. I don't think it matters.
Today this is just another series of chemical reactions, and it's just like any other day, but today I'm choosing to acknowledge it.