Two Hundred and Twenty Six

I read an article today about the Kepler telescope.  Since its launch in 2009, this telescope has been searching our galaxy for planets similar to ours, on which life similar to ours may have evolved.

It's found that, on average, every other star in our galaxy has at least one planet.  These exoplanets are usually larger than our Earth, but smaller than Neptune—a size of planet that doesn't exist in our star system.

   

When another star has several planets, they all tend to be about the same size—unlike our star, whose planets range in size from Mercury, which is smaller than our Earth, to Jupiter, which is larger than Neptune.  Not only our planet, but our star system, seems to be the exception that proves the rule.

We’ve always had the feeling that we’re exceptional, even unique.  Gradually we accepted that we're not unique—our planet isn't the center of the universe, or even the center of our star system—but now it's beginning to seem that we may be unique after all.

We already knew that our planet seems to be the only one in our star system on which life like ours has evolved.  One or two other planets in this system may have, or had, single-celled life, which is also the dominant form of life on our planet—multi-celled organisms like us live only on its surface—and now we’re discovering that even our star system may be unique.

Our first impressions are never entirely discredited—only revised, as we learn more.  This could mean they were always true in some way, and it only remained for us to discover in what way.  Or it could mean that our senses are limited, so we’re capable of perceiving reality in only one way.  But what's the difference?  

We can’t perceive the whole of which we’re a part—assuming there is such a whole—any more than a cell can perceive the body of which it’s a part.  Most of us know this unconsciously, but not consciously, because most of us aren’t conscious.  We sleepwalk through life.  That's why most of us are slaves.

The majority of us live in service to a minority, just as our bodies live in service to our brains.  But if this is true, it’s not this simple.  The truth always seems simple when we first discover it, but looks increasingly complex the more we study it.  For example, the relationship between the brain and the rest of the body is so complex that we still don’t understand the relationship between mind, supposedly the activity of the brain, and the activities of the other organs of the body.  The more we know, the less we understand. 

We understand mind so little that some conclude it’s an illusion.  The modern myth that only our material bodies are real, and mind is an illusion, is a version of the myth that only the material world is real, and the mind we used to call god is an illusion—a reversal of the ancient myth that only the mind is real, and the material world is an illusion.  We keeping thinking about the same things, revising what we think about them.  This not only calls into question whether what we think about things is true, but whether the things we think about are real.  Perhaps both are products of the way we think.
 
Why do we assume the existence of a whole of which we’re a part, a body of which we're cells?  Mystics have always said all bodies are illusions, and the only reality is what we call the void.  All things come and go.  Only the void endures.
  
In the body politic, most people are unconscious—slaves, living in servitude to a supposedly conscious minority of masters, just as cells of a biological body live and die for the cells of itheir brain.  Or so it seems.  Are the differences between individuals, and the communities to which they belong, objectively real, or are they real only to us because we agree to suspend our disbelief in them?

And why do we agree?  The force that brings individuals together, and holds them together as a community­—whether it's physical, biological or social­—is what some call desire.  And desire doesn't last.  Therefore all communities exist only as long as their individual members agree, whether consciously or unconsciously, to believe­—or rather to suspend their disbelief—in them.   

What we believe, consciously or consciously, is true may not be true for everyone.  But if it should turn out there is no other life but ours, then our reality will be the only one.