While I was in the shower today (which is prime thinking time, I must admit), I thought back on something that has baffled me to this day.  I’ll do my best to describe it, perhaps you have experienced it yourself.

Ok so say you’re walking through the hallway in school, or in your own house, and you have something in your hand… like a pencil or something similarly small.  You remember having the pencil in your hand at one point in time, and go you about doing something routine, but a couple of minutes later, you suddenly realize that the pencil is no longer in your hand.  As far as you know, you just opened your hand and dropped it on the way completely subconsciously.  This has happened to me a couple of times and let me tell you… it freaks me out.

I think it brings up the question, how powerful is our brain?  To be able to focus so much on one task to ignore everything else that is going on around you, even if it means you are unaware as to what your own body is doing.  It even happens during driving, although not to the same extent.  I’ll be coming home from somewhere, and my mind will wander, even though I am completely aware of everything around me.  Then suddenly the daydream will end, and I won’t remember the drive from point A to point B at all.  I guess the next logical question would be, how much can we trust ourselves?  Its almost as if our brain is a separate entity, even though we live completely in our brain.  Its quite a paradox, to say the least.  I’m gonna leave it at that though, my goal isn’t to explain, its just to make you think   If you’ve had a similar experience, leave a comment about it if you want.

Well tonight I went to see the movie Semi-Pro with Will Ferrel, which is a really funny movie and also happens to be totally unrelated to this entry but I thought I’d start off with it. On the bus ride back to school though, I went into that deep thought mode and let my mind run wild. I actually asked myself the age old question, what is reality? I’m sure that most of you have pondered this at some time in your life, and if you haven’t, then I recommend it because its good to give your mind a little exercise every now and then.

A philosopher (I think it was Parmenides) once claimed that there is no way to prove anything around you is real. Although its a bit far-fetched, he had a damn good argument: since everything we sense is interpreted by our brain, we have no way of proving that our brain isn’t making everything up. A lot of movies have been made with similar concepts in mind, notably The Matrix. If you haven’t seen it, the really short version of the story is that machines took over the world and all humans have unknowingly become part of a computer simulation. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If you had a direct feed of information into your brain replacing all 5 of your senses, then you would be able to experience anything without your body physically doing any of it. To be honest, its a bit of a dead-end philosophical path, since once you establish the fact that you can’t prove anything around you is real, then there isn’t much else you can say. But for argumentative purposes, I think its no biggie to ignore this little caveat since it is pretty far-fetched and extreme. Feel free to share your thoughts on what you define “real” to be, its a wide-open subject with no right answer so anyone can have their own opinion on it.

Another thing that completely fascinates me is outer space. The thing that baffles me most is the issue of relative size. The universe is big. No really, its REALLY big. But how big is “big”? Obviously you can’t put it into numbers. Einstein said that the universe is not infinitely large, however it has no boundaries (let that one sink in for awhile). Ok, so maybe thinking about the size of the universe is a bit extreme. I think you and I would agree that Earth is a pretty decent size. It takes 8 or 9 hours to fly to Europe on a plane traveling at a nice speed, which feels like a long time when you’re stuck in the plane. It takes a spaceship about 4 days to reach the moon, which is a bit longer. Heres some numbers for you though to put things in perspective:

• Circumference of Earth: ~24900 mi or ~40070 km
• Distance to moon: ~238860mi or ~384,403 km
• Smallest average distance to Mars: ~48 million miles or ~78 million kilometers
• Distance to closest galaxy (Andromeda): ~2 million light years

Well… crap. The distance to Mars alone is mind boggling (traveling to it would be like circling the earth 1928 times), but the distance to Andromeda is ridiculous. It takes light 2 million years to travel to Earth from Andromeda, which means even if we were able to travel at the speed of light, it would still take 2 million years to get there. You might want to pack a couple of puzzle books for the ride, just fyi. The only plausible way to reach such a far away location would have to require cryogenics, and that doesn’t sound like too much fun. Theres a fine line between reality and sci-fi when it comes to outer space, and thats pushing it. Plus… in 2 million years, not to sound pessimistic or anything, but as a human race, we’d be lucky to still be around by then. It sounds weird saying there will be a time when humans cease to exist, but its gotta happen sometime I believe. Anyways, before I start rambling incoherently, I’m going to call it a night. Hope this post gets your own imagination going. My recommendation for you: pick a clear night, go to a hill somewhere nearby (bring a friend if you want), and just lay down and stare at the sky. I guarantee your mind will start filling up with thoughts like these and it really makes you appreciate all the small things in life ironically.