Search for life

It is fun to look up the definition of words. Usually I learn something about a word's evolution that surprises me and sheds light where I didn't expect it.
One example is the word "sentience". Normal usage often refers to intelligent consciousness. Wikipedia points out that it refers to the ability to sense. For me, that made a bunch of things fall into place.

The closer one looks at the makeup of matter, the more one realizes that everything is made out of communications. Photons, gluons, gravitons and the like are the communications between particles. They are the glue that holds matter together. They are the forces that hold matter apart. Every piece of matter is sensing its neighbors.

Everything is sentient.
I suspect that if we look closer, we will find that it is plenty intelligent too.

We don't need to search the universe for sentient life.
Life pervades us at every level.

The need to creed

It is starting to make sense.

An anthropologist type guy pointed out to me that religion is very important to our survival. The main thing that sets us apart from other species is our ability to build large complex societies. That is what drives our success and our population boom in the last ten thousand years.

To pull a group of people together into a functioning group requires a set of common beliefs. Common beliefs are the glue that holds the social body together. A strong passionate set of beliefs will create a strong passionate group.

It is little wonder that we have genes that make us yearn for cosmic truth. We are hungry for a sense of some truth bigger than we are; a truth that will inspire others who will then adopt it with passion.

We are genetically programmed so that each time someone accepts one of our truths, we get a little reward in our brains. That creates bonds between us in the same way that the hormone oxytocin creates bonds when we share physical pleasures.

Our need to creed creates strong and vibrant social bodies.

Fun time, fun camera

I have to marvel at how well the little pocket camera works with a combination of front light and back light. We were at Pine River's winter festival last night and got lots of shots like these...