Not good. I have to go for a run some mornings, in order to keep working properly. I prefer running (really jogging) when it's raining because it keeps me cool. So I was relieved to still finish my 5.3k in just under half-an-hour today - a time anyone my age should be disappointed at, and anyone younger than me should laugh at.
The last time i ran in the rain there was water off a duck's back. And plenty of ducklings of various sizes. Some stayed calm, others scattered. Some of the comically waddling escapees ran into the water; others ran along the path in front of me. Some ducklings have very poor spatial awareness. I think they were females. Judging by their colouring and nothing else, of course. Ducks have small brains. But I think avian intelligence is vastly under-rated. Crows are frighteningly clever - as smart as any other animal IMHO. Bird brains have to be small and compact in order for them to be light enough to fly. I reckon they're just more efficient than mammalian brains. But there's no substitute for cubic capacity (as American muscle-car enthusiasts say) and humans are unique in our brainpower.
There's an aquarium kind of thing at Lakeside where you can see ducks. There's a multi-level water tank so you can see them diving under the water - where they are surprisingly elegant in their movement. If I were to come back as an animal, in a Hindu kind of way, I'd want to be a duck. They can walk on land, swim on water, dive under the water, and even fly. That's brilliant!
But of course downward reincarnation doesn't really make sense. The information pattern or whatever it is that makes you you has a minimum hardware requirement. And that seems to be a human being. There just isn't the capacity in any other creature to accommodate a human 'soul'. (I use that word in a corporeal, non-platonic, non-cartesian sense.) The only place left for us to go is up. That is, to some kind of body that is somehow greater than a human body. We have only an inkling of what that might be like, as recorded in the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
John 20:19 "That evening (the first day of the week), the doors being locked where the disciples were because they feared the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'"
Today's blog was mostly written some days ago, and is already long enough. So you can stop reading now. But as I'm trying to write about technology too, I'll carry on if there's anyone still reading. Science fiction writers have told tales of how a human soul could in the future be downloaded (uploaded) into some kind of computer, possibly with a robotic body. Currently we are nowhere near that level of expertise. But our own technological ingenuity has a habit of surprising us. Is it possible that one day we will achieve technological resurrection? It's quite a disturbing question for some Christians. As though science will actually supplant faith at some point. However, it is also possible that it's impossible! We humans could well be a limiting case of complexity in this universe. That is, we are the most complex objects we know of. And when we start to wonder if the human brain could get any more complex there are problems. It's possible to increase the amount of grey matter (an elephant's brain is larger). But there is underlying white matter - which is basically the additional wiring that connects all the grey matter up. This is essential to the way a human brain works. And to increase the grey matter, you need more and more white matter, but exponentially so. The biological brain we have may not actually have much capacity to get bigger and better.
That doesn't mean there isn't a different technology that could effect the same level of complexity. We don't know. But I'm guessing not. We are so far away from understanding how a human brain actually works that we're unlikely to be able to produce a technological equivalent anytime soon. Brains are all down to quantum effects in dendritic spines or something. Quantum computing technology has only just made it outside the laboratory this year, so don't set a date. Anyway, that's enough amateur neurophysiology for one day. I should put links and references in, but it's easier to write this stuff off the top of my head. That's where my brain is. Sometimes.
Location:Shed
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