> What the heck are you talking about? Is this a joke of some kind?
>
> Stephen

___________________________________


Actually, it's not a joke. I'm just trying to understand the nature of things.

There is so much about the world around us that we simply do not understand... and every once in a while, something comes along to remind me of just how oblivious I am of the universe, and I start to ask these odd questions.

Here's a few other things that I've been mulling over:

- Have you ever looked at a cloud of gnats?

I mean, have you ever stopped what you are doing, observed the cloud, and studied the way that it moves, for at least several minutes? If you do get a chance, ask yourself why the cloud almost seem to act as if it is one decentralized creature, instead of a hundred independent ones. You can see that there is some level of communication between the gnats... their reactions take other gnat's reactions into account. (That much is already known, and is the basis for the "swarming" simulator programs.) If our own brains are really conglomerations of neurons (which are cells, and individual organisms in their own right) - and these neurons send signals back and forth between each other - and this process forms the basis for our own human consciousness - then is it possible that each individual gnat is playing a similar role to that of a neuron? Does a gnat become part of something greater when it is a member of the cloud? How is free will impacted when a gnat joins a cloud?

- Have you ever wondered how a honeybee can explain the location of a flower by dancing in a figure 8?

This one science has already solved, actually... but the answer itself raises many more questions. The discovery was made by Barbara Shipman, who found out that the dinky little figure-8 dance is really a 2-dimensional shadow of a 6-dimensional shape. Angle, distance, and direction (relative to the sun) to the flower are all communicated... but in 6 dimensions! Since when in the heck did the common bee become a 6-dimensional creature? (This sounds truly bizarre, I know... but click on the link below for more info, or do a search for "Barbara Shipman" and bees.)

- Have you ever worked in a fast-food restaurant?

If you have, then you've probably noticed a disturbing phenomena. It's something that ordinary customers are oblivious to. Business will be almost dead, and then you'll get "slammed" with customers, all at once. Lines will form, people get impatient... and then it will go down to nothing again.

It's even more pronounced if you work the late shift. Business will be 100% dead for an hour or two... and then all of a sudden, you have 10 cars lined up waiting to order. Every single car came independently from a different direction, for different reasons, and THEY ALL LEFT AT DIFFERENT TIMES... but they all arrived at the drive-thru within a minute of each other.

Now, that would be merely interesting if that was an odd event that maybe happened once every few months - but that's not the case. It happens all the time, multiple times per night, at almost every late-night drive-thru in the nation. Statistically, we're looking at a pretty significant fluke here, and there's gotta be a reason for it.



The next time to find yourself in long line of cars waiting to get a midnight snack, take a moment and ask the harried employee if there were any customers around a few minutes ago. You might be surprised at the answer. Then ask yourself why you happened to choose that particular moment to grab some food. Then, ask yourself why everybody else in line chose that particular moment to pull in. (But you're probably doing that already :-)

Finally, think back to that cloud of gnats that you watched... the way that their movements almost seemed synchronized, or choreographed, or ...something else, something that you can't quite put your finger on. Smile at the wonder of the beautiful complexity of it all... and then tell me if you have any ideas :-)

- Enigma