Perception is Everything!

How do you explain what red looks like to someone who has been blind from birth, or what a melody is to someone who has been deaf from birth? Within perception lies the core, as well as the subjectivity, of human nature.

We rely on physical attributes for a person's identity - he is five foot nine, a hundred and seventy pounds, red hair, etc. But is this really identification? Sure, it describes what someone looks like, but it doesn't capture the essence of the person. On a more abstract level we could say that he is a software developer (what he does) or that he has a short temper (how he behaves). But we are still describing and not defining identity. Since our perception of the world around us is, essentially, everything then who or what is at the receiving end of perception is our identity. Are we that which perceives?

It is a complex topic. Since every person now living, and everyone that has lived, has a unique perception disagreement will arise between people and groups of people. This creates a world of conceptions and misconceptions.

Perception fosters misconception.

There are a number of misconceptions some people will not let go of, which is of course my perception. Science, for one, is not a body of knowledge, but a system to perform observation, identification, description, investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena. More importantly, it is a method of investigating natural processes. Knowledge can only be held by people, such as scientists. Science itself cannot.

Science does not create any theories, people do based on their individual level of knowledge, which may or may not contain preconceived notions of various subject matter. Although science is apolitical, people, which includes scientists, are inherently political. Not in the sense of an organized political party such as Democrats and Republicans but socially as in the office or family.

Effectively, science is a cataloging of cause and effect relationships existing in the natural world we use in an attempt to understand.

Reality is not objective. Although is appears to be objective, reality is actually subjective. In order to achieve objectivity science must limit its scope to processes that are observable, a necessity in studying natural phenomenon. What science can never address is original causality, or 'First Cause.' That must be addressed by an extension of science into the more paranormal, or sacred, areas of the human experience.

Science is built on a number of assumptions. One of the most fundamental is that the subatomic particles which define the physical universe, the proton and electron, always attract one another. Another assumption, and deeper mystery, is that energy is movement. Don't ask 'movement of what' for there is no answer.

Creation must be 'First Cause.' Creation, in the broadest sense, is theoretical - not to be confused with procreation. Every plant, animal, and person is 'created' in the sense that an act of the parent or parents fertilized an egg, which is procreation. Despite a general acceptance of the 'Big Bang' theory we really don't know if the universe was created or has always been. According to physicists, the laws of physics 'break down' in the early stages of the universe's theoretical creation.

By definition God is absolute and unknowable. Various concepts of God may very well be misconceptions of God. For that matter, what defines a person's identity and spirituality?

Since science is purely a method and not a body of knowledge it is incorrect to say that science can make decisions. Science is the limiting of scope in observation or experimentation in order to understand a natural phenomena or process. The question of 'who or what is perceiving' and 'what is its nature' remains. Only through a mix of the abstract and the concrete, the sacred as well as the scientific can we begin to grasp the mystery of who we are. Such an approach is called sacred science.