Essays: Volume One. Mark McGinnis
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The Limitations of Human Perception
Six Old Pines, acrylic on panel, 2008
Of the sensory gifts of human beings sight is the sense that is most used and depended upon to gain information and understanding of our experience. It is a wonderful gift in the range of visual experience – color, value, texture, pattern, line, shape and space. But even in realm of visual experience it is limited – limited by range, detail, clarity, depth, and wavelength. There are numerous creatures with capabilities that surpass ours in all these categories. Hearing may be our second most used sense. It also has the capacity to bring us great subtly and beauty, but again we are surpassed by many other creatures with more highly developed auditory capabilities, including those who have sonar functions. The sense of touch, our entire skin surface being an organ, is capable of bring us a tremendous range of sensation and information, from great pleasure to excruciating pain. It may be our most underused sense as it is suppressed from an early age, primarily due to prudish mores. Taste and smell, two highly related senses, have a limited use my most contemporary human beings. They are used mostly in our relationship with food, while if more fully developed these senses have the capability to bring us information and knowledge that goes far beyond consumption – again this is illustrated well by the wide range of creatures who use these senses in so many aspects of their existence.
The intellect and inventiveness of human beings have led to the development of many tools to help extend the capabilities of our senses; microscopes and telescopes of all kinds to extend our range of vision large and small and into new wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, audio devices to greatly expand the sensitivity and capability of our hearing, and devices that extend the range and detail of even taste and smell. But even with the many extensions of our sense capabilities our perception of the universe around is still limited. We know that the entire universe is made of the same stuff: the stars, the planets, the rock, the water, the plants, the animals, the insects, the microbes, us – we are all made of the very same atoms and sub-atomic particles. We know that these particles are interchangeable and cannot be destroyed – only change the forms. But what are these subatomic particles. We can crash them together and watch their interactions and energy trails. But what are they? They seem to be energy in space – no real physical presence. They may be vibrating energy (“strings”) that take on their forms determined by how they vibrate. That would make the universe a kind of symphony of vibration – a beautiful concept indeed, but still just a theory.
On the macro end of our perception the answers are even more radically incomplete. The tremendous strides in the past century in understanding our universe have been dazzling. Coming to an understanding that our sun is one of about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies in the universe gives a mental perception of our existence that takes one’s breath away. But the physical matter of the above description, the stars, planets, comets, asteroids, etc. make up .4% of the universe, intergalactic gases make up 3.6%., dark matter is 23%, and dark energy is 73%. We have no idea what dark matter and dark energy are, so we have no understanding what consists of 96% of our universe. This is absolutely stunning and absolutely exciting at the same time.
Process
Decaying Pine, acrylic on panel, 2008
When some people are confronted with the information of our basic ignorance concerning both our macro and micro existence they feel overwhelmed or insignificant in the presence of such magnitude and uncertainty. I feel quite the opposite. The understanding that I am a foundational part of this incredible system, that I am at my essence completely connected to and interchangeable with the universe is empowering to me. There is no doubt that what I am physically is immortal – it will always be and it will always be changing in a dance and perhaps song of matter. I personally also believe that what I do, the energy I put out into this fantastic system, will affect and even change the universe. This impact will be either good or bad dependent on my actions. I do not think that my individual decisions will save or doom our planet, but I do think that collectively our decisions will most certainly save our doom human existence and the quality of human existence on this planet. Should the collective impact of our species lead to the extinction or loss of dominance of our species on this planet it would certainly have minimal impact on the universe. Other species would evolve, possibly reaching higher consciousness, possibly not. When our sun ages it will expand, cook, and consume our planet – it will be no more, as has happened to billions of planets of the past and will happen to billions more in the future. Again, many people might feel this to be a most depressing eventuality to contemplate. And, again, I do not. This is part of process of creation in which we are privileged to be a participant. It is breathing in and breathing out — it is all part of the cycling and evolving of the drama of dramas – it is the process – it is the change. This process and change is constantly evident in every aspect of our existence and what our perception allows us to understand of it. It is not something to be feared but something to be celebrated. From sunrise to sunrise, everything that takes place is process, is change. We are not the same creature for a nanosecond, nor is anything thing around us. We have the choice of seeing the beauty in this process or cowering in fear of the process. It is not always beauty in the traditional sense of the concept, but it is beauty in the evolving process. It expands my sense of humility. Human beings, or at least contemporary human beings, have developed a sense of arrogance that has clouded and hidden how they truly fit into this universal process. Seeing themselves as the center of the universe, much like a spoiled child, they spend their lives in self-serving activities that not only damage the larger system but deprives themselves of the joy of living in the beauty of the process. Humility must derive from an awareness of our limitations – the limitation of our perceptual capabilities and our understanding. Alfred North Whitehead said all understanding must be related to the coherence of the process. He believed that every entity in the universe has its purpose in the process of the universe – nothing is without meaning. Each entity can only be described as part of an ongoing organic process.
God
Hairy Woodpecker and Pine, acrylic on panel, 2009
God is a term that has so many associations that for the most part I prefer not to use it, but for this short essay I will make an exception. God is not a rewarder or punisher. God is not a being who shapes and moulds the world through conscious or unconscious action. God is not good. God is not bad. God is not a being. God did not create the universe. God is not separate from the universe. God is the universe. God is present in every particle and every space of the universe. God is every particle and space of the universe. God is the energy, the vibration, the dance, and the song of the universe. God is the ongoing creation of the universe. God is process, change, destruction, transformation, death, birth, you and me.
Death
Robin & Recently Killed Pine, acrylic on panel, 2008
Death is a subject, an inevitability, that is feared by the majority contemporary human beings. It may well be a primary impetus for the evolution of religious thought. The rise of conscious thought in humans and therefore the consciousness of one’s own impending death have led to this sense of fear. All creatures on this planet have an instinctive drive for survival – a need, an imperative to preserve one’s own life. But with human beings and our capability to hold this imperative in our minds and foresee, and many times obsess on the certainty of our death, we have made death a problem rather than a natural event. Many religions have formulated solutions to that problem — usually some form of afterlife that negates the finality of death. Some religions also used this concept as a utilitarian device to control the