Synchronicity
Can animals visualize their future?
I'm not sure that they can.
http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/dogs-perceive-time2.htm
In addition, animals don't seem to anticipate future needs and rewards very well, suggesting to researchers that they don't have a concept of the future. For instance, when given the choice, pigeons and rats chose a smaller immediate reward over a larger future reward [source: Rachlin, Tobin]. In one test, researchers presented primates with a choice between one banana and two bananas. Understandably, they chose two bananas consistently. However, as the supply of the two choices got larger, they started showing less of a preference -- they weren't hungry enough at that moment to eat 10 bananas, so they chose five bananas half the time [source: Silberberg]. Roberts concludes from these experiments that these animals sought to satisfy immediate hunger needs, and didn't plan for future hunger. This is very unlike humans, who usually use reason and forethought to anticipate future needs, from deciding to pack a lunch for work to investing in a 401(k) retirement plan.
So what about squirrels and other animals that hoard food for the impending winter months? That behavior seems to imply the animals anticipate future needs. Actually, maybe not. Studies have found that animals don't stop hoarding even when their supplies inexplicably disappear. This could mean the animals don't understand why they hoard, what it means for their future or even what future is. They simply do it out of instinct [source: Roberts] Humans, on the other hand, understand their preparations and quickly change strategies when plans go awry.
Human beings have language and the ability to 'visualize' - unlike any other species on the
planet Earth. But does that make us 'better' than the them? Kind of... We develop new
technologies.
We can write, which makes it possible for us to learn from past generations.
As far as we know, that's a specifically human trait...
Writing makes a lot of things possible. Without the written word, there would be no digital
technology - and digital technology has spun a whole language of it's own.
Using binary code (the language of 1's and 0's), we humans have mastered the concepts of
recording and broadcasting the experiences that we have.
We on longer rely on words - we rely on stored data to distribute and receive information.
- We rely on this digital information when we plan and anticipate our futures.
Over time, our ways of exchanging this information has changed - and so has our ways of
perceiving it...
Our lives have the potential to become far more fulfilling than the lives of other creatures.
New technologies can make our lives better than the lives that our ancestors lived.
These developments didn't just happen. Something had to inspire it all into being...
That 'something' in many cases requires harmony.
It's taken a long time for us to be able to even fathom the concepts that are now parts of
our everyday lives.
We never could understand these things if everything was not in 'synch'.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/04/01/cnn25.top.technology/index.html?_s=PM:TECH
Human beings, unlike the other lifeforms on our planet have the ability to be conscious of
our past, our future, and our present. We are conscious of our 'self' which is reflected in
our writing, our stories, our music, and our movies.
Our media enables mankind to not only document what he is thinking and feeling, but to share his thoughts and feelings with others - people who may have never been exposed to these threads of thinking without broadcasting technologies.
Language re-creates what we're thinking - media broadcasts it.
By receiving the information being broacast at us - our world experience can be changed.
The very reality that we're a part of is being influenced by the media we experience...
In some ways, it would actually seem like we are 'controlling' our reality with this newfound
influence...
- But being simple components in this overall stream of harmonious experience, it may be the other way around.
As we discover new concepts and technologies - maybe reality will reveal a new way of
'perceiving' this dynamic.
According to Marshall McLuhan, media technologies can actually serve as extensions of our consciousness.
Videos, films, music, literature, and all other forms of media are just humanity representing itself. Even in the most abstract Picasso painting, it's the ability to convey human emotions that makes it so beautiful.
We love looking at ourselves.
We seem to be learning from what we've seen.
The media is removing barriers to our progress...
We can be anywhere, anytime now.
We can understand each other - across the barriers of language, class, and space...
With new media, mankind is revealing a whole new type of 'synch'.
When I stepped away from writing this, and this came on TV... The entire theme of the show spoke directly to what I'd been thinking about: