Brain Reflections

Poet Emily Dickinson once wrote:

Sparknotes translates Dickinson's poem as:

“[It's about] the mind’s capacity to absorb, interpret, and subsume perception and experience. 

The brain is wider than the sky despite the sky’s awesome size 

because the brain is able to incorporate the universe into itself,  

and thereby even to absorb the ocean. 

The source of this capacity, in this poem, is God.”

This poem makes me think about how the human brain is so complex...its capacity for understanding is so impressive.

Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, it evolved tailored by the environment, and we developed handy tools like feelings, learning, and memory. 

Then after humans evolved a questioning brain, they naturally began searching for answers to the  mysteries around them. But to what end?

In a book called Chess Metaphors, author Diego Rasskin-Gutman says,

"During the last 30 thousand years (at least), the human species has incessantly questioned its own nature and it's position within the universe—an overwhelmingly empty enterprise because of the paucity of valid answers and always led by a search for religious meaning.   

Little by little, this search has been stripped of its divine sense as attitudes evolved through the influence of the scientific community and by the transformation of societies in modern nation-states. 

Thus, a huge role has been played by scientists:

•  Copernicus and Galileo showed that we are not the center of the universe, 
• Darwin recognized the animal with our being,
• Freud placed consciousness at the center of the scientific quest,
•  and Einstein equated matter with energy and showed nature's dependence on point of view."

It's all about perspective.

And the evolution of not only our brains, but of our shared experience.

How one defines God is a very personal journey, but the collective pursuit of that definition influences our relationship with the world and our relationships with each other.

Any path taken is both personal and shared. Am I open and feel awe? Am I closed and feel fear? Am I confused?

So then why is Western society so "mum's the word" about the discovery of a higher truth in the secular context?

I very much respect Dickinson for expressing her inner reflections via poetry, like past poets Rumi and 寒山.

In Dickinson's opinion, the mind is a manifestation of God, or the individual is an instrument of God. 

[here's a little poem response dedicated to her]

----

hey, brain. 

you may be wider than the sky...

swallowing endlessly 

for total absorption

but why

resist the ocean's deafening roar

participate with silence

Then witness 

the love within 

-also boundless-

our own reflection(s).

simple reflection.

----

Maybe Math Ain't So Bad After All

Learning is not so much about obtaining new facts, but rather discovering new ways of thinking, or pushing yourself beyond what you already know.  

When lived in Taipei and studied Mandarin Chinese intensively, I never felt so mentally sharp and on. I guess my brain was working overtime being immersed and that forced me to adapt…quickly.  

Fast forward to now. I’m looking for a new way to stretch my mind. Instead of learning something new entirely, I’m toying with a different idea: push my math limits.

Yep, I’ve never been a math girl; I’m more of the creative type. I was just never motivated as a kid—it just always seemed so boring and unforgiving. I couldn’t stand the fact that you’re either right or wrong and that’s it.

But I’m starting to change my mind about math because of its role in physics. I love how scientists discovered planets similar to Earth by using a telescope and math (the radial velocity technique where they figure out the size and mass of a planet by alterations to its orbit due to gravity).

Math’s evolution is poetic. It took generations to build a foundation and then expand from there—and according to this Radio Lab, math is not innate. Someone first invented counting, and then someone else found negative numbers, and then came fractions, imaginary and irrational numbers and more. As society and our thinking evolved, so did mathematical patterns.  

Fast forward to now. We’re at the point of turning our heads toward space and finding new uses for math.  It’s all about pushing the boundaries of what we know, and looking at challenges with optimism. And that’s not boring at all.

So it’s hard to hate math like I used to. A little optimism and a good eraser make all the difference. 

our big (and small) space

We’re creatures of habit, consumed by routine, heads down until there’s a reason to look up. But just look up at the night sky. There’s nothing quite like it to put things into perspective and make a person feel very insignificant.

I’m currently addicted to space documentaries. I’m amazed by the scientists who try to figure out how this whole mystery works. Humans have an amazing gift—the curiosity and capability to learn about our world and our place in it.

Ironically the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know. And the few answers we have only lead to more questions. Black holes? Dark matter? Multiverses? Do we have an infinite number of selves repeating actions endlessly through time or hovering millimeters invisibly away?

It’s like we’re small children observing the nursery, making assumptions based on our limited perspective and discovering the unexpected. Obviously our quest for knowledge won’t be over anytime soon.

When it comes down to it, we are at least the center of our own universe. I guess we’re both—small and big at the same time—small in the context of the universe, but big in the story of our lives. And thus we transcend any notion about time and space.

So size doesn’t really matter now, does it? It’s just a matter of perspective.