QUESTION6.com
The world we live in
7 - Many levels The glass ceiling
Nature is not an undifferentiated mass. It comes in layers, and each layer supports the one above it. As you investigate further, you see that it is more than the weight that it transferred from one layer to the next. There is something else from each layer that is penetrating the layers below it.
Here is an example:
Heat does not have shape, color, or weight. It does not belong to the material world but can penetrate any object and transform it. Heat comes down from a higher level and penetrates our lives. By looking at a plant, we cannot always tell if it is an artificial plant or a real one, but when life penetrates matter, the plant grows and reproduces. Life and heat are coming from a higher level and transform our material world.
It can be helpful to imagine humans on one step on a long stairway. We are not at the bottom, but neither can we assume that we have reached the top. Our place is somewhere above matter, plants and animals with many more layers above us than we can imagine.
Many levels.
Let’s start with the levels that we know.
Level 1: Matter: This is the lower level. As far as humans can tell, the level of matter is the level of raw materials. There are atoms made of many particles. Plenty of them! Those atoms can combine to make molecules. Plenty of them! There is movement inside those atoms. That does not mean that there is life inside them. At least this is the way humans see the level of matter. Only rocks! No life. No movement. No feelings. Nothing but eternity!
Level 2: Plants: You make plants by adding something to matter. Something important! You must add the ability to grow and to take a certain shape. You also need the ability to make seeds and reproduce. The level of plants is particularly important to humankind. This is where our food comes from.
As far as we can tell, many stars don’t have the plants levels. That does not mean that there is no life on those planets. It only means that their kind of life does not need matter. It could be made of simple energy or souls floating around.
Level 3: Animals: They use matter. They have their own shape. They reproduce. They can also move from one place to another. Some move their legs. Some move their wings. Others swim. They all use the same idea. They move by changing the shape of their body. The main difference that we can see between plants and animals is movement controlled by the brain. This is how we get conscious of life. That does not mean that everything that moves is alive. There are a lot of movement in the electrons of an atom. So far, we have not considered atoms to be alive. Our grandchildren could decide that there is a connection between time and space. When space is limited, everything must move faster, including the electrons.
Level 4: Human beings: They are made of matter. They grow their own shape. They are moving. They also think. That does not mean that animals cannot think. The lion must evaluate the speed and the distance of its prey and compare it with its own speed and how long it can run. The lion could make better decisions than us with our GPS and our computers. The difference is that thinking is more developed in humans than in animals.
We move from one level to the next, by adding something important.
To get from matter to the plants, we added a shape. To get from the plants to the animals we added the possibility to move by changing shape.
With thinking, we are entering the non-physical. We added something immaterial that does not have a shape. What could the levels above us be made of?
We have a body that belongs to the material world. What is most important in our life are ideas, love, feelings, consciousness… They do not have shape or weight. We are halfway between the material and the immaterial domains. Could the level above us be made of energy? Heat? Consciousness? Love? Could it be a level of souls without a body?
When astronomers look for life on another planet, they look for a body. They search for water because our body, on earth, is mainly made of water. They use the tools and the way of thinking that we have developed in our material world. It was a good point of entry into the vast universe. It was a way to develop a basic way of thinking under the guidance of Nature. To explore the non-physical requires a new set of tools and a more elaborate thinking.
The only way the scientists could explain the trajectories of distant stars was to accept the idea that 27% of the universe is made of “Dark Matter” and 68% is made of “Dark energy”. This is our dark side! Someday, they may discover that the domain of their distant stars is part of an even wider domain.
The human glass cewiling
Let’s start with what we know and extrapolate.
First extrapolation:
We move from one level to the next, by adding a new attribute that must be important.
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We move from matter to plants by adding the ability to grow, to take a certain shape, to make seeds and reproduce.
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We move from plants to animals by adding the ability to move. That may require some nerves, some muscles, and a brain to use them.
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We move from animals to humans by adding the ability to think.
To reach the level above us, we need something better than thinking!
Second extrapolation:
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How can you explain that the water in the ground can overcome gravity, rise in the air, and take a certain shape? You need to have access to the level of the plants to understand what happens to matter.
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How can you explain that fruit trees can reproduce? You need pollination by the bees. You need access to the level of animals to understand the level of the plants.
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The cow does not know what will append after her death. The farmer does.
To control one level, we need access to the level above it.
That means that we need to have access to the level above humanity to understand the purpose of our own life.
That would require something better than human thinking – something that we don’t have. This is our glass ceiling.
The purpose of our life is to get through our glass ceiling.
