QUESTION 6: The gist of our life
9 - Many levels
We replace one dead cell with one new cell. One at a time. The ink inserted in your skin is not part of your body. It does not get replaced any more than the fillings in your teeth. Our thinking must be at the level of the cells, not the level of the skin.
We cannot think of the atoms like we think of the trees or the solar system. Size matters.
We must adapt our thinking to different levels.
All the cells of the human body are replaced about 10 times a year. Our skin is replaced every 5 or 6 weeks. Even the calcium of our bones is replaced every 3 months. In those conditions how can you explain that we keep our tattoos?
The answer to that question is that our body does not replace 'our skin' as a whole. It replaced 'the cells of our skin' one by one. We don't renew our skin one morning like the snake sheds its skin and the lobster molts.
This is only a beginning:
- When we look at the water in a swimming pool, we see a clear liquid. When a chemist looks at water, he sees a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Our thinking must be at the right level and this level is not the same for swimming and for chemistry.
- We don’t have a problem separating Time and Space. The clock on the wall stays at the same place and keeps telling us about Time. This is not an idea that we can apply to the moon. You cannot imagine the moon staying in the same place in the sky, like a clock on the wall. The moon must move. There is some connection between Time and Space. We cannot think about the solar system the same way we think about objects on Earth. Time and Space are combined like the chemist combines oxygen and hydrogen to make water.
Size really matters! The way we think about our cells is not the way we think about our skin. Can human thinking be adapted to our solar system or the Red Giant?
SIZE MATTERS
We were told, at school, that the world is made of matter, plants, animals and humans. We placed ourselves on top, of course, and there was no need to look any further.
Reality may be a bit more complicated. We are floating halfway between the infinitely small atoms and the immensity of the universe. This is not a very comfortable position for somebody who pretends to dominate the world.
Above us are……. a few things that are important but difficult to describe. Click on "List of Angels in theology" and you will discover many levels above us that you did not expect. We gave them names such as Angels, Archangels, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones and many others. What we know, for sure, is that the world around us does not come as a soup. It comes as many separate levels.
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 a lot of 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. We don’t know if there is life in plants, but we can be sure that there would not be life on earth without them.
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.
Level 3: Animals: They use matter. They grow 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 also our criteria of life. That does not mean that everything that moves is alive. There is a lot of movement in the electrons of an atom. So far, we have not considered atoms to be alive.
Level 4: Human beings: They are made of matter. They grow their own shape. They move. They also think. That does not mean that animals cannot think. It only means that thinking is more developed in humans than in the animals. The lion must evaluate the speed and the distance of its prey. Compare it with its own speed and how long it can run and in which direction. The lion could make better decisions than us with our GPS and our computers. . The difference is that thinking is much 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 move from the plants to the animals we added the possibility to change shape.
-With thinking, we added something immaterial that does not have a shape. We are entering the non-physical.
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 a shape or a weight. We are halfway between the material domain and the immaterial. Could the level above us be made of energy? Heat? Consciousness? Love? Could it be a level of souls without a body?
. The difference is that thinking is much more developed in humans than in animals.
To investigate the purpose of human life is to investigate the purpose of
our level 4 that exists between the level 3 of animals and the level 5 above us.