“You’re right. Things just ain’t the way they used to be. But isn’t that the way of the world? Isn’t that the price you pay for living?”
 
“Yes, but I miss those days.”
 
“Really? What is it that you really miss, a few selected moments among uncounted thousands of other moments, a few sensations, maybe something like Proust’s smelling and tasting a cake? The problem is that memory is one kind of reality that we can fictionalize. We can’t fictionalize the present. It happens. We respond. It’s over. Ah! Now we can fictionalize: Those were the good ol’ days.”
 
“I see what you mean. Nevertheless, I can note real changes.”
 
“Example?”
 
“Well, the neighborhood was different. And the town, too. Used to be able to go into a store, and now I’m buying stuff online. Used to see people going to church, and now the Sunday streets are empty, and some of the churches have closed. Those are ‘real’ changes; there’s no denying it, no fictionalizing.”
 
“True, but that goes back to what I said at the beginning. It’s the way of the world. Every place has a temporary character. Maybe that’s why we cherish antiques and old schoolhouses. They provide a tangible example of the past to which we can add selected memories and fictionalized circumstances and interactions. Prague. Untouched by the bombing of WWII. Looks pretty much the same. Charming place to visit. Walk the bridge lined with artists. And there are other ‘old towns’: Williamsburg, VA, Newport, RI, and some scattered neighborhoods throughout any land. Pleasant places to visit, aren’t they?”
 
“Now that I think about them and other places I cherished, I begin to wonder what the current ‘permanent’ residents think and do there. Such places are my remembered and fictionalized past, but they make the environment of the present for those residents. And they’re human, so they are probably steeped in daily goings on that only in retrospect can be viewed as good times or bad. What am I really seeking in ‘missing those days’?”
 
“Permanence in a finite world. Even when you are healthy and relatively problem free, you know change is inevitable. That no place remains the same. That old oak will die someday, and possibly no one will plant a new oak to take its place. Savannah, GA, with its tree-lined streets and hanging Spanish moss, will change tree-by-tree, termite infestation-by-termite-infestation, and storm-by-storm. And residents will move out or pass away, to be replaced by new residents with different interests and aesthetic principles, possibly widely different beliefs and lifestyles. Rome, the Eternal City, isn’t the Rome it once was. And even when it “was what it was,” it really wasn’t, was it?”
 
“Still, I can’t get by the longing for those days and places I cherish.”
 
“No problem. But, in case you want to keep yourself from drowning in nostalgia, here’s an easy three-step mechanism that will bring you to the reality of both your and any place’s transitory nature. First, visit in person or online any volcanic site, such as Crater Lake in Oregon. The lake is impressive, six miles across and at one end 2,000 feet deep and surrounded by walls rising 2,000 feet over the water. Second, imagine the ancient western life, both early North Americans and animals living and working in the shadows of the volcano and its forests. Third, imagine the catastrophic eruption of the volcano, one that would have killed every life-form in the surrounding terrain. Abrupt changes are usually catastrophic. You’ve been complaining about gradual changes. Which would you prefer? A volcanic eruption, a devastating forest fire, a tsunami, an earthquake, a war, or the slow changes that you choose to ignore while you are not only part of them, but also a cause of them? Yes, you are part of the reason that the ‘good ol’ days’ are gone. You, and of course, those who shared those days with you. Look around; take notice. You’ll be selectively remembering and fictionalizing today someday.”

Is hysteria built in? The word does derive from a Latin and ultimately from a Greek word meaning “from the womb.” It was, unfortunately, a word long associated solely with women, but with the current number of hysterical outbursts in all forms of media by people across the spectrum of humanity, hysteria appears now to be a genderless term.
 
Of course, there are currently different uses of the word. We use it, for example, with regard to emotions centered on potential pandemics, such as the outbreak of ebola. And we use it with regard to emotionally charged political statements. Whether or not we are all naturally a bit “hysterical” depends on the role we allow the deep brain’s amygdalae to play in responding to any perceived threat, great or small, physical or ideological. All our uses of hysteria  and hysterical  imply some out-of-control emotional response. Almost nowhere is such "hysteria" more prevalent than it is in social media and in the comment sections beneath online essays.  
 
AS WE ALL KNOW, USING CAPITAL LETTERS IS EQUIVALENT TO SHOUTING. And apparently, shouting dominates verbal exchanges when we are under a perceived threat to our ideas. So, we take one of two approaches: WE CAN RECIPROCATE.  Or,  we   can   remain  calmmmmmmmm,   acting   as   rationally  as   we   cannnnnnnn.  
 
SHOUTING really doesn’t work. I’m getting a headache just looking at those capital letters I wrote. ARE YOU LISTENING TO THIS? See? You, like me, reject the caps. 
 
Under the “noise” of so many “capital letters” in our interactions, we might become similar to the villagers that eventually ignored Peter when he “cried wolf” in the presence of a real wolf, or we might become an unnecessarily stressed population for which every event and idea makes us slightly to fully hysterical. 
 
We will continue to live in a land of hysteria unless individually we keep our messages—and our voices—in the lower case. 

If you are a fan of TV shows on Big Foot, ancient aliens, and ghosts, you might ask yourself an important question: Does interest  in such topics depend on the aphorism “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”? After all, no zoo, museum, or video archive irrefutably supports the existence of Big Foot, ancient aliens, and ghosts, but the same argument might have been used against the existence of a bipedal human ancestor before the discovery of Lucy and other Australopithecines.* Had TV reality shows been the genre du jour before Lucy’s discovery in 1974 by Donald Johanson, a camera crew might have followed the paleoanthropologist in a manner similar to the way crews follow ghost hunters. Maybe all the searching will turn up the evidence searchers need to demonstrate the truth of their pursuits just as Johanson proved the existence of Aunt Lucy. 
 
In thinking about such searches and their grip on the imaginations of millions, I remembered a famous statement concerning pure mathematics by Bertrand Russell: “Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true…Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”

Ghosts first: The proposition is that ghosts exist. The following proposition is that we can find them to demonstrate the first proposition. Big Foot? Same argument. And those ancient aliens?

Well, with regard to the ancient aliens, don't we have good reasons to think life exists elsewhere? Outer space has abundant carbon and organic molecules. Water lies in comets and on various moons, probably including ours. So, the proposition that there is life elsewhere isn't that far-fetched, is it?

But intelligent life? Life that spread itself intentionally? And life that had the wherewithal to overturn the desert varnish on the Plain of Nazca to make large stick figures, supposedly to mark landing zones? Why stick figures on the floor of a desert? Because, of course, having achieved interstellar space travel, the ancient aliens forgot to bring along their landing lights and the high desert had no wood for fires. Maybe that first proposition is a bit far-fetched.

Seems that in our current culture of "truths," "half-truths," and "fictions," we often really don't know, in Russell's words, "what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true." Nevertheless, we seem willing to commit to watching on TV the "second propositions" in almost all aspects of our lives, including our pursuit of happiness in products and technologies and our search for a perfect politician or justice system.

In some ways, searches for Big Foot, ancient aliens, ghosts, technologically-derived happiness, perfect politicians, or a perfect justice system are Neoplatonic. So, I think is Russell's comment on pure mathematics, and maybe there's a touch of Neoplatonism in all of us even if we never studied philosophy.

Ideals are those "perfect forms" from which all specific forms derive in Plato's philosophy. So, as the common example goes, "Think of tree." Of course, you can't. You always think of a specific tree or a collage of specific trees--Go ahead, try it: Draw "tree." Now, do the same with Big Foot, ancient alien, ghost. Do it for a partial skull of an ancient hominid. Now ask a simple question, "How do I know that Big Foot isn't like some inexplicable egg-laying platypus, a poisonous mammal with a mix of features?" See, your first proposition is that Big Foot exists; the second is that it has a form identifiable on the basis of forms you know, and third is that it is discoverable. But the last two propositions depend on the "truth" of the first. and with regard to one of the other televised pursuits, do "formless ghosts" have "forms" that can be videoed?

And so with politicians and justice systems. So with technologically-derived happiness. So with perfect societies.

Yet, we still pursue pure mathematics. We still follow up on all our "second" propositions. It's in our nature that once we propose, we propose more on the basis of the first proposition. That gets us into real trouble at times, as it did for the people of Jonesville and the people of Heaven's Gate, all of who died by suicide as a followup to their first propositions.

Somewhere there's that "perfect form," the form on which all subsequent forms are built, like oaks, willows, and pines on the basis of an ideal tree. Drugs and drug-induced "higher" levels of consciousness, also. Russell might argue that I'm way off the mark, that what he was saying about pure math doesn't apply to the other pursuits I mention. he was a much smarter guy than I, but that doesn't prevent me from "proposing" a Neoplatonic connection and then generating a follow-up proposition, even an imaginary one.

And you? What "first propositions" lie behind your subsequent propositions and pursuits?

*Johanson named his Australopithecus afarensis "Lucy."

Let’s get right down to it. We’re still stumbling around in the darkness of bias in spite of centuries of discovery and learning, in spite of integration and mixing. Imagine being one of those first students to attend the U. of Bologna, a school nearing its millennium anniversary. Imagine having the foresight at the time to say, “In a thousand years, there won’t be anything new to learn about humans and about their place in the universe and in society.” One thousand years of university study and research have demonstrated that not only do we still have much to learn about one another, but also that in an effort to expand justice for all, we inadvertently separate and segregate by means of university-driven research.
 
What further research does one need to do? Haven’t we digitized it all and made uncounted statements about the equality of humans? Haven’t we fought for inclusiveness in society, and haven’t the universities led the way in inclusiveness? Doesn’t all that research in psychology demonstrate the bonds we all share? Isn’t knowledge about our common humanity as conveniently packaged as processed baloney?  Haven’t we found out what makes us all human and what we have in common? Haven’t we unveiled the mysteries of the universe and our collective place in it as we are stuck on this little planet near the edge of a huge galaxy? What was the state of knowledge about humans in Bologna a thousand years ago? Did they start a trend that separated humans on the basis of their abilities? After all, not everyone goes to college. Is the very nature of college enrollment an outgrowth of human diversity and our segregation by differences?  
 
If we’re still in the dark about how we are related and “equal,” then the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the West, is to blame. After all, they had a lock on academic pursuits and on accumulating knowledge, and they put in motion the founding of and the nature of universities and their ways of gaining knowledge about our species. 
 
Why should we blame the first university for the failures of its many doppelgangers to resolve questions about equality, individuality, and justice? But is that same university now revealing how university research divides as it attempts to unite us under the aegis of equal rights? Take, for instance, the University’s push for ways of knowing and assessing our knowledge as wrapped up in its program labeled Neurodiversity between Law and Science (NEBDELS). 
 
Again, yes. Like you I asked, “What? What’s that about? I understand Biology Department, English Department, History Department, but NEBDELS?” So, we’ll use their words:
            
     NEDBELS inquires into the legal impacts and socio-political implications of the concept of neurodiversity. This term pertains to      individuals diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (such as Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism), as well as people displaying Language-Based Learning Disabilities (such as Dyslexia). The concept of neurodiversity hypothesizes the emergence of a new category of difference in the human population.
 
A new category of difference in the human population? And here you thought that thousands of years of separating people by race, economic status, and birth was a thing of the past. Have you not been paying attention? Here’s what NEDBELS* is up to:
 
     Among the scientific and medical community, NEDBELS is progressively demonstrating the legal backdrops of the usage of diagnostic labels, and how they potentially impact the fundamental rights of patients and their family. Among the community of law scholars, NEDBELS is fostering debate around the importance of pushing legislation forward in order to design more efficient provisions for fighting stigmatization, rejection and discrimination of neurodiverse people. These assumptions are reinforced by data derived from the neurodiversity-related case law analysis. This shows how judicial enforcement of the law as well as legal interpretation of fundamental constitutional principles might benefit from a more up-to-date scientific understanding of the disorders associated with the concept of neurodiversity. In fostering this specific debate, NEDBELS is arguing for a shift from a strictly “medical model” of disability to a “rights and citizenship” one.
 
But the “rights and citizenship” model proposed by NEDBELS relies on treating some humans differently because of their neurodevelopmental disorders. “Maybe I did kill him, judge, but take into consideration my neurodiversity. Surely, the law that applies to others can’t apply to me.”
 
Back and forth, universities have been sometimes holistic and sometimes specialized, but the trend has generally been toward the latter. Here’s the argument as related to me. In a university meeting of different departments, one faculty member said that an environmental science course offered by a department of earth sciences should have in its list of readings certain biology texts. A biologist objected. “How dare someone in earth science use biology books.” See the problem that specialization generates? It separates disciplines into discrete bodies of knowledge owned by an elite few. And that, you might note, seems to be one of the roots of NEDBELS. Inclusivity falls because of increased diversity, or in the case of NEDBELS, neurodiversity. 
 
Rodney King’s rambling effort to quash riots in Los Angeles in 1992 included, “I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while, let’s, you know, let’s try to work it out….” Poor Rodney, he meant well, but he didn’t realize that the most educated of us would pursue reasons for segregating and ways of prejudging. If someone is “neurodiverse,” doesn’t that person qualify for special treatment?
 
So, go ahead, name a group. In any group you’ll find a subgroup, and in subgroups there’ll be further divisions. Political parties turn on themselves because of their own diversity and sliding scale from Far Left to Far Right. Religions will turn on themselves because of their diversity. Name the group, and each will show the same kind of development that universities have shown: Special classes of individuals all vying for “rights” that apply to them and to them alone. 
 
No, we don’t have to be insensitive to people who are “neurodiverse.” That term implies a distinction, however. The thousand-year-old University of Bologna is now at the forefront of a movement that seeks to establish a new category of difference in the human population. 
 
We’re not going “to get along” because at the highest and most sophisticated levels of our culture, we will continue to identify further subdivisions of humans. Eventually, we’ll be unable to accommodate all the “special” and diverse characters that make up our species. And someone from one group will have no right to judge someone from another group. No one will be a peer. Laws will become so twisted by convolutions that each person, acknowledged as being both equal and individual, will require some special set of rules. You and I are a bit different, aren’t we? Should the burgeoning government add another agency, the Agency of You or one entitled the Agency of Me? 
 
 
*https://www.unibo.it/en/research/projects-and-initiatives/research-projects-horizon-2020-1/nedbels 
 
 
 
 
 

How would you characterize yourself with regard to formality? Think of yourself as a down-to-earth, commonsense, level-the-road-by-seat-of-the-pants kind of person? Not too concerned about style, preferring “substance,” instead? And what about your perspectives? Are they formal or informal? Are they “this is what I think today, but, hey, who knows, I’m open to think differently” or “this is the result of a formal thinking process, math-like in its precision, irrefutable on the basis of logic, and founded on self-evident truths”?
 
And now the big question for the day: Are you after truth in your life or consistency?
 
You know that if you are a physicist or mathematician, you rely on formulas that build one-after-another on symbols you accept as valid representations of some reality. In physics, that reality is generally accepted as “physical reality.” In mathematics, it is the circular mathematic reality; the symbols are themselves a kind of reality, and they need not apply to any “thing.” You can count from 1 to 10 without any “thing” in mind. Math is the formal toolkit of physics, and we accept that F=ma, for example, because it seems undeniable in the world we deal with daily. We often do have some “thing” in mind when we use formal math to define “things” and their relationships (like moving with respect to some other “thing”—e.g., a background). 
 
Of course, the toolkit of symbols also includes those “representations” that seem far removed from what we understand as meaningful representations of everyday reality. Maybe that’s why so many of us say, “Okay, I learned algebra, now what am I going to do with it as I face the daily challenges life throws at me?” What do you think Immanuel Kant was talking about when he said, “For to substitute the logical possibility of the concept (namely, that the concept does not contradict itself) for the transcendental possibility of things (namely, that an object corresponds to the concept) can deceive and leave satisfied only the simple-minded”? 
 
No, he really wasn’t saying that formal mathematicians were “simple-minded,” but he was noting a relationship between what we know intuitively to be real and what we do to explain it to ourselves (and to others). Don’t most of us prefer consistency over “truth”? Don’t most of us consider consistency to be “truth”? Our way of formalizing our worldview relies on consistency, even though we often include contradictory representations that defy a common definition of truth. 
 
My “formal” approach appears to be consistent to me, but yours doesn’t. I might not accept your symbolic representations, and the symbols themselves. As long as mine seem “consistent” and become intuitively tied to the reality that I accept, they are representations of “truth.” Your formalism, however, might differ from mine. You argue that you are formally consistent. I argue similarly. Both of us see our formal representations as products of a consistent approach to “things” and our intuitive understanding of them.
 
In our personal formalism, we equate consistency with truth.
 
Now, you’re going to ask, “What does all this mean?”
 
I’ll respond to your question with a question: “How can people compromise when they differ on the basis of the consistency of their arguments and not on the basis of “truth”?*
 
 
 
*I hesitate to make my response more specific because I prefer not to guide you to your own insight. However, since you are pressing me on the issue in this footnote, I’ll say, “Watch a political discussion on TV. Examine the positions of enemy states. Eavesdrop on couples entering divorce proceedings.” 

Picture this. You’ve gone to Nepal in search of wisdom (not sure why we think it’s there), and you approach the guy sitting on a rock high in the Himalayas. He looks familiar, but you figure there are so many people in the world, somebody has to look like somebody else. You approach reverently, and ask, “What is the state of the world?”
 
He looks at you as you kneel before him and the rock on which he sits, and he says, in a not-quite-clear voice, “Crazy, but that’s how it goes. Millions of people living as foes. Maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget to hate.”
 
“Oh, wise one,” you say, “where can I go for consolation, for peace, for stability. Where can I go to heal my mental wounds?”
 
He says, “Look, I’ve searched like you for peace; I’ve searched to understand ‘who and what’s to blame.’ Also, ‘I’ve listened to preachers; I’ve listened to fools; I’ve watched all the dropouts who make their own rules.’ It’s as though I was riding on a train filled with crazies. Whatever the media sold, I bought. I played the role I was tricked into playing. ‘Crazy, I just cannot bear I’m living with something that just isn’t fair.’ And then I found the mountain and this rock.”
 
“Hey! Wait a minute. I know I’ve seen you before. Oz…You’re Ozzy Osbourne, right?”
 
“You got me. Yes.”
 
“And some of those words of wisdom, they’re from one of your songs, right?”
 
“Sure.”
 
“Is there any way to get off the crazy train you say we’re on? Is there any way to escape the influence of peers, priests, and patrons?”
 
“You could move to Nepal, find a rock, and think.”
 
“What? That’s it?”
 
“Pretty much, I’d say. Look, I was in the midst of all the turmoil; much of my music is frenetic turmoil. But here I am, sitting peacefully, far from the madding crowd, if I can borrow a phrase from Thomas Hardy and Thomas Gray. But I guess you don’t have to move to Nepal. This is a rocky planet, so I guess there are rocks everywhere.”
 
“Sorry, I’m still having difficulty getting over who you are. Did you know that there are pictures of people on Facebook that have detailed tattoos of your face? I mean, really detailed tattoos, artworks, even.”
 
“Yes. I guess I do know. But that’s the world for you. That’s the level of influence I seem to have had. I guess I’m just like those ‘media’ that have gotten us to play roles.”
 
“Okay, Ozzy. I do like your music, but I would never get a tattoo of you.”
 
“See, that’s why others need to come to the mountain for wisdom. I agree. I actually think it’s strange that people idolize other people, but I also know that I made big bucks because I had so many fans. People do what they want to do. Who knows what catches their fancy? People worship what or whom they want to worship or idolize. Think of Comic-Con. But, then, maybe some of my lyrics express undeniable truths. 
 
“Like you, I do think, ‘What happened to getting the word Mom tattooed on an arm? You would think someone’s mother would take precedence over a rock star, even a great one like me.”
 
“Do you, Great Oz, think there is a connection between someone’s wanting to get a tattoo of a rock star and the state of the world?”
 
“Let me think…Yes, I do. If people get a tattoo of me, I must have some influence over them. That influence derives from my projected persona and from the venues in which I appear. It also derives from my music and lyrics. And I can’t discount my delivery, by style. Now, what makes people susceptible to projected persona, places, music, lyrics, and style? Do they lack their own? And if they lack, for example, an individual persona, what does that say about how they view themselves? You know, sitting on this rock has made me realize that there is something within me that is the true OZ, not just the projected Ozzy. Maybe all those who bear tattoos of me need to realize that they, too, are an OZ unto themselves. Maybe if people learn to turn inward, they will be able to leave the Crazy Train.”
 
“But, Noble Oz, Great and Powerful and now Great and Insightful, it’s very difficult to get off a train that one boards before one has the wisdom to know the ticket was bought by society itself, that the nature of society is to group us and then ‘sub-group’ us. That grouping and sub-grouping starts early and influences us to be influenced. Then, constant exposure to the group locks the train doors and keeps it on a single track with no stops.”
 
“Because it’s easy to stay on the train, regardless of its detrimental destination.”
 
“Detrimental?”
 
“Yes, competing trains. Foes. Put any two trains on a single track, and you’re going to have collisions. But up here on my rock, I don’t have to roll on a single track, music or train.”
 
“What am I supposed to do with this ‘wisdom’?”
 
“I can only offer what I sang in my song ‘Time’:
 
            The time has come for you to
            Make up your own mind
            Stop looking for the answers that
            You’ll never find
            Save all your tears for when you 
            Really need to cry
            Don’t wish your life away to
            Spread your wings and fly.
 
“That’s all I have to offer.”

“What if your brain were completely separated from your senses?” I ask. "Or, what if your brain had never been connected to sense organs?"
 
“It would be catastrophic personally,” you say. “Those senses are the brain’s windows. In fact, they’re more than windows. They’re tentacles, also. I don’t have all the analogies for what else those senses are, but I know the senses are important. I can’t imagine a brain disconnected from them.”
 
“Until now,” I return.
 
“Meaning?” you query.
 
“Some scientists are growing brains in petri dishes. I’m not kidding. Neda Vishlaghi, a research assistant at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, has grown some brain-like tissue from stem cells. And it must not be too hard to do because Bennett Novitch, a developmental biologist and neuroscientist at UCLA, says, ‘It’s like making a cake….’”*
 
“Whoa! Growing brains in petri dishes? I hadn’t heard. And as easy as cake?” you say, startled like some chicken fleeing the shadow of a hawk.
 
“Yes, she used human pluripotent stem cells to grow clusters of rosette-shaped neural tissue. Now I’m wondering what that little blob of neural tissue is thinking.”
 
“Surely, you don’t think it has thoughts? From what you are telling me, she just grew a few cells in a petri dish.”
 
“But what if it does have thoughts?” I ask. “Is it possible to have thoughts without senses? Just had a thought. There was an original Star Trek episode in which bodiless brains of superior abilities run a planet and control other beings. I assume that those brains once had sense organs to connect them to the outside world and that on the basis of experience, the brains know about the physical environment. So, in a science fiction TV show, brains without bodies can have thoughts, but those thoughts apparently had a history of some sensory input, and in the plot of the show, those brains also seem to be aware of their world because they bet on the outcome of contests.”**
 
You note, “Right, but the ‘brains’ grown from stem cells at UCLA don’t have a previous set of experiences that depended upon senses and sensory experiences. So, for the ‘brains,’ the petri dishes are the entire world. But we still can’t say that the brains know that world because Vishlaghi and Novitch haven’t provided them with sense organs.”
 
A thought arises in my feeble brain, “Kind of makes an argument against a priori  knowledge, doesn’t it? Remember your philosophy class? In the 14thcentury Albert of Saxony suggested a difference existed between knowing the ‘cause’ of something before knowing its ‘effect.’ Immanuel Kant took the idea further and said that space, time, and cause were the stuff that mind imposed on experience. And remember the ‘I-think-therefore-I-am’ guy Rene Descartes?  He thought ideas were already present or innate in the mind.”
 
Now you say, “No, it doesn’t convince me that we know before we learn unless someone can prove without a doubt that the little petri brains think. I don’t doubt that we have brains that are prewired to adapt to the environment, but we don’t know an environment that we can’t experience through our senses. There can’t be any thought without senses.”
 
Having been thrown into a state of doubt, I stumble, “There’s something to think about. So, someone in a coma or someone who has been completely paralyzed, continues ‘to think.’ But with regard to neurons that have never been connected to sense organs, I now have difficulty believing those cells are either aware of the world or are connected the way an ordinary brain’s neurons are connected. Haven’t the neuroscientists demonstrated that as we learn more, we make new connections in our brains and that we can, regardless of the old saying, really teach an old dog new tricks?”
 
“So,” you question me, “if we can’t accept  a priori  knowledge and thinking in brains that aren’t attached to sense organ, can we accept the idea of instinct? Haven’t we been told that animals act on instinct, like being a baby chicken or goose and being afraid of a hawk’s shadow the very first time the bird sees one?”
 
“I think that’s a myth.”
 
“What? No. No. There were experiments in 1937 by Lorenz and by Tinbergen in the late 1930s and early 1940s and 1950s to demonstrate that geese were prewired to fear hawks. That’s why I put a plastic owl next to my big windows. I wanted to stop birds either from attacking the image they saw reflected in the glass or from crashing to their deaths against the windows. You know someone calculated that about a billion birds die in such crashes every year.”***
 
I say, “Waste of effort. Wolfgang Schleidt, Michael D. Shalter, and Humberto Moura-Neto reported in 2011 that those experiments were flawed or incomplete and that the mere silhouette of a bird isn’t a deterrent to bird-window crashes.**** Birds still don’t perceive of a window as a solid substance with immovable silhouettes or raptor figures. However, nets work if the strings in the nets are thick enough. Bottom line: The sensory experiences of birds play a role in their behaviors. I don’t think a petri dish goose or chicken birdbrain would be afraid of a hawk. I don’t think anyone can discount some learning as the basis for thoughts.”
 
You conclude, “Well, the two of us sound a bit confused, and we both have brains connected to sense organs. So, what good is all this learning when we can’t even resolve whether or not those little brain blobs grown in a petri dish in a UCLA lab can think?”
 
 
*Chan, Ingfei. “How to build a human brain.” Science News. Vol. 193, No. 4, March 3, 2018, p. 22. Online at https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-build-human-brain?mode=topic&context=69
** “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” a second season episode of the original Star Trek series, January 5, 1968.
*** Klem, D., Jr. (2006). “Glass: A deadly conservation issue for birds.” Bird Observer , Vol. 34, 73-81. And (1990) “Collisions between birds and windows: Mortality and prevention.” Journal of Field Ornithology, 61, 120-128.  
**** Schleidt, et al. “The Hawk/Goose Story: The Classical Ethological Experiments of Lorenz and Tinbergenm, Revisited.” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2011, Vol. 125, No. 2, 121-133, Online at http://www.academia.edu/3068540/The_hawk_goose_story_The_classical_ethological_experiments_of_Lorenz_and_Tinbergen_revisited

“Okay, picture this. You’re on the Scottish coast, the rocks next to the water are devoid of vegetation, and the waves are crashing. You look at the rocks and see that they are layered and that they have essentially two orientations: Some layers are tilted from the horizontal slightly and they overlie layers that are almost vertical. What’s going on?”


“Well, I didn’t have much geology, but I’m going to hazard a guess. The rocks are sedimentary. I say that because you said ‘layers.’ Then I’m going to guess that different processes shaped them. The almost vertical layers on the bottom were once horizontal layers….”
 
“Yes, good guess, and they were, in fact, once sediments in deep ocean water.”
 
“As I was saying, the bottom vertical layers were once horizontal. Obviously, they’ve been tilted, no doubt by tectonic activity as Earth’s crust moved about. So, let me think. Those layers were probably tilted and uplifted, and the uplift exposed them to the forces of erosion. Now, let me think. After having been eroded, the rocks were somehow lowered, probably also through tectonic activity, and new layers of sediments were piled on them, those layers eventually turning into hard rocks. Then, the underlying and overlying rocks were uplifted and once again exposed to the forces of erosion and a bit more tilting. How did I do?”*
 
“Great. That’s good detective work. You should become a geologist. So, to review: You discover these rocks that show two orientations, indicating two tilting and two erosion events, and also indicating uplifting and subsiding. You’re at Siccar Point, a site that Sir James Hutton, the Father of Geology, observed in the eighteenth century. Siccar Point and other places and rocks in Scotland made Hutton realize that Earth was old and had undergone many changes. 
 
“His famous statement is that he could see “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect for an end” with regard to our planet. Think about that. Hutton didn’t know how old Earth is and had no means of verifying its age, but he realized it was old, too old for him to see its beginning. Nothing of Earth’s origin, as far as he knew, was left. And guess what. We still don’t have anything except some tiny zircon crystals that date from maybe 200 million years after our planet’s origin. Earth is 4.5 billion years old, maybe 4.6, give or take a week. That’s beyond our comprehension. 
 
“Four point five thousand million. Every thousand is a millennium. Every million is a thousand millennia. Go back to the Vikings. That’s a single millennium. Go back to Julius Caesar, two millennia. Try the pyramids at over four millennia. The dinosaurs some 65 thousand millennia to 250 thousand millennia. Starting to get the point? The so called Cambrian Explosion when multicellular life proliferated in ancient seas? That’s 540 thousand millennia. Remember, the Vikings were sailing the seas a mere single millennium ago. Beginning to see why Hutton could see no vestige of a beginning? Those two sets of rock layers at Siccar Point were laid down as sediments 425 thousand millennia ago in a deep ocean and 325 thousand millennia ago in a desert. The older, underlying vertical layers, are only one tenth the age of Earth.”
 
“So, why are you bringing this stuff up? Okay, so Earth is old. There’s a lot of old stuff. I get it.”
 
“Hutton’s inability to find a vestige of a beginning pales in comparison with the Cosmic Microwave Backgound Radiation that puts the beginning of the universe at one million three hundred eighty thousand millennia ago. 
 
“You won’t live to be one millennium. You will be lucky to make it to a tenth of a millennium. 
 
“I hope you do live your tenth. Just remember that in all that deep time, all those millennia, much of the universe and much of Earth, its rocks, and life-forms left no vestige. And those rocks at Siccar Point? Well, they’re eroding as you read this. Eventually, they, too, will be part of an unknown past.
 
“You have a short-lived opportunity to leave what will ultimately be by comparison with Earth and the older universe, a short-lived vestige. Yes, as with the 100 billion humans who preceded you, you and the memory of you will fade into oblivion. Sure, we know about Ramses II, about Plato, about Caesar and Christ, Buddha, too, but on what time scale? Will you leave a vestige? What will it be? Do I need to reiterate the title of this website? This is NOT your practice life. Leave a vestige.” 
 
*If you are unfamiliar with Siccar Point and geology, I suggest you look at the picture here: https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=siccar+point+pics&fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&hspart=Lkry&hsimp=yhs-SF01&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-ZJoyIl3Z_UM%2FT03TnkjNRfI%2FAAAAAAAAAwQ%2FxcsY8F9AQpU%2Fs1600%2FSiccarPoint_Unconformityannot.jpg#id=10&iurl=https%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-RclAaA_QjBI%2FWHFWKsZPt5I%2FAAAAAAAAKiE%2F_suRSRdJSVQc6b82IKKOJEfhTIgPC1biwCLcB%2Fs1600%2Fsiccar-point-annotated-by-ss%252B%2525281%252529.jpg&action=click

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has established a number of exposure levels related to specific solids, liquids, and gases. Among these is the level of “acute exposure” at which formaldehyde becomes a health hazard. Noble effort on the part of the agency to protect us, isn’t it? Great news for people living in the arid lands north of the Himalayas. Bad news for the people living south of the Himalayas. Seems that the air over India is one of formaldehyde’s zones of abundance.* 
 
CH2O isn’t, for us, a pleasant substance. Just walk past a biology lab when students are preserving some organism, and you’ll probably say, “I don’t know how they can stand the smell.” But obnoxious formaldehyde is a rather ubiquitous chemical. It’s even found in outer space, and some researchers argue that it played a key role in your existence. That is, formaldehyde was part of a string of reactions that led to the formation of life.** Some even argue that organic carbon made it through Earth’s fiery beginning with the help of formaldehyde, a high-heat resistant chemical. Others say that CH2O played a key role in the citric acid cycle as life evolved.*** 
 
Anyhow, formaldehyde was part of your origin, and since it is a good preservative, it will most likely play a part in your personal ending (even if you decide to be cremated). What’s that have to do with people living south of the Himalayas? Well, it seems that satellite data indicate a high level of formaldehyde in the skies over India, where levels of the chemical reach 5 to 6 parts per billion. 
 
What are the sources of formaldehyde? Burning wood is one source. That includes burning wood in funeral pyres. In countries around the planet formaldehyde also outgases from composite wood products like plywood, building materials and insulation, glues, permanent press fabrics, paints and coatings, lacquers, cosmetics, dishwashing liquids, fabric softeners, both fertilizers and pesticides, and even preservatives used in some medicines. Oh! Yes. Don’t forget cigarette smoke, and if you’re into marijuana, “wet,” “fry,” and “illy”—blunts soaked in embalming fluid—also have formaldehyde.  
 
Interesting, isn’t it? Stuff that probably played a key role in the formation of life is now a substance that we monitor because of its potential harmful effects, such as irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat. It also potentially causes impaired coordination, tissue destruction, and some types of cancer. Formaldehyde: Couldn’t have life without it; can’t live with it; won’t eliminate it because it serves many useful purposes.
 
You might have noticed that there are social analogs to formaldehyde, such as relationships that begin well for one reason and end badly for the same reason. Criminal relationships, for example. Marriages based primarily on lust, greed, or addiction. In such relationships, the partners either ignore or accept the toxicity that initially joins them because the relationship is “useful” or even “personally enhancing” in some way. 

But life evolves. And relationships evolve, also. Just like that chemical that was once useful but is now toxic, the roles that “emotional chemicals” play in building a relationship can change. Crime eventually generates distrust and disloyalty. Lust fades to boredom. Greed makes material wealth an overriding goal. And addiction isolates. It’s almost as though all relationships should come with a list of counterindications and side effects and acute exposure guidelines. Let’s call it the Formaldehyde Effect. 
 
Of course, way back when life was gaining a foothold on the planet, there was no consciousness that recognized the long-term dangers of formaldehyde. No, formaldehyde was available, and it did the job of getting life off to a good start on a desolate and forbidding planet. An abiotic chemistry involving CH2O helped to form organic molecules, led to the formation of prokaryotic life and to eukaryotic life like you. Those initial life-forms could never have foreseen the later negative effects of formaldehyde on what it helped to form.
 
If formaldehyde is present in a substance, ignoring it won’t make that substance safer. If a toxic characteristic binds people in a relationship, ignoring it won’t make the relationship last. Formaldehyde “outgases” from composites. Everyone needs a chemistry lesson before entering a relationship with underlying toxicity, even if that toxic element is the reason the relationship began. Here’s a new topic to add to high school chemistry: Acute Exposure Guidelines. And when the teacher gives the lesson, he or she should have open bottles of formaldehyde in the lab to aid in the instruction. 
 
*Amos, Jonathan. “Why does India’s air look different from space?” BBC News, 22 June 2018, online at https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44550091?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cg41ylwvwmxt/european-space-agency&link_location=live-reporting-story
 
**Than, Ker. Space “Poison Helped Start Life on Earth? Formaldehyde on asteroids may have delivered planet’s carbon.” National Geographic News, April 6, 2011, online at https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/110406-poison-life-earth-formaldehyde-carbon-carnegie-space-science/
 
***Numerous studies and many diagrams online

Walk through any museum, and you will see some artifacts that mean little to you. That’s the way we are with the pasts of other people. “Oh! So, this was important to them? Go figure.”
 
Look through the museum of your own artifacts and interests. What, other than nostalgia, embarrassment, and occasional pride, characterizes your feelings about your past? Is there anything that makes you exclaim, “Oh! So, this was important to me? Go figure.”