General

Knowing the unknown. If we look at all the things that we don't know, it is always possible to find someone that says that they know the answer. This is one of the crazy things about being a human being. There are billions of us on this planet and there is always someone that thinks that they know the answer to a particular problem. It matters not how complicated the problem is, that person will always come forward. I am not saying that they are right, for all I know they could be affected by a disease of the brain, but someone will come forward. There are plenty of mysteries all around us, that is for sure. We could start out by saying where did that very first human baby come from, or what is death? To continue in this vein we could ask the question how do we fly fast enough in space to be able to span the great distances between star systems in a reasonable amount of time? Are there other dimensions besides the three that we are familiar with? There are plenty of people around that would be more than glad to answer the questions I have just outlined.

When it comes to the question of where the first baby came from, there are several schools of thought on this problem. The first is the religious community. Many of them will be more than glad to tell you that the bible says that God created man and then woman, who were fully grown at the time. Scientists will tell you that we descended from some sort of ape and gradually we became what we are today. A few archaeologists will say that man is really so much older than first thought that he might predate the dinosaurs and might have been transplanted here. Where would he have come from? Some think that Mars is the logical place. Here we have at least three answers to the same question and each group is sure that they are right, but any one group being correct precludes the other two from being right.

The question of what is death has plagued humans since the beginning of time. Atheists think that death is the end of all things. They see the proof in the dead shell that was once a human. The religious community says that death is a transition to another state of being and if we have led a good life we will be rewarded by being taken to heaven, a place where we will live forever in peace with God. Some scientists say that there really is no death and the reason for this is that energy never dies, but exists forever and since we are electrical energy, we will exist after death. Paranormal investigators believe that the answer is slightly different. They usually believe that after we die we head towards the light, a sort of path to heaven. Some stay for some unknown reason and these are the spirits that haunt us and they may not even know that they are dead.

As for flying through space fast enough to reach other star systems, there are plenty of people around that will tell you that they have already done that in alien spaceships. Most of them are either looking to feather their own nests by becoming famous and writing books, some need help, but a couple say they were abducted and then returned and they seem scared. Scientists have been working at break neck speed to try and build some type of propulsion unit that can bring us past the speed of light, but most do not believe that is possible, because the great Einstein said that travel at the speed of light would take more energy than is available in the universe. Because of this, many scientists are looking for alternate means of getting from point A to point B. One of the main contenders seems to be by folding space. If one could create a wormhole to fly through, which is a hole in space and pop out on the other side, you could travel great distances almost instantly. Think of space as being a flat sheet of paper. To fly from the middle of the paper on one side to the middle of the paper on the other side would take considerably longer than to just go through a hole in the paper.

Another question that is being asked is if there are other dimensions that we don't know about. Physicists have been asking this question and have come up with something called string theory. Supposedly the universe is composed of many strings which are one dimensional oscillating lines. It is believed that at least nine dimensions exist, but that there can be many more. The main problem is that string theory comes in many different formulations. Some think that points can be substituted for strings. Some string theories even include the standard model of particle physics. Another group that think that they have the answer to other dimensions is the paranormal group, for lack of a better word. They believe that there are other dimensions, where all our deceased relatives and friends still exist and that sometimes their dimension may touch ours and that is why we might see an apparition. There are also scientists that believe that there is dimension for every eventuality. They say that we also exist in all these dimensions and they comprise even choice of every action that we ever took and will take and that millions of these dimensions exist.

One question that I would like to ask is why are there so many choices for everything we do? When you think about it, we sometimes have an incredible amount of choices to make and every choice we do make seems to affect our future choices and in some cases, choices made by other people. It is almost like we are all part of a great tapestry and the moves of one effects many of the moves on those around them. A simple example might be of someone that is dying from a disease. A doctor might come to them and ask them to try an experimental drug. If that drug cures them, then others will have been saved by their action. The other side of the coin might be considerably more destructive. What if a nuclear missile was launched at the United States and we responded and others decided to launch missiles at us and our allies launched at them and so on? The world as we know it could be destroyed by this one action. This is not to say that we should not respond to a threat.

Sometimes thinking we know the answers to these problems and actually knowing them can be two different things. A very small portion of people think that the dead are always with us and really don't go anywhere and yet are unable to contact, or interact with us even though they are aware of everything that we do. If that were true than all the other theories of death are wrong. Taking the wormhole theory a little further, what if it turns out that wormholes don't exist, or are so dangerous to fly through that they can't be used for travel? There would go our current attempts at finally being able to travel among the stars. Some of these things just need more time to figure out and others may always remain a mystery, but rest assured, there will always be someone who will say they have the answer.