[W]e are not merely residents of this universal house we find ourselves temporarily renting and living in, but seem to be more the house which somehow has given birth to its own residents! [claps] For whatever reason, over billions of years, the bricks and beams of the house evolved to birth people and ants and cats that seem to appreciate living in the house, feast from its kitchen and gardens, and sometimes make a disgraceful mess of the place with our internal squabbles, junk and failure to properly maintain it. Maybe future residents will appreciate it more. The house somehow sprung up residents who think, see, hear, taste, touch and smell and thus make use of the kitchen, able to appreciate the place and make a house a "home." No, we are not sure all the details about how this house gave birth to its own tenants, but it is pretty amazing that it did ... and here we are, conscious and aware, lease in hand. Since we, the tenants, are alive, conscious, intelligent and aware ... and since we are the house as much as the bath tubs and floor tiles ... we can be 100% sure that the house is also alive, conscious, intelligent and aware, at least to the extent of us, because we are the house ... not only housing us ... but the house housing as us who are also the house.
I suspect and hope ... because we are still real idiots! ... that the house is more intelligent than us. We are like the cat and the ant, far from the highest measure of the potential consciousness and awareness of this "smart" house. At least, I suspect so. I mean, it would be quite the coincidence if a wild forest and a dumb stone quarry somehow by chance and evolution alone wound around totally by dice rolls to form beams and kitchen, bathtubs and garden, then you and me sitting here by the fireplace, smoking our pipes and reading Chaucer or watching Seinfeld. I suspect that there is something more to that surface happenstance. I suspect that the universe tries planets and planets of houses, most of which remain piles of lumber, mud holes, simply uninhabitable ... but some of which become split level ranch houses, a further subset of which become fully furnished with a full set of appliances, fully stocked refrigerator, sofas and chairs, and living asses to sit in them. Seemingly, the house could have remained empty, or a pile of uncut lumber and raw stone, or had only ants, or had other tenants than you and me ... and yet, here you and I sit in our chairs. I suspect that a house ... or at least, the vibrant neighborhood which gave rise to the house as well as lots of other houses, some of which are likely habitable if most maybe not ... needs tenants so as not to itself be totally empty and unrented. Kitchens needs cooks, and bathrooms need bathers.
On the other hand, if we crazy dumb ass humans are the best this universe can do, even if with Chaucer and Seinfeld, then it is a pretty poor dumb ass universe! :p I suspect that the universal development company ... be it nature or something more ... having a seemingly endless supply of universal building materials, takes a "shotgun, see what sticks" approach to house building, some of which works out, some which never gets off the ground, and some of which ends up burning the place down ... and we are just temporary caretakers of this apartment pending future building and expansion, assuming we don't burn the place down first with us inside!
No, not perfect ... the pipes sometimes leak, the boiler overheats, the chairs are often lumpy, our fellow room mates can often drive us mad or act like madmen, and sometimes a virus sends us to our sick beds ... but not too bad, especially considering the rent charged. :encouragement:)
https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/show...l=1#post262513
