This series of posts illustrates the thinking process inside the writer's mind. The exercise here is to target an audience and develop a jaw-dropping TV Series premise from a very vague concept.
I recommend reading previous Parts first.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/star-trek-loveboat-mashup-and-soulmates.html
As requested by some readers of this blog, I'm breaking this very long (abstract) post into parts to make short posts. If you don't like this approach, do please let me know.
I do want to tell a story in Part VI & VII that could become a TV show. But first, follow this thinking, argue against it, find the flaws, find different data, concoct your own Concept, and generate your own premise as we work through this.
-----PART II --------
Well, of course in elementary school, our first exposure to the "word problem" is rigged. They make those up to be easily stated and solved.
The one we're tackling here is, ahem, virgin territory.
Since we were originally trained on rigged problems, and most of us learned science the same way - in high school and college labs with "experiments" the results of which are well known and reproducable - we have no clue "how" our minds tackle raw, virgin "reality," parse it into a statement in a language (yes, they discussed linguistics as a science and discarded it as fundamental) and "solve" the problem.
That brings us to "How do our minds work?"
And that brings us to "What's a mind?"
And that brings us to "Is there such a thing as a Soul?"
And that brings us to the definition of soul, the definition of soul mate, and how to find your own soul mate.
Oh, you can wander into a fog of vagueness where "reasoning" doesn't help at all.
I submit that it isn't possible to convey "information" about the soul-based-universe concept where Love Conquers All in the English language, or indeed most other languages.
That's why poetry exists. It's an attempt to use words to evoke unspeakable concepts in twin minds.
Think about the parable of the blind men and the elephant.
"The Elephant" is the symbol for "raw reality." Each of the scientists examining raw reality finds, measures, quantifies, and describes in words one part or piece or aspect of the elephant.
It's a post. It's a long skinny worm with a pom-pon on the end. It's a hot-air emitting tube. It's a wall with bristles.
Each one is right, very precisely and unarguably right. You can prove it scientifically. This is what is here in my lab to measure.
But the mystic, the one sighted man, standing way back, can see the whole object and proclaim that it's an elephant.
The concept "elephant" can not be explained (in words) to those who have each studied, measured, quantified and adored their piece of the reality, their most fundamental branch of science.
They can't be convinced they're wrong, because they're not wrong. Therefore the person who tries to tell them it's an elephant is mouthing superstitious drivel and must not be listened to at all.
These scientists, (being human) will experience extreme anxiety when exposed to discourse about elephants. They have a low threshold for anxiety. They need concrete answers they can use now. Real happiness, they are convinced, comes from immediately useful answers, and from things that can be proven.
To me, standing way back and looking at a whole herd of elephants, trees they're eating, monkeys and cheetahs and crickets and vultures, a sun rising and moon setting, stars and clouds, it isn't clear what would be improved for those scientists if they could see what I think I see (think, mind you -- maybe what I see isn't "real" and maybe that matters, or maybe it doesn't.)
In fact, what would be improved for "all humanity" if we didn't have our blind men studying their parts of our elephant? They've produced an awful lot of very useful things over the few centuries since Francis Bacon set up the rules of "science."
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FROM WIKIPEDIA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount Saint Alban, KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist and author.
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And also from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baconian_method
The Baconian method is the investigative method developed by Sir Francis Bacon. The method was put forward in Bacon's book Novum Organum (1620), or 'New Instrument', and was supposed to replace the methods put forward in Aristotle's Organon.
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BTW - I only use Wikipedia references when they agree with what I know from other sources. I give you the links here because my sources wouldn't be available to you, maybe not even on amazon anymore. Wikipedia is not "authority" but it is helpful to keep us talking about the same subject.
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Bacon's work is widely cited as the origin of "modern scientific method" -- and there's no way to disprove its usefulness in sorting out "reality" into practical segments you can study and use.
But note his credentials. He was a "philosopher" and his contribution to the scientific method was to replace the thinking methodology of Aristotle, a previous philosopher.
Science is philosophy.
All branches of modern science have their origin in Bacon's work.
Therefore philosophy is THE most fundamental branch of science?
Well, what's philosophy a branch of?
There's the kind of philosophy that asks how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and there's Natural Philosophy that wonders why things always fall down not up.
Alchemy is a branch of Philosophy - and evolved into Chemistry after a fashion.
Alchemy wonders about the connection between what we think of as chemistry today (compounds reacting to form new compounds, elements neatly arranged in a table) and The Soul.
Philosophy today talks about such things as "logic" and the non-falsifiable hypothesis. God and The Soul are non-falsifiable hypotheses.
There is no "proof" that can be offered in the reality of the scientist that can establish there is such as thing as a Soul.
There's no way to identify, quantify or calculate Souls.
You can't decide that you and your husband are going to conceive a child who will have a Soul with certain properties. But today you can select for certain genes.
You can't find your Soul, analyze it and feed it Soul Vitamins to make it healthier.
And if you can't do that, then the idea of two Souls bonding into One and begetting a child (like Hydrogen and Oxygen combining to make Water) is just plain superstitious drivel and anyone who believes that is incompetent.
But....
OK, there we leave it hanging in suspense until next week, when we'll tackle Part III comparing Star Trek and The Loveboat.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
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