|
|
 Mark S Hermanns Sr.
Yes its me. Born June 1954, Manhattan, NY at 1:45pm, Beth David Hospital. Parents (A. W. Hermanns and O. C. Hermanns) Photo taken 30 May 2002, Retired Military - U.S. Army (Master Sergeant). Father of three sons (Mark, John & Paul). I tend to be a complex individual, and able to discuss, Philosophy, Science (physics, scalar electro magnetics, genetics, nuclear physics, quantum chromo dynamics, and other areas of science), Computers and Networks. Yet in all that I know I realize, that I know very little. I find myself seeking and searching to understand myself and my place in the universe. At times I have considered myself still a child for all my years, a poet, artist, philosopher, student and scientist in many ways they do not contradict each other. They all represent the curiosity and creativeness of the human soul. Often I have thought the above poem from Shakespeare's, Mid Summers Night Dream, represented not only the poet but the mind of the scientist as well, and whose fertile imagination gives the airy nothing of quantum smallness, a place populated with the shapes of things unknown. (I first saw and learned this poem in ninth grade and it has evermore been with me.) The world speeds bye faster and faster, and what we will see (God willing) in ten years will be hard for many to imagination. From Scalar Electromagnetics to Human Genetics to Nano-Technology and Quantum Computing, we have only just scratched the surface of things to come. We perceive the vastness of space and ponder its paradox's and inseparable relationship with time, we peer into the microscopic and perceive a universe within ourselves. Yet will we grow in stature, morally and emotionally to equal our technology? How strange is the human condition. What do I want? And ultimately who am I, and what am I? I am more then animal yet so much less then divine. In all truth I still do not know. Most of philosophy starts with the wrong question or the wrong answer. Its literal interpretation is the love of wisdom. Bertie Russell said that, "philosophy is the no-man's land between science and theology, exposed to attack from both sides". Which begs the question what is wisdom? Is there a unity of all things? Is there a single primal particle from which all matter, energy, gravity and space-time arises? (To this question I have a possible postulate, but I will not cover the idea here.) What is thought? Philosopher's some of the ones I've read: I agree with the statement that poetry is a method of written and spoken expression and provides a method of catharsis. That might does not, make right. (Rather might for right.) Or rather that might is an obligation, to see that the rights of the one and the many are kept in balance and thus maintained. But when does one use that might? It is easy to say in defense of the weak, but is the weak always to be defended from the stronger? When is defending the weak wrong? In nature we see the stronger supplant the weak and thus making, the following generations stronger. Is this wrong? Yet we preserve the weaker, where is the justice in that to the generations that follow? Yet all to often we see where those that are stronger decide what is considered just. Is it wrong that in many ways "justice is the advantage of the stronger"? Am I over concerned in understanding ethics? What is moral, or how is morality defined? To understand what is the just, the true, and the good, that it can be applied to self and others. In the fabric of nature, all things affect one another. Fractal geometries exists in, perhaps all things. Tiling is also seen. Patterns exist within patterns with bewildering complexity, which only appear to be chaotic. And quantum randomness underlies all things. Which gives us probability and chaos theory. (We tend to describe all things with numbers.) ("To cut a blade of grass or move a grain of sand is to change the world." ) (An amazing thing is the resilience of nature to our interference's.) Yet not to say we are harmless to our environment but the contrary. We exist between infinities, the infinity of the large and the infinity of the small. In many ways we contain a universe, as we are contained in a universe. It is a curious fact that, that which man creates and orders, through entropy eventually becomes chaotic. Our highly ordered systems break down. Yet nature left to itself gives rise to order that seems to go contrary to entropy on the microscopic & macroscopic level giving rise to life and complexity and highly ordered and dependent environments and systems. (What are we missing?) We are as much a part of the complexity and the environment what we do to our environment we do to ourselves. The order in chaos. My mind is always active with many thoughts; at a rough estimate I would say twenty thoughts pass in the time it takes to type a single sentence. Some are fleeting images, some more convoluted and drawn out. Each makes its demand for acknowledgment. What is the mind? The ability to perceive, remember, consider, evaluate, decide, communicate, desire, emotion, motives, choice, the ability to consider self, to reflect on ones own acts, the unconscious. Also the id, ego and super ego. The ability to think about thinking, now that is a spiral, which can lead one to meeting oneself coming and going. What gives rise to thought or emotion? Which bring us the question of time. Since space is measured in time, the separation of events or simultaneousness of events in time and space. So convoluted and intrinsically interwoven that we now use the term space-time. Yet we know that time and space (space-time) can be distorted. Geometry Euclidian, Non-Euclidian, Rienemann, Human needs and conditions, physical, biological, mental, emotional, social. Food, water, air, shelter, warmth or coolness (the boundary of temperature to function in), clothing, light, darkness, sound Growth, sleep, wakefulness, exercise, rest, self-preservation (fight or flight), procreation, adaptation, mutation, sexuality Stimulation, a sense of purpose, entertainment or recreational, inquisitiveness, creativeness, self expression, touch, taste, smell, color, balance, curiosity, exploration, definition of boundaries, the need to go beyond boundaries, creation, dreams Love, anger, desire, frustration, fear, anguish, courage, pride, shame, tears, laughter, hope, despair, joysanse, gender, violence, silence, joy, sorrow, expression, truth, ugliness, beauty, horror, pain (physical, mental, emotional), avoidance of pain, selfishness, generosity The desire to be with others, the desire to withdraw from others, self sacrifice, association, sex, touch, honor, responsibility, obligation, language, communication, (verbal, written, visual, auditory, tactile, chemical), the need to share (materially - that which we possess and physical self) (non materially- thoughts, feeling, dreams, self), possessiveness, charity, dependence, independence Some of the above may be in the wrong place or should be in more then one. I may try to sort them out more or I may just lump them together. Circadian rhythms, Patterns, Morphology, Cycles, Mortality What of the expendable individual in a species, in society? Love: how many types? Love of self, love of another or others, sexual love, divine love, the love that gives with no expectation of return, courtly love, love of a place, love of home, love of country, love of ones world, love of family, love of child for parents or relatives or siblings, love of a parent for child, love of art, love of music, love of life, love of adventure In all I hope to communicate some of that which I am. Do I use the right words? Theses symbols that express ideas and thoughts and feelings. Are they the right ones? Do the words or symbolism or concepts exist adequate to my needs? Or do we as Plato implied, see only a world of shadows and take them for reality, that in seeing other then shadows, one has no comparison or symbolism to express them. No characters of fiction have I felt the most kindred to then Star Trek's Spock and Data, the first striving to be that perfect embodiment of logic sans emotion albeit with momentary lapses, or the second forced to look at the world through logic yet driven and obsessed to understand and experience a world of emotion (to be more then he was created). I have felt my self the isolated alien in the midst of humanity. The battle goes on in me between reason and desire, logic and emotion; I tire of this ceaseless conflict. And logic, (predicate, subject, term, premises and conclusion) have not over come the fact that I am only human. A human being is not merely a living creature possessing among other faculties that of language. Language is rather the house of Being and humans exit dwelling therein as they guard the truth of Being to which they belong. If my words can portray my sense of Being, what then? I do not give the world its frame of reference, I exit in the world, and it gives me my frame of reference. But when the frame imposed by ones society contradicts that which is innate and punishes the expression of self, and supplies only guilt and fear in its place then one is trapped in ones self. In truth is not the journey and the destination one in the same. With heart & soul so open, to experience the myriad of lessons and destinations along the way. And eventually in the fullness of time to return to the beginning and know it for what it is, and yet know it in a new way, and see its possibilities that were hidden before. And to start the journey once again in awe and wonder, joy and pain, new paths and false starts.
Revised: April 11, 2006 . |
