A friend asked me a question today: What is connection? I would reply with another question. What is real? And the accompanying question: How do we know?
Most things, we know are real because we can sense and measure them. We can measure and quantify so much.
Other things we know are real through a different kind of perception. I experience my “self” as the witness behind all my observations and experiences, rather than as my body and its biometrics. That is something that science cannot quantify. What else is there that is real and perceivable and yet cannot be objectively observed or measured? Connection, perhaps.
Certainly, we can observe electrical activity in the brain and body that signify consciousness and life. We can measure activity in particular parts of the brain when we have the experience of empathy and connection, the hormonal surges when we experience attraction or repulsion, but the connection itself—which can range from the most fleeting moment of recognizing a fellow being to the deepest love—perhaps there is something there that can’t be measured by science.
Many spiritual teachers talk about the life or consciousness that is in everything, animating everything. Is that what this is, this witness of everything, and the connection between the witnesses? Are we really all one life, and the connection we feel just the recognition of that fact What then of plants, which science has shown can sense in ways that we cannot? I can attest to feeling a sense of connection to ancient trees, certainly. But I doubt the trees felt any particular connection with me. Is that connection I felt a thing of imagination or something real, something we cannot prove with science? How can we know?
What about people who feel a connection to someone they've only read about, even an imaginary character? What about the love we might have for the dead? People can even feel a love connection to a celebrity who has never even heard their name. Is that love a delusion? But who can deny what another person feels?
A partner recently described a feeling of being alone when he was with me. Feeling a lack of connection when I was quiet. I didn’t feel that. I felt him there with me, I felt the connection and enjoyed it in silence. If two beings can be together and have such opposing experiences of their connection, what then does that mean?
Is connection real or imaginary? How can such a question be answered? The now proven theory of “spooky action at a distance” comes to mind, but can quantum entanglement even be applied to the relationship between beings? What about mirror neurons and their connection with theory of mind and empathy?
Schrödinger said, of quantum entanglement: “When two systems enter into temporary physical interaction due to known forces between them, and when after a time of mutual influence the systems separate again, then they can no longer be described in the same way as before. ... By the interaction the two systems have become entangled.”
If we apply this idea to relationships between beings (and it is not at all a given that it can be so applied), what then does that mean for all of our relationships? Are we not all then completely entangled, permanently, not just with those we love but with every being and every thing that we ever encounter? Is that then, what we call relationship? And connection? What then sets one connection apart from the rest? We are all made of the same star stuff. The same energy vibrates all of our constituent particles. If we are all just a part of the whole, then isn’t any lack of connection the true illusion?
I ask myself these questions and can only answer them with more questions. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know.
2016-06-30
Most things, we know are real because we can sense and measure them. We can measure and quantify so much.
Other things we know are real through a different kind of perception. I experience my “self” as the witness behind all my observations and experiences, rather than as my body and its biometrics. That is something that science cannot quantify. What else is there that is real and perceivable and yet cannot be objectively observed or measured? Connection, perhaps.
Certainly, we can observe electrical activity in the brain and body that signify consciousness and life. We can measure activity in particular parts of the brain when we have the experience of empathy and connection, the hormonal surges when we experience attraction or repulsion, but the connection itself—which can range from the most fleeting moment of recognizing a fellow being to the deepest love—perhaps there is something there that can’t be measured by science.
Many spiritual teachers talk about the life or consciousness that is in everything, animating everything. Is that what this is, this witness of everything, and the connection between the witnesses? Are we really all one life, and the connection we feel just the recognition of that fact What then of plants, which science has shown can sense in ways that we cannot? I can attest to feeling a sense of connection to ancient trees, certainly. But I doubt the trees felt any particular connection with me. Is that connection I felt a thing of imagination or something real, something we cannot prove with science? How can we know?
What about people who feel a connection to someone they've only read about, even an imaginary character? What about the love we might have for the dead? People can even feel a love connection to a celebrity who has never even heard their name. Is that love a delusion? But who can deny what another person feels?
A partner recently described a feeling of being alone when he was with me. Feeling a lack of connection when I was quiet. I didn’t feel that. I felt him there with me, I felt the connection and enjoyed it in silence. If two beings can be together and have such opposing experiences of their connection, what then does that mean?
Is connection real or imaginary? How can such a question be answered? The now proven theory of “spooky action at a distance” comes to mind, but can quantum entanglement even be applied to the relationship between beings? What about mirror neurons and their connection with theory of mind and empathy?
Schrödinger said, of quantum entanglement: “When two systems enter into temporary physical interaction due to known forces between them, and when after a time of mutual influence the systems separate again, then they can no longer be described in the same way as before. ... By the interaction the two systems have become entangled.”
If we apply this idea to relationships between beings (and it is not at all a given that it can be so applied), what then does that mean for all of our relationships? Are we not all then completely entangled, permanently, not just with those we love but with every being and every thing that we ever encounter? Is that then, what we call relationship? And connection? What then sets one connection apart from the rest? We are all made of the same star stuff. The same energy vibrates all of our constituent particles. If we are all just a part of the whole, then isn’t any lack of connection the true illusion?
I ask myself these questions and can only answer them with more questions. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know.
2016-06-30
a moment of connection
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