Shaken and Stirred

In my dream
I was alone in a crowd;
Laughed at and scorned.

In my dream
The building shook;
It rolled down the hill.

I stood looking up
And told of my ride;
I was not believed.

I walked away
Dazed;
Confused.

Was it just a dream?

This Dust of Fall

Fall has been slowly making its presence known for some weeks now.  Perhaps football is the earliest harbinger of this season, but, cooler nights and turning leaves are the more official notices that summer is gone.

I enjoy the changing weather of Fall.  No longer is the heat oppressive -- although in the Texas Panhandle, the heat is almost never oppressive.

In past years Fall meant hunting.  It seems that opportunities for hunting are few and far between for me anymore.  I still enjoy it, I just don't have much chance to participate.

There is one aspect of Fall that I dislike intensely -- the dust and "beeswings" from the local grain elevators.  It is inescapable.  It makes my eyes itch.

I suppose I shouldn't complain though, it is a sign of harvest.  Producing food and fiber is what keeps our local economy humming when much of the country continues to suffer from a dependency on "higher level" industries which currently are struggling.

So, bring on the dust of Fall.

Logical Creationism

If I decided to play God and build life, how would I logically start?

One thought is that I might start with a simple protein.  I could then replicate that protein with slight variations until I had a number of them that could be combined for a particular function -- much like modules in a computer software are developed.  By continuing the process of replication and alteration, I could begin to build more and more complex organisms.

In order to shortcut the process, it would be logical to build proteins that were capable of multiple functions depending on specific coded switches within them to determine how they would act.  Again, software is built similarly.  Over time, various modules could be "plugged" together to create a wide variety of organisms/biological machines that would display a huge variety of characteristics.

It would also be logical for simplicity sake to make the organisms self-sustaining through the ability to feed themselves and to reproduce.

If, at the end of a relatively long period of time, the knowledge to create these organisms was lost, it would be a matter of examining the wide variety of then living organisms to begin the process of analyzing them for clues of how they were made.  From the evidence available, it would appear that an evolutionary process occurred that involved tiny mutations at the most basic structural level (the protein) in order for such variety to arise.  A "Theory of Evolution" from an unknown source (primordial soup) of the original proteins would be a logical conclusion.  Although incorrect, such a theory would be "intuitively obvious" because of the minute differences in the makeup of various beings.  In fact, the genetic makeup of organisms as different as chimpanzees and humans would vary by only a tiny percentage.

Suppose the purpose of the creation process was ultimately to create a thinking being that would over time grow to a developmental level that would provide companionship for the original creator?  Suppose that to enter into such a relationship required the "leap" into a realm beyond the physical limitations of the created order?  Suppose that a "roadmap" was created to provide guidance to the created, self-replicating, thinking beings to find the "keys" to make that leap into the next realm which was in itself a "sifting" process?

Hmmm....like in most things, I won't get the patent on this one.  It seems to me that it has already been done.

If you are interested in what the current scientific thought on this might be, try the article linked here.