A Ghost in the Void
A poem; with context
A Ghost in the Void (Future Seeking Possibility Waves)
A wisp,
A glimmer;
Comet smoke.
—
Through the void fringed by time’s rope.
—
With a past all my own;
Looking for a future to call my home.
- June 12th, 2016
Author’s Notes:
This is another poem that vaguely considers the significance of our insignificance. And the hope to become something.
My use of the term future seeking possibility waves comes from a book I read in high school, The Spiritual Universe, by Fred Alan Wolf. Wolf juxtaposes two ideas, the ideas of future-seeking possibility waves (F.S.P.W) and past-seeking confirmation waves (P.S.C.W.). A past seeking confirmation wave can be thought of as a possible state of existence which the universe could reach if the necessary conditions were to fall into place to give rise to the actualization of that future. Thus, a future-seeking possibility wave is an inclination towards the alignment of those conditions. A future-seeking possibility wave seeks to create the future in which the possibility of its desired state is actualized. It seeks the alignment of the necessary conditions, and when these conditions align, these waves collide/collapse into reality. A possible future is made out of a past containing the conditions that would lead to its actualization.
The beauty of consciousness is the ability to actively seek new desired arrangements of existence. With consciousness, we envision a future we want to get to, and we work to create it, confirming its possibility. When this is done altruistically, we can reach the pinnacle of human discovery. What we do will echo through eternity even when it fades back into a truly insignificant whisper. But for now,
We must not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of the day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. (Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night).
Ancestors of ancestors, it doesn’t want to stop. We must make the most of the gift of our lives, keep the wheel turning, keep the party going. It’s road, or ruins. Our work is to keep paving the road ahead of us, or the track ends. Nature reclaims the throne of trajectory it never really lost, just had to share for a time. It reminds us there is something special and higher-order – an emergent phenomenon – about thought and the kinetics of bodily locomotion compared to the unforgiving momentum of natural, non-agented physics. Without us, it’s just rocks smashing into each other, etc. With us, there is a way by which higher-order systems in the universe can intentionally come into actualization. Intention is the gained operation to existence. Intention turns the world anew. Without us, without life, the world just turns.