The Real Heroes of Society

Some say heroes are born, some say heroes are made.  I say heroes are people who made the world better despite their upbringing, for it's one thing to make the world better, but an added ingredient to make it better when you were faced with a difficult childhood.
    Parents who were dominated as children, who were made to feel guilty about everything, who cowered in fear of their parents' judgment every time they spoke, who were constantly scolded over trivial matters, who were beaten over the slightest transgressions, who were treated unfairly and made to feel like a servant, who loved deeply and didn't seem to have it reciprocated; who were abandoned (partially), adopted (partially), abandoned again, yet somehow found the strength to face the challenge of becoming an adult and molded themselves into great persons; the parents who faced such adversity with an air of defiance once their own children were born, to care for them in all the ways they were deprived themselves, to unlearn the dangerous lessons taught by irresponsible figureheads, to break the cycles of abuse and neglect rippling through the generations, to unhinge themselves from the fury that burned through the faceless identities, the multiple clashes of personalities, the sheer will that made them shout "No!", who vowed with every might of their disinherited breath to never repeat those same traumas on someone else; they are the true heroes of society.

Truth in Relativism

Truth is the golden mean of relativism.  Relativism is the idea that observations depend on one's reference point, whether it be cultural, positional, or linguistic, which we can't always agree on because of our background.  An observation-based language that eliminates Derridas' deconstruction theory would solve the problem of ambiguity that the constraint of parameters like language place on scientific perceptions.  Such a universal language would solve the problem of relativism in any field of science.

Different scientists interpret experimental phenomena in different ways, but they can't all be correct.  The only way to reconcile multiple interpretations of the same experiment is to measure the average perception on a spectrum of conclusions.  This average would be the apparent truth of any matter, unless the paradigm subjected to the measurement is so wrong that it requires a shift in general perspective, much the same way that Einstein's theory of relativity shifted physicist's notions about Newtonian gravity in the early 20th century.

Thomas Kuhn in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions denies that a language exists for this golden mean, and he is correct.  One will need to be invented for us to come to terms on some of the major theoretical problems in science.  But even if we did, it would be a mistake to assume the golden mean is the entire truth.  We are limited by what we can sense.  Science is the futile quest to reveal what the senses we yearn to have would show us about the natural world.  

If truth is subjective, we must apply the golden mean to find universal truths.  If we can't find them using our own senses, we must find a way to borrow the hidden ones from animals.  Again, here the problem of language rears its ugly head; obviously if animals could talk, we could better understand their interpretations.  Since we can't, their perceptions don't matter.  The truth gets buried under a noncommunicable database of consciousness.  Futility remains, taunting science in ways that only religion and art would appreciate.

New Emotions on the Chain of Evolution

The discovery of a new feeling can be one of life's great blessings.  We're all used to the common emotions, like happiness and sadness.  Other emotions are derived from them, like ecstasy and grief.  (Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions very helpful in seeing where these emotions come from.)  An argument can be made that emotions are the product of evolution; that as we evolved, emotions like surprise and awe helped separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom on our lone path to developing reason.  If emotions are the product of evolution, then logically we have yet to evolve some of them.  I believe one of them is coming into consciousness in our modern time: one born from musical exercise. 

I never cared for cell phones.  Always thought they were a waste of everyone's time, and people looked stupid when they used them.  Now the tables have turned.  I've discovered with this magical little device that I can exercise at the gym while listening to my own music.  The phone is small enough that it can stay in my pocket while I lift weights, and fits nicely on the treadmill while I'm running on it.   

It has, for lack of a better description, unleashed my musical spirit.  The playlist I've created has outdone all the others in my short history.  With it I am able to soar to the sky, plow through the rubble, run as fast as a cheetah.  My spirit when exercising is so illuminated by the music that it feels like my energy increases tenfold and I am able to achieve things I never could.  Life is never better than when you're running at top speed, hearing the vibrations of some cosmic Delerium mantra, or an empowering Infected Mushroom trance, or some jazzed up Mars Volta phenomenon.  The feeling is indeed otherworldly, for humans were unable to afford such a luxury prior to these lucky generations. 

There are many religious and scientific concepts we would understand more easily if we'd had better senses to perceive them.  Indeed, some animals might already have ones we have the potential of developing (for example, detecting the Earth's magnetic field).  The most amazing emotion I believe we'll evolve into is that of universal consciousness- a sense of feeling one with all that is around us.  A universal emotion of awareness would probably be the apex of evolutionary emotion, though if the concept is extended to multiple dimensions, as the current science is propounding, we'll have a lot farther to go in reaching that apex.  The more sensitive spiritual types may have already developed such an emotion, while the rest of us are left trying to catch up.