Brian, sounds like a great name for a band: Accidental Mitochondria.
But on a more serious note, it really shows how random life’s events can be for better or for worse. If one path or turn is not taken, everything changes and we are in an alternate universe and life. That does not mean we should be paralyzed by taking an action or inaction, but simply go with it and ride the wave as far it will take us.
That is is beauty and mystery of life. Unfortunately it is also the tragedy of life. But if we accept and embrace it, we will never be bored.
Without giving anything away...I suspect you might like my next book (which I will announce on here as soon as I can)! Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting. I think it's sometimes worth taking a step back and taking a zoomed out perspective on life. This one...is pretty humbling.
Brian, I have no doubt it will be great. Now I just need to find time to read all the good stuff out there.
It is good for everybody to take that time and step way back to put everything in perspective. But to think about life and it’s twists and turns, two songs that pair well with that theme, Seven Turns by the Allmann Brothers and He Went to Paris by Jimmy Buffett.
The wide scope perspective would also help those who think they are “self made” realize that is utter BS. Everybody has help in some way or has things go their way that they could not have planned or contemplated. But alas, such a view requires introspection and humility which seems in short supply these days.
It seems that variation over a long time, or variation over a large number (of configurations) at once, will drive improbable events to almost certainty (based on the ideas of Stuart Kauffman). The realization of highly improbable events seems to depend on how many different lottery tickets you buy or how long you play it.
That may be true, but in this instance, it appears this has happened once...in two billion years, while trillions and trillions and trillions of microbes bump into each other every second, so this is probably one of the rarest events in history.
I agree. Maybe the frequency of this event is once every five billion years, for example, and not enough time has elapsed, yet. My point is: given enough time or a universe large enough any event with p>0 will occur. Accidents just appear accidental to us because we usually can’t see all the failed attempts across space and time.
I agree with that. And, of course, if you believe in the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, then everything that could happen does happen...all the time, ad infinitum.
Perhaps the same process enabled me to stumble on the "Garden"!
Many of the best things in life are derived from a chain of happy accidents. Thanks for reading (and commenting)!
Brian, sounds like a great name for a band: Accidental Mitochondria.
But on a more serious note, it really shows how random life’s events can be for better or for worse. If one path or turn is not taken, everything changes and we are in an alternate universe and life. That does not mean we should be paralyzed by taking an action or inaction, but simply go with it and ride the wave as far it will take us.
That is is beauty and mystery of life. Unfortunately it is also the tragedy of life. But if we accept and embrace it, we will never be bored.
Without giving anything away...I suspect you might like my next book (which I will announce on here as soon as I can)! Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting. I think it's sometimes worth taking a step back and taking a zoomed out perspective on life. This one...is pretty humbling.
Brian, I have no doubt it will be great. Now I just need to find time to read all the good stuff out there.
It is good for everybody to take that time and step way back to put everything in perspective. But to think about life and it’s twists and turns, two songs that pair well with that theme, Seven Turns by the Allmann Brothers and He Went to Paris by Jimmy Buffett.
The wide scope perspective would also help those who think they are “self made” realize that is utter BS. Everybody has help in some way or has things go their way that they could not have planned or contemplated. But alas, such a view requires introspection and humility which seems in short supply these days.
It is a beautiful contemplation - the accidental mitochondria.
It seems that variation over a long time, or variation over a large number (of configurations) at once, will drive improbable events to almost certainty (based on the ideas of Stuart Kauffman). The realization of highly improbable events seems to depend on how many different lottery tickets you buy or how long you play it.
That may be true, but in this instance, it appears this has happened once...in two billion years, while trillions and trillions and trillions of microbes bump into each other every second, so this is probably one of the rarest events in history.
I agree. Maybe the frequency of this event is once every five billion years, for example, and not enough time has elapsed, yet. My point is: given enough time or a universe large enough any event with p>0 will occur. Accidents just appear accidental to us because we usually can’t see all the failed attempts across space and time.
I agree with that. And, of course, if you believe in the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, then everything that could happen does happen...all the time, ad infinitum.