March 27th

Where do ideas come from?

Over a thousand letters written by Charles Darwin to his good friend are about to be published. The words express his emotional side in a way previously unknown when he speaks of deaths in his family. The first tentative approaches to his theory on evolution are more like an apology, as if he's committing a murder of ideas and faith. See the full story here. The letters as a whole are hailed as a wonderful set of documents about Victorian science, but also show the social bonds that could be forged in correspondence.

msutoday.msu.edu

Famed for his theory of evolution by natural selection, Darwin travelled extensively, most famously as the naturalist on the Beagle on an expedition to South America and the Galapagos Islands. At the end of the voyage, he approached Joseph Hooker to work on classifying his collection of plants. After comparing two lists, one entitled Marry, the other entitled Not Marry, he married Emma Wedgewood in 1839. They produced 10 children, three of whom died in infancy.

How did Darwin develop his ideas and subdue the strict religious beliefs of the day? Now days, scientists are encouraged to think freely. 

Truth, seen through each person's eyes, developed in their brain and filtered by their emotions is different for each person. One person's account of a traumatic event, like an accident, will differ from another's. I remember learning in Religious Studies at school nearly sixty years ago that each person faces a central fire to see a different flame. The flame represented God or the Creator in that circumstance.

Many people have expounded the idea of a Universal Consciousness. Scientists have proven a common DNA in all living things. So we're linked to trees, snakes, animals, insects and a banana. Can certain people hone in on their contact with living things and absorb information? Perhaps this explains telepathy.

The legendary seer, Edgar Cayce said that when a person thinks, that thought makes an impression on the Universal Consciousness. Nothing is lost or done in secret, and each thought affects the whole.

www.wired.com

This could explain how two inventors, living apart at a time when communication could only be achieved by letter, came up with the same thing. A case in point is the invention of the telephone. Born in Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell lived in Ontario, Canada, with his deaf wife. This led him to invent the microphone and later, in London, the electrical speech machine, his name for the first telephone. Elisha Gray, a Quaker from rural Ohio, came up with the same idea at the same time, but because of an earlier court case, Bell won the caveat.

In my own experience, ideas concerning writing penetrate during my morning meditation. Such profound, clear thoughts lead me to expand and modify what I'm working on. I don't actively seek advice—it just comes. Sometimes, I'm amazed at the diversity and I question whether they came from my own mind at all—or somewhere else.

Do you have similar experiences, where an idea seems to pop out of nowhere?