I took a sensation and perception class in college and one of my assignments was to conduct a study of my choosing. It could be anything. The purpose of the assignment was to get us budding young college students to know the form and practice of observational science implicitly. Mine had to do with heat "preference" of earthworms, night crawlers specifically. I chose this study because I was in South Carolina where bait shops are abundant, earthworms have a very basic sensory system, and I hadn't been able to find this study in any of my searchings to date.
I set up a "course" with low grit sandpaper as the floor. Cardboard walls ran the length of the corridor. Before I introduced hot or cold to either of the ends of the track I had the worms crawl around to leave their scent in a non-biased pattern. This would limit the influence of the worms on each other. I set up a warming fan on one end of the course and a fan blowing over ice on the other. My hypothesis was that the worms would choose the warmth over the cold based on the evolutionary need to keep body temperature higher in order to maintain homeostasis. It was just a guess more than anything. Everything is a guess more than anything.
The worms moved decidedly in neither direction. The study was not statistically relevant. The interesting part was that worms are not communal animals by any means, even still they tended to travel in groups of 4 or more in any given direction. They could "smell" each other on the track and assumed that the path most taken was the easiest or best way to go.
I have too often let myself be told what to enjoy. This is a pattern that has continued to plague my musical ear among various other facets of my overall enjoyment of the world. Being true to myself often means ignoring the infectious opinions of others. This is no easy feat. The strong personalities with which I tend to associate are difficult to ingest with that precious, and necessary, grain of salt.
An ego can turn any doubt of its authority into a slap in its pasteboard face. Every question becomes the murder of trust. Opinions should be largely unapologetic. I tend to lean towards optimism in almost every situation. In my experience people often take a ceaselessly positive attitude in a couple of different ways. Some tend to find it a refreshing break from this pessimistic world. This group tends to take pleasure in the simple beauties of the everyday. These are, also, the people who tend to enjoy my company for the long run. The rest generally consider the "silver liners" as simple of mind. They believe that in order to be enlightened, one must be cynical of the world around them.
Questioning one's existence is human. It promotes an enlightened self preservation. The pretentious questioning of benign actions is a different thing entirely. Self fulfillment comes from an true understanding of the world around you. An open eye sees better than one that is closed. The same theory applies to the minds eye. Not to sound all hippy-dippy, but if you are open to the new experiences that the worlds of others may offer, you will find yourself more fulfilled.
All minds are simple. "All digital circuits are made from analog parts" (from a fortune cookie). The intricate web of the synapses in the brain is all point to point hard wiring. The sequences involving emotional response and general cognition are what makes it complex. Overcomplicating things is an unavoidable waste.
If I were to conduct another study in the same vein as the earthworm study, I would pursue the source of a worm's natural inclination to take the "road most travelled." With this new experiment, my new hypothesis would be that even the simple circuitry of an earthworms sensory compulsion would have the propensity of following the path most taken. Is simple better? Is following the destiny for everyone. How does one break the cycle? More importantly, how does one convince others to break this cycle at the same time? I'd like to think that we are more civilized than worms, wouldn't you?
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