The Human Element

The angle of the incident light equals the angle of the resultant light. The color perceived is the total spectrum minus the absorbed wavelengths. The focal length is the inverse sum of object and image distances.

These are just a few of the basic properties that govern the way in which we are able to see our world. And yet there is so much more than these physical phenomena that occur when one watches a sun-set, inspects an ant in a magnifying glass or looks in the mirror. There is also the sense of the utter vastness of life and our own relative puniness one feels when faced with a horizon painted in every color imaginable, the weight of our own responsibilities when we truly see the small and vulnerable, and our own image staring back at us in the glass. This extracted element of the human perspective cannot be explained by the laws of physics, but is just as universal as any of Maxwell's equations.

Connecting to the world in a metaphysical way is part of the human experience, and is what drives many of our deepest desires. The desire to love and to be loved is rooted in our recognition that there is some good in this world, in others and in ourselves, and the desire to share in that goodness with others. The heart's quest to find and appreciate truth, beauty and goodness is the inspiration for adventure of all kinds, whether it is in the pages of a novel or in a far off land.

Imagine a world where a high-five was merely an application of Newton's second law of motion, where music's sole purpose was the study of Fourier wave function transforms, and where the beauty of a rose was simply a sign of healthy photosynthesis. While these physical properties are all an integral part of the world in which we live, they are not the sum total of our experience in this world. The natural phenomena will continue ad nauseum, but without engaging in the uniquely human experience of life we will miss out on one of our most basic and universal callings: to seek out Truth, Beauty and Goodness in every place where it is to be found.