Bilateral symmetry, in humans it means five digits, one eye, one ear and one hemisphere per side.   Somewhere in the middle lies a consciousness that is defined by this design and limited by it every bit as much as a digital computer is limited to base two.   Both are binary but act as one for two different reasons. The computer operates in a serial fashion so quickly that it seems to be doing a thousand things at once.  The human brain takes in seemingly millions of bits of stimuli constantly with ease but only at the pace we are born to.  So the brain seems to transcend the computer but in one way each are bound to the serial railway of time.  Humans are clocked by their body’s nervous system and so too the brain.  Computers are made to run ever faster with clocks that tick faster, typically by doubling the speed.  The two can’t be equated but the binary aspect of each, one biological and one technological cannot be denied.

Its things like this that scream no coincidence to me.   I’m not strictly an atheist for this sort of reason.  The universe is too wonderful and the geometry and mechanics too beautiful to ignore.  I have always felt that any side of any argument is wrong.  Real truth is the recognition of all aspects of the issue or the reality in question, symmetry is involved.  So for the argument of who we are, is there life after death or what is the universe; these seemingly impossible questions, is answered by the logic of the question, why are we here asking this?  When I see the science that points out the nature of things and shows the hidden, the limits and scales of the microcosm and macrocosm, I am forced to see that there is a design and a purpose to everything that is happening in the universe.

It’s not the same as a belief in god; it isn’t blind faith, its recognition.  Kind of like scientists had the holy grail of finding extra solar planets and now they have.   Evidence of water on mars and now they have.  Life elsewhere in the universe, it seems likely but is as yet to be observed.  These things too are cause to reinforce this overall feeling of the greatness of that which we are a part of.   We don’t understand what we see but we are beginning to recognize it as something more than merely a chaotic explosion.  For me, that’s enough to feel lucky, and proud to be alive and aware and in search of the truth.  Oh and by the way, what is balance without bilateral symmetry?

A closed loop refers to an isolated system.   The systemic advancement of ideas that support personal political, philosophical or religious ideas so as to make the mind continue to embrace those ideas is a form of this.  When you're asked to support a political party or a religion this kind of behavior ensues.   It's injected into the psyche by the idea giver.  No mistake here, we are looking for answers when we choose to believe in something or to follow a leader.  But after the initial infection for most people the disease is a passive background stain on their consciousness.  Such as "oh I'm a Republican" or "I guess you could call me christian".  The vast majority don't fully devote themselves to these "greater" schemes, those who invest the most become the ones who are actively recruiting brethren, true believers, activists.   They enter into the closed loop.  When someone expends so much of their energy and personal emotion so carefully to construct a description of what or who they are it is difficult to have them exit the loop for even an instant.  Tolstoy said it best.

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives." Tolstoy

It is that expense of personal time, energy, and pride that keeps the individual knotted up in ideas that are clearly wrong, self destructive or merely rationalization.   Overall I find the idea of comprehensive disbelief to be a liberating factor, one that sweeps away a lot of the murky film left from 'notions' that stick to us as we grow up absorbing ideas from everywhere we look.  From this perspective what I see when I look at the output of human endeavor over the past few centuries is a progression of these sorts of processes.  Religion, political and social binding factors that place severe limits on an individuals ability to remain objective.  More than that it diverts a modern persons gaze away from the truly amazing parts and pieces of knowledge that creep out of the scientific community.   Information that liberates us, and, from now on will define us.

A life, like the world it lives on is an iterative function system.  It is cyclical and finite, everything about our lives is constantly repeating.  In as much as the world turns we find we have to eat again so that we can see the next sunrise. And because like the Beatles song; 'because the world is round it turns me on' it goes on and on.  Mankind has been absorbing this for some thousands of years since we've been aware of  the concepts and that's where these belief systems have spun up from.  They are trying to act like a harmonic balancer on a wheel.  And they succeed because humans are extremely accepting of things that they conceive of themselves or choose to embrace, and like Tolstoy was saying, they cling to them.   Because each of us trusts ourselves.  That trust could be that I have told myself I am so unhappy I am depressed.  Or it could be that I am saved from death and will be resurrected.  The effect of any of these is to place the individual into a closed loop that operates as a balance for that person inside of the iterating days of their life.  Then there are those who remain chaotic in the rotation of their life throughout their life time.

Who says we shouldn't have balance?  I think we should have balance, but, it should be accompanied by a wide eyed acceptance of the tight rope walk which you start down when you reject these looping systems.  It's ok, deep down you always knew you were on your own.  Everything spins, babies are lives spinning up and grand folks are lives spinning down.