What? When? Where?
Opportunity Evolving in Time.

‘OK, I can accept the concept of opportunity evolving in time.
After all, the whole thing is nothing but a truism.
Opportunity is fluid by definition. Evolution is its natural destiny. And time is the natural consequence of evolving opportunity.
But where does this whole process take place?!?’

In our heads, where else….

Opportunity, evolution, time and, yes, ‘space’ are concepts.
Ideas coined by us, conscious human beings acting as thinking agents who use contextualized observation to further our understanding of what’s going on around us.

‘Huh?!?’

Consciousness is a state of mind.
A mind is like an AI machine. Something more than a live brain but not yet a wake, conscious, entity.
The closest thing to a ‘mind’ is a sleeping human conscience. Sleeping – hence not doing its ‘thing’ – but able to be awaken. Able to do what it’s capable of doing.
A brain is nothing but hardware. A mind is like a computer. Hardware and software put together. The only difference between a mind and a computer is that a mind is an expression of natural evolution while a computer is an expression of human ingenuity. Another thing minds and computers have in common is that both need a will to start them. To point their attention towards a goal.
This being where consciousness takes over. A mind which is aware of its own ‘wokeness’ is a conscious mind. It can pay attention, do things and generate meaning.

‘Hardware, software, natural evolution… aren’t you throwing too much ‘content’ into a single post?’

I’ll try to keep it simple.

We, humans, are the pinnacles of ‘natural evolution’. According to our interpretation of the information we have gathered until now.
As you already know, a pinnacle is a small thing perched on top of something way bigger. And for pinnacles is far easier to notice other pinnacles than to perceive what lies under them.
Our bodies – including our brains – depend on what’s going on ‘beneath’ us. In fact, ‘our’ whole world – the world we depend on, the one we live in – is working ‘in the back ground’.
Yet most of the time we’re interested only in what the other ‘pinnacles’ are doing… ‘Cause they are the ones which grab our attention!

Well, the ‘cool’ fact is that this is only ‘natural’.
In the sense that this is how we’ve become human in the first place. That’s how our minds got their ‘software’.
We’ve learned self-awareness by interacting with other human beings. We’ve built our culture by remembering the lessons learned by our ancestors. And we’ve built our civilization in concert with our brethren.
Individually, we may know little. But together we can move mountains. As we did.

And got cocky.
Our success has narrowed our attention span.

Somewhere inside the book which metaphorically recounts how we’ve learned self-awareness – the Bible – Mark, one of the evangelists, quotes Jesus:
“Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, ‘Remove hence to yonder place,’ and it shall remove. And nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
I’m not a psychologist. But I find this idea as being very explicit regarding the manner in which our minds work.
We cannot start anything, in a voluntary manner, before ‘believing’ in the outcome. We need to have ‘faith’ in that action. No matter how simple.

How do we get that faith?
We don’t get it, it’s being built into our conscience during the process. Continuously.
There are two factors which build our faith. Experience and reason. Past interactions we had with the wider world and the meaning we’ve derived from them. Putting it bluntly and oversimplifying things, based on previous experienced we convince ourselves, involuntarily, that it was us who were entitled to claim the merit for what had happened. Either we’ve done something right, ‘believed’ in the right things/gods or both at the same time.

Up to not so long ago, we have evolved in a religious manner.
In the sense that faith was shared amongst us. We used to share a ‘core faith’. That things not only work in a certain manner but also that things should go in a certain direction.

Success has changed that.
We’ve become so confident in our ability to generate meaning that we have emptied what’s left of the core faith.
We, the pinnacles, have reached such heights that we’re no longer aware of our link with the rest of the mountain. We’re racing ourselves for the top forgetting that we need fuel and spare parts. That our very racing completely changes the ‘racetrack’. For better or for worse…

And everything described here takes place inside our heads!
Happens inside our heads and changes, through our actions, the very world which keeps us alive.