Asking Questions

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Strangely appropriate pareidolia is one of those oddly specific things that generates a lot of internet interest.  I was late to find out about the “question mark” in space photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope.  Okay, a couple of things: photographs, like the one below, taken by U.S. Government agencies are in the public domain (thanks, NASA!).  This one can be easily enlarged on the James Webb Space Telescope webpage.  To see the “question mark” you need to start from the center red star and look down to the two bright blue stars just to the left of center.  The image I’m using has been enlarged so that it’s obvious.  Serious news outlets have discussed this, but it’s clearly a case of pareidolia, or the human ability to attribute specific meaning, or design, to something that’s random.  We see faces everywhere, but question marks are somewhat less common.

Photo credit NASA: public domain

Given the state of the world—people like Trump able to continue scamming millions of willing believers for his own benefit, hurricanes hitting California, Putin going to war against the rest of the world, capitalism, war in the Holy Land—it’s no wonder that people like to think a big question mark is hanging over everything.  Looking into the sky we expect to see God.  Isn’t it a little disconcerting to see a huge query instead?  I, for one, think it might be best if we learn to recognize false signals rather than seeing some giant message tucked away in some small corner of the universe in the hopes that we’ll turn our seeing-eye telescope that way.  What font is it anyway?  Does it violate some cosmic copyright?

Some signs are, I’m convinced, for real.  I think they tend to be on a much smaller scale.  Way down here where  we can see them.  What appears to be, from our viewpoint, a question mark may be seen as an exclamation point from a different angle.  It’s all a matter of how we look at things.  One of the most important lessons of life is that people see the same thing from different points of view.  If we can accept that, others don’t seem so threatening and strange.  In a small planet plagued with xenophobia, it’s important to discover strangely appropriate pareidolia every now and again to get us thinking about the deeper issues.  We may not find the answers, but often asking the question is the more important thing to do.

Loco Locusts

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It really used to bother me.  Other kids in kindergarten or first grade called them “crabs.”  The picture, however, clearly showed a lobster.  Quiet and introverted, at least I knew how to tell apart basic body plans.  It’s a weakness I’ve always had—the need to correctly identify.  This didn’t come from my family, who really seem not to be bothered about such things.  It came from somewhere deep inside.  A lobster is not a crab.  The same applied to toads and frogs, or any number of other fine distinctions.  Now I confess that I try to stay away from Nextdoor.com.  It seems that no matter what anyone writes the comments immediately turn political and belligerent.  Such is our world.  But when someone can’t identify an animal, that’s clickbait to me.  I just have to take a peek.

A couple of months back a woman posted a photo of a cicada.  I didn’t chime in because at least thirty other people already had.  The thing was, several locals said it was a locust.  Even after previous commenters had sent helpful links showing the difference between a cicada and a locust.  Probably it comes from many years of teaching biblical studies, but I couldn’t believe anyone would misidentify a locust.  Mind you, when I taught the book of Joel we talked quite a bit about locusts—they are amazing creatures.  In a pre-market economy, they were also deadly.  They don’t attack people like they do in horror films, but they will eat every green leaf for as far as the eye can see.  They travel in huge swarms, capable of blocking out the sun when they fly overhead.  Cicadas are harmless.  Noisy but harmless.

Cicada. Image credit: R. E. Snodgrass, public domain, vía Wikimedia Commons

How someone can live in the world and not care to know the other things that surround them I cannot fathom.  I can understand mistaking similar creatures—some animal mimics can be incredibly effective.  A locust, however, looks nothing like a cicada.  They’re both insects, yes, and they both have wings.  The similarity stops there.  Life is complicated, I know.  There’s a lot to learn.  As a writer one of the things constantly using up my time is trying to find the right name for a thing I know by sight but have never heard called by its noun.  With the internet, identification of critters has become somewhat easier.  But only somewhat.  You have to know where to start.  I still have the well-thumbed animal identification books from my childhood.  Outdated, yes.  Coming apart at the spine?  Definitely.  Full of childhood memories of learning what things are?  Of course.

Down to the Sea in Ships

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On the final day of our Charleston odyssey we toured the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier dry-docked at Point Pleasant.  One of my uncles served on the Yorktown between the Korean and Vietnam wars and was able to show us around.  What really struck me, as often does with military matters, is just how advanced our engineering is when it comes to war.  The aircraft carrier was invented to meet a belligerent need: to convey aircraft close enough to other nations to support air strikes against “targets” there.  These targets consist of living, breathing human beings, at least in part.  But the technical problems, where I’d rather focus this post, were formidable.  How do you land a plane moving at 200 miles per hour on a moving ship with limited runway?  And how do you do it without tearing the plane apart from the sudden deceleration?

Carriers have steel cables stretched across the landing strip.  A tail hook on the plane, or later jet, would catch a cable, wound several times below deck to increase the ratio of force (as with a pulley), to add enough play to stop a plane without the forward motion tearing it apart.  Five cables stretched across the deck and the ideal was to catch the third one for an optimal landing.  Each landing (which could take place 30 seconds apart) was filmed and analyzed for improvements.  Listening to the technical nature of all this, and knowing that such things had been invented some eighty years ago, made me wonder, yet again, at how creative human beings are.  And made me ponder why so much of our creativity goes toward war machines.  Just think of the problems we could solve if we all worked together!  Instead, Putin covets Ukraine, Trump covets everything, and we fall in line behind them.

I’ve written on such topics before.  I took a self-tour of the USS Midway while in San Diego as part of a business trip back in 2014.  The tech there was perhaps a bit more advanced as this was a nuclear carrier.  Standing on this deck, however, thinking how this one ship costs more than I will earn with a lifetime of education and employment, leaves me a bit reflective.  Those who push for wars are often those on their knees praying for the second coming.  The rest of us, content with the first coming, think how the message of love and peace seems to have been swallowed by a whale.  But this ship is larger than any whale, and, I’m told, much, much more expensive.

Quick Writing

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On the very same day I saw two emails that began with phrases that indicated they were clearly sent by text.  One began “Hell all.”  This was a friendly message from a friendly person sent to a friendly group and I’m pretty sure the final o dropped off the first word.  The second seemed to have AI in mind as it read “Thank you bot.”  It was sent from a phone to two individuals (or androids?).  There’s a reason I don’t text.  Apart from being cheap and having to pay for each text I receive or send, that is.  The reason is that it’s far too easy to misunderstand when someone is trying to dash something off quickly.  Add to that the AI tendency to think it knows what you want to say (I’m pretty sure it has difficulty guessing, at least in my case, and likely in yours, too) and errors occur.  We write to each other in order to communicate.  If we can’t do it clearly, it’s time to ask why.

Those who email as if they’re texting—short, abrupt sentences—come across as angry.  And an angry message often inspires an angry response.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to slow down a bit and express what you want to say clearly?  We all make typos.  Taking the time to email is no guarantee that you’ll not mess something up in your message.  Still, it helps.  I think back to the days of actual letter writing.  Those who were truly cultured copied out the letter (another chance to check for errors!) before sending it.  There were misunderstandings then, I’m sure, but I don’t think anyone was suggesting someone else is a robot.  Or cussing at them from word one.

The ease of constant communication has led to its own set of complications.  Mainly, it seems to me, that since abbreviated communication has become so terribly common, opportunities for misunderstanding increase exponentially.  I’m well aware that I’ll be accused of being “old school,” if not downright “old fashioned,” but if life’s become so busy that we don’t have time for other people isn’t it time to slow down a bit?  Technology’s become the driver and it doesn’t know where the hello we want to go.  The other day I forgot where I put my phone.  I signed on for work but couldn’t get started because it requires two-step authentication.  Try to walk away from your phone.  I dare you.  Thank you bot, indeed.

Look it up

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Does anybody else find the internet too limiting?  I regularly find that what I’m searching for flummoxes even Google when it comes to trying to find things.  The internet doesn’t encompass all of reality, I guess.  For example, the other day I encountered the word “evemerized.”  Even Google vociferously insisted that I meant to search for “euhemerized,” which is a different thing.  It did, however, reluctantly give me a couple of websites that use, and even define the word.  What is it that the search engines are not showing us?  Oftentimes in my searching I admit to being at fault.  I don’t know the correct string of words to use to get algorithms to understand me.  I guess I’ll be one of those up against the wall when AI takes over.  “Does not compute,” it will say in its sci-fi robot voice.

Some of us still like to unplug and pick up a real book.  Or take a walk in the woods.  I do have to admit, however, I wouldn’t complain if the internet could find a way to mow my lawn.  (I don’t mean giving me a list of those companies that haul around inverted-helicopter mowers that make every summer morning sound like Apocalypse Now.  “I love the smell of cut grass in the morning.”)  I am, and hope I always will be, a seeker.  I’m aware that our brains did not evolve to find “the Truth,” but I’m compelled to keep looking in any case.  There’s so much in this world and we’ve tried to distill it to what you can accomplish with a keyboard and a screen.  And even with those I can’t find what I’m looking for in this virtual collective unconscious that we call the web.  There are others better than me at web searching, I’m certain of it.

Despite our current understanding of the virtue of curiosity, there have been periods of history (and pockets of it still exist now) when religions have presented curiosity as evil.  This is generally the case with revealed religions that invest a great deal in having the truth delivered to them tied up with a bow.  I can’t believe in a deity that created curiosity as a sin.  Early explorers of religion exhibited curiosity—if Moses hadn’t wondered what that burning bush was no Bible would ever have been written.  Of course, the internet didn’t exist in those days and seeking was, perhaps, a little bit simpler.  Even if Moses was evemerized.

Moses gets curious

Driving Complexity

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It should be a pretty straightforward thing, buying a car.  Unless you live in a city like New York you need one, so the process should be simple since it affects many.  But no.  Nothing is simple any more.  We had a two-decades old car that had quite a few health issues in its long life.  Besides, we wanted a hybrid to help with the environment and to cut down on gas costs.  A Toyota Prius seems a good choice so we tried to buy one in February.  We had to wait, however, since dealers can’t keep them in stock.  Initially they estimated three or four months, which turned into eight.  When it arrived unexpectedly we had to drop everything to go get it because they don’t want them sitting around on the lot.  Fortunately the day was Saturday, when schedules are a bit more flexible.

Unlike other stores, where you walk in, hand over your money, and walk out, the car dealership involves immense complications, too great to comprehend.  Insurance is a big part of that.  It turns out that now they want you to go with their insurance.  And since car insurance is bundled with homeowners’ insurance you have to answer questions about when your house was last roofed when you buy a car.  Facts and figures that I don’t keep at my fingertips were necessary.  And you have to download apps because they want you to do everything by phone.  If you’re buying a Prius they want to tether your phone to the car, like a Navi to its beast, and you have to let it monitor where you are at all times and how you’re driving, otherwise your rates will go up.  Driving a Prius is like steering a computer on wheels.

You see, I get overwhelmed.  My mind evolved for a simpler world.  Finally arriving home after several hours in a bustling showroom, I had a dozen emails about this and that related to changing insurance and registering for new systems so the car can take to me, and all I want to do is run to the store to pick up some groceries.  There are no entanglements there.  Pay for your goods and walk out of the store.  No insurance, no requirements to change anything.  Not to mention that Saturday’s the day for mowing the lawn and the hundreds of other chores you can’t get done during the work week.  I’m sure I’ll enjoy my new wheeled computer.  It is much better for the environment.  It may take a few years, however, before I find the time to learn how to drive it.  And to disentangle myself from all the other complications involved.  Pardon me, but I’ve got more car-related emails to read.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

Little Bang

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I’ve always been interested in the sky.  At times it feels like I’m in love with it.  Having attended a Sputnik-era high school—a rural high school with an actual planetarium!—I took the offered astronomy course.  Buoyed up by this, I also enrolled in a college astronomy class only to discover that that career track involved far too much math for my humble abilities.  Still, I learned a lot about the nighttime sky.  I’ve also been a lifelong reader of lay science.  I very much appreciate scientists who write so that nonspecialists can understand them.  So it was that I was glad to see a New York Times letter by Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser titled “The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel.”  I’ve mentioned Gleiser here before because I’ve read a couple of his wonderful books.  But this article was mind-expanding.

Frank and Gleiser suggest that the Big Bang Theory may, eventually, need to be replaced.  They point out that small inconsistencies have crept into it over the years (keep in mind that it was really only “confirmed” within my lifetime, back in the sixties).  Most of these have been patched up with quilt-work astrophysics, but the James Webb Space Telescope is making some of those past patches strain a bit at the seams.  Fully formed galaxies are being spied too far back in time (for stargazing is looking into the deep past) for the standard model.  They shouldn’t be there, but they are.  The letter interestingly raises the point that the scientific study of quantum physics, as well as that of consciousness, also strain the standard models.  Perhaps it’s time for a rethinking of reality?

Image credit: NASA, public domain

Isn’t this breathtakingly exciting?  To be alive when a major leap of understanding the universe we call home may be discovered?  The authors point out that cosmology and philosophy often have to interact.  Our understanding of the universe is a human understanding, not sacred writ.  The scientific method is built to be falsifiable.  If it’s not, it’s not science.  (This often separates it from some religions which declare themselves unfalsifiable, and therefore likely wrong.)  New scientific discoveries are made daily, of course, but new paradigms only tend to come on the scale of lifetimes, or several generations.  We don’t see them all the time.  I guess it’s heartening to see that the system works.  When science becomes orthodoxy, we run into similar problems that we encounter with religions.  A bit of humility and a ship-load of wonder can go a long, long way.

Creepy AI Doll

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We’ve all seen the killing doll horror movie before, of course.  Who hasn’t?  What makes M3GAN different is the whole artificial intelligence angle.  Okay, so you understand it’s about a killing doll, but unlike Chucky or Annabelle, M3GAN has a titanium frame and a super-advanced, wifi-connected brain.  Like generative AI, she’s able to learn on her own and even able to use her own reasoning to get around her basic programming.  Now, you’re likely smarter than me and I didn’t catch what the critics call the “campiness” to the film.  Yes, there are places that made me snicker a little, but although the killing doll premise made the results somewhat predictable, I watched it seriously.  Some websites list it as horror comedy, while others prefer sci-fi thriller.  Nevertheless, it isn’t really that funny.  And there’s a cautionary element to it.

Funki, a Seattle-based toy company, is always trying to stay ahead of the competition.  Animatronic toys are the rage, and Gemma (brilliant choice to have a female mad scientist here) is a visionary programmer.  She wasn’t expecting, however, to become her niece’s guardian after Gemma’s sister was killed in an accident.  The M3GAN prototype was already underway, but Gemma kicks it into high gear to help make up for her own lack of parenting skills.  M3GAN becomes her niece’s companion—soulmate, even—and since the two are bonded with biometrics, her protector.  Bullies, lend me your ear; you don’t want to mess with a girl who has an android as a bestie.  And nosey neighbors, fix that hole in your fence.  Or at least curb your dog.

Instead of I, Robot this is more like You, Robot.  There is a wisdom to the othering that goes on here because none of us know in what kind of reasoning generative IA might engage.  In real life computers have been discovered communicating with one another in a language that their programmers couldn’t read.  We’re all biological, however, and thinking, as we know it, involves many biological factors.  Logic is part of it, but it’s not the whole story.  So techies who idolize Spock and his lack of emotion feel that they can emulate thinking by making it a set of algorithms.  My algorithms lead me to watch horror films out of a combination of curiosity and a need for therapy.  Where does a computer go for therapy?  The internet?  Well, you might find some good advice there, but don’t be surprised if it comes at you with a paper-cutter sword in the end.  You’ve been warned.

Generation Tech

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You can’t be lazy in a technocracy.  I find myself repeating this mantra to myself when dealing with many people who use technology only when strictly necessary.  They don’t realize the war has already been lost.  If you want to thrive in this new world order, you need to keep up at least a modicum with technology.  I deal with a lot of people for whom biblical studies means handling only pens and paper.  J. C. L. Gibson, one of my doctoral advisors, wrote all his books longhand and had his secretary type them.  That’s simply no longer possible.  For authors, if you’re not willing to put notice of your books on Facebook, Twitter (or, as it seems to be going, Threads) people aren’t going to notice.  Publishers don’t send print catalogues any more.  My physical mailbox has been quite a bit less used of late.

There’s an irony to the fact that the generation that grew up on Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” are now refusing to accept our robo-overlords.  AI is here to stay and shy of a total collapse of the electrical grid, we’re not going back to where we were in the sixties.  The times have a-changed.  And you know what Bob says to do if you can’t lend an appendage.  Now, if you read my blog regularly, you know that I don’t go into this future with a sincere smile.  But at least I try to keep up with what I need to to survive.  I have to stop and remind myself how to write a check.  Or fold a roadmap.  I suspect that many of those who object to doing academic business electronically also drive by GPS.  It beats getting lost.

How does this connect to the internet?

No, I’m not the first in line.  I still wouldn’t be using a headset for Zoom/Teams meetings if my wife hadn’t given me an old one of hers.  This despite the fact I complain that I can’t hear others who insist they can speak clearly without and whose voices are muffled by the echoes in their work-at-home room.  Nevertheless, if you want to be a professional of any stripe, you need to reconcile yourself with technology and its endless changes.  You wake up one morning and Twitter is now X and you find yourself xing rather than tweeting.  I need to get more followers on Threads, but you can’t do that on your laptop—I guess times are still a-changin’.

Animate Magnetism

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The Magnetic Monster is listed as sci-fi and horror on industry websites.  It falls into that period when horror had shifted to Hammer Studios in the UK and the US had entered that white-shirt, button-down period known as the fifties.  There were still monsters out there but they generally had to do with radiation.  In this case, it’s magnetism and its relationship to electricity.  The movie came out in 1953 and introduces what may have been the forerunner of the X-Files, namely the Office of Scientific Investigation, the OSI.  This team of A-men (yes, this was the fifties) study anomalies in order to keep America safe.  There were a total of three OSI films, of which this is the first.  The eponymous magnetic monster is alive only in a philosophical sense—it’s actually an irradiated element gone wild.

An unrestrained scientist had subjected a radioactive isotope to alpha particles for several days and this started a chain reaction.  He takes the substance onto a commercial airline—in his carry-on, no less (it was the fifties)—but the plane is diverted so the A-men can intercept it.  Every eleven hours this isotope divides and doubles, eating all the energy around itself to do so.  This creates an immense magnetic field.  So immense, in fact, that in a mere matter of days it will throw off the earth’s core and our planet will spin helplessly off into space!  Don’t panic, dear reader, the A-men are on the job.  They find a scientific means of overfeeding this monster and destroying it, which is why we’re all still here.

Interestingly, this is one of the more highly rated movies of the era, perhaps because of its scientific optimism.  Scientists can solve all our problems.  And yet you’ll find them without fail in church on Sunday morning.  The fifties were developing a kind of split personality for this country that was trying to hold two conflicting impulses together in an attempted fusion.  The problem is, overthinking either (or both) of them would demonstrate that they really have separate paths to take.  They may well be compatible, but in ways that relegating religion to Sunday morning simply doesn’t work.  Even today many scientists—generally not the outspoken kind—still hold religion and science in tension.  There is something to this impulse we call religion, but it always seems to have to wait while we use science to destroy the monsters we create ourselves. 

Next Gen AI, Truly

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Okay, so it was a scary meeting.  It was about AI—artificial intelligence.  Specifically Generative IA.  That’s the kind that makes up answers to questions put to it, or does tasks it’s assigned.  The scary part, to me, is that we are being forced to deal with it because tech companies have unleashed it upon the world without thinking through the consequences.  Such hubris gets us into trouble again and again but it never stops us.  We’re sapiens!  You see, GAI (Generative AI) is under no obligation to tell the truth.  It likely can’t even understand the concept, which is a human concept based on perceptions of reality.  GAI simply provides answers based on the dataset it’s been fed.  It can generate texts, and photos (which are so doctored these days anyway that we need a photo-hospital), which means it can, to borrow the words of a sage, “make a lie sound just like truth.”  We already have politicians enough to do that, thank you.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

My real fear is that the concept of truth itself is eroding.  With Trump’s “truth is whatever I say it is” administration, and its ongoing aftermath, many Americans have lost any grip on the idea.  Facts are no longer recognized as facts.  “Well I asked ChatGPT and it told me…”  It told you whatever its dataset told it and that dataset contains errors.  The other scary aspect here is that many people have difficulty distinguishing AI from human responses.  My humble advice is to spend more time with honest human beings.  Social media isn’t always the best way to acquaint yourself with truth.  And yet we’re forced to deal with it because we need to keep evolving.  Those Galapagos finches won’t even know what hit ‘em.

Grandma was born before heavier-than-air flight.  Before she died we’d walked on the moon.  About two decades ago cell phones were around, but weren’t ubiquitous.  Now any company that wants its products found has to optimize for mobile.  And mobile is just perfect for AI that fits in the palm of your hand.  But where has truth gone?  You never really could grasp it in your hands anyway, but we as a collective largely agreed that if you committed crimes you should be punished, not re-elected.  And that maybe, before releasing something with extinction-level potential that maybe you should at least stop and think about the consequences.  I guess that’s why it was a scary meeting.  The consequences.  All technological advances have consequences, but when it takes a lifetime to get to the moon, at least you’ve had some time to think about what might happen.  And that’s the truth.

Thinking Power

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Thoughts are powerful.  An idea can change everything.  While materialism tells us that thoughts are only electro-chemical signals in an organic mass of tissue, those who have them know differently.  I don’t know you, kind readers, well enough to share the full truth of the matter, but I am more and more convinced that materialism is woefully overconfident in its ability to explain everything.  As a friend once told me, science accomplishes a lot and it clearly works, but it also sweeps anomalies off the table as statistically insignificant.  So when we read accounts of educated, rational individuals describing the impossible we laugh it off.  We shouldn’t.  Science and spirit working together is a powerful combination.  Getting the mix right is part of the process.

Our thoughts affect the world around us.  This can be as simple as deciding to mow the lawn.  By doing so, based on a thought, you physically altered the environment in some small way.  Isn’t it merely a matter of degree to let the thought do more of the work?  We’re a long way from mowing the lawn by mind power alone, but we’re at the point where belief (and I’m not talking facile follow-the-leader kinds of belief) should be allowed to grow a little bit.  There’s a lot more to the world than we’re often told there is.  What’s happened to our curiosity that we don’t explore it?  I have some theories regarding why we’ve cut ourselves off from potentially world-changing thoughts—thoughts that really could make the world a better place for all.  We’re tied to old paradigms.

We tend to be too busy to put large amounts of time into thinking.  As a society we undervalue that, in any case, until we need a professor in a specific specialization.  Thinking can lead to action.  We still can’t explain, scientifically, how the thought that I should mow the lawn translates to me standing from my chair, grabbing my hat and gloves, and a battery-pack, going to the garage, and hauling out the mower.  We do know that a thought starts a chain of events, but how does that thought move arms, legs, hands, and feet?  “For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, ‘Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea,’ and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.”  Or so the perhaps most influential sage in history once said. 

All Connected

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The physical world is interconnected.  It’s not the only world, I’m convinced (there’s simply too much evidence that it’s not), but it’s certainly entangled.  We’re clearly part of a planet-wide system.  More than that, perhaps life is endemic in the universe.  We like to think our planet is exceptional, but what if it’s quite common (as the stats would seem to indicate)?  Sometimes physical objects can influence the spiritual world.  We don’t really know what the spiritual world is, so how the physical and spiritual interact we can’t always say.  My brother, knowing we needed some hope, sent my family some small gifts.  Things like this can cross worlds.  What he sent me was the replica of the famous “alien nickel” reported in the news last June.  (He knows me.)

A coin collector in Michigan was going through a roll of quarters in 2022 looking for any that might contain some silver.  You see, until 1964 US dimes and quarters were still manufactured with a portion of silver.  I very seldom use cash any more, but I always used to glance through my change to see if there was anything unusual before putting it in the coin jar.  In any case, the Michigan man found a buffalo nickel that, instead of the American Indian head on the obverse, it had an alien head.  “Experts” (numismatists, presumably) declared it a “hobo nickel,” as the homeless used to redefine currency to their own liking, apparently.  The interesting thing about this news story is that it disappeared from attention soon after the coin was found although the pictures indicate a high degree of artistry for a homeless person etching with a penknife.  It’s not alien currency, I know, but I do wonder from whence it came.  With hope.

For all the advances our society has made, we still defer to ridicule to explain the unexplained.  This is wrong-headed.  I have my own theory about why it is so, but in part it’s because science as we know it, in its Enlightenment form, was born in a Christian context.  Scientific thinking has been around for as long as humans, but the Enlightenment marked the point when the interconnectedness of the world began to be dropped from discussion.  Why?  Because science grew in cultures based on the biblical view of humans as exceptional.  If biblical events occurred here, on this planet, to us, we must be pretty special indeed.  Even as science has become more materialistic, its cultural matrix remained largely unchanged.   Ironically that matrix now excludes the interconnected world.  Life is pervasive, and who are we to say that stones, or this entire globe, are excluded from the party?  We’re all connected and there is wisdom in rocks and metal, if only we could see it.  If we believe.

Employment Opportunities

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It’s important to be reminded that stories can also be told by what’s not said.  Non-narrative fiction can be a little tricky to follow, but often contains admirable aphorisms.  Such as “I believe in the future.  I think you need to imagine a future and then live in it.“  This is from Olga Ravn’s The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century.  One of the many things driving me insane at the moment is where I found out about this book.  I know I ran across a recommendation somewhere and I can’t recall the place.  It would be helpful to know since I wonder what it was about the description that convinced me I had to read it.  In any case, there will likely be spoilers below since it’s difficult to describe the book without them.  I’ll start off by saying it’s classified as science fiction, but it’s not your typical 1950s kind.

The story’s told via a series of employee statements to the company that owns a space freighter.  The ship has a mixed crew of humans and humanoids—androids that aren’t easily distinguished from biological humans.  They discover some mysterious, perhaps organic, objects on a new planet and the humanoids begin to request, or even demand, equal treatment.  The outlooks from the two perspectives, human and non-human, are quite different, but they argue that fair treatment is only, well, fair.  The situation gets out of hand and the company, as such entities often do, decides on the economical solution of killing everyone aboard the ship but preserving the exotic objects.  Though generally described as “comic,” I picked up on the seriousness of the issues of prejudice and inequality.  The quote above is from the very last statement from the ship.

Ravn has established a reputation as a poet and that shows through in this novel.  The quote above is an example.  According to the article about her on Wikipedia, she graduated from the Danish School for Authors.  That made me wonder why we don’t have such things.  This isn’t the same as an MFA program.  Indeed, the nordic countries seem to have abandoned their viking ways for literature.  There’s a deep wisdom in this.  Costs of living are high in such places, but so are happiness levels.  What’s not to like about a school option where budding poets and novelists can become acquainted with one another and imagine a better world?  Writers sometimes give us challenging stories but the reason, I believe, is that we can learn from them, view a better future, and live it.

Parthenogenesis

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It’s only a matter of degree, isn’t it?  I mean between reptiles and mammals.  While our common ancestor was quite a bit older than Lucy, we’re still fam, right?  I’m not the only one, I’m sure, who read with interest the New York Times story about the female crocodile who recently gave birth without the help of a male.  It’s called parthenogenesis and, according to the article, it’s not as rare as we might think.  Birds and amphibians do it.  Some fish even change gender under reproductive pressure.  And if you’ve seen Jurassic Park you know the implications might be larger by an order of magnitude or two.  My mind, however, wanders to mammals.  Then primates.  Then humans.  If our distant cladistic cousins can do it, can we?

The key appears to be males leaving females alone long enough.  As Malcolm says, “life will find a way.”  Life amazes me.  While we can’t count on it happening for each individual, life has a way of reemerging when you think it’s gone.  Previous owners of our house neglected a green ash tree growing in a location far too close to the house itself for many years.  Granted, it was on the north side where you seldom have any reason to go, but that tree sent out progeny that I’ve had to try to eradicate for five years now.  As much as I love trees, when they’re growing into the foundations of your house, they’re a bit of a problem.  I snip off the water shoots whenever I find them but they keep coming back.  I’m sad to cut them but I admire their persistence.  Life’s persistence. It’s will to carry on.  It continues even when we think it can’t.  Never forget the water bears!

Just a few days later the Times ran an article about the strong possibility of life on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons.  Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised.  I’m absolutely certain there’s life elsewhere.  It makes no sense for it not to be.  Life evolves to a point, it seems, where the “intelligent” variety seems to become arrogant.  I embrace our reptilian and amphibious and piscine cousins.  Even our insect and arthropod family.  Our plants and fungi.  Life is amazing and we seldom stop to ponder just how wonderful and mysterious and resilient it is.  A lonely female crocodile decides to have a family.  Phosphates spewing from an ice-cold moon whirling around a colossal planet that wanted to be a star.  Life!  How can we not be stunned into trying to admire it in its many, many forms?