Bare Bones Biology 005B – Gaia

Midafternoon on a shizukana Monday in Niibo Uryuya is quiet and peaceful, but if you walk along the paths and the car-width roads you find a day filled with relaxed activity.  People are meticulously fixing, mending, weeding.  I am sitting, eating an ice cream cone quick, before it melts, and reading Gaia, the new edition. The mockingbird-equivalent screeches long high notes from the electrical wire, while the local hawk paraglides the survey of his territory.

And then I have to try to write about it.Spiders hide in the hedges, behind their webs, apparently with their bellies full of dragonflies, judging by the remains.  In Texas this time of year the dragonflies range under the electrical wires and over the goatweed, about head high to a horse, in territories about two meters square.  Sometimes they switch territories with a neighbor, but they maintain an equidistant cruising mode.  Someone said they are hunting fire ants.  Anyone who lunches on fire ants is OK by me, so I like to sit and read and watch their iridescent air dances in the middle of the afternoon when it’s too hot to do anything else.

Here in Niibu Uryuya there are no fire ants, but I’m sure there is a fire ant equivalent because today for the first time the dragonflies are flashing red over the rice fields in little equally spaced territories, about head height to a horse.  If there were horses.  I wonder if it’s the same species of dragonfly, and then I wonder if it matters.  Amateur naturalists love to learn the names of things, but I’m having trouble remembering Japanese words, which right now I could really use, and I already know there is an animal to inhabit every lifestyle on this earth – the Japanese mockingbird equivalent and the hawk and the dragonflies, all are fulfilling the same purpose, doing the same job here that they do, whatever the species, in Texas, and that is one reason the world does not grind to a halt.  The magnificence of this whole of creation, where every little bit fits perfectly into the whole fabric of life, far surpasses words for explanation.  Gaia indeed.

In fact, that’s why I never read Gaia the first time round.  The so-called “Gaia hypothesis” is one of those beautiful ideas, like evolution, that clicks open a door of the mind to a new view on the reality of creation, as it has to be (or it wouldn’t work).  If you take the time to learn all the reasons why people have discovered these concepts they seem so obvious, after they have been discovered, so elegant, so necessarily true (or we wouldn’t exist) that the reading of the book, which by the way was written by James Lovelock — no matter how well it’s written, is anticlimactic — a comparatively pedestrian recitation of specifics that clip the wings of the beauty of the creation it is trying to describe.

But I am reading the book, so I can give the guy credit for calling our attention to the beauty of our one common reality, the living earth.

And then I have to try to write about it.

A podcast of this episode can be downloaded at:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/BBB-005-Gaia-_2.mp3

Did you Ever?

Did you ever perform a task only to fulfill a responsibility;
and then when it was over, it broke your heart to leave;
but you had to leave it behind,
to honor that same responsibility?

Maybe, could it be, that is the story of all of life.

Bare Bones Biology 004B – Power of Science

The great power of basic science is that it lets us spend our time doing things that are more useful than fighting about our personal opinions. We can use the elegant immutable facts of life to make technologies, and then we can use the technologies to do something good that we otherwise couldn’t do.

But is that what we usually choose to do? More often, after we have powerful technologies, our heads swell up until we believe our power is the same as wisdom and our opinions are the same as facts. Now that’s just silly, but that’s what some people think. And then we start to fight, we call it debating, about whose opinion is more important. And by that time we are in more trouble than we were before we had the power. Nobody’s opinion is as powerful as an immutable fact, because we can not change the facts.

A fact is a reality that doesn’t change. The most important thing we need to know about science — it’s a method to figure out what is the difference between a fact and an opinion. And it does this by physical measurements. Science is the study of measurable facts using the scientific method. The whole point of the scientific method is to prevent personal opinions from influencing our evaluation of the measurable facts.

An opinion is not any of these things. We do have the power to change our opinions, and in my opinion we should consider our opinions with great care, first on the basis of the facts we must deal with and then on the basis of good choices that reflect our positive human values.

Fighting over facts is like those gorgeous fighting fish that have long trailing fins and all sorts of colors from red to blue, and they live in little aquaria. One fish lives on each side and they are divided by a pane of glass. Apparently the fish believe they are more powerful than the glass, because they never stop fighting to get through the glass so they can tear each other to shreds. They spend their whole lives doing this, and then they die.

That’s very romantic, and I suppose it’s fun if you like nothing else more than you like fighting, or if you think winning is more important than anything else in the world. I don’t. I think winning is mostly a way to hurt other people while pretending you did something good, because whenever you win, everyone else loses. And that makes them mad. Pretty soon everyone is mad at everyone else, and looking for something to fight about, even if it doesn’t make any sense, acting like a bunch of fighting fish and never accomplishing anything more useful than proving we can do something better than somebody else can do it. Well, everyone can do something better than someone else, so what does that prove?

I can accomplish my goal better if I know the difference between the things we know to be facts, and the things we know are not facts, and the things we don’t know. So science is about facts. Technology is also about facts, but technology is not basic science. Technology uses scientific facts to make things to sell or to use. It’s too bad so many people are confused about this, because the difference is as big as the difference between God and man. God made the unchanging facts. We use basic science to study the facts. We use technology to make things to play with.

It’s not much different from a chimpanzee using a stick to dig food out of a hole. God made the tree, the chimpanzee broke it into a stick to use for a technology, but the chimpanzee did not make the tree and he cannot change the way trees are made. Neither basic science nor technology can change the facts, but science can help us to understand them, and technology can help us to do good things without causing harm.

Or not. Our job is to choose.

The podcast of this post may be downloaded at:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/Bare_Bones_Biology_004B_-_Power_of_Basic_Science.mp3

Squirrel in the Mulberry Tree Has No Fear

Bare Bones Biology 003B – World Views

http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/BBB-003-100420_copy.mp3

This blog is a repeat from http://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2010/04/27; it has been slightly modified to fit into the world of today.

Earth day was great. The weather held, and all these people hustled around trying to find their best way to contribute to our common goals. I’m pretty sure most of them believe that we all have the same world view, working to the same goal, thinking the same way they do. I used to believe that too, until I finally figured out that almost nobody thinks like I do. So today I‘ll talk about world views. Not science.

I believe the human brain is hard wired to be logical. With giraffes, it’s the neck; with peacocks it’s the feathers; with us, it’s a well developed innate capacity for logic. Everyone who starts life with a normal brain, the most normal thing about it is, the brain is always working to make a world view that is logical, at least to itself.

Surely we’ve all had the experience of walking into a room, stopping and looking around because something doesn’t feel right. Something is not part of the normal logic of this room, and we feel uncomfortable until we figure out what it is. That feeling of discomfort drives all people, I believe, to build a logical world view within which they can live in some comfort. Or, if they already have one they like, they will cling to it like their lives depend on their own world view, even if there are real facts to the contrary. We all need to have a world view that makes logical good sense to us.

Well, of course there is a problem with this. Two problems. The first is that we have to build our view of the world around our experience of the world. Everyone has a somewhat different environment, and also the environment keeps changing; therefore everyone has a somewhat different world view. The result is Culture Shock! Culture shock is very uncomfortable, but it’s also exciting, and when we work our way through — it takes about a year — we end with such a sense of competence and security compared with the time when we were afraid of people who are different. A good understanding of how to handle culture shock is something we can learn, and teach to our children. In today’s world it’s a good thing to do. Go someplace different, live there for a year and listen to the logic of the new place. Or, actually, you can do this without ever leaving home. All you have to do is listen to the internal logic in other people’s heads.

The second problem is that everything logical is not necessarily real and true. A good many people don’t know this, but just because your world view is pristinely logical doesn’t mean it is true. For example, in my introductory economics course I was told that the whole economic model is based on four pillars of solid reality. If you believe in the four pillars, the whole construct is beautifully logical, but I guess they don’t know about the fifth one, and that’s too bad. We could have avoided these economic collapses if their world view were more like the real world.

And of course that’s also true of our own world views. Nobody knows everything; everybody is wrong about some things, so we can never build a world view that is perfectly true. Probably if we did, nobody would believe it. But it’s worth trying to get as close as possible to reality, because the safest world view is one that is both logical and true. If we have logical reasons to believe that we can fly, that doesn’t mean we really can. If we could have a world view that is perfectly aligned with the real world – we would have more personal power than anyone else and, barring accident and bad luck we would be much safer in the world.

The problem with growing an accurate world view is that old culture shock that makes us afraid, and that generates denial. Culture shock and other attacks on our world view can be profoundly uncomfortable.

So the moral of this story for you and me is that we are better off with a bit more safety and a bit less comfort. In a world that is full of exciting ideas and scary propaganda, it’s worth the effort to listen carefully to the logic of others, because there is always the chance they are right about some things. If they are, and they are documentable facts –then our world view needs to be tweaked a little. If we want to live in a safer world.

The podcast of this program is available at:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/BBB-003-100420_copy.mp3

The yellow breasted chats descended in a fat flock on my mulberry tree in Bryan.

Beautiful bird.

Bare Bones Biology 122B – Human Hands

This blog is an expanded version of Bare Bones Biology radio program that played on KEOS Radio, 89.1 FM, Bryan, Texas. The original audio podcast may be downloaded at:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/BBB122-Human_HandsFinal4.mp3

In the current blog, the ending paragraphs have been updated and somewhat modified in honor of Earth Day.

Hold up your hand flat open with your palm facing me. As though you were a policeman trying to stop an onrushing disaster.
Your four fingers and your thumb are all pointing in different directions.

Now let’s think of your four fingers and your thumb as problems or “actions” that you and other socially conscious people are promoting — spending your time, energy and money, using your life to benefit your family, the community and humankind in general. Every person using his/her best skills to address one or other of the major actions, trying to relieve the problems faced by humankind today.

Let’s say your first finger represents hunger, and all the people trying to reduce world hunger. The second finger can represent global warming. The third finger can represent conflict, for example war, politics, genocide, modern economics. And the fourth finger represents religion and spirituality. Your thumb represents overpopulation.

What I notice about this hand is that all five of the digits are pointing off toward different and separate goals. If you added together the five different problems, and the people who are working to address these problems. Well, they are not working together for a common goal – they are going off in five different directions. Often they fight or argue with each other or they simply ignore each other, rather than discussing common goals. For this reason the work of one group often cancels out the gains of one or more of the other groups.

For example, one group is working for compassion in the belief that a compassionate community will not fight. Another group tries to win because they believe that will solve all our problems. The climate change group, after a few hundred years of evidence, is finally beginning to recognize its problem is real and is trying to decide whether to adapt or deal with the root cause of climate change. The hunger group can’t possibly accomplish its goal in the face of climate change and excessive population growth. And the overpopulation group believes that no positive goals can be achieved by continuing the destructive path that caused these problems in the first place.

We imagine if all the groups accomplished their goals they would all add up to a successful community. The reality, however, looks more like a mish-mash of confusing goals and conflicting interests. Efficient and effective problem solving does not jump out into the world in five different directions at once, with the different parts of itself fighting among themselves. Modern business practice has made many serious mistakes, but at least one good concept has come out of it, and that is goal setting. Good business defines its goals, sets its guidelines, and informs all parties involved.

Our basic human goal is to live in a community that is sustainable into the future. Surely it must be, and if it’s not we should ask each other why not, because we aren’t acting as though it were. We have all these five problems, and more, dashing off in all directions at the same time. Don’t you agree that we could organize ourselves in some way that would at least have a chance of growing a positive future? I think such a future is possible. If our primary goal really is the common welfare, then we can align our four fingers to represent of our commitment to the common goal of human sustainability on this earth, in good health, at least through the lifetimes of our grandchildren. If my genuine stated goal is the same as the stated goals of people working in different disciplines – then we will cease to be all working for different outcomes.

Next, we can recognize the physical facts: (1) that nobody can accomplish anything if there is not enough food for them to eat, (2) that all our food comes from the earth, and (3) the earth now has more people than it can feed. If you personally don’t believe these are real facts, then you, as we all do, have an obligation to the hungry humans in the world to fact-check our belief system.

So we then fold our thumb under at the roots of the four fingers, to represent represent the facts: (1) that overpopulation is at the root of all of the other problems. Yes we have had these problems in the past and we did not solve them before. Blame your heritage. Now is now and now we cannot solve them if a large part of the earth’s population is desperately struggling to make a living, and ; (2) therefore, that no other compassionate goal can be accomplished when there are more people than the earth can feed; and (3) therefore, the four other goals cannot be solved in the presence of overpopulation.

Therefore, if we genuinely want to accomplish our goals. If we want our behavior to reflect our commitment to the real goal, and regardless of our personal expertise or our primary interest — hunger, global warming, conflict resolution (community) or spirituality – then it is our obligation to spend a portion of our effort, every day, to help compassionately reverse human overpopulation, first informing ourselves about why it is a problem, and then addressing that problem as it relates to our own special skills and projects. I tend to judge people’s compassion by their behavior. When I see anyone brush off this obligation with a platitude or a blank look — we all do really know how important it is. Then I wonder why they don’t really want to know. Can it be they don’t want to help carry the burden of responsibility that goes with knowledge?

And then – we all work together to accomplish both the root goal and the individual goals by enclosing all of life on earth within the fully informed, goal-oriented, responsible, compassionate hand of human kind.

And then we ask. (Everyone does.): “But it is such a big problem, what can I do?” The answer is –

1- Discuss the issues as a community. Sometimes I think many of us are pouting: “If I can’t have what I want, then I won’t talk about it at all.” This approach won’t work. Neither will war make things better, except temporarily for the profiteers. War is not discussion; debate is not discussion; passive-aggressive conflict in which neither side is willing to listen is not discussion. Anything that involves only two sides or a “winner” is not discussion. The goal of these discussions is not to “win” anything. The goal is to be prepared for what is going to happen.

We are letting the corposystem decide these issues for us. We are even letting our government and corporations decide what opinions we should have and what are the issues of our debates. Often we waste time arguing over who is to blame, instead of fixing things.

2-Educate yourself about how the ecosystem functions to maintain its balance and therefore its welfare and its life. The earth will not bow to human preferences; it is essential that we discuss ideas that will work within the natural laws that function to maintain Life. We are entering the biggest biological crisis in human history, and we are not giving it as much rational consideration as we would the purchase of a car. It’s time to get serious and work together to soften the blow for us all.

We are in a situation like an old-fashioned clock that doesn’t work properly because one of its wheels is missing. When we fail to discuss the issues with people who disagree with us, we cannot make wise decisions because part of the necessary information is missing from the discussion.

Because they hold half of the wisdom;
And we are making half of the mistakes.

If we want to “win” at the end, we must begin by discussing these issues with people who disagree with us.

http://FactFictionFancy.Wordpress.com

http://www.BareBonesBiology.com

To download the original podcast of this program go to:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/BBB122-Human_HandsFinal4.mp3

Earth Day in College Station with www.texaspmc.org

http://www.texaspmc.org in partnership with http://www.populationmedia.org AND a lot of other people.

Bare Bones Biology 152 – Meditation for an Easter Sunrise

This past Easter, Bitsy and I sat at the picnic table behind Los Sueños Trailer Park in Santa Fe. She upright and watching, I slumping awake with a cup of coffee. It was a wandering meditation and I let it wander.

The solid faithfulness of Notre Dame Cathedral. I couldn’t stay for the services – all that smoke and perfume drove me away, but the building – the building that welcomes all. In the off season I came often to sit inside its truths. I remembered the time I sat behind a woman, just the two of us, widely separated, she weeping and I letting myself feel her tears and return what I could of a blessing. We never spoke, she didn’t know I was there,and I will never see her again, but she is a part of my life, sheltered within that building – not the tourists and not the ceremonies, at least not for me. The building took three generations to build, by hand, in the middle ages, and if you listen you can feel the tears, the millions of human hands, the love, the joy, and the patience. Above all the patience. The stone blocks of the stairs hollowed out by our feet. The building carries forward a truth of human community.

Notre Dame made me think of Jesus, and I wondered what it felt like to be Jesus, the man who cried out: “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” And I thought again of the building, and the tourists who file around the periphery in dumb awe of truth, ignorant of those who weep in the seats under the central dome of real life.

And that made me think of my favorite audio tapes that I carry when I travel. Stereo – with earphones. I pulled it out and plugged it in. One individual, not counting Bitsy, sitting at a picnic table, meditating and watching the sun rise while listening to The Messiah. EC gave it to me. How many individual people and other organisms have given me my life? Back in time and spread out across the living Earth? How wondrous a thing is Homo sapiens. How amazing a creation am I, arising within and nurtured by the glory of God’s Natural Laws. Sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Nurtured by a tough Texas lady. Somehow connected with an unknown, weeping French woman.
Eileen Farrell, soprano: “And he shall feed his flock.”

Jesus, representing the facts of life for humans. We are born, we live, we die so that Life itself, the whole churning brew of perfectly interacting processes, may take its rebirth in every moment. Ever changing.

Not even the most brilliant scientists can map that churning brew of Life, but the truths of it are true, no matter who interprets them, be it Jesus or the Buddha or any other saint, or Handel, or science. And what will I give back?

Our job is to sort out the truths from among our own ego trips and corposystem propaganda — greed, hatred and ignorance. Our job is to understand the power that we hold, lest it harm all the generations of our future Our job is to continue to learn about, and not to fight over, any truth of God’s Living system, because – we only understand part of it and a lot of what we do understand is wrong. Because we are not God. We are nothing more than a bit of life in the great stream of God’s system of Life.

And “We, like sheep” go often astray.

God is what it is, not what you or I have decided that it is. Our job is not to war against it or the Life that it is creating in every moment of time, but to honor it’s process and receive its blessing.

“Hallelujah”

And after Easter comes Earth day. I’ll see you there on Saturday, April 20.

This is Bare Bones Biology, a weekly production of FactFictionFancy.com, and KEOS radio, 89.1 FM, in Bryan, Texas. The podcast can be downloaded at:

Hungering for justice at Guantanamo John Dear S.J. | Apr. 16, 2013

http://ncronline.org/node/49786/

Reposting this week’s comments by Father John Dear