The Gaia Hypothesis … and the start of physics
The following quote is from page 177 of Janna Levin’s “How the universe got its spots”:
“… Lee Smolin and … artist Marc Quinn … were discussing how a conscious entity can be made up of living cells, like blood cells, which themselves are not conscious. Our blood cells, skin cells, heart tissue, are not individually self-aware even if they are alive by certain criteria. Somehow these living cells collectively form a sentient being – a person. Lee suggested that maybe the entire planet with its individual living cultures and ecologies is one giant organism and we’d be no more aware of its consciousness than blood cells are of ours. … Imagine millions of conscious little blood cells trying belligerently to understand the body that they float through. Here we are, little and futile, trying to understand things that very well could be beyond us.”
Sounds a bit like (what I know of) the whole “earth as Gaia” concept – an intriguing idea with I suspect no basis in scientific fact at this stage. A quick Google reveals this page which provides more info on the Gaia Hypothesis (disclaimer: I have only skimmed through so have no idea whether this is good info or not). Only a short leap then of course to the universe being one conscious entity of which we are all a part.
Now to get back to reality … my physics notes finally arrived on Wednesday. I have quickly gone through the first chapter which is a review of maths stuff including trigonometry. For some reason, I was surprised to find no mention of calculus so this is obviously not a calculus-based physics course – in retrospect, I really don’t know why I thought it might be since from memory high school physics didn’t use calculus.
“… Lee Smolin and … artist Marc Quinn … were discussing how a conscious entity can be made up of living cells, like blood cells, which themselves are not conscious. Our blood cells, skin cells, heart tissue, are not individually self-aware even if they are alive by certain criteria. Somehow these living cells collectively form a sentient being – a person. Lee suggested that maybe the entire planet with its individual living cultures and ecologies is one giant organism and we’d be no more aware of its consciousness than blood cells are of ours. … Imagine millions of conscious little blood cells trying belligerently to understand the body that they float through. Here we are, little and futile, trying to understand things that very well could be beyond us.”
Sounds a bit like (what I know of) the whole “earth as Gaia” concept – an intriguing idea with I suspect no basis in scientific fact at this stage. A quick Google reveals this page which provides more info on the Gaia Hypothesis (disclaimer: I have only skimmed through so have no idea whether this is good info or not). Only a short leap then of course to the universe being one conscious entity of which we are all a part.
Now to get back to reality … my physics notes finally arrived on Wednesday. I have quickly gone through the first chapter which is a review of maths stuff including trigonometry. For some reason, I was surprised to find no mention of calculus so this is obviously not a calculus-based physics course – in retrospect, I really don’t know why I thought it might be since from memory high school physics didn’t use calculus.
Next I’ll move on to the usual SI units and measurement chapter which ends with a practical on pendulums which has to be written up and sent in for assessment (now where am I going to find something lying around the house which will support an 80cm long pendulum?). And I’ll have to deal with my dread of all things practical – I developed what is probably an irrational dislike for laboratory work while I was at university all those years ago – I think it is based on the fear of not getting the “right” results …
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