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Open Wide and Never Stop Gasping
"We have no idea what's going on down there." --Biologist Stacy Kim, on exploring deep, subzero waters in Antarctica
I am completely in love with endless jaw-dropping forehead-slapping heart-stopping bursts of insatiable, inexhaustible, completely unknowable mystery.
I am completely in love with the notion that, were you to place everything we know about life, existence, this planet, each other, the heart and mind and breath, skin and spit and blood, all of the science and accumulated data, facts and figures into one enormous bathtub, and everything we do not know, have yet to know and very likely might never ever know over here in this other enormous bathtub, the latter would dwarf the former like a blue whale to a goldfish, the Milky Way to a speck of lint, boundless ever-expanding deep space to your next quick fast flabbergasted gasp.
Every single day, we find new evidence of our completely wonderful ignorance, the sheer impossibility of ever knowing anything for absolute, irrefutable certain.
The quote you just read up top of this column? It's from a biologist who was part of a NASA-led research team working in the still-frozen north, a comment made shortly after dropping an unassuming little probe through a tiny hole in a massive Antarctic ice sheet, a little camera on a cord sliding 600 feet down into freezing, sub-zero, sunless waters where no measurable life of any note or substance will ever be found, because that's just the way it is.
What do you think they found?
Here's what they thought they'd find: maybe a few microbes. Some sturdy little specks, a few tough, single-celled things that can somehow handle those brutal, impossible conditions, because nothing else really can.
Instead, they found Atlantis, an entire gleaming, glittering megacity stretching for 1,000 miles in all directions, teeming with life, lights and enormous, golden undersea temples with lasers, talking dolphins and hyperintelligent, bioluminescent, mind-reading jellyfish with 10,000 heads and 14 hearts.
OK, maybe not. But they might as well have, for the depth and scope of the insane possibility, for the sheer sense of who-the-hell-knows-anymore.
What they actually found was simply a large, happy shrimp and the yanked-off tentacle of a squid (apologies, good sir) apparently living and frolicking even further down in the icy depths. These two rather astonishing creatures, to existing knowledge anyway, had no business whatsoever being anywhere near that spot, given the hopeless conditions, the sunless cold. The likelihood of such life surviving there, science thought, was absolute zero.
Big deal? Well, yes. For thus changeth, once again and for the billionth time, our fundamental understanding of the Way Things Are Supposed to Work. Such simple-but-shattering findings amplify exactly what the biologist mentions: when in comes to the bigger mysteries -- and even a few million of the smaller ones -- we still haven't a goddamn clue. It's a big deal because it proves once again that life is far more messy and unpredictable than we tend to assume.
But most of all, it's a big deal because it provides yet another key to further unlock the imagination. What the hell is down there, really? How infinite and fluid are the notions of life and dimension? We truly have no idea. Or maybe it's more accurate to say: We have just enough of an idea to know we really have no idea.
In fact, so frequently does this happen in history and science, you might say it would require some sort of preposterous gall, some flavor of egomaniacal, solipsistic chutzpah, to assume we can set concrete rules and proclaim childish religious doctrines that presume to understand such fluxive notions as love, gender, sex, faith, God, organism, orgasm and life itself.
I've a lovely friend who's also a supergenius Stanford neuroscientist; she spends much of her time scanning brains and theorizing about how the thing works and then coming up with wildly fascinating experiments to test those theories.
Like what we know of the deep ocean floor (i.e.; almost nothing), she guesstimates that, in her field, they've successfully mapped only a small fraction of the brain so far, a few regions more than others, none anywhere near completely.
Of course, that's just structures and the neurons, the careful identification of wayward parts. How all the layers interplay, communicate, dance, imagine, dream and then remember where you parked, what your great grandmother smelled like, and the taste of fresh oranges on that warm summer day in 1983 when you first fell in love? Still a giant, mesmerizing shrug. What's more, she says as soon as they figure out one mystery, 10 more open up as a result. Indeed, the more we know, the less we understand.
But then she mentioned something even more phenomenal. She said that right now, new evidence is emerging that, despite all existing research and data, the brain might not actually be the center of all creation and human function and cogito ergo sum after all.
It's just a hint and a whisper of an idea so far. But it turns out, when measured electromagnetically, the brain isn't the organ that gives off the strongest, most complex or dynamic signal. It's the heart. By a factor of, oh, about 5,000.
In other words, so strong is the heart's signal, so overwhelmingly dominant in the body is its pulsing electro vibe (its rhythmic field "not only envelops every cell of the body, but also extends out in all directions into the space around us," says one summation), it's possible that we all have a completely different powerhouse processor/informational hub, potentially even more illuminating and influential than the mind, the function of which we have yet to begin to conceptualize. How gorgeous is that?
We still don't know why whales hum and whistle. We don't know how Monarch butterflies survive their insane 2,500-mile annual migration, much less how the hell they land on the same tree every year to procreate. String theory to quantum physics to dark energy, the G-spot to the magic of the Fibonacci sequence to why human beings kiss one another? Still not sure. Still trying to figure it all out. Hey, it's just what we do.
And of course, nature looks upon our attempts to measure and quantify her, and just smiles, beckoning us in further and further with one hand, while gently, lovingly flipping us off with the other. Hey, it's just what She does.
20 Comments so far
Show Alloh! that was so beautiful. and it really resonates with what i always say... "what the heck do we really know anyways??" people really LIKE to think that they know so much, that they understand so much..."well, one thing is certain..." WHAT? what IS certain? humans evolved from animals... and how much do THEY know? well, i think that every organism on the planet knows something... feels something... and there is truth in that. but how do we formulate that truth? how do we express it? can we ever express it? all we can do is give symbols to it. i'm talking about the BIG truth. but all the other relative truths... they seem to change. whatever is true for is today MIGHT not be true tomorrow. and so, we continually explore... and i agree with Mr. Morford... I am also in love with the great mystery. there is freedom in knowing that... we dont know. know what i mean? =p
I agree.
for me it has always been this way:
that the more I learned about life, udnerstanding of things, their how, what, etc...the more each step of learning something gave me a sense of new wonder and awe at it all.
to me - there is no day, still, even in this already "long" life in what is really a short life of ourse , that when I go out , no matter what "life" has been like personally, when I see the trees, the grass, the birds, ants in their lines, feel a breeze, i always secretly take a moment to pay attention to them..and just be in AWE.
we KNOW ants are a certain way, we KNOW trees and the grass are a certain way...etc....
but I think every "knowledge" just makes it all more wondrous. I am always grateful every day for just being part of it all.
I often tell myself that the world and existence is one "TERRIBLE BEAUTY"...and I can't stop being awed by everything around me.
a profound article. Thank you. But, really? "life is far more messy and unpredictable than we tend to assume." Not THAT's the understatement of the year.
I once read that a scientist of some sort calculated, based upon the law of entropy and the characteristics of gases that in every breath that each of us takes, there is at least one atom of oxygen that was breathed by both Hitler and Jesus.
Wrap your mind around that for a while. The implications of how directly linked we all are on this vast planet is staggering.
The natives of this continent (the ones I've read about anyway) all seemed to have a common belief in "the great mystery". They didn't pretend to understand it. They worshipped the greatness of the mystery itself. That is, until the white missionaries came and set them straight about absolute truth and the certainess of the white man's god. Hey, it's all written down and explained for us. Right?
Thank you Mark Morford for letting me know that there are others out there who understand that we understand virtually nothing. Except Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity.........they must have a special connection to the creator.
The find beneath the Antarctic ice just goes to proves what a bunch of catastrophically ignorant monkeys we really are. We think all of our toys and technology are the greatest thing to ever grace this spinning ball of rock.
And then along comes a small show of life in a place 'where none should be' to show us just how utterly insignificant all of our pride and hubris and various beliefs that we have been shown special promise by the Flying Spaghetti Monster or other nebulous sky being really is.
If we even attempted to live more than thirty seconds in this environment, we would be deader than US healthcare.
Actually, this was just a dry-run for the much greater discoveries that await the scientists when they penetrate the far more deeply buried "Lake Vostock" a 800 meter (2600 ft) deep freshwater lake, the size of Lake Ontario, which lies 4000 meters (13,000 ft.) beneath the the icecap in the center of Antarctica. The lake has likely been in existence and in isolation from the rest of the earth for millions of years.
Russian drilling through the ice was halted several years at 100 meters above the ice/water interface until non-contaminating procedures can be developed. NASA-JPL is developing a sterilized "cryobot" that will advance into the lake while the borehole is re-frozen behind it to maintain the lakes isolation.
If complex life is found in lake Vostock, it greatly incrases the chances of finding life beneath the ice crusts of the saltwater Jovian moon Europa, and the Saturnian moon Enceladus.
Lake Vostock...very interesting...
how much total water between Antarctica's ice and ground? I will investigate...
The bit about the heart is too nebulous to take seriously. To say that the pulsing of the heart is important is fine. We know that. But to imply that that pulsing affects memory and personality is farfetched. The author should have questioned his friend the neuroscientist a bit more to find out how they made the connection. Even if a mechanism is not known, at least he could have asked why they think there is a link.
sheepherder: Did you read the link to the author's heart comment? Your comment suggests that the author did less than 'due diligence' in this piece. By supplying the link, the author has done his diligence, and more. Read the link. Below is the actual URL:
http://www.heartmath.org/research/
science-of-the-heart-head-heart-interactions.html
this is very confirming research...fascinating...
i think it was pretty clear that the neuroscientist's observation about the heart was mainly as an opening to a door that we thought we had already opened...
isn't there the age-old saying in all cultures about the heart , whether about love, or instinct, or feeling, or in the way we phrase things but that the "rational world" sometimes dismisses, or in other ways we think it's all by "brain" control? etc? and that the heart after all is merely a valve muscle and tubes and has "involuntary" purpose?
maybe this is something about MORE than what can be assumed today...maybe this points to the organism - oourselves, and maybe other creatures- in which they are all acting in some way that we can not yet undertsand and maybe never will.
maybe this is even connected to WHY we feel ...and maybe it is true what the poets say:
the heart as the seat of love and emotions...among other things we don't know yet, such as actually, literally "stretching out" to the world in ways we can't figure out or measure yet..
in any case -- all the more reason for all of us to be in AWE, in WONDER in all creation.
to me -- just reading it and realizing that maybe there is something about ourselves that DOES literally EXTEND outwards in ways we can not see...that we are INDEED not limited to just the confines of our bodies...should inspire anyone instantly to want to embrace everyone we see , just for the fact of how lucky we are to even be alive. ..and that the lesson we should continually be trying to learn is how to recognize our extension outward towards trying to be as good as we can be as PART of the entire world of existence...because maybe, that IS really what our reality ought to be...maybe that is what some say our supposed
"one-ness" with the world and the universe, and that maybe, our own physical forms and "singularities" are themselves like the neurons or pathways - PART of an unfathomable "continuum" of creation, life, existence and that we should learn to create a civilization or realize one that enhances our perception of what is already just there for us for the taking to not just understand it in some limited way -- but more importantly -- to accept it and take joy in being part of it (rather than to rule it) .
that would be pure ecstasy, imo.
Teddy, there was recently a program on Discovery Health where several people who had experienced near death experiences were interviewed.
One man they interviewed had had a heart attack in his apartment while phoning EMS for chest pains. EMS traced the location of the phone and found the man clinically dead. They administered a defibrulator and restarted his heart. Upon regaining consciousness, he said that he had seen his grandfather, who unknowing to him had died of a heart attack on the other side of the country at almost the identical time he suffered his heart attack (he was in Austin, Tx. his grandfather in California)
He said that he saw his grandfather, then the deceased members of his family, and that he was told he could not stay but his grandfather could. He had no way of knoing that his grandfather had passed away at the same time as he became ill.
Another caase they interviewed a man who had a heart attack in his home. He also felt chest pain and called EMS. Before they coud arrive, his heart had stopped and he lost consciousness. The first EMS team tried to revive him with a defibrulator, but the battery failed. They called for a second ambulance, and began CPR, in which he was revived. He stated that he had "risen above his body and above the house (he was in a room with no windows) and had from an elevated vantage point seen a freind run outside and get sick, he saw the defibrulator battery die, and he saw the second ambulance arrive. Every detail he recounted was correct, including the location of the vehicles outside and the location where his friend was sick. His brain was not emitting any signs of life during the time he recounted. (Note: Both accounts are greatly abbreviated to try and convey the main idea that there was no explaination for what these people experienced.)
Both subject said that the experience was more real than everyday life, and that it had changed their perspective toward death and life permanantly.
There is so much about life, consciouness, time, etc. that we probably will never know. I guess that is what keeps life interesting eh? It simply amazes me that there are those in our society who think stupid is cool and are proud of their own ignorance.
My late Uncle always used to say, 'The more you know, the more you know you DON'T know'. Thereby comes a measure of humility. We seem to be confronting 'talking heads' and politicians who claim to have all the answers to everything and little or no humility. That is downright frightening.
Lovely piece, sort of free-associating to blend joy, optimism, science, and poetry. I 'pray' we survive as a species to continue the millennia-long search and discovery of the wonders of our world(s).
An important point is not how much we do not yet know but that we are capable and willing to learn. And the technology we've developed, to the regret of some, does include the tools that assist us in this continuous journey of discovery.
The complexity, beauty, and wonder of it all should, you'd think, lead to a greater will for peace and an end to wanton destruction of our world and each other.
So true -- what a beautiful description of how we know so little of this wondrous existence...even of ourselves..it just made me, once more, literally tremble and choke up when i was reading and thinking about all - at how awesome existence is...just no words fitting...
that part about the Heart sending out such powerful signals "even extending outside" the body is beyond description in its profundity ..if that were really the case, which most likely that is what we are..or all things are. extending to each other..
it reminds me of those books by Carlos Castaneda about the "sorcerers" in mexico -- that Don Juan showing his apprentice that humans are really "egg-like" creatures with tendrils extending from our center , around the stomach and chest area, and that a person "with knowledge" (that is, the few that have not been limited by the normal "reality") can see ourselves just like that:
floating glowing egg-shaped creatures...that are connected to everything around us...and to the Mother Earth and the universe..and the whole point of "knowledge" was to see the one-ness between ourselves and the earth.
either way - it is all awesome , infinitely awesome.
>>>>> working in the still-frozen north
Ummm, Mark, Antarctica is not in the north.
Thank you, Mark. An important reminder to sometimes just wonder at the wondrousness of it all.
"...new evidence is emerging that, despite all existing research and data, the brain might not actually be the center of all creation and human function and cogito ergo sum after all. "
Good news for Republicans!!
"In other words, so strong is the heart's signal ... it's possible that we all have a completely different powerhouse processor/informational hub"
Bummer for people who have had an artificial one installed, eh? What's that? They manage to survive perfectly well, and do not become lobotomised zombies without their weird-ass rhythmic energy field? Blow me down! Who'd a thunk it!
What silly, not just false, but obviously false, silly twaddle. And he started off so well.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray
http://www.paulmurray.id.au/ageofworms
It's telling that the author had to make up what they found under the ice.
I believe that the "neuroscientist" from Stanford does not understand much about the brain as she apparently does either EEG recordings or MRI's or some similar scanning technology. The field is full of people who do EEG's (many psychologists) or MRI's (many medical doctors) and who contribute nothing to the understanding of how the brain works.
The brain is actually well understood by those who take the time to learn what needs to be learned to understand it (chemistry, cell biology, evolution, mathematics, etc), with apologies to Godel.
In the late sixties, early seventies, a bunch of self-proclaimed smart people at MIT figured out that neural networks were not able to do certain basic computations. Meanwhile, guys like Hecht-Nielsen were building hundred million dollar companies based on this technology.
Articles like this are why most people don't believe in global warming.