Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00245)

>From Two or Three Things I Know About [It]
An examination of Dark Matter
by Karen Wendy Gilbert 
Now, as we search for "meaning," "pattern," and "cause," in the 
swirling vortices of quantum field theory and vibrating string 
theory, we encounter scientists who borrow the language of 
philosophy, psychology and theology to talk about the physical 
universe. To claim to be an atheist and then talk about the Universe 
having "Cosmic Consciousness," or of "evolving," is to split semantic 
hairs. Any language that 
attributes "will," "intent," "purpose," "goal," "consciousness," "caus
e" or "intelligence" to quarks, photons, monopoles, or black holes is 
a faulty borrowing [reification]. And yet, when faced with the 
mathematic "evidence," that led to the various strengths of the 
Anthropic Principle, or the mystery of quantum entanglement, the 
language of physics fails us, just at the moment that people who 
don't speak "calculus" begin to speak about the field and English 
words are needed. The spate of "Zen physics," books that began to 
appear in the 1970's were an attempt to look beyond the language of 
Western religion to find non-personified intentional vocabulary to 
discuss these elements. In the ways that the varying thickness of 
tree's rings imply a "knowledge" of weather, or a "pattern," or 
growth, perhaps even a weak Arboric Principle, we oft confuse the 
pattern that we see , with the pattern that we're 
shown . "Who" "knows" to grow a thicker bark this winter? The tree, 
the bark, the winter? Beware reification. Einstein's realization 
that "gravity," was the warping of the "fabric of spacetime," still 
is not understood in our culture. We still speak of the "force," of 
gravity, or of gravitational "attraction." This is like speaking of 
the "force," of cold, or the "attraction," of heat within a glass-
lined thermos bottle. 
Three old men sat on a porch discussing their plans for the turning 
of the century. Talk turned to the high and low points of the 20 th 
century, and all agreed that in terms of technology it rivaled all 
other periods of history. 
"What you think is the greatest invention of the 20 th century?" Jake 
asked the others. 
Samuel rocked a bit and then decided. "Space travel," he claimed 
decisively. "First the airplane take you anywhere you want to go, 
then the jet plane, and now the rocket ship. Pretty soon we be going 
out to them other planets as easy as we once rode into town." 
The others considered this for a minute but then Zeke stopped chewin' 
on a straw and offered, "Television." 
The others considered and nodded as Zeke explicated, "Television lets 
you see all over the world and all through history. It's like space 
travel and time travel rolled into one." 
Zeke and Samuel turned toward Jake to hear what he'd come up with. 
Jake reached into the battered old cooler and pulled out a bottle of 
pop. "Consider this cooler, or the `frigerator inside, they keep your 
cold things cold." 
The men nodded. 
"And then you got your various warming pans, ovens and microwaves 
that keeps hot things hot." 
Again they agreed. 
"But the miracle of the thermos," concluded Jake, "is that it keeps 
hot things hot, and it keeps cool things cool." 
"Yup," agreed Zeke, but you could tell by his tone that he didn't 
think this held a candle to television. 
"Well," explained Jake, "what I want to know is: how it know?"
Let us consider two realms of knowledge: the topology of space and 
the emergence of attributes within systems of increased complexity. 
Lynn Margulis documents how even single cell entities, beings without 
sense organs, metabolizing organs, or reproductive organs, may 
exhibit "excitability" flagellating their way towards areas of 
greater incandescence, or patches of the primordial sea richer in 
nutrients. At each level of greater complexity of biology, attributes 
emerge, eating, breathing, reproducing, sensory responsiveness, 
memory, will, intention, self-consciousness. This is also true about 
shapes. Different shapes have different attributes. Consider the 
difference between a frisbee and a ball. If you drop a frisbee 
chances are it will fall flat on one of its faces. A smaller 
probability exists that it will fall on its edge, but if so, it will 
most likely be at an angle that quickly overbalances and falls flat. 
If it should fall on its edge and balance there then it might stand 
still, it might spin around itself (like a top), or it might roll 
along its edge in one of only two directions. The ball, on the other 
hand will undoubtedly roll a bit in any one of 360 degrees of 
direction. The topology of the sphere affords it a greater 
probability of rolling motions than the topology of the frisbee. This 
is an ontological distinction, a sphere—by definition—is that which 
can roll in any direction, a frisbee—by definition—is a disk with two 
faces and an edge. If you drop them both a hundred times, the sphere 
will almost always roll, and the frisbee will usually drop. 
This is not to be confused with an epistemological question, "how the 
sphere know?" The sphere no more knows to drop and roll than culture 
creates roles, or webs spin spiders.