Fine Phobe Architecture

Nascent Wisdom—Part 1

Science has gained some fascinating insights in recent years about how a large collection of cooperating critters can act far smarter than any one of them. The phenomenon is dubbed “emergent intelligence” or “swarm intelligence”. It’s one of many byproducts of the contemporary mathematical theories of complexity and chaos. Each of these theories recognizes that unanticipated characteristics emerge from processes that are so complex that they are hopelessly beyond the capabilities of traditional mathematics—processes that were once regarded as too chaotic to even attempt to analyze.

An attribute (and even a requirement) of swarm intelligence is that all members act independently; no one’s in charge. A familiar example that we’ve all seen is observed when you watch a large flock of birds or a school of fish. The “cloud” of flying or swimming creatures behaves as one organic whole. They change shape and flow smoothly, in a mesmerizing manner. The shape of the cloud instantly adjusts—ingeniously avoiding predators, confusing the attacker. Predators get their meal only if they can break up the mass, isolating a few individuals that they then go after.

The qualities of emergent intelligence were first observed and cataloged when scientists studied very simple-minded, social creatures. Few critters seem dumber than an ant. About all an individual ant can handle is directly reacting to its immediate environment, mostly by smell (pheromones) and touch. It can’t think; it can’t communicate by other means; it can’t plan tomorrow’s meal.

Yet a colony of ants accomplishes some amazingly sophisticated tasks. The group builds nests and roads, cares for the nursery, efficiently finds food, defends the colony, designates a spot for their graveyard and garbage dump, divvies up complicated and dove-tailing tasks, etc.

Here’s another ant example described by a recent scientific study. It details some pretty astonishing behaviors of leaf-cutter ants. In several ways their gardening abilities are smarter than your average human. This species of ant—acting cooperatively together—carries its freshly-cut leaf particles to “gardens,” where they practice a sophisticated form of sustainable agriculture. After being placed in those gardens, the leaf particles grow a fungus that the ants harvest and eat. But not all ant garden fungi are desirable; some are either regarded as weeds by the ants, or are even toxic. So the ants have a way of discerning and weeding out harmful parasites: they remove them from the garden and trash them a safe distance away. They also grow a type of bacteria on their bodies, that fight other pathogens trying to establish a foothold in their gardens. The leaf-cutter ants have “intelligently” discovered a sustainable way to keep their gardens pest free. That sure beats the destructive manner of human agribusiness!

More examples next time…

Guardian of the Hermitage

What’s Intelligent?

One byproduct of choosing to live as a hermit is an ongoing parting of the ways with mainstream culture. By virtue of being rather out of touch with society—despite my maintaining some contact through the Internet—I find that I’m able to “speak the people’s language” less and less. Society moves on, changing its fads and trends, leaving me by the wayside. Alternatively, I find that I increasingly follow my own peculiar path, as I develop a new outlook on life.

A particular deviation that I often experience is noting how differently from society I begin to interpret and use some words. Words can acquire new connotations for me, as I begin to alter my perspective. One of the reasons I took up the life of a hermit was to slow down and examine the multitude of beliefs and perceptions I’ve acquired over the years. When I do so, I’ve found that many of them no longer seem relevant to me. I can let many of them go, cast off their respective shackles, and open up to new realizations.

An example of a departure that I’ve experienced is how the word “intelligent” is employed and implied by people. I’m less and less inclined to be able to relate to everyday usages, which imply that intelligence is the exclusive domain of humans, or that it can reasonably be measured by an IQ test, or that it is correlated to higher education or material success. When used in this way, for example, granting intelligence to one person rather than another can become a hierarchical or even a classist process.

When I get this feeling that I’m out of step with society on word usage, I like to go back to its roots and recalibrate myself. So, digging in the dictionary, I find that the Latin root of “intelligent” is to perceive, to understand, to comprehend. This tells me that intelligence can be more a matter of understanding things, than it is knowing facts, or doing well on a test, or even getting an advanced education.

The fact that intelligence means understanding more closely fits my interpretation of the word, since I’ve sometimes watched well-educated people exhibit a poor understanding of their world, in the harmful ways that they act. In contrast, I’ve watched what are considered simple-minded people act very intelligently, demonstrating their good understanding of their world. Even a squirrel—when very attentive to its environment—acts intelligently.

Thus one way I’ve come to view intelligence is how well one pays attention to one’s surroundings and how appropriately one then takes action, based on that accurate perception. I think intelligence is less what one knows than what one does. A person with an IQ of 150 who abuses his world may be regarded as intelligent by culture’s standards, but his actions display an elevated level of ignorance and foolishness. It is this type of irrational behavior that has led us to the current mess the world is in. That surely isn’t smart!

Amaryllis--A Winter Bloom

Inching Along, Worm-like

Meditating surrounded by Mother Nature’s beauty can be enthralling for me. If I simply sit in one location in the woods for some length of time, opening my senses as much as possible, something will happen that captivates and teaches me another lesson about the wonders of the wild.

One summer morning I crossed my legs and sat to meditate in the woods. I set my boots to the side and began to settle. A gentle breeze floated through and a bird occasionally twittered. With my eyes at half mast I felt a calm overcome me.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I noted a bit of motion on one of my boots. I became absorbed by an inchworm slowly ascending the boot. The gait of this critter is fascinating to watch. It has three pairs of legs bunched together on each end of its body and a long, legless span in between. It moves by stretching out its front end, grabbing hold by the triple forefeet, lifting its hind end as it makes a big loop at its center, and planting the back feet. This loopy, contortionist-like stride is mesmerizing.

The inchworm is also called the spanworm, measuring worm, and looper. It’s the larva of the geometer (“earth measurer”) moth. (I learned these things later, wanting to understand more about what I had observed.) As I watched this one climb, I almost instinctively counted the number of loops it made—as if getting an inchworm’s measure of the height of my boots. I became fully absorbed in its progress. Did it think that it was climbing a tree trunk, looking forward to having leaves to munch? “My, what smooth bark this is!” I waited for it to reach the leafless top of my boot. What would it do then?

Having finally attained the boot summit, the worm paused a moment, and then inched around the rim. When it reached the opposite side—at the final outpost of its bizarre tree—its front end waved back and forth in space, as if seeking something to latch onto. But having come to the end of the line, the inchworm looped its way back around the other side of the boot and eventually—after a couple more fruitless attempts at finding leaves—descended boot hill.

I don’t know how long I watched the little lesson unfold. I was so absorbed that time’s passage had lost meaning for me. If I’m patient when outside, Mother Nature will invariably gift me with a display of her wonders. The treat can come through any of the senses: watching, listening, smelling, feeling. She has so much to teach, if only I slow down and pay her attention.

Jack Frost Sculpture

Things Ain’t What They Seem to Be

I recently read an intriguing book on astronomy, written way back in 1985. One must be cautious about reading an astronomy book that’s nearly 25 years old—there have been a multitude of new discoveries since then. Stellar knowledge quickly becomes outdated. But archaic sky watching was exactly the subject of this book: Astronomy and the Imagination by Norman Davidson.

The book appealed to me, because it describes the cosmos as the ancients saw it: from an Earth-centered perspective. That’s very passé… but wait, it’s how we see it too, when we look up with our naked eye. The ceaseless march of science (along with its amazing telescopes) has helped us to retire the old idea that the Earth is at the center of the universe. This is a belief that the church had seized upon, and like a dogmatic bulldog, didn’t want to let go. A few folks even suffered for their revolutionary ideas to the contrary.

From 400 years of advances in astronomy we know that our beautiful little planet circles the sun, which circles the Milky Way’s center, which is pushed and pulled by countless other galaxies. In fact, there may be no definite center! And yet, when we sit down at night (or I repose in my outdoor tub) and gaze at the sky for awhile, we have the same experience that our ancestors did: the Earth does not seem to move, while everything out there seems to revolve around us. We still perceive ourselves to be at the center of the universe. Intellectually we know it’s an illusion, but it’s what we see, it’s what we experience.

This experience has three qualities to it, as described by Davidson: (1) we perceive the sky as a dome above us, (2) the dome meets the “flat” Earth at the horizon, and (3) the observer is at the center of it all. We also have the illusion that the stars are projected onto that dome; they all appear to be the same distance away. In fact, since the stars directly overhead appear closer to us than those near the horizon, that dome is more like a flattened bowl. The same illusion occurs in the daytime, as clouds near the horizon seem to be farther away than those above.

The flattened-bowl illusion may be why we think the full moon, when we see it near the horizon, seems larger than when it climbs higher in the sky. We unconsciously expect the moon to be smaller when it’s close to the horizon, since everything seems to be farther away there. But our objective eye says it’s the same size, so our subjective brain compensates and tells us it must be larger. There are other theories why this illusion occurs—some even having been put forth by the ancient Greeks. Here we are in the 21st century and we’re still not sure why the full moon seems so fat when it first rises. Why? Because our mind’s eye is so complex and elusive.

So we’re in this fascinating place today, when we view the sky with our naked eye: although we know so much about the universe, we still visually experience it the same way our distant ancestors did. May we not lose their wonder of it all.

Reading Something Into It

We humans have a quality that most other creatures don’t: an inclination to interpret our sensory experiences through the use of symbols that we create in our heads. While most animals interact in a very direct way with their environment, we translate our experiences into symbolic terms that get stored somewhere in our brain. It’s those symbols we deal with, not necessarily the real thing itself.

For example, I look at the full moon and I see craters and maria—casting different highlights across the moon’s disc, creating patterns. My mind—particularly my cultural mind—tends to interpret those patterns in a certain way. An animal, in contrast, just sees patterns. If I was told as a child that what I see is a “Man in the Moon,” I learn to interpret those features as a face. It becomes so familiar to me, I periodically have to remind myself that what I’m seeing is a lunar landscape, not some open-mouthed visage in the sky.

I was an adult before I became aware that other cultures saw something quite different in the full moon. Some see a rabbit, some an old woman, etc. Several years ago I tutored a Mexican-American young lady during her high school years. Together we once explored a book about Mexican mythology and read about the “Rabbit in the Moon.” I explained to her my culture’s perspective. She tried hard but could not see the man. With practice, I began to see her rabbit.

There are, of course, countless examples of contrasting perceptions of different cultures. Even within a particular culture people of different backgrounds will carry disagreeing interpretations. Someone from a high-income bracket will tend to look upon a welfare mother quite differently than a social activist will. A Pakistani Muslim perceives Mideast problems very differently from an American mainstream Christian. A Wall Street banker’s cut on our economy differs from a factory worker in Ohio. A common thread through these contradictory perceptions is the symbolism we’ve been taught.

The viewpoint of any one of us is fragmentary; our senses register only a portion of the reality of our world. We grasp that fragment of reality, transform it into a symbol, make up a story about it, and stash it into our imperfect memory. When we repeat this a few times (often ignoring an increasing amount of reality as we do), our symbols, our stories, get cast in erroneous concrete. When we encounter someone from a different background, we’re often struck by how strange and misguided their symbols and stories are. It can be very hard to let go of our beliefs, to accept that they are not necessarily the correct or complete ones.

So I sit and gaze at the full moon, trying to see the rabbit as readily as I see the man. Sometimes I think I can even make out the old lady.

Frosty Painting on Car Roof

Immature Worldview

The dictionary defines worldview as “a comprehensive, personal philosophy or conception of the world.” The worldview of any creature is a direct function of its consciousness level. The worldview of a squirrel is more rudimentary than that of a human being. As we mature, our worldview usually expands: the personal philosophy of an infant is more limited than that of an adult.

To a large degree, our actions are guided by our worldview. How I interpret my world—what I think about it—will directly influence what I do. If I see my surroundings as threatening, I will behave more fearfully and aggressively than if I believe my world to be benevolent.

The worldview of primitive peoples was rather limited; they knew their immediate natural area stunningly well, but often classified humans in a dualistic, “my tribe-your tribe” manner. Each person knew that his well being often hinged on supporting his tribal members, and perceived outsiders as threats or competition. Other tribes’ members, in fact, were even seen as non-human. This worldview can be described as “ethnocentric.” In the context of this primitive worldview, it’s understandable that violence and even ethnic cleansing could occur.

In contrast, the worldview of the saints is far more inclusive and peaceful. Enlightened people see their world as sacred; everything and all creatures are revered. These folks emanate love and nonviolence. They serve as beacons to us, as examples of the elevated consciousness level that humans can achieve. Their worldview can be described as “worldcentric.”

The worldview of most people today is somewhere between that of a selfish child or a primitive person, and that of a saint. We are spread out all across that range. Unfortunately, a significant proportion of humanity falls towards the ethnocentric end of the spectrum. Violent acts towards the world and other tribal members are all too common.

We need to grow up. Our world is in trouble. We badly need a massive consciousness level raising. We need to begin to move towards the saint’s worldview: it’s all reverential. When we see the world as sacred, we will treat it with care, rather than disdain.

Bubbling Creek

Voices in the Creek

Running next to our outdoor bathing tub is a wet weather stream. Half the year it’s dry (in the summer, when thirsty tree roots drink the water). After heavy rains it can become a frightening torrent that once washed the tub downstream, bashing it to a pulp.

When the creek is dry or the water flow is just a trickle, the stream is quiet. On those nights I can sit soaking and listen to faint animal sounds deep in the forest. In contrast, when the flow is a torrent, the stream emits a constant roar that drowns out even airplanes.

The most fascinating sounds come from the stream when it is in mid flow—when it’s in babbling mode. It has three types of voices then. One is a high-pitched “shhhh,” reminiscent of wind through the pines. It provides a constant background drone. A second voice, a low-pitched basso rumble is created by numerous little falls and drop-offs here and there. These two voices are steady; they provide a continuous murmur in the creek’s choir.

The third voice—an irregular babble—is the most interesting one. It comes from numerous locations along the creek bed, as water trickles and swirls around and over small obstacles. The sounds of this melodious voice are: bloops, poots, reeks, dinks, burps, glubs, bleeps, plaps, teeples, klunks, blops, blips, and ruckles. These random watery syllables are flung into the air, mixing and creating a sort of cocktail party chatter.

I can be soaking in the tub, deep in reverie, when suddenly it seems that I hear a human voice nearby. Out of the creek’s incomprehensible babble an almost comprehensible word or two unexpectedly emerges. It’s startling—almost as if someone is walking nearby, chatting quietly with a companion, and one or two nearly-intelligible words rise above the mumbling. Just as quickly I calm down, realizing it’s the unwitting creek. It continues babbling incoherently—only to tease me again a little later with another fanciful word or two. Is there a message here, if I were to pay a little more attention?

New Year's Conjunction of Moon and Venus