Crested Coral Mushroom

It's been very wet recently, so these (and other varieties of) mushrooms have been popping up everywhere. They are only about half an inch (one centimeter) wide. Click to enlarge.

Philosophical Reflections

I have come rather late in life (in my mid 70s) to the study of philosophy. I have written several times in this blog about my struggles with trying to wrap my head around philosophy and its manner of looking at our world and our human place in it. In so many ways philosophy and science (the latter is my academic training and career field) view the world quite differently and thus employ quite different language. Science is empirical—it's concerned with measurement and objective observation. Philosophy is about logic—it's concerned with reasoning and argument. Science is about what is. Philosophy is more about why and what ought (to be).

So having retired long ago from a career of scientific pursuits, I've been free to try to explore philosophy. It ain't been easy for me. It's like learning a new language after reaching adulthood: not only is it new, but one has to unlearn a few ways of perceiving the world, in order to think in unaccustomed manners.

What has helped my mission is several free online courses (MOOCs, Massive Online Open Courses) that are being offered these days... wonderful resources. A recent course that I have begun is offered by FutureLearn, out of the UK. This course, “Introduction to Philosophy,” comes from the University of Edinburgh. Right out of the starting gate, the philosophy professor gave a definition of philosophy that I could relate to: “Philosophy is the activity of working out the right way to think about things.” This interpretation has two aspects to it that appeal to me: (1) philosophy is an activity—not just a process of mental gymnastics and (2) it's about “working out the right way to think about things.” Thus, when philosophically involved, one is both animated and engaged in an ongoing process: figuring things out. The latter aspect suggests that philosophy is not necessarily about solving problems and reaching answers, but about asking open-ended questions.

The lecturer went on to say that there are many disciplines that people may engage in, such as science, law, medicine, etc. Then there are the philosophies of each of these subjects: philosophy of science, philosophy of law, and philosophy of medicine. What's the difference? The disciplines themselves involve people doing things, while their respective philosophies take a step back and ask “why?” Why do we do those things? Are we doing them appropriately and morally? Should we be changing how we do them? What ought we to be doing?

The lecturer likens philosophy to something children naturally do: when they persistently ask “why?” But philosophy is also an adult activity, in that the one who asks questions is also (like the child's parents) seeking answers. So the adult philosophical task becomes, What do we need to do, to find those answers?

The lecturer also spoke to my personal struggles with philosophy, when he acknowledged that philosophy is difficult. Why? Because it challenges our usual way of thinking about and looking at the world. Philosophy demands that we let go of our customary (and comfortable) paradigms and venture into uncertainty. It demands that we admit to our ignorance of the world and dive into the unknown. That's not easy for us to do.

It's a struggle, but I think I'm beginning to get a handle on it. These kinds of questions are important to ask. The answers may not be forthcoming for some time, but the process keeps us evaluating and weighing what we do and why. That's a crucial process, and probably why philosophy is one of the oldest disciplines (excuse me... activities) of our species. Has it not brought us significant moral progress?

Eight Eyes

The better to see you! Click to enlarge.

Alice-in-Wonderland Reality—Part 2

Now that I've shrunk myself several million times in order to see these blobs of atoms, why not shrink even more, to see what's inside the atoms, in order to view those protons, neutrons, and electrons? So I shrink a few more thousand times.

Now that I'm even tinier, I'm astounded by the fact that that blob of an atom—that Greek “fundamental” building block—is mostly nothing! It is mostly empty! It is just as if I were many trillion times larger—big enough to allow me to take in the whole of our solar system—I'd also see that it is mostly empty space... mostly nothing. There's the heavy sun (comprising some 99% of the solar system's mass) sitting at the center, while the insubstantial planets revolve way out there, through mostly empty space. So much vacuum! So much void!

And that's what the atom is like! To me—who is now a few billion times smaller than when I began this adventure—this ever-so-minuscule atomic nucleus can be seen to be surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Virtually all the “substance” of the atom (just like the solar system) is contained within that tiny, central ball of protons and neutrons. The atom turns out to be 99% nothing! It's mostly empty space. In fact, the whole universe is mostly empty space! All matter—even the tree and the bird—is primarily a vacuum, with its vanishingly small nuclei scattered so far apart, that my tiny self can see only the closest atom. It's lonely down here!

But it gets even more amazing. In the last century or so scientists have delved ever deeper into the atom. Now they know that those protons and neutrons—the tiny things that contain virtually all of the atom's mass—are not unimaginably dense lumps of matter, but are themselves constituted from even smaller particles. Is there no end to it all? Maybe not.

Inside each proton and neutron in that nucleus is a trio of yet smaller particles. Yes, each proton and neutron is made up of three even tinier building blocks called quarks. Quarks are truly weird things that come in several varieties, to which quantum physicists have given eccentric names such as up, down, charm, top, bottom, and strange. It's as if this sub-subatomic world is so bizarre that scientists have given up trying to come up with sober names, but have let themselves go bonkers in this Alice-in-Wonderland fantastic world.

Well, I've shrunk a few billion times by now, so why not go a few hundred times more and see what a quark looks like? Dwindling even more, I peer inside the nearest proton. But maybe I've gone too far this time: I spot three sort of solid-looking entities that I take to be quarks, but the whole scene is pulsing and dancing. In addition to the bizarre trio of quarks, I see a soup of fuzzy things that look sort of like quarks, but are continually appearing and disappearing. Right before my eyes, things come into existence and then just as quickly pop out of existence! It's all unstable and causing me to feel a little nauseous.

Physicists on the cutting edge of quantum physics tell us that these exotic states of matter confound even them. It's a hotbed of current research that is so bizarre that it seems unreal. At these quantum levels matter is almost not matter. In fact, it's bubbling energy fields wherein we begin to lose all distinctions between matter and energy, as these particles slip in and out of existence or from one form of existence to another. Yikes!

My infinitesimal eyes are tired and blurry. My infinitesimal head is spinning, as if I too were popping in and out of reality. I close my eyes and, like Alice, take a pill and swell back up to my original size.

The bird has flown away, but the tree is still there—solid and substantial as can be. Whew! Gone is my fanciful ability to observe the quarks, protons, electrons, nuclei, atoms, and molecules. I'm back to my colorful and more sane world. Ooh, a bright red cardinal just flew in! Lying back, I let the hot water soften me a little more, as I thrill to my macroscopic, gorgeous world. Welcome home.

Go for That Pollen

Bee on spirea blossoms. Click to enlarge.

Alice-in-Wonderland Reality—Part 1

I'm sitting in my outdoor tub, gazing at a hairy woodpecker perched at the feeder, while I simultaneously admire a large sycamore tree behind it. I see the bird's striking shape and colorful feathers—all black and white and red. I see the tree's gray, smooth bark, punctuated now and then by chunks of peeling bark of a chocolate-brown hue. Glancing upward, I see pale green leaves just beginning their spring opening.

It's a peaceful, beautiful scene which I become absorbed into—as my mind wanders over the many attributes of these gorgeous denizens of my natural world. As I sink slowly into a puddle of flesh, the hot water working its wonders on my body and mind, I ponder the reality of what I am seeing. My eyes behold feathers and leaves, beak and bark—merely the surface features of the reality that's there.

But I'm aware that there is so much more to these beautiful things than meets my limited eye and my brain's ability to interpret. The tree's bark is made of billions of molecules that link together to bring me the overall image I see. The same is true of the bird's feathers. In fact, the colors I see in its feathers are really not there at all—I'm just noticing certain wavelengths of light that get diffracted from tiny structures in its colorless feathers. I know these things only because science, with its sensitive microscopes, has peered into the depths of them, and demonstrated the existence of molecules, atoms, and other (to my naked eye) invisible things.

I find myself wondering how these objects would appear, if I were able, in an Alice-in-Wonderland fashion, to shrink myself down a few million times—until I can begin to make out the fundamental, intricately-arranged and infinitesimal blobs of tree and bird matter that I know are atoms. When I do imagine myself getting that tiny, from my shrunken perspective, all features of the tree that I previously saw are now gone. The tree has “grown” so enormous that it's now too big for me to comprehend; it's as if, when we stare down at the ground under our feet, we try to imagine the whole planet Earth.

Now down near atomic size, I see no colors at all anymore—just the colorless blobs we call atoms. I'm excited. Now I can witness what some of the ancient Greeks presciently intuited: those things they called atoms, the fundamental building blocks of the universe. The Greek root of the word “atom” is a (meaning “not”) plus temnein (meaning “to cut”). That's a pretty good definition of fundamental: something you can no longer slice up. Those earliest Greeks (led by Democritus) posited that, although infinite in number, there are only a finite number of kinds of atoms, which can then combine themselves into countless shapes and objects. It's like having a big Lego set, with which one can build innumerable objects. Those old Greek guys did a fantastic job of developing an accurate image of the reality of matter.

But we moderns know that atoms are not fundamental. They can be split and sliced. A couple of hundred years ago some perceptive masters of science discovered that atoms are made up of even smaller building blocks: protons, neutrons, and electrons. And these scientists also showed us that the core, or nucleus, of an atom contains those protons and neutrons all balled up in a tiny central sphere, while the electrons whirl around, out at some distance. It is sort of like an infinitesimal solar system, with the nucleus like the sun and the planets like electrons.

More of Alice's Wonderland next time...

Turkey Vulture

This sinister looking guy was perched in a dead pine tree. Spooky! Click to enlarge.