Exoplanets at Trappist-1

    I have been fascinated with the possibility of life on other planets around distant stars in our galaxy. NASA has been investigating the possibility for some time now, as I have posted a few times. A few years ago NASA's Spitzer Telescope found seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a red dwarf star (Trappist), about 40 light years away from us. Three of the seven reside within what is called the "Goldilocks Zone," where there may well be liquid water, which is essential to life as we know it. 

    The first NASA photo below shows an artist's rendition of what these severn planets may look like. The second photo shows another artist's suggestion of what it might look like from the surface of one of those planets. Notice the other planets in the sky.

Click to enlarge.

 

Sufi Spirituality—Part 1: Introduction

Thomas Merton—a monk at Gethsemani Cistercian Abbey in Kentucky in the 1940s through 60s—gave a series of lectures to his monastic brothers on the tenets of Sufism. He was struck by the many similarities between the mystical qualities of his Catholic faith and those of Sufis, the mystical branch of Islam. Nearly three decades ago I sojourned for a month at the Holy Cross Cistercian Abbey in Virginia and had an opportunity to listen to those talks of Merton on tapes. They made a deep impression on me. In this and the next two posts I will offer some highlights of Merton's Sufi lectures, that especially spoke to me.

Sufis stress the importance of union with God. It is their central practice. They have no specific doctrine or answers... no formal institutional structure or hierarchy. Sufis see that God is both above all and in all. Since God is above all, there is no end to our spiritual growth, and if we ever think we've arrived, we're really just stuck.

If God is in everything, then that includes every one of us. As long as I keep that in mind, I am OK. So a major Sufi tenet is: don’t fret over there being good or bad in the world—it's all God. And don't try to explain the world or don't complain about it... it is what it is, and it's God-infused. Any problems or evil we detect come mostly from ourselves. Any imperfections we perceive are in us.

Sufis say that we have very little ability to comprehend God's way—even if we get occasional mystical glimpses, we must recognize that it is far beyond us to understand, let alone be able to describe it. The closest we can come is to appreciate the beauty of the universe. It's the closest we'll ever get to God; and that closeness comes from the heart—not the mind.

Sufis say that God's compassion is exhibited by God's manifestation in everything. I have struggled with that belief. How may I comprehend God's compassion as being caused by God's presence in everything? I have tentatively concluded that, because Sufis say that God is in everything—thus nothing is excluded—therefore God must love all; must have compassion for all. Thus, our concept of evil (usually personified in the West as Satan) is an exclusive concept, is a dualistic notion... in that it implies something lies outside God, while Sufis say God is not only above all, but in all. Thus nothing can be outside God... even evil.

At times, Sufis say, we get a message that we've screwed up. It's primarily a message that tells us we must redouble our efforts for seeking union with God. I have also pondered that idea, and have tried to perceive it from my Western perspective. It occurs to me that I may interpret that message as being my conscience speaking to me. It also sounds to me as something similar to Socrates' daemon—which he believed to be an inner voice that alerted him when he was about to make a spiritual mistake. Whatever the source of this inner message is, pausing to pay attention to it is a crucial part of the discipline of working toward the Sufi union with God.

The journey never ends, but is a slow, relentless, and progressive process. We go through many stations—each of which is a stepwise progression. From time to time, one may pause at a particular station for a while, to soak up the lessons recently learned, but the journey must soon continue. We must let go of the current station and its possible comforts and enjoyment, and step off into the unknown, towards the next station. It calls for courage and faith. It can be frightening. It is a kind of rebirth... we die to the previous station and become reborn on the next level.

Next time: How we block our own progress.

Dog Duration

There's a persistent urban legend—or, old wives' tale, as some folks might put it—that for every year a human lives, a dog experiences seven years. People can live, on average, for 70-90 years, unless they experience circumstances of deprivation or disease. In contrast, a dog lives about 15 years, depending on breed and health. Big dogs die earlier than little dogs.

So this form of urban legend has it that a dog's equivalent human-like age is about seven times that of a human. Thus, a three-year-old dog is comparable to a 21-year-old human, and a 10-year-old dog is equivalent to a 70-year-old human.

That urban myth persists, along with similar stories, such as daddy longlegs spiders being poisonous, or alligators thriving in the New York City sewer system (having been brought north as small pets from Florida and then released in toilets, when they grew too large). Similarly, the belief in Scotland's Loch Ness Monster persists, despite no real evidence for its existence. Another myth: it was once claimed that microwave ovens will harm you—even sterilize you.

The urban legend of a dog's equivalent human age being seven times its actual age was recently refuted by a research group that examined over 100 Labrador retrievers, who were from four weeks to 16 years old. The research examined the dogs' DNA methylation—a mechanism that influences one’s genes by turning them off and on. It is a kind of “epigenetic clock,” which describes the aging process of a creature.

As a result of this study, dogs actually age much faster than the seven-times-human formula when they are young. For example, when a dog is 5 years old, its equivalent human age is not 35 (7 X 5), but more like 53. They seem to be in a hurry to get old.

But as a dog moves into middle age, its rate, relative to humans, slows down. So, for example, at a dog’s age of 15 its human-age equivalent is not the old concept of being like 105 (7 X 15), but more like a human who is not quite 75 yet.

Thus scientific research debunks one more urban legend. But be careful when you sit on a toilet in New York City... one of those alligators might be waiting. Also, look out for those poisonous daddy longlegs spiders, and never go for a swim in Loch Ness… the monster awaits.

Lion's Mane Mushroom

This is Hericium erinaceus, known commonly as lion's mane mushroom, but also has the colorful names of monkey head mushroom, bearded tooth mushroom (or fungus), satyr's beard, bearded hedgehog mushroom, or pom pom mushroom. I like that last one. Click to enlarge.
 

Individual Images

Every critter forms an image in its brain of the world around it. The image is not the actual world, of course—it’s a collection of electrical brain signals that gives us information about how to interact with that world. It's a mental representation... a perception that we create in our head, and hope that it's realistic enough that we will get along quite decently. Again, it's not the world itself... it's a cognitive construct.

So I go through life and I will do decently well—if the sum of all those electrical signals about the world out there creates a mental image that works for me. Indeed, I come to feel that the world is those signals. So how about another person? What confidence can I have that their images are quite the same as mine? We'll never know. It's similar to the mystery of how our consciousness is formed: neuroscientists have yet to explain how our perceptions stem from electrical impulses in the brain. So we really don’t know what the other person’s electrical signals mean to them.

The problem is far more challenging when we consider non-human images. I can at least be confident that another human's sensory capabilities are very similar to mine, and we can discuss our individual images and compare them. But how about a dog—whose hearing and sense of smell are far superior to mine? How about a bat—who relies on ultrasonic echoes to “see” its environment? How about a sightless underground animal—who is unable to create a visual image at all? None of them possess my language and thus is able to describe to me those images.

Of course, each of these other creatures does not need—even cannot use—the images I create; even if its mental prowess happened to be equal to mine. I see a tree as a thing of beauty, or as a source of heat in my wood stove. A termite sees it as a source of food and a dog sees it as something to pee on and leave a personal message to other dogs. I see a dog as a potential companion, while my dog may see another dog as either a competitor (who left a message on his tree) or a chance to mate.

We tend to go through life mindlessly and self-centeredly unaware that other people and critters hold very different images in their heads. We believe that our view is best, that the world revolves around us... our individual images are all that matters. The ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi was able to step back and realize there are countless perspectives of countless critters. A famous story he told was, upon awakening from a dream one day, that he was unsure whether he was Zhuangzi who was just dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly just dreaming that he was Zhuangzi. Can we tell what's real, when it’s all just electrical patterns in our brains?

More importantly, Zhuangzi took away as a message from that dream, that it can be useful to try to put ourselves inside the head (if not the shoes) of another... to try to perceive the world as they do. It can break us out of our shell and expand our being. It helps generate understanding and compassion. It helps me to understand their behavior and develop tolerance and appreciation for all beings.

Ameliorating Evolution—Part 2

Many religions have offered messages that are useful for our predicament, such as the counsel to love, be peaceful, and nurture compassion for others. The encouragement to adopt a healthy diet and overcome tribalism (as described in the previous post) is often not in the purview of religion, however, so we must look elsewhere.

Science can help. Certainly, the message that overindulging in some foods has been brought to us by science. Evolutionary psychology—a science—has helped us to understand these behaviors. And even common sense can go a long way to help us change. Aren't many of these behaviors obviously problematic? Does it make sense to binge on junk food? Shouldn't I care about the suffering of people in war-torn regions or the dire poverty that exists most everywhere?

Eastern philosophy can also offer help—such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. I use the world “philosophy” to describe these traditions, because I view them not so much as religions—which consist of belief in a super being and of faith and worship of that being—but as philosophies, which seek an understanding of fundamental reality, so as to guide our behavior appropriately.

An integral part of the Chinese traditions of Confucianism and Taoism is that we can change our behavior by cultivating and understanding our deeper nature. We are not captives of any essential or permanent quality of who we are, but instead we are flexible, malleable beings who can modify our behavior for the better. There is no basic, inherent, specific self that we are destined to be. Life is not about digging down to that core self and then behaving in consonance with its seemingly enduring nature. To do so is to trap ourselves into behaving in a manner that locks us into a distinct, fixed identity. 

Instead, these Chinese philosophies encourage us to view our true self as a range of many possibilities, some of which we can cultivate to become far more than we ever dreamed. This potential to become a fully realized being can definitely free us from the inherited fetters of psychological evolution, such as destructive hedonic behaviors, unnecessary fears, aggression, and insular thinking.

Another particularly relevant tradition for countering our unhelpful—if not dangerous—evolutionary behaviors is Buddhism. A core message of Buddhism is very compatible with the message of evolutionary psychology. This is the central point of a recent book by Robert Wright: Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment. Wright is a visiting professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Using the insights of modern psychology and neuroscience, Wright shows that Buddhist meditative practice can transform us into moral and happy beings, who can leave behind our inherited, unhelpful evolutionary behaviors, such as fear, anger, anxiety, distrust, and hatred. Through meditation we can arrive at a far better understanding of reality, as well as our true nature. We can come to see that our responses that are habituated by society and that cause us and those around us pain, can be changed to actions that promote health, happiness, and peace.

As just one example, an intensive Buddhist meditation practice can help us realize that the boundary between our being and others is not a fixed, tribal partition, but a permeable zone that we can learn to extend indefinitely outward, to eventually encompass the entire universe. We can grow and change. The possibilities are unlimited.

What I've tried to describe here is that, while biological evolution has brought about an incredibly complex and wondrous world, our cultural evolution has in some ways gotten too far ahead of us. Our bodies and minds—forged a few million years ago in the cauldron of genetic progress—are struggling to cope with cultural realities that they are not often capable of. Humans are suffering from a widespread case of cognitive dissonance—wherein our thoughts, beliefs, and responses are often inconsistent with the world we live in. We need to get serious about fundamentally changing and bringing our feelings and emotions up to date. This will require much more than simply forging laws or tweaking our behavior.

          

Ameliorating Evolution—Part 1

The process of evolution is overwhelmingly driven by organisms being impelled to procreate in order to send their genes into the future. It's directly linked to an organism's stalwart drive to survive... to triumph over death; at least until procreation has occurred. For example, many insects, upon successfully mating and forming eggs for the following generation, succumb to death. Their job of passing their genes down the line is finished... they can expire. We humans like to last a little longer.

Over and over again, animal behaviors can be explained by that deeply inherited drive to send genes into the future... including us. There are a couple of fascinating byproducts of this genetic drive: (1) the process doesn't “care” if we are comfortable or happy about it—if the cost of successful procreation is a little pain, so be it, and (2) some behaviors—especially for us humans—that once made sense from an evolutionary standpoint, no longer are relevant. An argument can be made that in today’s environment we need to improve them.

Once example of the second case is our propensity to eat high-calorie foods. Many millennia ago, when our deep ancestors struggled to get enough nourishment, it made evolutionary sense to locate and consume fruits with high-energy sugar. In today's world, sugars and fats are readily available—causing widespread obesity and health problems.

A second example of outdated behavior is the evolutionarily-created, fast-acting amygdala in our brain. Multiple threats in our hunter-gatherers' lives lurked everywhere—from poisonous snakes to ferocious, carnivorous beasts. They needed that hair-trigger amygdala to make them hyper-alert to danger and to immediately activate leg muscles to flee. Today, humans are the planet's dominant species. We have relentlessly eradicated many of our previous predatory enemies. Half of us now live in cities, where many ancient dangers are banished (other than other predatory humans), so our fight-or-flight urges are no longer as crucial. Yet we often overreact to things that startle us.

A third example of outdated behavior is our propensity to be tribal—our tendency to form closed groups, wherein we feel closely connected to others within the group, while feeling hostile to those of an outside group. This again was important in ancient bands that called for strong interdependence among the members of one's tribe, in order to survive. When a tight-knit group of hunter-gatherers encountered another band, they were likely to view them as alien—and not even human. This urge today causes us not to be much concerned about the welfare of people outside our immediate group, which, in a globally-connected society, can make us feel indifferent to the suffering of distant people; as well as animals. The current patriotic fervor sweeping the world is a particularly troublesome behavior of this kind.

These three examples of evolutionarily-caused ancient responses that no longer are necessary are illustrations of how cultural evolution moves at a far faster pace than does biological evolution. While the latter typically occurs across millions of years, cultural evolution acts over centuries and even decades. Thus, we carry around a hunter-gatherer's mental and emotional behaviors in a world where cultural demands have greatly changed. We no longer need many of those outdated behaviors. They can even be dangerous.

So what can we do to ameliorate those archaic responses and react in a more appropriate manner? A first step is what I have described above: to recognize that our behaviors can be problematic and want to do something about them. Unfortunately, many people accept poor food habits and tribalism as inevitable, or practice these behaviors without even noticing the dangers. A second step is to listen to the message from evolutionary psychologists who just in the last couple of decades have described the problem and thus pointed toward solutions... the most important one being education. Yes, we seem to be hard-wired by evolution to commit these actions, but through education and some persistent work, we can counter evolution's unhelpful urges.

More on our cultural evolutionary problems next time…

Redbud Tree

It's that time of year when the redbud trees bloom around here. Click to enlarge.