Meditations Vol. I
Collectio Musings
I. Musings on Color
Over the course of millions of years, vertebrates evolved a keen sense of vision. This process occurred in the oceans, while our marine ancestors had yet to make their intrepid odyssey onto the geosphere. A few hundred million years after the earliest single-celled organisms evolved, a random mutation in a bacteria’s DNA caused it to have a protein molecule that was able to absorb sunlight. This was a selective advantage because the bacteria who could sense the presence of sunlight, could move deeper into the ocean to escape the harsh UV rays of the Sun (perhaps this was the first perception of day and night.) They were more likely to survive. Over the next several hundred million years, this light-sensitive spot turned into a camera lens. A lens of perception. Color is a perception. It is a result of how our brains process the raw physical data of the interactions of visible light and the objects that we see. In other words, it is a product of how visible light reflects from various objects in the physical world. Different colors respond to different wavelengths along the electromagnetic (light) spectrum. It is dependent on the wavelength of that particular type of light. The reason we see visible light, and not x-rays, or microwaves, is due to the way in which visible light interacts with water. We could have just as well evolved a retina that could register other wavelengths on the spectrum. Light, like sound, does not exist to be sensed or perceived. We happened to evolve tools for registering these phenomena. Color is not simply an illusion, because it is caused by something in the physical world; but, it is certainly a perception because it is something that our brains process, to varying degrees throughout the animal kingdom. Color does not exist in the physical world… Perhaps your aunt or uncle who perceives the world in grayscale (color blindness) sees the world more objectively than you do.
II. Science as a Tool is Objectively Subjective
As a man of science, I often relegate most of my understanding of the world to hypothesis and experimentation of that hypothesis, and reiterate as needed. However, the scientific community tends to ignore (at best), or be hostile towards (at worst), the notion that science is ultimately hampered by human subjectivity. To be sure, science as a tool, has proliferated myriad of growth in our society, and nurtured considerable development since the invention of the telescope, but as a tool, it is a human model, even if the data we glean from it is measurable and irrefutable. How then, do we see the data in its pure, unmolested form? We cannot. We are human; our tool is human. Science as a tool is meant to eliminate human bias; in most occasions, it is precise in its aim. The stance here is that ultimately, data filters through an objectively subjective organic machine before it is considered or applied or remitted through the scientific method once again for further data. Simply wielding the tool of science is not sufficient. Humans must continue to strive to reflect on the limitations of science as a tool and strive for vigilance in our pursuit of an objective receipt of reality. The possibility of this notion wades into philosophical waters…
III. A Record in a Vacant Shop
A record shop owner places a copy of Ryo Fukui’s Scenery on his Audio Technica turntable and leaves the shop. Is the turntable producing a sound? Before that item is unpacked, it is important to understand the physical means by which a sound propagates. Sound is a mechanical wave. It requires a medium (air, liquid, solid) to travel through. This is why there would be no sound in the vacuum of space — there is not a medium for the sound to travel through. Early eukaryotic organisms likely had protein patches or tissues of proteins that could sense mechanical vibrations, which was certainly a selective advantage for survival. Over tens of millions of years, this improved into the nuanced sense we enjoy today. The point is, soundwaves are just vibrations. They do not exist to be heard, organisms simply evolved to sense them due to an advantage to survival. Sound is just a perception. A soundwave is a physical phenomenon. In the case of the turntable, the speaker vibrates the air adjacent to it, and the air adjacent to that area, and the soundwave is propagated. This occurs until it reaches the ear of an organism, where the sound is sensed and perceived by the listener. To answer the question… no, it does not make a sound, though, it does produce a soundwave.
IV. Nausea
Upon sitting down at my desk the other day, as my hand touched the smooth wooden surface, I withdrew my hand expeditiously, and a wave of Nausea cuffed me. Not the vagal condition of nausea, but the existential variety. For a moment, this familiar object seemed very strange to me. The desk is suddenly stripped of its chains and I see it as an anomalous object, almost as if it were a novel entity. I pondered the interconnectedness of the organic and inorganic world around me. I am a collection of trillions of cells, the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and I am sitting here at a desk. This is my morning routine. Morning… that is when the part of this rock that I live on is facing towards the giant, fiery ball of Hydrogen that keeps our planet warm and facilitates the sensation of writing this very sentence. The chemical energy that composes my cells was once light energy of the Sun, before being captured by a plant and processed through photosynthesis, being eaten by a herbivore, who was eventually eaten by my parents, who digested the meat of the herbivore and the chemical energy was assigned to particular sex cells that would eventually become me. This desk is made of wood, it is also made of cells. Likely, trillions of cells. The cells do not function any longer, but they are indeed cells. It is a curious thing, a desk. It has four legs, and stands at perfect attention for me to sit at; for me to slide my legs underneath it, next to its legs, while I interact with the works or attention of other collections of cells through an invention known as the internet, which does not even really exist in a physical sense (though it does heavily rely on physical entities). I sit next to it in what we have assigned to be a chair. The chair also has legs, though it is not made of cells. However, it does stand at perfect attention. But it does swivel so that I may shift from task to task, or impress an exit from the utility of the chair. It also has wheels, which seems Absurd; is a chair not meant to remain still? This is the absurdity of the world. My routine of sitting at the desk and going through my email and checking my agenda lacks inherent meaning in the metaphysical sense. There is no predetermined or theological meaning for this routine, but I find meaning in it for a multitude of reasons, which is what humans do — we search for meaning. Some of us look to metaphysics for that meaning, and some of us realize the absurdity and incoherence of the universe, and create our own meaning anyway — evidenced by my routine and the meaning it provides for me. Delegate time to strip away notions, pretenses, and prejudices of all items in life to see them as they are… this allows one to understand the motives and meanings that lie beneath.
