philosophy Archives - Page 3 of 11

Gaia’s Reproductive Phase

The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17

The Gaia Hypothesis posits the Earth’s biosphere is a single living organism. Living organisms by definition reproduce. How would a planet’s biosphere reproduce?

By sending reproductive cells of some sort to other planets.

Much (possibly most) of the Earth’s biosphere consists of bacteria. In fact most animals, including humans, consist largely of bacteria. Animals are mobile housing units for bacteria.

Humans are a peculiar animal. We’re creating our own extinction event. We seem hellbent on exploiting and destroying “nature,” yet we are part of nature, produced by nature. Why would the biosphere produce homo sapiens?

An extremely popular belief of our time is that humans will colonize other planets. Many humans consider this a more worthy goal than preserving biodiversity on Earth. Humans are willing to trash this planet in order to reach others.

It is vanishingly unlikely humans will survive on other planets. But it is likely we will reach other planets. We will not colonize other planets with humans, but with bacteria.

Humans are Gaia’s way of sending bacteria to other planets, thereby reproducing.

Humans will reach other planets, fueled by human dreams of human colonization. Humans will then die on other planets, leaving convenient meatbags for Earth’s bacteria to feed on, giving them a nourishing head start in a new world. Just as seeds and eggs contain mostly nutrition for zygotes, space humans are mostly nutrition for bacteria. Over billions of years, these pioneering bacteria will evolve, growing a new biosphere of diverse life forms. A new, living planet – another Gaia – is born.

Human exploitation of natural resources culminates in leaving the Earth. Travel to other planets is the pinnacle of human technology. The Holocene Extinction is the price Gaia pays for Her reproductive phase.

Reproduction requires a huge investment of an organism’s energy and resources. Many organisms die upon reproducing. I personally think that even if an Anthropocene environmental catastrophe wipes out “higher” life on Earth, bacteria will persist. Bacteria thrived before oxygen was a major component of Earth’s atmosphere, and will probably thrive after. But whether Gaia is semelparous or iteroparous, to be alive, She must reproduce.

Copyright is Brain Damage

A talk I recently gave at TEDx in Maastricht, NL.

Hathor the Golden Calf

I took some liberties in this design. “Why all the boobies?” you may ask. Once upon a time, boobies were an object of respect, not shame and ridicule. My goddesses have big, bare breasts to represent that mindset. Not that I think boobies should be worshipped; I’m not into biological fertility, and I’m not a “breast (wo)man”. Having breasts myself, I can say they’re kind of a pain in the ass (nor am I an “ass (wo)man”). But there’s so much shame around female breasts these days, I make ’em big and plentiful on deities to remind myself, and hopefully you, that the shame, discomfort, and anger they provoke is about patriarchy, not women’s bodies.

Here’s Hathor as a golden idol:

My favorite interpretation of Exodus 32 posits the Golden Calf was Hathor, a very popular Egyptian cow goddess. I’m running with that in my film. Fun!

Dvorak Diary #3: Introvert

On a recent trip to Trivandrum, India, I decided to try learning to touch-type in Dvorak (after decades of hunt-and-peck in QWERTY). Here I share some excerpts of my “Dvorak Diary”.

Thursday, January first, Two thousand fifteen

Yesterday I awoke with a clear and simple melody running through my head, a really good and catchy one. Then I had breakfast with ____ and it was gone. This is why I am an introvert: I want to hear the music in my head. It’s like a wilderness preserve: clumsy tourists wander off-trail and step on the delicate wildlife, killing it inadvertently. They don’t mean to but the endangered plants and animals don’t care; they don’t survive on good intentions. I miss my melody. It lived so easily in my head yesterday but couldn’t survive another person. Habitat loss. Like the Sitka Deer, much of the life in my head needs a wide range. I am an increasingly grumpy forest ranger, responsible both for the needs of the tourists and the wildlife. The former endanger the latter so I want them to just fuck off. But I need tourists for some reason, like were it not for tourists the forest would be razed for a housing development or mine or parking lot.

Dvorak Diary #2: Offline

On a recent trip to Trivandrum, India, I decided to try learning to touch-type in Dvorak (after decades of hunt-and-peck in QWERTY). Here I share some excerpts of my “Dvorak Diary”.

Tuesday, December Thirtieth, Two thousand fourteen….

I have been kinda ‘offline’ since returning. The last legs of my flights were awful, and I still haven’t recovered, though at this point it’s probably jetlag more than exhaustion that has me failing to connect to ‘my’ world and identity. I haven’t felt connected online, and am concerned about how I let Facebook information just wash over me with no real engagement on my part. It’s a hell of a lot of information to just suck through me like a stream. I surely have more than enough information rattling around in my head already. Maybe it’s time to let it settle, to digest it and let it adjust to the habitat of my mind and maybe make something of itself instead of just washing through like a tsunami. I feel less satisfied being an information node than a full human animal. Jetlag reminds me I am an animal, and no amount of information can heal my exhausted body. I recently read that staring into screens is terrible for sleep – I read that staring into a screen, ha ha – so last night I didn’t check email or read Facebook.

Is Facebook the television of today? It’s not broadcast, and it can be useful sometimes, but I become very passive with it, especially at night when I turn to it in my insomnia.

Dvorak Diary #1: Airport

On a recent trip to Trivandrum, India, I decided to try learning to touch-type in Dvorak (after decades of hunt-and-peck in QWERTY). Here I share some excerpts of my “Dvorak Diary”.

Dubai Airport

December Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand Fourteen….

The airport here has two levels. Lower is a huge confusing mall like Heathrow; upper is one huge business class lounge with its own gates. Lower is a dystopian capitalist nightmare; powerless citizens oppressed by armed guards are blasted with ‘luxury’ images and stores. The more oppressed, powerless, and confused the human, the more vulnerable to advertising. The violence behind capitalism is apparent at airports. Armed guards at the periphery, armed guards at every step, and at the center: shopping. But the business class lounge is ad-free and store-free. ‘Luxury’ goods aren’t for the rich and powerful, they’re for the disempowered middle class. They are the only way to gain a sense of power where all other power has been stripped away.

I started typing that at the Dubai airport but finished it here on the plane. That’s how slow a typist I am.