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Girijaa Upadhyay
The Muse
I
t was a long while before man’s flight of fancy and his ridiculed efforts, yielded the first powered aircraft in 1903. He learnt from the flight of birds. Getting luxury ocean liners of steel to float like a dream came later-at the turn of the twentieth century. He learnt from a floating leaf and log. The prowess of the nectarivore humming bird, a marvel with its unique wing structure and flying capabilities -a hope for diabetics yet! Look at the load bearing strength of that stem of bananas, perfectly calibrated to take loads of 50kg for 80 days. Nature gave us the concepts of axis and plane, of rotation and revolution, of friction and unison, of gravity, osmosis, chaos and unison amongst a trillion-that would be a trivial estimate, countless other things.
An Unsuspecting Muse.
The greatest however is the Human Brain (evolving shall we say…?) and somewhere down the road the Mind. Was Nature tricked by itself?! Did ‘IT’(for want of a better -beyond gender pronoun ) for heaven’s sake KNOW that as the Brain evolved, something like a Mind would also emerge?? The greatest thing ever and we still do not know it all. We have just about understood a tip of this magnificent piece of magic called the Brain (leave aside the Mind), a mere 1.5kgs or so nestling in the cranium, with a 100 billion neurons and over a hundred trillion synaptic connections – the most complicated network of impulses, – and God knows what other form or type of energy . Somewhere along the (still unravelling) evolution pathway did we hear the Brain and Mind together say Checkmate! to Nature, the Greatest Designer, the Greatest Structural Engineer? (Biomimetics and Biomimicry are our small acknowledgement of these salutations!) What is this Mastermind(Nature) that created the Human Mind and Brain, that the latter can now envisage their own Creator as they wish –ranging from the abstract to manifestations in multifarious Gods and Goddesses who grant us boons or keep us waiting forever. By allowing the Brain to develop, did Nature bargain for a Mind? Was ‘IT ‘taken by surprise?
Now Man and Nature appear to be locked in a game of chess. Every move has a countermove; take the case of the miniscule mosquito- and malaria which seems to have made a comeback with renewed strength. Fifty years on, we are still battling eradication of the disease in many parts of our world; reason the parasite’s drug resistance. So too the resistance to manmade chemicals and drugs by various microorganisms and other life plant and animal, in air, water and earth. Man’s search for a perfect substitute for river sand -still unsuccessful. Ironically though, even now, for addressing manmade disasters, Man searches Nature’s vast repository of products, processes, experiences.
The Tournament Players
Coming to the Protagonist of this narrative The Mind, one cannot but marvel at the limitless possibilities of its performance! Take a thing like music. Imagine, music being born out of an interplay of screens or plates of data/ knowledge of lyrics, feelings, techniques; a complex synthesis of melody, harmony and rhythm. It involves memory, recall of experiences, retrieval of information from the data warehouse in the cranium, comprehension, interpretation, emotion, style and finally rendition. Should the Mind really feel proud of its accomplishments?
First let’s see Nature’s handicap. ‘IT’ lacks two things that Man experiences, one is Emotion, the other Obesity! Nature is ruthless, only the fittest survive. Nature has a cold emotionless food chain. ‘IT’ does not feel a wrench in ‘ITs’ heart when the cheetah snaps the helpless young buck’s neck or the seal drags a fantastically healthy majestic penguin down into the icy waters for its meal (even as the rest of the procession of penguins appear to watch stoically or with dread or….is this my Mind’s interpretation? As of now, I certainly don’t know what the penguins are thinking!)
The Genesis
It is indeed ironic that in some ways things have not changed fundamentally in terms of the philosophy behind modern Science articulated by the likes of Francis Bacon and Descartes, elaborated by Yuval Levin in The Moral Challenge of Modern Science¹. While the objectives vis a vis humanity viz. of bringing relief from suffering, enabling good health ( amongst others) are laudable, developments such as the Covid-19 pandemic and its tricky mutational behavior bring to the foreground the undisputed fact- of what I term elusive boundaries of knowledge. Precisely because of this infiniteness of Nature’s Intelligence” , the motifs of “oppression by Nature “ and “ its Conquest “are foolhardy to say the least. These paradigms appear to be out of sync with the as yet, vast differential between Man and Nature in the Knowledge department. Objectives such as its conquest appear ridiculous! Mutual respect would be more appropriate to say the least. Mutational behaviour of so many disease-causing organisms shows that Man may win some battles but not the War! A vaccine may take care of immediate contingencies but what about the basic problem in the auto immune system? What about the virus’ mutations ? Environmental degradation is a clear consequence of breach of respect for Nature’s boundary conditions, bringing only hardships to Humanity. Is not this a stark violation of the original basis for pursuit of Modern Science–to relieve man from suffering, provide good health and so on? And much of what has been done and is going to happen is due to the Mind! Clearly Nature did not cater for this contingency!!
Two Creators-One world and a Mutating Nexus
One wonders whether the tables have turned on the Grand Designer; and Is the Grand Designer retaliating? There is little winter and temperatures have not gone down to the depths that herald winter. So no snow as yet and as someone said, the bears are going to get obese, as they have been eating all through the winter season because they could not get to hibernate! I am very curious as to how Nature will deal with this, because wild animals are not obese. Who knows, from ‘ITs’ solution to obesity, Man may find the answer to his problem of obesity! Once again in the Grand Tournaments, Nature may lead. Man with his current form of the Mind, is yet a rookie, trying to unravel Nature’s vast repositories of intelligence. The Man /Mind Nature nexus is also a mutating one. On the other hand, maybe one day, Man read Mind may outwit Nature because ‘IT’ made the ‘mistake’ of creating the Mind. Mind over Matter eh? Wait! It gets even more interesting! Now this Mind is attempting to create others? Artificial intelligence(AI). Albeit still struggling to master Perception and not there in Creativity as yet–this AI. Welcome to various outcomes. A guess- the Ultimate Game changer will be The Mind? Anyone wants to place bets?
POST SCRIPT: 11th March 2020- declaration of the Covid 19 virus pandemic… in this Round it’s Checkmate for our Protaganist.
Notes
1.The New Atlantis, Number 14, Fall 2006.32-46.
Girijaa Upadhyay is an economist who has worked in the intersection space of economic development and finance. She currently teaches a postgrad course on Development Finance at the Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics and Global Economy and Public Policy at Flame University, Pune. An avid science follower, she is also an autodidactic artist.(art website- www.girijaaupadhyayart.com )
As a biologist, I am going to place my bet on only one winner: Nature. She, yes she, has been around longer than us mere mortals and has so many tricks up her sleeve. Actually, rather than us vs Nature, we are simply a small part of Nature and subject to the forces that drive all species on the planet, although some of the forces are created by us. Overcrowding, food security, climate change, and many others will put intense pressure on humans and I doubt that we can evolve fast enough to have our cake and eat it too.
Thanks Swati for your valuable comments. Wonder how the question of whether Nature anticipated the Mind when ‘IT’ allowed the Brain to evolve is perceived in the scientific community? Any thoughts?