Categories
Recognize The Power of Humility

We Know Nearly Nothing

Even the com­po­si­tion of every­thing around us remains most­ly a mys­tery. The uni­verse is com­prised of 5% observ­able ener­gy + mat­ter and 95% unknown dark ener­gy + matter.

NASA explains that 95% of what’s in the uni­verse is unknown.16 This whop­ping per­cent­age is the sum of two-thirds dark ener­gy and one-third dark matter.

Sketch­notes of talk by Dr. S. James Gates

No human knows where dark ener­gy comes from, or what it is exact­ly, yet sci­en­tists rec­og­nize that this ener­gy is respon­si­ble for the uni­verse expand­ing. Dark mat­ter is cur­rent­ly unex­plain­able. What sci­en­tists have observed, how­ev­er, is the grav­i­ty of dark mat­ter. What­ev­er this strange stuff is, the effect of its grav­i­ty is seen by how it pulls on light mat­ter like stars and galax­ies. The only rea­son we know dark mat­ter exists is because stars and galax­ies move in rela­tion to this grav­i­ta­tion­al influ­ence. Yet, dark mat­ter is dif­fer­ent than a black hole. In fact, it defies any descrip­tion beyond being dark. No one has come up with a clear­er under­stand­ing of the phe­nom­e­non and so we’ll have to set­tle for being a bit clue­less as to dark matter’s exact prop­er­ties for the time being.

This state of puz­zle­ment is com­plete­ly okay because chang­ing degrees of knowl­edge about our sur­round­ings is a qual­i­ty that is nat­u­ral­ly baked into our sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples. Fun­da­men­tal to all sci­en­tif­ic the­o­ries is the knowl­edge that some­day they will be sup­plant­ed. Cur­rent the­o­ries allow us to make rea­son­ably accu­rate claims about the world and the future, but there is always room for greater under­stand­ing. The sci­en­tif­ic method has grant­ed us a peek into the true nature of real­i­ty. There are incal­cu­la­ble mys­ter­ies to uncov­er. Per­haps some mys­ter­ies are con­cep­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for humans to ever tru­ly under­stand. Yet, this lim­i­ta­tion is no reason

Astro­nom­i­cal chart by Galileo Galilei

to be dis­heart­ened. There’s a great deal of val­ue in the aware­ness of one’s own ignorance.

“Utopic Space”, Paul Lafol­ley, 1992

Pla­to recount­ed his teacher Socrates say­ing, “I nei­ther know nor think that I know.” In our mod­ern era, this state­ment has been adapt­ed to, “I know that I know noth­ing.” In the inter­est of humil­i­ty, we are well served to remem­ber how lit­tle is still known about areas of research like Earth­’s oceans, human brains, and the nature of mat­ter itself. It’s no won­der that we still have much to learn about the com­plex­i­ties and impli­ca­tions of con­scious­ness. To become aware of our own lim­i­ta­tions and igno­rance is to pause before the beau­ti­ful­ly com­plex com­po­si­tion of life and to mar­vel at incom­pre­hen­si­ble wonders.

“Neb­u­la”, NASA, 2015
Categories
Recognize The Power of Humility

Think of Others & Cultivate Belonging

In con­fronting how lit­tle we know, we can cre­ate greater space to learn. We gain knowl­edge when we get out of our own way and work togeth­er. We also ben­e­fit when we are more con­sid­er­ate of the count­less oth­er species liv­ing on this planet.

Most of the designs made by humans place humans at the cen­ter of impor­tance. This act of hubris can cause con­sid­er­able harm. To help cor­rect this design flaw, we can learn to

Pro­fes­sor john a. pow­ell at the 2014 Bioneers conference

imple­ment xeno-design—or the con­cept of design with aware­ness of the oth­er in mind. In this way, we can dras­ti­cal­ly improve the human-cen­tered sys­tems designed at the expense of work­ers’ well­be­ing, and respon­si­ble for wast­ing untold resources. Through xeno-design prac­tices, we can out­line a means of mak­ing space for all that exists, thus com­ing into greater over­all bal­ance with the rest of life on Earth. 

Pro­fes­sor john a. pow­ell (who directs UC Berkeley’s Haas Insti­tute for a Fair and Inclu­sive Soci­ety, and who inten­tion­al­ly spells his name in all low­er-case to empha­size that one does not take pow­er over anoth­er) explains how humans evolve along essen­tial needs to make mean­ing and belong. The main chal­lenge to belong­ing occurs through four main areas of sep­a­ra­tion: from the divine, from nature, from each oth­er, and from one­self. In coun­ter­ing the destruc­tive effects that come from these areas of sep­a­ra­tion, pow­ell describes how sci­ence and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty each strength­en a nar­ra­tive about bridg­ing divides between peo­ple and with nature. Pur­su­ing prac­tices that pri­or­i­tize belong­ing with­in com­mu­ni­ties big and small, will have a tremen­dous­ly pos­i­tive impact on the sys­tems that humans design in the future. Human-made sys­tems, like gov­ern­ment or econ­o­my, must also respect, and account for, the many dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences a diverse pop­u­la­tion of peo­ple will have through­out life. In oth­er words, the more we acknowl­edge the com­mon­al­i­ty of how each of us occu­pies a sub­jec­tive real­i­ty, the bet­ter we can become at cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to feel a sense of belong­ing in society’s col­lec­tive reality.

When peo­ple strug­gle to have their basic needs met—like not hav­ing access to food, shel­ter, or hygiene—life takes on a dis­pro­por­tion­ate degree of suf­fer­ing. Yet, when these chal­lenges are over­come, and when no injus­tice is inflict­ed, there is an abun­dance of joy to be expe­ri­enced. The vibra­tional fre­quen­cy of bliss is ever present, and can be accessed when the appro­pri­ate con­di­tions for thriv­ing life are estab­lished. Inspi­ra­tion and pos­i­tive vibra­tions are con­tin­u­ous­ly cours­ing through a vast array of mat­ter. There, in that groove of good­ness, is where we want to focus. There is where we want to grow. There, where the heart, mind, and body syn­the­size through love, is where we intend to work, improve, and inno­vate.

Load more