And Now for Some Inconvenient Truth

THE TRUTH

PART I

EVOLVING IN A PLACE CALLED EDEN...

Who are you?

You read this as a living homo sapien animal clothed in manufactured fabrics, staring at a document delivered to you through an electronic communications system called the Internet.
The Internet began to touch large populations of animals for the first time approximately after 2000 revolutions of Earth about her Sun following the birth of a being named Jesus.

We know now that we are a specks of dust of biology on a speck of dust of geology circling a Sun, within a revolving arm of the Milky Way.
As far back in time as you have been able to peer through your telescopes, you have learned that the Milky Way is but one of around 150 billion vast astrophysical cyclones you call galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of suns and planets.

A strange introduction to yourself, isn't it? Yet that is actually a more complete description of you in this moment from the eyes of the Cosmos and distant future history books of Earth.

Whenever we think about such abstract ideas, we all seek to answer the basic questions of life: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is my place? These are difficult questions to answer. Let us start by looking at what we're made of.

You are made of the Milky Way galaxy.
You are made of the Cosmos.
The Cosmos includes everything you smell, taste, touch, hear, see, know, or do. It is everything that is.

We have been taught for millennia the tale of the origin of the Cosmos, that which scientists in the discipline of cosmology call "the Big Bang". Those faithful to the Western world's dominant religions call it "Genesis".
In the beginning there was a special kind of energy, or light, a light that makes all things – a kind of temporal potential. Billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, and an uncountable number of worlds formed. On many of those worlds, when of just the right size, just the right distance from their suns, with just the right chemistry, as night parts with day in a rare ecological harmony, the spiral of life springs forth from their oceans and gardens.

The Earth upon which you stand and all of the chemistry within your body and in the air you breathe was formed from simple matter as a star, perhaps like our sun, exploded in death over 6 billion years ago. It spat out atoms in forms suitable for the evolution of a wondrous place such as Earth, and a being such as yourselves.
Perhaps the first time we homo sapiens truly understood the majesty of Earth was when we could see a picture of her when she was the cover star of Life Magazine in October, 1968.
For the first time in our recorded history of the planet, millions of her own children – human beings – saw her whole face, and understood that they were looking at the home creation has made for them.

It took a decade from those first Apollo images of Earth for a human to loudly proclaim that our planet is a living being. In James Lovelock’s Gaia, the evidence is as plain as ink on a page. There is life-like precision, care, and process across all the disciplines of "non-living" science -- physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, meteorology -- not just biology, particularly as these disciplines interrelate in the definition of place suitable for human life.
If we take a brief trip to visit the life on Earth, it becomes clear that our world simply must be categorized as an organism herself with a metabolism tuned by biology, for the sake of biology itself. And since biology clearly serves the purpose of evolving consciousness, it can now be said that the Earth exists to advance consciousness.

We live upon an amazing engine of life!

Life

Of all the planets in the solar system, why is Earth the only one fit for life? Simple: because Earth has a surface that supports liquid water, the magic elixir required by all living beings.

-- James Kasting, Scientific American, 3rd Quarterly, 1998

Oceans cover over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and homo sapiens are indeed comprised of water in the same ratio.
Scientists theorize that the oceans formed upon the Earth’s crust through some combination of liquid and gas release from the interior of the planet and impact of ice-laden comets from the heavens. Whatever the source of the water, there is now 350 million cubic miles of it sloshing upon Earth’s crust, reaching to a depth of 36,200 feet in the Pacific’s Marianas Trench, where the pressure from the weight of the water is equivalent to over a thousand atmospheres.

The ocean is separated into its barren and fertile zones just like the land. Massive rivers within the ocean called currents carry water around the globe in huge circling patterns, influencing and influenced by global weather systems.
Powered as forcefully as they are, currents move quickly only at the surface, for deep cold water takes about 1,000 years to recirculate with the surface.  With the remarkable exception of the ocean floor itself, where perhaps millions of species of life remain undiscovered, the deep of the ocean is a desert compared to the dazzling garden of beings found inhabiting the more temperate, shallow zones.
The upper two percent of the ocean’s volume contains most biological organisms, at least those familiar to us.  From the smallest single-celled amoeba to the largest blue whale, the ocean courses with simple, intelligent, and majestic life.  It might surprise you to learn that the ocean supports a greater diversity of living body types than land. Indeed, of 33 animal phyla, 30 describe residents of the ocean. Only 16 describe residents of dry land or freshwater.

The tree of life grows swiftly in water. Indeed, the root of the tree of genetic biology spirals outward from the oceans, and has turned a pregnant clump of geology into a verdant garden on the land.

If ever there was a true Garden of Eden, its last superpower sprawls across our South American continent. No place on Earth is the majesty, power, and truth of the double helix of life more splendidly evident than in the depths of the jungle, across the plains, in the canopy, along the mountain peaks, and near the edges of this great labyrinthian river. Indeed, might not the river basin itself be alive, and thinking the thoughts thought by it’s many different cells -- the trillions of organic life forms among millions of species which it sustains and evolves?

We know of no other place like this in the universe, at least none most scientists believe we could ever hope to reach. All the more precious this last vast preserve of Eden would then have to be to the life of Earth, and to all humans. Certainly to any true scientist.

First, the obligatory numbers. The Amazon basin and adjacent regions in Central and South America represent 50% of the remaining rain forests on the planet. The basin delivers 20 percent of worldwide river water to the Atlantic ocean, from the reaches of 2.7 million square miles of rain forest. Its total water flow is greater than that of Earth’s next eight largest rivers combined, with a mouth at the ocean 200 miles wide, containing an island larger than Switzerland. Oceangoing vessels can travel up the river for 2,300 miles, placing them much closer to the Pacific ocean than the Atlantic.

The rain forests contain 50% of living species of life on this world, yet they cover only 7% of the area of land. That 7% forms an indispensable segment of the branch of the tree of life upon which humanity stands at this moment.

Underlying these dry numbers rests a secret of incredible majesty: the rain forests are the most powerful and concentrated womb of life ever created on the land of Earth.

The most pervasively beautiful life form in this place is the tree. Trees of every possible variety, thousands and thousands of different species. Some individuals are older than the Bible, some stretch as high as the length of a football field, these mighty creatures shelter the biosphere of Amazonia. They shield most of the sun’s light from reaching the forest floor, creating an enclosed womb for the dance of life below. At their roots, the life of the jungle is a product of the geology and chemistry of Earth, and at their highest leaves, they are home to the most fantastic winged life forms known to man. In between soil and canopy is an infinitely complex yet stable web of life, with millions of species of microorganisms, plants, and animals evolving at a breathless pace.  Would it surprise you to learn that much of your DNA, the programming in the cells of your body, is the same as within the cells of these trees? It should surprise you, and it is true.

As you climb from the flood plains towards the mountainous peaks of the Andes, the temperature drops about 1ºF for every 330 feet of elevation, which means that ambient temperature can drop below freezing at 16,400 feet at the equator. Hence the snow capped peaks above the hot heart of the tropics.

In the steep mountains of the rain forest, the clouds themselves become the integral part of the fabric of life, rather than the rivers of the basin below. The clouds create an atmosphere rich in water, which accumulates on leaves through condensation and rainfall. In this place, the leaves themselves have evolved drip systems to gently convey condensed water to the soil below.

By shielding much of the sun’s light, the clouds inhibit the pace of photosynthesis, thereby slowing the pace of life in the misty forests below the canopy. But among the clouds, whole new forms of life spring forward. The trees in this zone of our ecology are coated in thick ferns and mosses, and are inhabited by thousands of plants and animals of incredible variety.

At night, the forest does not sleep. It is often not even completely dark, as luminous fungi in the rotting leaves on the ground glow an eerie green light, covering the forest floor with a veil of light like a living Christmas decoration. And in this almost silent night, the luminous fireflies have there way too.

In the rainforests you will find plants that eat only air, sun and soil, plants that eat plants, and plants that eat animals. You will find plants that can survive 50-foot floods and plants that withstand the harshest of droughts. You will find plants larger than airplanes and smaller than pinheads. You will find plants bearing all manner of fruits, undiscovered thousands with the most mysterious healing powers, some with fruit containing 30 times the Vitamin C of citrus, and a few with the most lethal toxins known to science.

Animals

The fruit of the kingdom of plants is the kingdom of animals, and it is yet more majestic.
On Earth, there have been the smallest insects, and the largest dinosaurs. There have been the most curious beetles and the most frightening spiders; the slowest turtle and the fastest falcon; the florescent green frog, and the bright red snake; the sound-navigating bat and the electric eel; the homing pigeon and the childlike dolphin; the most gentle kitten and the fiercest tiger; the finest horse and the fattest cow.

Living today, the smallest animals are the chlamydia and rickettsia bacteria, and are only a few hundred atoms in diameter. The longest insect is the pharnacia serratipes of Indonesia, measuring up to 13 inches. The longest worm is the bootlace worm, and has been recorded at lengths up to 100 feet. The oldest form of animal on Earth are the deep-sea snails, which have not changed in 500 million years. The fastest land animal is the cheetah, reaching speeds up to 60 miles per hour. The largest animal is the blue whale, with one individual found to measure over 110 feet long. The world's largest carnivore – the sperm whale – also has the world's heaviest brain. At 20 pounds, it's four times heavier than the human brain. The only cold warm-blooded mammal is the Arctic ground squirrel, which can lower its body temperature below freezing.

What absolute cosmic majesty!

Animals live lives of wildly different durations. The longest authenticated human life in modern times is 120 years. For a housefly, the longest life has been about 2 months. The cat, 34 years. The goldfish, 41 years. The orca, 90 years. The tortoise, 150 years. Yet scientists do not yet know exactly why animals age the way they do.

There are some 10-30 million species of animal on planet Earth. Of these, we have catalogued only about 1.2 million. Each year, 10,000 new species are added to the list of forms not already included in zoological classifications. Thousands of these wondrous forms of creatures face extinction because of the environmental hubris of the human animal. We are not simply killing animals. We are burning the blueprints that made them.

As with the plant kingdom, the mecca for animal life is the rain forest. In the Amazon, there are animals that live in the sky, never to cross underneath the canopy below. There are animals that live only amongst the branches. There are animals that live on the ground, others only under the soil, and yet thousands of species that scurry all over. Some animals eat plants, others eat animals, and still others are omnivores. Some are day creatures, while many roam only unseen in the black of night.

There are 30 pound rodents with webbed feet. There are tapirs, distant relatives of rhinos, zebras and horses, with an aquatically adapted fused nose and lip system. This accommodates their penchant for swimming, and is used to spray water at attacking dogs. One remarkable creature is the basilisk lizard, also known as the Jesus Christ lizard because of its ability to literally run over water. It would be impossible for humans to emulate this action, because the size, shape, and power of our legs are not evolved to accommodate such a rapid-fire energy-consuming propulsion task.

Tending the garden's soil are the ants. A mature community of leaf-cutter ants can have as many as three million members. These animals are the gardeners of the forest because they carry leaves into underground chambers, not to eat, but to use as food for the fungus gardens they cultivate. These colonies play vital roles in returning plant nutrients into the deep soil, for the cycle of life to continue.

There are stunningly colored species of frogs, many mysteriously disappearing, whose biological powers are remarkable. Not only do their skin pigments warn predators of their extreme toxicity, but many species possess a potent antibacterial substance on their skins which may hold promise for human disease prevention. And living in the land of these frogs are thousands of species of insects, spiders, scorpions, and other crawling creatures, many of which are colored and patterned so finely matched to their habitat that they are essentially invisible.

The snakes of the rain forest are as amazing as the frogs and lizards. Across Asia, Africa and America are the bushmasters, coral snakes, rattlesnakes, vipers, cobras, and mambas. Of course, we seem to know best the giants of them all, the boas, pythons, and anaconda, which kill by constriction and consume their prey whole. But one of the most striking snakes is the flying snake, which has no wings to fly, but has a body shape which allows it glide as much as 165 feet with little loss in altitude. For millennia humans have feared the snakes of the jungle, but this fear is largely unfounded. Most scientific teams have adventured in the jungles for years without single instances of snake bites. The most common deaths resulting from snakebites occur on farms.

There is the giant anteater, which forages for food in the form of termites exclusively on the forest floor, while its lesser cousins exploit both the floor and the canopy. Then there are the slow-moving sloths with what you'd swear are permanent smiles on their faces, looking like they're just fine with an other-than-A-type lifestyle. They really don't need to move all that much, because they can turn their heads in a 270 degree radius.

Of the exceptional large mammals of the Amazon, the jaguar is the king cat. The jaguar climbs among the trees and swims among the rivers, feeding upon the fish, alligators, and primates of the jungle. These carnivores hunt either through stalking or ambush, and they will take almost anything on. Indeed, large cats dominate the tops of food chains in all major rain forests in the world.

The primates – the closest large classification of animals to the human, live at all strata of the rain forests of Earth. These creatures are stunningly beautiful and remarkably human-like. The face-painted mandrill, the scarlet-faced uakari. The swinging orangutan. The howling monkey. The macaque. The gibbon. The striking black and white diurnal lemur. The stunning red-haired tamarin, being rescued from the brink of extinction by biologists in Brazil. The tiny, one-pound marmoset. The nectar drinking, white-faced capuchin monkey. The cousin to the human, the chimpanzee, often seen clutching, grooming, feeding, playing with, and generally loving their children. And we find the largest ape, the gorilla, threatened of extinction by civil war among homo sapiens animals in Rwanda.

To the cloud forests large mammals rarely go. But in this elevated paradise, countless animals flourish. Tree-dwelling monkeys with hauntingly-human looking faces stare at us through our camera film. Hundreds of variety of scurrying mammals inhabit the holes, nooks, and knots of the trees. Scores of species of bats navigate through the dusk, like the vampire bat, which consumes only the blood of other animals. And at night, as we shine flashlights into the dark, we see thousands of pairs of reflecting retinas staring back at us from the deep, indicating that the forest remains very much awake. The most frightening ocular reflections are those of the caiman crocodiles, peering back from the surface of the dark flowing waters.

Up in the canopy, the birds are the most beautiful creatures. The resplendent quetzals. A stunning variety of hummingbirds hover amongst the flowering plants of the forests. The toucans, macaws, eagles, parrots, cotingas, and cacique birds live among the emergent trees where hawks and vultures also land to perch. The vulture's large cousin, the Adean condor, gracefully glides above the trees, with a wingspan of over 10 feet. Under the canopy fly the woodpeckers, trogons, jacamars, and puffbirds. At eye level you will see ant birds, tanagers, flycatchers, and manakins, and on the forest floor, tinamous, ground doves and wrens.

All of these animals live within and contribute to an incredibly harmonious symphony of biology. Every animal in Amazonia is a basic part of the ecosystem we call life.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing for modern humans to learn from the biota of Earth is that the human may be the most sophisticated Earth-based life form in terms of its collection of capabilities, but it is far from the most sophisticated in terms of its specialized capabilities. Plants directly convert inorganic chemistry into the food of life. We do not. Some plants can live for thousands of years. We cannot. Hawks can spot a mouse from hundreds of feet away. We cannot. Cheetahs can outrun an automobile. We cannot. Pigeons can home. Some snakes can see infrared light. Electric eels can shock. Bats use sonar to see a vivid image in a pitch black night. Some sea life can smell across their entire bodies. Some animals can see in two places at once. Some animals can fly with wings. Some animals can exist in water. Some animals can walk on water. Some animals can biologically clone themselves.

Homo Sapiens can do none of these things on their own... yet.

These are truly majestic, awe-inspiring creatures, with kinds of abilities we would ascribe to science fiction if possessed by a human. What symphony is life! It is the music of time, the music of creation.

We are just as remarkable, for the human is the only animal presently native to Earth that can read and write, and even then only in the last few thousand years. We have just begun the process of learning about our Cosmos.

There are some 6 billion individual homo sapiens creatures presently living on Earth. Human animals have evolved to communicate through physical gestures and vocal sounds, organized in temporal patterns called speech, and have learned to record these communications through the process of reading and writing. A human's brain is sufficiently advanced for it to be able to correlate observations of itself and its surroundings. Possessed with remembered senses and the ability to interpret time -- periodicity, duration, and precision -- the human has evolved a way to manipulate its future. Homo sapiens animals refer to themselves individually as "me" and collectively as "we".

We have become a flower, long since evolved from seed of the plant that created us.

Human beings are undergoing evolution of the mind as the ability to observe is enhanced through technology and perhaps biology of our own imagination. The rapid rise in our ability to acquire truth through observation has, in the past 100 years, given us a most remarkable and I believe physically significant new sense, what you might call a sixth sense: the ability to see into time – both the past and the future. This sense of prediction exists in the mind alone, as the synthesis of the perception of the past and the imagination of the future. The human is now made even more remarkably unique because of its rapidly growing ability to learn history and predict the future from knowledge drawn from dramatically enhanced skills and tools of observation – skills such as science and tools such as telescopes. The more truth we perceive, the better we predict change.

What wondrous revolutions in the history of worlds must occur when its most advanced beings come into such power?
How powerful and sacred must evolution be, to have created such beings as we?
As you and I evolve to be able to know more through greater and greater powers of observation, what secrets of time will we be able to predict, or even at some point "see" in our mind’s eye?
Might we someday be able to reverse this power of observation and "make" reality with imagination alone?

Whatever we may see or do in the future, we must pause now and look upon the history that I have just briefly described, all 15 billion years that we know of.

What an incredibly precious legacy of creation are we! Even though I've known and studied it for years, my jaw still drops whenever I consider the majesty of our history.

The Cosmos has labored for billions of years to produce us. Regardless of what life may exist outside of Earth, we know that we are unique and special, for whatever life outer space may hold for us to find, we know that we are rare in time. Our gestation just to the point of reaching homo sapiens has been one of incredible majesty, through hundreds of millions of human generations worth of time. And the combination of all human mechanical or electrical technology ever invented pales in comparison to the simple beauty of a single fish in the sea, let alone a human being.  The Cosmos simply must have wanted to create beings like us.

What other forms of animal are we likely to meet one day as we venture into the Cosmos? What capabilities might they possess which perhaps lay undeveloped or nonexistent in homo sapiens? And how might we acquire such powers? Will it be a natural process, or a derivative technology? Both?

As we prepare to ask yet the most important questions of our future, we must ask ourselves a deeply profound question: what from this distant past of creation do we wish to take with us, as a species, into the distant future? We often ask this question for knowledge recently acquired to be reused soon, but almost never do we ask this question with an eye for eternity. Evolution has taught us that only the most robust and stable creations will survive over time. If we wish to make our distant future the brightest it can be, what are the core principles we must learn from our past in order to flourish in the crucible of billions of years of future evolution?

We shall address this question later.

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Next Chapter:

EVOLVING IN A PLACE CALLED EDEN IS A PROMISING YOUNG CIVILIZATION...