"Diversity! That is how I would begin if trying to explain earth to an alien." Those were the words coming from my glazing companion as he maneuvered the truck down the road toward our first window replacement of the day. "You really can't understand the earth if you don't understand diversity."
We had been talking about my blog where I wrote about getting abducted by aliens who were interested in learning all there was to know about earth. Diversity seemed like a rather unlikely starting point to begin such a discussion. But it proved to be a very rich starting point.
Here is the really, really amazing thing! Somehow, the massive flow of energy streaming from the surface of a gravitationally controlled nuclear explosion, the Sun, has been accumulated and modified so that it eventually became -- ME! Or you, or all the other 7.4 billion people that have ended up at the pinnacle of this energy food chain! How is this miracle possible? No one living on this earth will be able to adequately explain it to these quizzical aliens, but the process could be roughly called Synergistic Diversity. Somehow all the vast diversity of earth works together in a remarkable exercise of joint action and mutual support -- synergy.
Now let me give you a little secret. I dreamt up that term in the middle of the night last night. And after I typed it out on my keyboard I thought that perhaps I should do a Google search of that term and see if anyone else had thought of it previously! To my chagrin and delight, I am not the first person to arrive at this idea! Check out https://www.co-intelligence.org/I-SynDivWhol.html Here was a paper that I would swear was plagiarizing my thoughts if it wasn't that it had been published before me. So maybe I am the plagiarist! But truly, the line of thinking and the term came to me completely independently as I was pondering on how I could possibly explain the earth and earthlings to an alien in a Galapedia entry. So now I am conflicted. Do I continue the exploration of the idea of Synergistic Diversity on my own or do I first research the ideas that others have already compiled. It's like following the muddy tracks though a wet field. Does one follow the existing ruts or make their own? I think I will strike out on my own and see if eventually these diverse lines of reasoning will coalesce.
So, let's start with this massive flow of energy from the sun and try to keep this as simple as possible. I have already written a blog about how the sun came into being. I will not return to that discussion at this point. Suffice it to say that I believe that at the beginning of time, God imparted energy into the fabric of the universe. I have playfully called this the Spongebob Theory since I have pictured it as God squashing a enormous sponge ball down into a tiny speck and then releasing it so that it could begin the cosmic expansion that you and I find ourselves in the midst of. Matter, as we know it, condensed out of this expansion and eventually that matter got pushed together into dense pockets by the surface tension of the sponge. These dense pockets became the stars that dot the universe. As these stars grew and exploded in supernovas, they seeded the universe with all the elements that we have found to be so helpful in making objects like cars and cellphones. The earth was a conglomerate planetoid of these fragments of exploded stars that got sucked together by gravity into an accretion mass. It got captured in a fortuitous orbit around one of those blazing stars and, as such, continues to receive a very steady flow of energy from this giver of all energy, the Sun.
Even though the earth started as a big, conglomerate mass of these diverse star fragments, several things were present that were destined to make it a very dynamic, changing habitation. First of all, it was big enough and hot enough so it could have a liquid core. Floating on top of this inner liquid core were plates of crustal minerals. These so-called tectonic plates were slipping, sliding and colliding with each other. This kept the planets surface in a constant state of change. In some areas, crustal plated pushed upward over other plates and materials from the inside of the earth were dredged up and deposited in huge crunched up areas like the Himalayan Mountains. Other plates got thrust downward, and spawned volcanoes on their perimeters. This melting, mixing and crunching brought minerals into reach near the surface of the earth that would be especially useful for the much latter inhabitants of these crustal plates.
Another very important aspect of the nature of the things that had accumulated, is that it contained a lot of water. Water was the grand elixir of what made this planet really special. It is a compound unlike any other found on earth. It has had many roles to play in the genesis of this remarkable planet. A lot of that magic is due to its ability to have a phase change from solid to liquid to gas within the normal temperature boundaries found on earth. And even more startling is that it does something very, very unusual when it changes from liquid to solid. It expands! And the solid floats! This expansion capacity is the active force that cracks the rocks apart. The floating ability means that ice floats on top of the liquid water rather than sinking to the bottom of the oceans and causing the entire ocean to solidify. And the vapor form of the liquid allows it to readily move all over the face of the earth in the form of clouds that produce rain when it again condenses.
But the miracle of water's ability to crack and erode the solid crust and to flow through the oceans warming and cooling the world, and to float through the air, watering and blanketing the earth with rain and snow, would come to a halt if it was not for one more fortunate aspect of the earth's geometry. That is the 23-1/3 degree tilt of the earth's axis. This tilt of the axis means that the planet has seasons, and that the snow and ice and water are kept in constant motion, forever sculpting and changing the face of the planet. The equator region does not fry to a crisp and the polar regions do not freeze into oblivion.
One other noteworthy characteristic of this world must also be mentioned. It has an atmosphere! This thin layer of trapped gases, blankets the earth and shields it from destructive solar rays and causes incoming meteors to burn up before crashing into the ground. And it is within this atmosphere that the water vapor moves across the earth. It is critical for maintaining the temperature balance of the earth. And it is super critical for the advent of the next highly exciting event that would occur on this orbiting clump of diversity. The synergistic interactions of the diverse aspects of this remarkable planet set up an environment for the emergence of its crowning achievement -- the support of life!
But I'm going to stop at this point because this is just a blog, not a textbook. It is meant only to get ones mind in gear to consider these fascinating wonders. Much more could and should be said about how the non-living parts of the earth seem to operated in a grand dance of synergy. I will but include one other item that I have noted when looking closely at God's creation that sets it quite apart from any creation that I have ever attempted. When God does something, it displays a kind of grand beauty at any level of magnification. Look at it with the best electron microscope and one will see a microcosm of miniature wonder. Stare at it through the most powerful telescope and one will see grandeur on a colossal scale. There seems to be no granularity to God's workmanship. There are no places or spaces that His handiwork and presence are not available.
Here is the really, really amazing thing! Somehow, the massive flow of energy streaming from the surface of a gravitationally controlled nuclear explosion, the Sun, has been accumulated and modified so that it eventually became -- ME! Or you, or all the other 7.4 billion people that have ended up at the pinnacle of this energy food chain! How is this miracle possible? No one living on this earth will be able to adequately explain it to these quizzical aliens, but the process could be roughly called Synergistic Diversity. Somehow all the vast diversity of earth works together in a remarkable exercise of joint action and mutual support -- synergy.
Now let me give you a little secret. I dreamt up that term in the middle of the night last night. And after I typed it out on my keyboard I thought that perhaps I should do a Google search of that term and see if anyone else had thought of it previously! To my chagrin and delight, I am not the first person to arrive at this idea! Check out https://www.co-intelligence.org/I-SynDivWhol.html Here was a paper that I would swear was plagiarizing my thoughts if it wasn't that it had been published before me. So maybe I am the plagiarist! But truly, the line of thinking and the term came to me completely independently as I was pondering on how I could possibly explain the earth and earthlings to an alien in a Galapedia entry. So now I am conflicted. Do I continue the exploration of the idea of Synergistic Diversity on my own or do I first research the ideas that others have already compiled. It's like following the muddy tracks though a wet field. Does one follow the existing ruts or make their own? I think I will strike out on my own and see if eventually these diverse lines of reasoning will coalesce.
So, let's start with this massive flow of energy from the sun and try to keep this as simple as possible. I have already written a blog about how the sun came into being. I will not return to that discussion at this point. Suffice it to say that I believe that at the beginning of time, God imparted energy into the fabric of the universe. I have playfully called this the Spongebob Theory since I have pictured it as God squashing a enormous sponge ball down into a tiny speck and then releasing it so that it could begin the cosmic expansion that you and I find ourselves in the midst of. Matter, as we know it, condensed out of this expansion and eventually that matter got pushed together into dense pockets by the surface tension of the sponge. These dense pockets became the stars that dot the universe. As these stars grew and exploded in supernovas, they seeded the universe with all the elements that we have found to be so helpful in making objects like cars and cellphones. The earth was a conglomerate planetoid of these fragments of exploded stars that got sucked together by gravity into an accretion mass. It got captured in a fortuitous orbit around one of those blazing stars and, as such, continues to receive a very steady flow of energy from this giver of all energy, the Sun.
Even though the earth started as a big, conglomerate mass of these diverse star fragments, several things were present that were destined to make it a very dynamic, changing habitation. First of all, it was big enough and hot enough so it could have a liquid core. Floating on top of this inner liquid core were plates of crustal minerals. These so-called tectonic plates were slipping, sliding and colliding with each other. This kept the planets surface in a constant state of change. In some areas, crustal plated pushed upward over other plates and materials from the inside of the earth were dredged up and deposited in huge crunched up areas like the Himalayan Mountains. Other plates got thrust downward, and spawned volcanoes on their perimeters. This melting, mixing and crunching brought minerals into reach near the surface of the earth that would be especially useful for the much latter inhabitants of these crustal plates.
Another very important aspect of the nature of the things that had accumulated, is that it contained a lot of water. Water was the grand elixir of what made this planet really special. It is a compound unlike any other found on earth. It has had many roles to play in the genesis of this remarkable planet. A lot of that magic is due to its ability to have a phase change from solid to liquid to gas within the normal temperature boundaries found on earth. And even more startling is that it does something very, very unusual when it changes from liquid to solid. It expands! And the solid floats! This expansion capacity is the active force that cracks the rocks apart. The floating ability means that ice floats on top of the liquid water rather than sinking to the bottom of the oceans and causing the entire ocean to solidify. And the vapor form of the liquid allows it to readily move all over the face of the earth in the form of clouds that produce rain when it again condenses.
But the miracle of water's ability to crack and erode the solid crust and to flow through the oceans warming and cooling the world, and to float through the air, watering and blanketing the earth with rain and snow, would come to a halt if it was not for one more fortunate aspect of the earth's geometry. That is the 23-1/3 degree tilt of the earth's axis. This tilt of the axis means that the planet has seasons, and that the snow and ice and water are kept in constant motion, forever sculpting and changing the face of the planet. The equator region does not fry to a crisp and the polar regions do not freeze into oblivion.
One other noteworthy characteristic of this world must also be mentioned. It has an atmosphere! This thin layer of trapped gases, blankets the earth and shields it from destructive solar rays and causes incoming meteors to burn up before crashing into the ground. And it is within this atmosphere that the water vapor moves across the earth. It is critical for maintaining the temperature balance of the earth. And it is super critical for the advent of the next highly exciting event that would occur on this orbiting clump of diversity. The synergistic interactions of the diverse aspects of this remarkable planet set up an environment for the emergence of its crowning achievement -- the support of life!
But I'm going to stop at this point because this is just a blog, not a textbook. It is meant only to get ones mind in gear to consider these fascinating wonders. Much more could and should be said about how the non-living parts of the earth seem to operated in a grand dance of synergy. I will but include one other item that I have noted when looking closely at God's creation that sets it quite apart from any creation that I have ever attempted. When God does something, it displays a kind of grand beauty at any level of magnification. Look at it with the best electron microscope and one will see a microcosm of miniature wonder. Stare at it through the most powerful telescope and one will see grandeur on a colossal scale. There seems to be no granularity to God's workmanship. There are no places or spaces that His handiwork and presence are not available.
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