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Earth - a life form
Earth – a life
In this essay I would like to speculate on an off-beat somewhat quaint concept. We are all familiar with the phrase "Mother Earth".(There is a famous novel too with that title, by Pearl S Buck.) Apart from poetry using it figuratively there have been many mystics in some civilizations who believed in mother Earth as a separate spirit or goddess. Recall the word 'Gaia' here. The sober minded, rational common man of the present day may scoff at the concept.
But I think if you become a bit more sober minded and stretch your rational mind a bit more along unwilling paths it is possible to postulate an entity called mother earth. If you rearrange the words ad say that earth has a life of its own it may become easier to proceed. What we mean to say is that the earth as a whole is one single mega-form of life (or spirit). Stated that way it may not seem such a farfetched idea, rather.
The best way of constructing this postulate is – yes, you guessed it – to start from the lowest, simplest level. Consider an atom, the simplest, say of Hydrogen. Two electrons orbit around a nucleus to form a hydrogen atom. One electron is in no way different from another electron. But if FOUR electrons come together and orbit around a corresponding nucleus they form a Helium atom. A sodium atom is a sodium atom and a chlorine atom is a chlorine atom. If the two combine together, lo, we have something different – a molecule of the common salt, which has different properties than those of the the individual atoms it is made up of ! There are innumerable examples of this kind in nature. The idea is this. A group of individual entities when bound together produce an altogether different entity that exists by itself, apart from its constituents . In my opinion this is the greatest wonder in nature, mind-boggling in its simplicity.
Are you beginning to grumble that what we considered in the above example were inanimate objects? You would prefer something having life. Let us say, a cell. Even the simplest cell would have to contain RNA, the life-replicating molecule. RNA is afte
r all a chemical structure made up of individual atoms, which are again structures made up of individual electrons orbiting around corresponding nuclei!
OK. Let us drop objects like electrons and take individual units of life like a cell. Consider the blood cell. It has a life and existence in its own authority. Next consider the bone cell. It too has a separate identity and property and existence. Let us put a tag on it and call it life number two. Then we come to the cell of a muscle, which too is unique. It has every right to be called life number three. Skin cells demand to be called life number four. I am not a biologist. A biologist would give you the names of many hundreds of such life forms as above.
The next step does not require even a broad hint. Bring all the above cells into a confined space of a definite recognizable shape. What do we get? A human being, no less! That human being affirms and boasts that he is a separate, unique entity and behaves likewise. All the previously mentioned hundreds of life forms (or lives) claim their own independent existence and yet when I, as a human being talk of myself I override all their claims. As an amusing exercise, we can even speculate that the blood cell screaming its own existence may not even be aware of me as a whole!
Fro there the next jump in our reasoning (we are doing a reasonably good job of it, are we not?) is easy. Consider a human being as a single unit of life form. Take another independent unique form, like say an ape. That is life number two. Take more and more and more life forms. I dare say there are millions of unique life forms. ("The more the merrier.") Dump all of them together and confine them.
Well, you need not have to do THAT. It is already done. All the life forms have been dumped together and confined in a bound space. That aggregate is - what else? – THE EARTH !
Hundreds of life forms came together and formed a unique living thing called a human being and most probably they do not know it. So, similarly, millions of life forms, if put together would most probably have created a macroscopic life form and be not aware of that. The speculation, even if it is not convincing or not even persuasive, is at least tempting.
V.S.SURY
In this essay I would like to speculate on an off-beat somewhat quaint concept. We are all familiar with the phrase "Mother Earth".(There is a famous novel too with that title, by Pearl S Buck.) Apart from poetry using it figuratively there have been many mystics in some civilizations who believed in mother Earth as a separate spirit or goddess. Recall the word 'Gaia' here. The sober minded, rational common man of the present day may scoff at the concept.
But I think if you become a bit more sober minded and stretch your rational mind a bit more along unwilling paths it is possible to postulate an entity called mother earth. If you rearrange the words ad say that earth has a life of its own it may become easier to proceed. What we mean to say is that the earth as a whole is one single mega-form of life (or spirit). Stated that way it may not seem such a farfetched idea, rather.
The best way of constructing this postulate is – yes, you guessed it – to start from the lowest, simplest level. Consider an atom, the simplest, say of Hydrogen. Two electrons orbit around a nucleus to form a hydrogen atom. One electron is in no way different from another electron. But if FOUR electrons come together and orbit around a corresponding nucleus they form a Helium atom. A sodium atom is a sodium atom and a chlorine atom is a chlorine atom. If the two combine together, lo, we have something different – a molecule of the common salt, which has different properties than those of the the individual atoms it is made up of ! There are innumerable examples of this kind in nature. The idea is this. A group of individual entities when bound together produce an altogether different entity that exists by itself, apart from its constituents . In my opinion this is the greatest wonder in nature, mind-boggling in its simplicity.
Are you beginning to grumble that what we considered in the above example were inanimate objects? You would prefer something having life. Let us say, a cell. Even the simplest cell would have to contain RNA, the life-replicating molecule. RNA is afte
OK. Let us drop objects like electrons and take individual units of life like a cell. Consider the blood cell. It has a life and existence in its own authority. Next consider the bone cell. It too has a separate identity and property and existence. Let us put a tag on it and call it life number two. Then we come to the cell of a muscle, which too is unique. It has every right to be called life number three. Skin cells demand to be called life number four. I am not a biologist. A biologist would give you the names of many hundreds of such life forms as above.
The next step does not require even a broad hint. Bring all the above cells into a confined space of a definite recognizable shape. What do we get? A human being, no less! That human being affirms and boasts that he is a separate, unique entity and behaves likewise. All the previously mentioned hundreds of life forms (or lives) claim their own independent existence and yet when I, as a human being talk of myself I override all their claims. As an amusing exercise, we can even speculate that the blood cell screaming its own existence may not even be aware of me as a whole!
Fro there the next jump in our reasoning (we are doing a reasonably good job of it, are we not?) is easy. Consider a human being as a single unit of life form. Take another independent unique form, like say an ape. That is life number two. Take more and more and more life forms. I dare say there are millions of unique life forms. ("The more the merrier.") Dump all of them together and confine them.
Well, you need not have to do THAT. It is already done. All the life forms have been dumped together and confined in a bound space. That aggregate is - what else? – THE EARTH !
Hundreds of life forms came together and formed a unique living thing called a human being and most probably they do not know it. So, similarly, millions of life forms, if put together would most probably have created a macroscopic life form and be not aware of that. The speculation, even if it is not convincing or not even persuasive, is at least tempting.
V.S.SURY
Tags & Keywords : Life, earth, atom, biology, chemistry