Too much introspection for one night

[ladysprite]

So last night Animal Planet had a special about the Beasts Of The Future, speculating about what might be living hereabouts in 100 million years. One of the taglines they kept repeating was that the theoretical critters were far more amazing, spectacular, and bizarre than anything that ever walked the earth in the times of man or earlier. While the show itself was fascinating, this one statement bothered me quite a bit. Yes, megasquids and cutesy little burrowing quail are marvelously fascinating and bizarre... but what makes them more bizarre or spectacular than a cat, or a gazelle, or a tortoise?

There's an overwhelming belief that I've run into, even in my own head sometimes, that something new or uncommon is automatically special and better and more interesting. Whether or not they're actually significantly different from the things we experience everyday is beside the point - it's the newness and uniqueness that catches our minds. I wound up in a fairly heated argument on this topic with an acquaintance at one point - we were discussing the possibility of making unicorns real, and he insisted that their mere presence would make the world more magical. I felt then, and I still do, that they're far more magical as mythical creatures than they would be as living beings. No matter how beautiful and powerful they are, the glamour wears off when they're grazing your garden, getting hit by cars on I-95, or being brought to the vet for stomach trouble. Once they're everyday, they're not so shiny and mystical.

On the other hand, it's also a good reminder to me that seeing something every day doesn't necessarily make it less incredible or fantastic. The chameleon that I saw today, stretching out its tiny arms like a miniature monster rampaging over the Tokyoid turf of my shoulder, was exciting and adorable and a fun change of pace. That shouldn't mean that the dogs and cats and canaries are any less interesting to me. The same amazing and indistinguishable-from-magic powers drive them, the same miracles of tendon and muscle, molecular reaction, heartbeat and bone reshaping and nerve impulses run in all of them. And in me, too.

I need to stop this here, before I spend the rest of the night staring in fascination at the backs of my hands, watching skin flex and tendons pull and veins trace along through me. Then again, there are worse things to wrap oneself up in....

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

I saw a preview of that show several times and tend to agree, on both a philosophical basis and also a logical one from knowing a little about evolutionary theories. The reason why Stephen Jay Gould is beloved by so many readers is not his research or fundamental arguments (though they're pretty good) but the perspective that evolution is radically egalitarian on a broad scale (not on a local scale), including any claims to priorities for "higher organisms" (whatever that means), complexity, brain capacity, and so forth. The planarian has at least as good a claim to wonder as a living unicorn (if there were such). [Rant mode off.]

(Side note on Gould: I understand other biologists were peeved at Gould not only for his egotism but also how he represented his colleagues in his popular writings, or sometimes didn't)

[rickvs.livejournal.com]

I have similar thoughts regarding self-awareness.

Have you ever taken a video camera and made an infinite tunnel by pointing it at its own monitor -- or done the same thing by facing two mirrors together? I have a sneaking suspicion that self-awareness may be no more than a biological equivalent of this -- but I rarely voice this opinion, because I'd then have to explain that I don't think this cheapens self-awareness, nor makes it any less fascinating. Infinite complexity through recursion is something also found in, say, fractal geometry ... and I find *that* equally fascinating, no less so because I can explain it. I'm done rambling now :>

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Lacking some grand philosophical bit to add, I think I'll just say that I agree with you. :)

A.

[jducoeur]

I still do, that they're far more magical as mythical creatures than they would be as living beings. No matter how beautiful and powerful they are, the glamour wears off when they're grazing your garden, getting hit by cars on I-95, or being brought to the vet for stomach trouble. Once they're everyday, they're not so shiny and mystical.

Almost certainly correct. Anyone who thinks about science fiction seriously should be able to see that this is true. I mean, we are living in an Age of Wonders technologically -- pause just a moment, and think about all the things we do routinely (fly, talk at a distance, research any subject with great ease) that would have been considered astounding just a hundred years ago. I mean, good God -- we've largely stopped going into space mainly because the country collectively got bored with it!

Familiarity breeds contempt, and novelty is brief. Even the things that were considered amazing ten years ago are simply tools today, and may be too ordinary to be worth the expense tomorrow. That's a perspective worth remembering on occasion...

[almeda.livejournal.com]

One thing this reminds me of is the Walking with Dinosaurs DVD I just watched all of; in the Making Of section, they point out that a large problem was trying to find workable, believable gaits for quadrupedal creatures whose hind legs are distinctly longer (and I'm not even mentioning the pterasaurs, at the moment). We have no animals alive today with that body plan, at all.