{"id":11459,"date":"2013-09-04T12:29:08","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T19:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=11459"},"modified":"2013-09-04T12:29:08","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T19:29:08","slug":"atoms-with-consciousness-matter-with-curiosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/04\/atoms-with-consciousness-matter-with-curiosity\/","title":{"rendered":"Atoms With Consciousness, Matter With Curiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Probably I&#8217;m the last scientfically-oriented person in the world to discover this, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/topic\/108724\">Richard Feynman wrote a poem<\/a> that he read as part of an address to the National Academy of Sciences. I stumbled across it because I was actually looking for scientists who were familiar with work of the poet Muriel Rukeyser &#8212; anyone have any suggestions? Anyway, here&#8217;s Feynman:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There are the rushing waves<br \/>\nmountains of molecules<br \/>\neach stupidly minding its own business<br \/>\ntrillions apart<br \/>\nyet forming white surf in unison <\/p>\n<p>Ages on ages<br \/>\nbefore any eyes could see<br \/>\nyear after year<br \/>\nthunderously pounding the shore as now.<br \/>\nFor whom, for what?<br \/>\nOn a dead planet<br \/>\nwith no life to entertain. <\/p>\n<p>Never at rest<br \/>\ntortured by energy<br \/>\nwasted prodigiously by the Sun<br \/>\npoured into space.<br \/>\nA mite makes the sea roar. <\/p>\n<p>Deep in the sea<br \/>\nall molecules repeat<br \/>\nthe patterns of one another<br \/>\ntill complex new ones are formed.<br \/>\nThey make others like themselves<br \/>\nand a new dance starts.<br \/>\nGrowing in size and complexity<br \/>\nliving things<br \/>\nmasses of atoms<br \/>\nDNA, protein<br \/>\ndancing a pattern ever more intricate. <\/p>\n<p>Out of the cradle<br \/>\nonto dry land<br \/>\nhere it is<br \/>\nstanding:<br \/>\natoms with consciousness;<br \/>\nmatter with curiosity. <\/p>\n<p>Stands at the sea,<br \/>\nwonders at wondering: I<br \/>\na universe of atoms<br \/>\nan atom in the Universe. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nobody is surprised, of course, that Feynman was a card-carrying <a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/17\/dysteleological-physicalism\/\">dysteleological physicalist<\/a>. More interesting is that he chose to highlight this kind of question &#8212; the emergence of complexity and consciousness from the blind play of atoms, stupidly minding their own business &#8212; rather than something about particle physics, for example. As much as reductionists get a bad name in some circles, the good ones do appreciate the bigger picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Probably I&#8217;m the last scientfically-oriented person in the world to discover this, but Richard Feynman wrote a poem that he read as part of an address to the National Academy of Sciences. I stumbled across it because I was actually looking for scientists who were familiar with work of the poet Muriel Rukeyser &#8212; anyone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11462,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11459\/revisions\/11462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}