No matter where you look,
the longer and closer you observe, the more complicated and mysterious the
world gets. If you take the Hubble telescope and look 13 billion light-years
into space, does the universe become simpler? No, it becomes infinitely complex
– so much so that we can’t explain some of what we find. And then, if you look
into the microcosm, do things break down into simple elemental units? No. The
closer we look, the more complexity we see, until the ordinary laws of physics
no longer apply.
It’s the same with animal
behavior, and with life in general. The closer we loo, the more complicated and
mind-boggling it becomes, until we’re unable to comprehend what we’re seeing.
That doesn’t mean its supernatural, just that it’s beyond our understanding. In
that sense, for a lack of a better term, yes, there is something profoundly
spiritual about it.
What’s most meaningful for
me are those moments when I stop differentiating between myself and the deer,
because our own identity – isn’t that a blessed relief? You stop being an
egocentric individual, and you achieve the oneness that the Taoists talk about.
That’s not an illusion. Whether you’re talking about religion or theoretical
physics, it eventually comes to a point where everything is undifferentiated.
Quantum physicists are
starting to look at consciousness as a force of nature, like gravity. I’m not a
quantum physicist, so I’m cautious about how I represent the world. But,
generally speaking, consciousness has an observable effect on the universe. For
example, the act of observation itself can change a light wave to a particle.
Even stranger, that light wave may be connected, by virtue of its origin, with
another light wave ten light-years away, and because they are connected, the
other light wave will collapse simultaneously. In other words, they are aware
of each other in a manner that transcends space and time. A lot of physicists
are suggesting that what we observe in the universe has come about through
consciousness – that awareness is the ground for all being, not the result of
it. The most elemental things would never have come into being without
awareness.
What is consciousness? The
word is so loaded. Everyone thinks they know what it means, when, in fact, no
one – not neurobiologists, or psychologist, or biologists, or anthropologist,
or physicists – has a good definition. It is an absolute mystery, as much as
the moment before the Big Bang. But because we need to talk about these things,
we are stuck with imperfect words like awareness and consciousness.
--Joe Hutto, wildlife
researcher, as quoted in an interview by Al Kesselheim, published in The Sun
magazine, May 2017, issue 497
