Hello again.
Fair warning here : I will be expounding at length and with great gusto on a subject I know nothing about, namely, the God-Particle Thingymmajig.
So from what I can gather from my limited exposure to the World News – I’m a working Mom who does overtime as a writer, illustrator and seamstress – they found a thingymmajig they called the God-Particle.
Surprise…
The World is in an uproar: the part that is not actually struggling for survival in the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression is absolutely livid.
What they actually seem to be upset about is not the discovery.
They are not questioning the validity of the experiments, verifying base-line and things, or the cognitive process, or qualifications of the scientists.
Nope.
It’s the Name.
Naming is enormously powerful. Naming makes things real. A Rose by any other name would not smell as sweet…
Hysterical people all over the World are bashing at each over a name.
The God-Particle.
I like it.
They are screaming because they are not in the midst of child-rearing a viciously bright girl.
Two years ago, my daughter (then seven) came to me and asked: “Mom, why did the Universe begin?”
I smugly replied by unreeling the Big Bang Theory.
“Mom, I already know that story, I asked WHY, not how. Why did it happen? If everything was still, why did it start moving? And please don’t tell me it was God.”
Ok. Deep breath.
I’m a reasonably bright mature woman, I can deal with this…
So I did: I passed the hot potato.
I hunted up Stephen Hawking’s e-mail on the net, and we sent him a mail asking him WHY, and please don’t say it was God…
He didn’t answer.
Chicken.
Disappointed in you, Steve.
Showing the white feather. Sad, very sad.
If it was today, of course, I would have joyfully replied: “The God-Particle did it.”
That would have shut that precocious little minx up.
Seriously though, think about it.
We are not alone. We live in a Universe choc-full of sentient life. God-Particles, sub-atomic particles that react to having an audience, viruses that manipulate the hosts to further their reproductive ambitions…
Paranoid Guy in the corner table, relax, it’s not out to get you.
We have been looking for alien life in Outer Space. We should have looked inside.
Did any-one out there read a book (or see the movie) “Horton Hears a Who”? It’s all in there. Dr Seuss knew.
There are worlds within us, everywhere about us. We move in a mystery, and people argue about a name? Angels dance on pin-heads, there are voices in the dark, and we fight about a name?
We should be awed, enchanted and mostly, hopeful.
We are not alone. What our ancestors knew by intuition, and we have spent the last century trying to disprove with science is true: there is pattern and meaning in the movement of the stars.
The Universe is awake, aware and seething with life.
We should be humbled and exalted.
We were born not of a cosmic accident, but of an act of will, of love.
We are the ultimate outcome of the ambition of the Light.
Manuela Cardiga
Fair warning here : I will be expounding at length and with great gusto on a subject I know nothing about, namely, the God-Particle Thingymmajig.
So from what I can gather from my limited exposure to the World News – I’m a working Mom who does overtime as a writer, illustrator and seamstress – they found a thingymmajig they called the God-Particle.
Surprise…
The World is in an uproar: the part that is not actually struggling for survival in the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression is absolutely livid.
What they actually seem to be upset about is not the discovery.
They are not questioning the validity of the experiments, verifying base-line and things, or the cognitive process, or qualifications of the scientists.
Nope.
It’s the Name.
Naming is enormously powerful. Naming makes things real. A Rose by any other name would not smell as sweet…
Hysterical people all over the World are bashing at each over a name.
The God-Particle.
I like it.
They are screaming because they are not in the midst of child-rearing a viciously bright girl.
Two years ago, my daughter (then seven) came to me and asked: “Mom, why did the Universe begin?”
I smugly replied by unreeling the Big Bang Theory.
“Mom, I already know that story, I asked WHY, not how. Why did it happen? If everything was still, why did it start moving? And please don’t tell me it was God.”
Ok. Deep breath.
I’m a reasonably bright mature woman, I can deal with this…
So I did: I passed the hot potato.
I hunted up Stephen Hawking’s e-mail on the net, and we sent him a mail asking him WHY, and please don’t say it was God…
He didn’t answer.
Chicken.
Disappointed in you, Steve.
Showing the white feather. Sad, very sad.
If it was today, of course, I would have joyfully replied: “The God-Particle did it.”
That would have shut that precocious little minx up.
Seriously though, think about it.
We are not alone. We live in a Universe choc-full of sentient life. God-Particles, sub-atomic particles that react to having an audience, viruses that manipulate the hosts to further their reproductive ambitions…
Paranoid Guy in the corner table, relax, it’s not out to get you.
We have been looking for alien life in Outer Space. We should have looked inside.
Did any-one out there read a book (or see the movie) “Horton Hears a Who”? It’s all in there. Dr Seuss knew.
There are worlds within us, everywhere about us. We move in a mystery, and people argue about a name? Angels dance on pin-heads, there are voices in the dark, and we fight about a name?
We should be awed, enchanted and mostly, hopeful.
We are not alone. What our ancestors knew by intuition, and we have spent the last century trying to disprove with science is true: there is pattern and meaning in the movement of the stars.
The Universe is awake, aware and seething with life.
We should be humbled and exalted.
We were born not of a cosmic accident, but of an act of will, of love.
We are the ultimate outcome of the ambition of the Light.
Manuela Cardiga
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