I am a scientist, by profession. I study planets (especially this one) and natural systems dynamics. I’m interested in questions like: how do planets make life? Where do we come from, and where are we going? What drives me is discovery of things we do not know, finding new ways to understand how the world works, and clever ways to unlock longstanding mysteries. Science is evolution, a learning process, and if it ever stops then it is no longer science. And if we ever stop learning as humans, then we stop living.
Did you know that a new human sense was discovered in recent years? The evidence shows that brain wave patterns in our heads are affected by changes in the magnetic field of order the geomagnetic field strength (though having a MRI scan seems to affect it, and not everyone is sensitive). We don’t appear to use this sense so much, however, birds and other critters do appear to use the geomagnetic field to navigate. The biophysical mechanism is linked to small bits of magnetite (Fe3O4) in our cells. We know that some bacteria use magnetite to navigate up and down magnetic field lines, which are usually sub-parallel to gradients in sunlight, nutrients, pH, acidity, redox, etc.. The present idea is that magnetic orientation may be the oldest and most primitive sensory mechanism developed by life on Earth...something that wouldn’t have arisen if the Earth didn’t have a magnetic field generated in the core, which seems to depend on cooling driven by over-turning convection of the rocky mantle, which is linked to plate tectonics, volcanism, and maintenance of habitable conditions on the surface. Life is an open system, and its inter-dependencies are vast and deep, we’re still only just beginning to have a broader picture as we consider where to aim our new-fangled telescopes in the era of exoplanets, and what to look for. The natural origin and sustenance of life is one of the greatest challenges in all of science, and the answers are important for humans to understand how we may survive in the long term.
Another great challenge is that of consciousness. Much like life on a planet, consciousness is an “emergent phenomenon” that only arises under the operation of a certain combination of processes. Emergence is synergy, the sum that is greater than its parts, and is inherently non-linear in nature.
Qualities of music are also emergent phenomena. Particular patterns, tones, and combinations of sound are somehow pleasing to humans. We enjoy a symphony more than a cacophony. Hearing certain sounds stimulates brain waves and elicits chemical changes in our bodies that is somehow linked to emotions. Hearing music can be deeply tied to old memories, especially emotional memories. Why?
We don’t know. Neuroscience is changing so fast these days, it seems as if there is a new paradigm every few years. Recently my neuroscience colleagues have begun to sound like Buddhists, talking about the myth of the “self” and so on. I have no idea where they are headed, and neither do they...which is what makes it fun.
My research, like that of many other fields, is constantly plagued by lack of access or the kind of observations we’d ideally like to have in hand. How can I figure out what is happening in the center of our planet, that allows a magnetic field to be regenerated over billions of years of history? Well, we have to work with what we have. Physics, chemistry, experiments and simulations of matter at extreme conditions, observations of the field today, and relics recorded in rocks in the past, analysis of elastic seismic waves generated by earthquakes after they pass through the Earth’s interior, gravity, mass spectrometry of tiny variations of isotopes in lavas that are coughed up onto Earth’s surface from inside, etc.. We’d happily trade these methods for the chance to hold a chunk of the inner core in our hands...but that will never practically happen. So we make do with what we have.
Science is a process of evolution, a never ending series of trials (hypothesis) and errors (empirical testing). Science has co-opted the mechanism that nature itself uses to adapt and learn over time. We are always plagued by the inability to perform all the tests we would like to do, as well as dealing with large volumes of data when we do, analyzing and understanding. We are human, and we like to have a storyline, a narrative, and it is subject to the same cognitive biases that anyone else possesses as humans. We are heavily influenced by society, its customs and mores are deeply imprinted on our scientific concepts, more than we’d like to admit. We do what we can, and it skews our perspective and makes it impossible to obtain an objective view of any situation.
In the process of evolution, the “tree” of life, it is silly for us to think of the set of species at any given time as the “correct” solution. The best you can say is that life finds “a” solution, which is only approximately “correct in the context of its continuously changing times. Science is the same.