As a diver and sailor, I concur with Scotlyn; most of the life at sea is below the air/water interface.The vast majority of life at sea both by sheer numbers and by weight, consists of microscopic organisms. So it is also a matter of scale. Even the most seemingly empty ocean contains uncountable numbers of tiny beings going about their lives, utterly unaware and unconcerned about those incomprehensibly enormous multi-cellular creatures floating past.
What might be floating past us in seemingly empty space at scales that we cannot imagine?
Of course all the "interest" in the sea is under the surface of the water - all the life, all the geography, all the drama... Perhaps the monotony is also a "surface" effect? Together with the knowledge that the adaptations necessary for abiding below that surface are not naturally ours?
(I think that I hew to the view propounded by C. S. Lewis, in fiction at least, and which may have been the medieval view, originally, that the universe - including all of "space" - is teeming with life. But also, that much of it - the vastest amount of it, probably - "lives" above, underneath, or beyond surfaces which we lack the adaptations to safely cross, perceive, interact with, or appreciate.)
I agree that what you are saying is likely, though I’m uncertain about how “universal” your suggestion is. It’s possible that there are places that really are just monotonous on all levels of existence. That being said, I am reminded of a bizarre suggestion that life based on plasma could exist within or on stars, which would be impossible for humans to interact with in any significant way.
It was your comparison to "space" that brought this passage to my mind. C S Lewis's fictional character Ransom is given the following meditation:
"He had read of “Space”: at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds.
"He had not known how much it affected him till now—now that the very name “Space” seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it “dead”; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and all their life had come?
"He had thought it barren: he saw now that it was the womb of worlds, whose blazing and innumerable offspring looked down nightly even upon the earth with so many eyes—and here, with how many more!
"No: space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens—the heavens which declared the glory -"
Many years ago I discovered that I could put myself in an altered state by just steadily looking at a body of open and gently moving water. A still pond won't work. Neither will rapids. But the ocean or a big lake that never stops moving even under what a sailor would consider calm conditions is perfect. Thank you for reminding me that I haven't done this kind of meditation in a while and I'm within easy walking distance of the ocean, so I can easily start doing this again.
The movement of the waves grabs the front of my attention like a mantra does, allowing the, well, okay, I'm a retired software professional and the way I think of it is that the simplicity and repetitiveness of the thing I'm paying attention to frees up bandwidth so the processes running in the background can run fast enough to get caught up.
As a diver and sailor, I concur with Scotlyn; most of the life at sea is below the air/water interface.The vast majority of life at sea both by sheer numbers and by weight, consists of microscopic organisms. So it is also a matter of scale. Even the most seemingly empty ocean contains uncountable numbers of tiny beings going about their lives, utterly unaware and unconcerned about those incomprehensibly enormous multi-cellular creatures floating past.
What might be floating past us in seemingly empty space at scales that we cannot imagine?
Very nice! :)
Of course all the "interest" in the sea is under the surface of the water - all the life, all the geography, all the drama... Perhaps the monotony is also a "surface" effect? Together with the knowledge that the adaptations necessary for abiding below that surface are not naturally ours?
(I think that I hew to the view propounded by C. S. Lewis, in fiction at least, and which may have been the medieval view, originally, that the universe - including all of "space" - is teeming with life. But also, that much of it - the vastest amount of it, probably - "lives" above, underneath, or beyond surfaces which we lack the adaptations to safely cross, perceive, interact with, or appreciate.)
I agree that what you are saying is likely, though I’m uncertain about how “universal” your suggestion is. It’s possible that there are places that really are just monotonous on all levels of existence. That being said, I am reminded of a bizarre suggestion that life based on plasma could exist within or on stars, which would be impossible for humans to interact with in any significant way.
Oh indeed. We are, in any case contemplating riddles wrapped in mysteries inside of enigmas... :)
However, the specific worldview that C S Lewis wrote *from* in his fiction gets a fairly decent write up in this post. https://ponderingprinciples.com/2021/05/08/its-the-heavens-not-space/
It was your comparison to "space" that brought this passage to my mind. C S Lewis's fictional character Ransom is given the following meditation:
"He had read of “Space”: at the back of his thinking for years had lurked the dismal fancy of the black, cold vacuity, the utter deadness, which was supposed to separate the worlds.
"He had not known how much it affected him till now—now that the very name “Space” seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it “dead”; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and all their life had come?
"He had thought it barren: he saw now that it was the womb of worlds, whose blazing and innumerable offspring looked down nightly even upon the earth with so many eyes—and here, with how many more!
"No: space was the wrong name. Older thinkers had been wiser when they named it simply the heavens—the heavens which declared the glory -"
Many years ago I discovered that I could put myself in an altered state by just steadily looking at a body of open and gently moving water. A still pond won't work. Neither will rapids. But the ocean or a big lake that never stops moving even under what a sailor would consider calm conditions is perfect. Thank you for reminding me that I haven't done this kind of meditation in a while and I'm within easy walking distance of the ocean, so I can easily start doing this again.
What exactly do you mean by an “altered state”? Are you referring to some meditative calm, or something more exotic?
The movement of the waves grabs the front of my attention like a mantra does, allowing the, well, okay, I'm a retired software professional and the way I think of it is that the simplicity and repetitiveness of the thing I'm paying attention to frees up bandwidth so the processes running in the background can run fast enough to get caught up.