Much of existence defies explanation. Most of it in fact. The more personal ways we make sense of the world are just as important (maybe more important) than knowing the physics of how it functions. For example, what is the sound of rainbows and colour of birdsong? This statement has no basis in science. Yet cross-comparisons of the senses like this, are incredibly common in our culture.
In How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature, I open with the statement:
As animals our brains float above the planet’s surface; there is an air gap between us and the Earth. This makes us unique among life forms and quite distinct from plants because we were made to be mobile and carry our intelligence with us. Contained within our brains is the reason animals like us can find shelter, food and water
– Quote, How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature
This introduction was inspired by a question from a child about how plants and animals differ. EcosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More only function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More as places for living animals because we interpret our being in response to colours, sounds and a plethora of other sensory experiences. Often this is in ways that are intangible but are still critical to our survival behaviour. How we choose to interpret this complexity can’t be categorised in terms of physics, so we define them in more abstract – but no less relevant – ways of feeling.
The sound of a rainbow
In Caspar Henderson’s A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous he refers to a line poet Douglas Dunn rediscovered that he wrote as a young man, which reads ‘it is like listening to a rainbow.’ What is the sound of a rainbow, he asked? There isn’t one. Well, not in scientific terms, anyway. But Caspar contends that:
‘If you see a rainbow from afar and, quickly, while it is still raining, go and stand in the place it appeared to be, you will of course not see it … but you will be in the midst of one part of what co-creates the rainbow … And maybe, if you listen very carefully, you may hear those drops, and know that for someone elsewhere you too are part of the rainbow’.
– Caspar Henderson A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous
The song of a river
Sound and light are only what the viewer’s mind perceives them to be. What you perceive is different from me … we both see a red sunset but who is to say your mind sees the same colour as I? People with grapheme-colour synesthesia associate hearing your name with a specific tint. I see nothing.
At a seminar at Melbourne Law School ‘Listening to the Living Rivers’ Shrishtee Bajpai talked about a young girl she met in the foothills of the himalayas. The girl referred to the river’s song. Science has us believe the river doesn’t sing because to sing it would need to be alive.
Nevertheless, our river in Melbourne, the Yarra, was recognised as a living entity in 2017. This was written into our first bilingual act of parliament the Wilip-gin Birrarung murron Act, meaning ‘keeping the river alive’. The river and its component parts form the tapestry that enables the lifestyles and livelihoods of the 1.8 million people that live in its catchment.
The Yarra River sings, if you like, with the voices of all that live among it. If the river dies, our society dies. Therefore, perhaps, it also stands to reason that the river lives, if we live, as we are part of the same.
It’s irrelevant whether physics can prove the river has consciousness. It can be considered to behave as though it does. Or at the very least, bestowing it with the same rights as a living entity, enables us to survive. There is the reason this is called ‘common sense’. It is the common way we connect all our senses with the ecosystem around us.
The colour of birdsong
This week a YouTubing scientist stored the image of a songbird in its own song. The bird, a Starling, learned to mimic sounds that produced a spectrogram that looked like itself. As a piece of art, this is remarkable. But Starlings are also successful animals, so much so, I recognise their song almost everywhere I go. When I hear them chirruping on my rooftop in Melbourne, I immediately see an image of a Starling in my mind. I feel the emotions of spring, which herald back to a childhood spent in the rolling UK countryside.
Other Starlings don’t see their colour the way I do. The image they associate with birdsong is quite different because birds can sense a different spectrum of light. We have no idea what this looks like, despite the social media posts.
Likewise, when I smell strawberry ice-cream it makes me nostalgic for time spent on summer holidays with my parents. For others, there is no physical link between my parents and their smell of ice-cream. It’s true even though it has no basis in physics. My brain has preserved that connection as part of my own survival mechanism.
A collision of senses
These kinds of connections occur daily when every rock, tree, landscape, sky, bird, animal, insect, microbe, person or plant come into contact. Each moment, it evokes a different set of sensory interpretations. Some are similar to each other, and some are wildly different. Each time actions form that shape the ecosystem.
If you can comprehend even a fraction of the complexity this imparts on your world, you might begin to realise why it’s easier to conflate senses into artistic forms. Better this than try to make sense of the physics behind it all.
Which means anyone can hear the sound of rainbows or rivers singing. While birds ululate images of themselves to other animals. Ecosystems are an extension of our collective consciousness because they are shaped by our everyday actions. What we hear, feel, smell and see are not disconnected – only physics reduces it to component parts. It’s the basis for all life.
Far from being whimsy, these are emerging principles for economic advancement. Restoring this understanding of how we connect is about to secure some of the world’s most advancing economies.
Read more in How to Survive the Next 100 Years
