Heroes Not Zombies

I love sculptures which have been placed outside. One of my favourite museums in the world is the Rodin Museum in Paris which, as well as having several rooms filled with his artworks, has a beautiful garden with many of his sculptures in it. I especially like to walk through the gardens and take my time with each piece.

This photo isn’t from there, however. It’s from a garden in South Africa. I’m afraid I don’t know the name of the sculptor but this one, in particular, stopped me in my tracks. It’s a face, but not a complete face. It’s made from strands or threads of metal and isn’t a whole head. The effect is one of emergence. It seems to capture a moment where the face either begins to appear in the world, or, on the other hand, where it is beginning to dissolve back into the garden. It’s impossible to know which.

We humans have many questions. We wonder, why is there something in this universe, and not, nothing? If the universe started with the “Big Bang” and spread rapidly in every direction, why isn’t matter spread evenly throughout? Why does it cluster into stars, planets, and all the physical elements on our planet? How did Life emerge from all the atoms and elements which came together on Earth? And, given that there is a universal tendency towards entropy, why has evolution followed a path of ever increasing complexity. It costs a lot of energy to create and maintain an organism as complex as a human being. And, finally, for today, what is consciousness?

There is a lot to explore there. There’s enough there to create a curriculum of learning and research to last a lifetime. I’ve been re-reading Iain McGilchrist’s “The Matter with Things” recently, focusing on the chapter “Matter and Consciousness”. I think he argues convincingly that consciousness comes first. That it precedes matter, and that matter is a “phase” of consciousness, just as ice, liquid water, and steam are phases of water. I like that perspective. It makes sense to me.

But why should matter, even if it is a phase of consciousness, appear in the universe? One explanation is that it allows the universe to observe itself. Living creatures, with their highly developed consciousness are able to experience the universe, and in so doing, the universe changes from a collection of objects to a community of subjects.

I think of all that as I look at this face emerging from, but staying within, the garden. And that brings me to another thought……that we are all individuals, not parachuted onto this planet, but embedded within it. We appear as a form of Nature, and slowing metamorphose back into it, in the same way as a wave appears on the surface of the ocean, briefly demonstrates unique, identifiable characteristics, then disappears back into the body of water, which it never really left.