MILE 29 "Hubbles Bubbles"

 

LOCATION:  The Planetarium, Golden Gate Park

 

Lori, an excitable book author, stands at a podium with a laser pointer and speaks to a crowd in the Planetarium.

 

 

LORI

I'd like to thank you all for coming out to the Planetarium…To hear my talk today and for buying a copy of my book "Hubble's Bubbles" "Slippery metaphors for a chaotic existence." I'd like to start with a tongue twister…You can join me if you want…Hubble's Bubbles Burst forth from the foamy froth. And get bigger and bigger. Before they burst. So… bubbles… why bubbles? God knows. But that's what the universe looks like at every level. From the quantum foam we can see at the smallest level to the  large scale structure of space-time. Science shows us that there are patterns in this chaos. We as a species see it and recognize it. Even though we are all just patterns in this chaos ourselves. Very short lived bubbles of consciousness-Floating on a turbulent sea. We find structure because it does exist. But we also create patterns where none exist. The constellations in the night sky for instance. Visible points of light. Random. We shape them into constellations. And create stories, myths about what those shapes mean. Practical. Useful in navigation, in defining culture, Of having common ways of viewing the universe. Because we all see things a little differently. Some would say "Thank god" I'd like to. I'd like to meet him personally. Because he, she or it… is the ultimate physicist and creator. We are all individuals. We see the world through our own two eyes. If we're lucky. Our senses detect patterns and we attempt to apply meaning. Take four people walking on the beach. A man, a woman and a boy and a girl. Let's call that cluster... a family. No visible ties there just invisible connections. A relational matrix. If you wanted to be more accurate, but perhaps a little politically incorrect, you could call it a "nuclear family." If there happened to be two point five children there. The particle physicists out there are probably sniggering. Because the analogy is so clumsy. Metaphors are rusty tools. Trying to define something by saying it is something else…Well, I'll leave that to the poets. So, this is a human tendency-Probably hard-wired. To look for structure and to expect to find it. To ascribe meaning to the meaninglessness. To look for the light switch in this dark room called night. Each one of us is a part of the whole. A lone consciousness. One point. On one planet. Orbiting one star. In one solar system. In one galaxy. In one local group. In one supercluster. In one mega structure. Forming part of a wall-Made up of billions of galaxies. A giant latticework of matter…Separated by unimaginable voids. With gulfs of virtually nothing in between. Like the "empty space" in soap bubbles. The same structure but on a universal scale. One universe in a multiverse of infinite possibilities. Large distances, with mostly nothing between points. But even the widest void, billions of light years across. It's not nearly as wide as the gulf that exists between people. With different points of view. This difference is what defines us as individuals. Or at least defines our individual consciousness. We are each in our own little universe... of one. The insurmountable gap-Between how you perceive the world-And how I perceive-The Universe. Cannot be bridged. But this irreconcilable difference-Should not be seen-In a negative light. It should be cherished. Though we may each be only one of countless others…Defined by our place in a larger structure. We are each only one tiny being. But for some of us- That is enough.

 

 

THE STARS SPIN OVERHEAD AND THEN EVERYTHING GOES DARK.