Wednesday, June 29, 2016

John Muir on the unseen

I just encountered this quotation this morning and thought that it somehow fits in with my previous post with the poem about the Unseeable Animal.  The following is from a journal entry by John Muir (author, naturalist, poet, hiker, and father of our national parks system, and if anyone can make the claim, he can)   He is also founder of the Sierra Club.

If the Creator were to bestow a new set of senses upon us, or slightly remodel the present ones, leaving all the rest of nature unchanged, we should never doubt we were in another world,  and so in strict reality we should be,  just if all the world besides our senses were changed. 

--John Muir --
from John Muir: In His Own Words


That's an interesting comment, coming from over a century and a half ago.  Science since then has discovered that many animals detect visual, auditory, tactile, and chemical signals that we are insensitive to.  For example, some migratory birds may use the earth's magnetic field to guide them to their destinations.  Bats, dogs, cats, whales, and dolphins are sensitive to sounds we cannot hear. 

I wonder what the world would look like if we could experience those cues that are undetectable by us now.  Perhaps that "unseeable animal" is real.  While I don't consider myself to be a full-fledged romantic, for some reason, though, I prefer Wendell Berry's "unseeable animal."


The other work by John Muir that I'm reading is A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (Annotated).  This small book is based on his hike from Indianapolis, Indiana, beginning on September 1, 1867, just a few years after the end of the Civil War, to Savannah, Georgia, which he reached on  October 8, 1867.  I may post on this one in the future.

14 comments:

  1. love JM. read, i think, and have, all of his books... butterflies see in plane-polarized light. the "thousand mile walk" is one of his best... so many stories to tell and what a life, wandering the sierras and fighting the good fight to preserve what in truth is more important than most humans... a true hero in the best sense of the word... tx for citing him...

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    1. Mudpuddle,

      While I have been aware of John Muir for a long time, I just started reading some of his works recently. Any suggestions for a work by him besides the two that I have?

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    2. i see i must have discarded, gasp, some of my Muir books - amazing the stupid things one does while neatening up... anyway, the ones i remember liking are: "my first summer in the sierra", my boyhood and youth, the mountains of california, the yosemite, steep trails; there are others; they're all good...

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    3. Mudpuddle,

      My first summer in Sierra sounds interesting. I will probably search out that one once I finish the two I have.

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  2. Very interesting post.

    In Consciousness explained Daniel Dennett explores these issues from a scientific and philosophical point of view. He explains how we humans only experience a small slice of reality because of our limited senses and gets into all kinds of interesting details and some speculation.

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    1. Brian Joseph,

      I was just watching a doc which included a lecture on the electromagnetic spectrum. The diagram made it very clear that we sense only a very small portion of the spectrum. What would it be like if we could sense a large segment? Or if we could hear or smell sensory bits that we are unable now.

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  3. Replies
    1. R.T.,

      Well, at least our shadows are in color, even if it's limited.

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    2. i used to spelunk a bit, in the santa cruz mountains; didn't see him, though...

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    3. Mudpuddle,

      Plato or John Muir?

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  4. chortle... JM didn't say much about spelunking...

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    1. Mudpuddle,

      So far, I have to agree with you, although he did talk about a cave where cool air flowed out and people would sit around it during the hot summer days and evenings.

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    2. really! i don't remember that . no surprise, there... tx...

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    3. Mudpuddle,

      The Sept 6 entry in A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf

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