| We drive east, circling Noumea, past the big Nickel
smelting plant with its foul reddish black smoke and black sludge landscape. New Caledonia
used to be the third largest nickel producing country in the world. Now it is way down on
the list, maybe 15th or 16th. The world price of nickel is low and the labor and shipping
costs from here are too high to be competitive. The nickel operation here is losing money.
Today, only one smoke stack is putting out its evil black smoke.
"I wouldn't like to work there," I muse as we go by.
"Of course not," Yves replies. "When I was a boy I
can remember walking by the plant one day. There is a laboratory to analyze samples. I
stopped and looked inside the glass door to the laboratory. The men inside were all
dressed in white and everything was very clean and beautiful. I decided at that moment
that this was for me. I would be a chemist and be neat and clean. None of the filth for my
family."
"Well, what made you change to biology?" I ask.
"But I never did, I am a chemist," he responds as we turn
onto the highway and accelerate.
"A chemist? Then how did you get to be director of the Aquarium
of Noumea?"
"I was working for ORSTOM as a chemical oceanographer and the
position became available. I am also a diver and have had some experience in public
relations so they decided to make me the director of the Aquarium." We reach an open,
four-lane road and he accelerates. The mountains of New Caledonia rush towards us, green
and sharp.
 His mention of ORSTOM makes me think of Louis and the
Communist spy theory. Yves? A communist? No. Definitely not. Freddy and I have become very
good friends with the Pilots who guide the big ships into Noumea. It is a private
business, not a government one, and the Pilots are the nicest bunch of guys we've met in
the Pacific. They have known Yves since they were all boys together and they like him and
respect him. They are also very anti-communist and in a small place like this they would
certainly know if Yves was socialist/communist.
Besides, Yves ideas are decidedly not Communist. He is an
intellectual, a scientist, but he lives a very independent life, has a reasonable
financial holding and is a very practical man.
We turn south, surrounded by New Caledonia's lush countryside. We
drive past a patchwork of natural mangroves, a patch of lowland forest, still black from a
recent fire, and cattle pastures with houses and fences that look very French. The road is
excellent, black-top, smooth, well constructed and maintained. New Caledonia has the
finest roads I've seen on any Pacific island. We zoom past a new and very modern looking
school and on south towards Plum.
"God, it's insane," I say thoughtfully.
"What is insane?" Yves asks.
"Oh, I heard another Radio Australia newscast about New
Caledonia and the racial strife business. They insist on telling the world this is a
racial issue between the poor black downtrodden independence fighters and rich white,
colonialist anti-independence French Settlers."
I gesture at the school as we pass, "Nowhere else in the
Pacific Islands will you find schools like that one - filled with children of all colors.
Or roads like this enabling people to travel freely anywhere in their cars. Or the
excellent public transportation. There in that car - a well dressed black woman
driving a BMW. You won't see that in the Solomons or PNG. The Melanesians here don't speak
baby-talk, like they do in the other Melanesian countries. They are well educated, well
dressed, and the island is practically deserted by Caribbean standards. What, maybe 4 or 5
people per kmē?" We drive on in silence.
"I think there is a very small clique in the Australian and the
New Zealand media service pushing this thing for all its worth."
"Yes, this is true, but why are they doing it?" Yves asks.
"I have no idea. But it's so stupid it's a wonder they can get
away with it. Imagine if they applied the same ideas to New Zealand or Australia. The
right-wing English Settlers pitted against the poor Maori or Aborigine peoples who are
struggling for their independence and to get rid of the arrogant white settlers. In
Australia the early settlers actually hunted the Abos for sport. They committed genocide
in Tasmania." Yves says nothing and we drive on through the lovely forests and
pasturelands.
I shake my head. "I read one article in an Aussie journal. It
said members of the FLNKS freedom fighters were flying to Libya for an independence
conference. If Abos or Maori's went to a Libyan independence conference, the Aussie press
would be quick to say they were terrorists taking guerilla training."
"Perhaps the cultural association can help change that."
Yves passes another car, "and help make everyone better educated on their joint
cultural heritage."
A French looking cathedral and farm emerges through the trees and
stands of bamboo. Danielle tells Freddy it is a monastery and they produce fresh milk for
Noumea.
The Cultural Association. The counter attack against whoever or
whatever is pushing racial hatred here. If Yves can really get it going it might work.
There is already a cultural association here. The key is to get it into active service
against the hate mongers.
"I see the key to the problem as an understanding of behavior
zones." I say. "The basic image is of the island as a living entity working to
take advantage of what the world has to offer. The ultimate goal is the creation of a
self-aware island able to track its needs through time. We must show why internal conflict
will be a disadvantage to everyone."
We drive quickly along a slow, winding river. Yves is a good driver.
Not too fast, not too slow. The foliage retreats from the road so we can see the whole
valley. "Oh? What is this behavior zone?" Yves glances at me.
"Behavior zones extend Minkowski's world-line thinking to
animals," I see Yves does not understand so I explain, "Hermann Minkowski was
Einstein's math teacher. He suggested, from a longer interval of awareness, planets could
be thought of as doughnut-shaped spirals in space."
"Oh yes, I remember from philosophy class." Yves nods.
"I saw a drawing of Earth in Scientific American showing its
electromagnetic field and its interaction with the solar wind. The planet is actually a
long comet-shaped entity not far different from what Minkowski postulated. And if we could
draw in the interactions of the planet with the moon and the sun and the other planets,
the whole Earth would look very different, indeed.
"The idea stretches a 'being' from the focus we see in our
human interval of awareness to include the zone a being influences. Suppose we look at a
squid swimming on a reef. If we take a photograph of the squid with an electronic flash,
we get an image of what it looks like over an interval of less than 1/10,000th of a
second. We might say it is an accurate and clear image of the squid. But it would not tell
us very much about the animal or what it does or is doing. In fact, because squid can
change their shape and color and skin texture so dramatically, a single 1/10,000th of a
second photograph would not be an accurate image of the squid at all.
"If we could take a time exposure picture of the squid over an
interval of 1000 seconds. We would then have a picture of a tube-shaped animal extending
over the reef in a winding pattern as the squid tracks here and
there seeking food or shelter." I am trying to demonstrate this with my hands when I
realize Yves is keeping his eyes on the road.
"If we could take
a picture of the squid's movements over a
period of 1000 days we would see the squid
is an intricate, net-shaped being covering
the whole reef. The net is the squid's behavior
zone. It hovers in the water above the
coral, trapping small fish and other creatures
in its web. A behavior zone describes a creature
in terms of what it can reach as opposed to
its form in a brief instant of time." We are now driving up the side of Mont Dore.
"Yes, I see, go on," Yves says.
"That's about it. Except, of course, we actually see behavior
zones in some animals - like branching corals. Acropora solidifies its behavioral
movements as its skeleton and this results in tubular branches showing its life's history.
So do plants." We round a corner and reach the crest of the hill. Yves pulls over to
the side.
"The source," Yves says, opening the door. We all get out
of the car and walk over to a stone basin with a little trickle of water flowing into it.
"Plum's own mineral water. It is right from the island, pure and of excellent
quality." I sample it right from the little waterfall and it is excellent.
Freddy, however, is not interested in tasting it. She and Danielle
walk to the other side of the road to see the view. Yves and I join them. We survey the
island from the mountain-top, looking south to see mountain after mountain with not a soul
living on them. So much unoccupied land. So little population pressure. So absolutely
idiotic to have a bunch of people fighting over such a vastly underpopulated island.
"Behavior zones," Murmurs Yves, looking at the forests.
"It gives a very different view of life forms. A tree may show
us one aspect of its long term behavior, we might see exactly how it reaches into the sky,
but it's hard to realize the behavior zone of the tree extends beyond the tree
itself."
"Oh? How is that?"
"Well, the tree is a
concept, a way of behaving, and it is not
limited to an individual tree at a particular
moment. The tree-behavior is also present
in the seeds of the tree, blown about on the
winds, carried here and there over the island,
reproduced again and again by new trees forming
in their appropriate niches. To visualize
the behavior zone of the tree-concept you
have to percieve the whole distribution of
that species over this and other islands and
the thin threads of seeds connecting them
all together." We stand there looking
at the scenery and I point out to sea, "In
Papua New Guinea, I realized that corals look
very differently from this perspective. I
saw any one species of
coral as a concept spread over the whole
tropical Pacific. Its massive calcium carbonate
skeleton formed here and there on the sea
floor. Extending between these colonies I
saw long rivers of larvae like sparks blowing
from the flickering flames of living corals
as their perception, memory, reaction focused
sunlight into a dance of life. The corals
are spermatozoans, and the message the bring.
They are larvae, adventuring their memories
into the sea. They are a web of communications
as wide as sea."
As we drive down the other side of the mountain on the final leg to
Yves house he says, "I like the behavior zone idea, but I'm not sure why you think it
is the key to our problems here in New Caledonia."
"I see the stress here as an attitude problem." I begin
but Yves interrupts,
"Attitude?"
"Yes. Like in an aircraft," I demonstrate with my hands,
"The direction of flight, the way the aircraft is angled as it moves through the air,
is the aircraft's attitude. The attitude determines the path of the aircraft. With the
wrong attitude you'll never get where you want to go."
"Oh, OK."
"In English, attitude also refers to your approach to solving
problems or doing things. Again, if you have the wrong attitude you don't solve your
problems, but keep on making more."
"Yes, this seems to be the case. New Caledonia has an attitude
problem." Yves watches the road as we pass a small picnic area. Barbecue smells alert
my stomach (lunch time). The picnic area is filled with families - black, white, yellow -
milling around having fun on the beach.
"Part of this problem is seeing New Caledonia as a rock with a
collection of individuals with different needs and desires living on it. From this point
of view, the Aristotelian logic viewpoint, all we see is each person doing his or her own
thing, tracking their personal needs day by day. But, if you could photograph them over a
week's time, you'd see the tracks of all these individuals form a behavioral web. The web
covers and interacts with the whole of the island. Everyone together forms a larger kind
of creature, intimately intertwined with the plants and animals and the land to create a
living island.
"I believe this larger network of behavior can also track its
survival needs. Right now it is doing so unconsciously, unaware of itself. It does not
realize what it could be doing to improve its response to the rest of the world. With the
proper attitude, the whole island could improve its timing and responsiveness and get
better and stronger very rapidly." Yves slows and turns off the hard road onto the
dirt track leading to his home.
Freddy and Danielle set up the guest room for us and Yves turns on
the electricity and water. I walk out onto the veranda overlooking the lagoon and get out
my notebook. Another phrase of the poem has popped into my mind.
Our constant change in relative position creates error in
expected cycles. When the unexpected happens, memory fails, awareness awakens, adjusts for
survival, adjusts again, always tracking the error of expectations.
Right after this, I write 'Mana!' in the notebook. Mana is a ancient
island term. Webster defines it as a primitive superstition of some Pacific Island people.
I agree it is now superstition, but I also believe, from what I've read, it was much more
than superstition during prehistory. And something tells me it is somehow related to this
idea of the unexpected, the tracking of an organism as it moves through its environment.
We spend the afternoon feeding, laying about, playing chess and
talking about the proposed cultural association. Maybe a news letter - a pamphlet about
New Caledonia's common biological interests. A lecture series about how New Caledonia is a
living island. Photographs showing people of all sorts working together towards common
goals.
"I once saw a book called the Book of Jump. It was
done by a famous Photographer. It showed all sorts of celebrities jumping up into the air.
The act of jumping does something to a person. The way they do it reveals something
important about them. I remember one shot was of the Pope jumping. In mid-air the Pope
became just another man dressed in an odd costume. Jumping, we are all human.
"What we need is a photograph - a giant bill-board poster -
showing all kinds of people jumping. Ranging from the top political leaders through the
children in remote island villages. We could take the individual photos and then assemble
them on a white background. All the images of the people would take the overall form of
the island of New Caledonia. God, people would look at it for hours. They'd get the
message."
We sit and contemplate the vision of a thousand people jumping -
captured in mid-air. It would cost thousands of dollars. I'd just love to do it but I can
tell Yves and Danielle don't see how powerful a message it would be. Yves and I start
another chess game.
"Yves, as the director of the Aquarium, you have many
opportunities to speak on the radio and TV about natural history. Why not talk about
behavior zones and the interrelatedness of life on this small island in the Pacific?"
"Yes, I intend to do this," he says, absently, his eyes
fixed on the large wooden chess pieces.
"The approach is basically non-political and non-religious It
is a logical, scientific reason to live and work together. It shows how conflict is
unsuccessful in bringing prosperity."
We play in concentrated silence. Chess can be played two ways, one
is a game of strategy, the other a game of tactical moves. There is a basic difference in
the two games. A strategic player sets up the pieces to gain control of the board. It is a
power struggle and the motivation for any one move is to build this power.
A tactical player sets up a series of moves to attain a specific
goal. To take the queen, for example. Each move is aimed at this goal. I have noticed that
island governments play strategic politics. So do the communist governments. I, being an
American, play out and out tactical chess. Although I understand the value and power of
strategic chess.
Yves is a very good player. He seems to play both strategies. He is
in the lead for most of the game but makes two successive bad moves. "Checkmate," I say, sliding my bishop in line with his King. I think he let me
win. A good host that sees he has beaten his guest. But I can't say that. As we put the
pieces back on the board I contemplate that simple fact.
Sunset on the terrace. Tangerine Dream weaves electronic music into
the background. "If we can think of the island as one creature, the organism must
track its needs." Yves begins. "This is a very interesting idea because tracking
is a delicate behavioral process."
"Right," I answer, "Very delicate."
"There are two sorts of tracking. In the first, an animal seeks
a basic goal." Yves demonstrates this by drawing a goal, an animal, and an arrow
between the animal and its goal. "This is a fish at night on the reef and here is
some food, a school of small fish. The fish tastes the food in the water down current. It
swims like this," Yves draws a wavy line representing the path of the fish as it
hunts the source of the metabolites. "When it moves towards its goal, the taste is
stronger. The fish swims strongly in this direction. When the taste is weaker the fish
slows and turns to swim in another direction, seeking a stronger taste in the water. This
is what you mean by tracking, correct?"
"Right. An organism seeking a goal, keeping the sensory signal
strong. Everything does it all the time. Even chemical systems oscillate back and forth
tracking an equilibrium."
"Yes," Yves taps the drawing with his pencil, "The
actual change in taste may be caused by a difference of only a very small percentage of
the number of atoms of the food in the water. And the number of atoms of the food may be
dissolved in billions of atoms of water. Yet this small change in a very tiny amount of
matter can cause even a very large fish to alter its course and swim in a new
direction."
"Exactly," I like his analogy. Even a very big fish like
New Caledonia, tracking the taste of something, will be sensitive to a very small change
at just the right time. Presented in just the right way, the seemingly insignificant
change will alter the direction of the island megabeast. A very small change in direction can result in a very big change in the final destination. "It's a matter of
attracting the beast's attention."
 "Perhaps
we should make comic books," Danielle suggests, her big eyes peering through the
sunset at us.
"We would need an artist for this. And a scenario," Yves
considers the idea seriously.
"How about Captain Yves?" Freddy suggests. "Captain
Yves is like Getafix in Asterix; a provider of secret information to the other characters.
An agent of the Terran Intelligence Service working for the mind of the planet."
"But science is not the same as Getafix. He is a
sorcerer." Yves objects, "Science does not have hocus pokus. It is not
mysterious."
"Mathematics is mysterious to most people," I side with
Freddy. "Besides, Asterix does not think of Getafix as mysterious. Getafix is
practical and offers real solutions to solve community problems. Sorcerers, in many cases,
were the early scientists cast into purgatory by the Church. The Church was, and always
has been, the mysterious one. In its attempt to survive as an idea system, the Church
sensed sorcerers endangered their own mysterious (magic) power base. So it condemned all
kinds of science as sorcery and witchcraft for almost a thousand years."
"I certainly agree with that," Injects Freddy.
"I suspect the Church
has always known about communal self awareness
and has used this concept to gain its own
position of power and control. A consistent
feature of all cults is that the members are
something special, different and superior
to any other cult. They and they alone will
reach salvation. The Church even refers to
itself as the Body. It viciously attacks autonomous
communal self-awareness because it is contra-productive
to those who would prey on society's energies
for their own survival." As I say this,
I'm thinking about the Holy
Mama in the Solomon Islands. He was a
man who knew how to kindle community self-awareness.
And the Methodist Missionaries persecuted
him all his life.
"But religion offers an outside spirit which people can turn to
- something outside themselves - something which can answer their prayers." Yves
protests.
"So does science. Science offers a larger, self-aware spirit.
The communication web between all people. Unlike the mummified, all knowing metaphysical
Church God, Science's God can be seen. And it learns."
"Lets have dinner," Freddy suggests. She does not like to
get into this subject. Probably a good idea, God is one of those control words to shut off
minds.
After dinner, I show slides of our travels and Yves shows slides of
his travels. It is a marvelous interchange of visions and memories accompanied by the
electronic music of Jean Michel Jarre.
Later, we retire to the lawn to overlook Sea, smoke cigars and drink
some brandy. Yves returns to tracking. "As I said, there are two kinds of tracking.
Two different ways decisions can be made."
"Oh?" I reply, sleepily.
"Yes. In the first, our fish was moving along in the night,
seeking its prey. Tasting the water, deciding which way to turn to keep on the track of
its food. It is a hungry fish and determined. Each move of its muscles is keyed to its
mental hunt. But suppose, as it swims, it tastes a few atoms emitted by a female fish
which is about to produce eggs?"
"Ahh, this could change everything." I chuckle.
"Yes, it changes the mind of the fish. The old search is
abandoned and the fish moves towards another goal." Yves has a good point.
"Right. Because reproduction is a different kind of goal than
feeding. Not just another target of food." I sit there and try to think about this.
"Organisms have different centers of awareness, just like we
do." I muse out loud. "There are four basic phases of animal awareness. The
first is the to or away phase, seeking food or drink or fleeing bodily harm. The second
phase is the up and down phase - the ranking of an organism in the hirearchy of nature and
in the pecking order of its own kind. Animals compare their relative strengths with other
males or females. Then there is the right and left phase - the tensions of deciding to
move as an individual or as a part of a group. I suppose this is the political phase. This
leads to the next phase, which is a quite different direction - through time; the reproductive phase - sex."
Yves flicks the ashes off his cigar and nods, "Yes, and all the
phases eventually link together. The political phase is based on attraction to desires,
dominence of others, deciding which way to go as a group, and this eventually assures the
survival of the group through time."
"Yes." We ponder this for awhile. Danielle and Freddy are
talking softly in French. They get up and go inside together. "It's like 3D
vision," I suggest, watching them leave.
"How is it like 3D vision?" Yves asks.
"Your rightside mind and eye sees one view of reality. The
leftside mind and eye sees another view from a different perspective. Lets say the
rightside mind is the center of awareness for phase one - bodily survival. The leftside
mind is the center of awareness for phase two - social relationships."
"Yes, I think this may actually be so," Yves agrees.
"The two eyes together create, in a union of the left and right
visions, something brand new and different, impossible for either brain half to achieve
except during the interchange of information between the two minds. A three dimensional
view of the world around. In the same way, an animal must exchange information
between the individual phase in one hemisphere of the brain and the community phase in the
other hemisphere. This interechange of information - normally stress - is what we have
called the third phase - right and left. The whole process generates a shift of
perspective to create a vision through time." I finish.
"Yes, I think you are correct." Yves gazes out over Sea.
The view is very 3D.
"There is a harmonic to the first three layers of
awareness." I comment after awhile.
"What are these?" Yves asks.
"Like a harmonic of radio frequencies, the awareness harmonics
deal with the same kinds of problems of existence but from a higher perspective. A second
order of to and from, up and down, left and right and through time.
"There is a kind of gateway - a mind valve, to the higher
harmonics. The valve shuts if we view the first two phases of awareness - bodily survival
and dominance - with anxiety. In this case, we are addicted to personal desires - wealth,
comfort, eating, sex - and the result is evil and self-serving. We use our power over
others to satisfy personal desires for survival and sex."
"The valve to the next harmonic opens when our mind views the
lower phases calmly. Awareness enters into the second harmonic. Here, in the first stage
of the second level, we perceive physical needs are easily satisfied. Food and drink and
shelter are not so important. We are, after all, living in a very obliging ecosystem.
Staying alive and uninjured is not terribly difficult."
"And the same with sex," agrees Yves.
"Yes, that's true. The first phase of the higher level is
attraction or fear of this higher level - attraction to, for example, spirituality. And
the second harmonic to the dominance center perceives up and down levels of our own being
as parallel with other beings; like knowing the cells of our body are in fact part of us
and not something to compete with. The right left phase becomes the selection between
alternative relationships with other beings - not just humans."
"Oh yes, of course. I know." Yves sips the last of his
brandy. "And so the higher harmonic of the through time phase must be bliss. Satori.
The level where the observer attains perfect harmony with the environment and the two
blend together and become one with the universe."
"The ultimate levels of power." I finish my brandy, too. I
think Yves has skipped a couple of harmonic levels but its getting late and our
French/English barrier has exhausted me.
"Would you like anything else?" Yves asks. "Another
brandy perhaps?"
"Bedtime," Freddy says from the doorway.
"We must continue this another time," Yves gets up.
"I would like to think about how we can use these ideas for altering the course of
our island megabeast."
 .
At 3 AM, a squadron of mosquitos dives through the window and
attacks my head. I pull the sheet over it and they scream in rage and make passes at my
protruding fingers.
"God, how can anyone live ashore?" Grumbles Freddy
sleepily.
"Especially without screens." I peek out and the squadron
leader sees me with it's heat-seeking sensors and dives to the attack
'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow.'
|
