840
bring to the task. There is a divide between weights and measures, diets and mobility, as preludes to what may well be a host, not of other differences, but of similarities. Oregonians relish the fact, those who know, that their resident hummingbird
stays in Oregon all winter; loves the color red; craves sugar, and by all indications
was well named, in terms of “Anna” and the final years of French nobility. Will she
be around 50 million years from now? Probably not.
97.3 Scintilla Conscientiae
As we endeavor to elucidate the prospects for a general embrace of our internal
scintilla conscientiae (Saint Jerome’s name for it), we grapple beyond mere praxis
into the realms of ideology. We seek guidance from contemporary philosophy, large
problems analysis, neuroscience, artificial intelligence. As simple as safeguarding a
bird’s habitat may sound, we are finding it incredibly challenging to do so, regardless the number of hummingbird feeders we are prompted to seasonally install. Yet,
every time we move, make a sound, do anything, we are testing the boundaries of
community acceptance and disturbance with regard to such vulnerable avians.
We look out into the world and see a distant glow of a signal light, lighthouses
shivering gray and cobalt across the tropics, twilight in the Karakoram; casting
uncertain cold lights upon the last of the mauve corals and the first knells of something nascent, quavering on the horizon; clues beyond the human meaning exciting
our perpetual, extroverted intrigues. But no more than to instill a solemnity by
which we restrain rather than investigate. The inward-dwellingness of poetic reverie
Fig. 97.2 Hummingbird in Big Sur California. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
97 The Biosphere Beyond Humanity
bring to the task. There is a divide between weights and measures, diets and mobility, as preludes to what may well be a host, not of other differences, but of similarities. Oregonians relish the fact, those who know, that their resident hummingbird
stays in Oregon all winter; loves the color red; craves sugar, and by all indications
was well named, in terms of “Anna” and the final years of French nobility. Will she
be around 50 million years from now? Probably not.
97.3 Scintilla Conscientiae
As we endeavor to elucidate the prospects for a general embrace of our internal
scintilla conscientiae (Saint Jerome’s name for it), we grapple beyond mere praxis
into the realms of ideology. We seek guidance from contemporary philosophy, large
problems analysis, neuroscience, artificial intelligence. As simple as safeguarding a
bird’s habitat may sound, we are finding it incredibly challenging to do so, regardless the number of hummingbird feeders we are prompted to seasonally install. Yet,
every time we move, make a sound, do anything, we are testing the boundaries of
community acceptance and disturbance with regard to such vulnerable avians.
We look out into the world and see a distant glow of a signal light, lighthouses
shivering gray and cobalt across the tropics, twilight in the Karakoram; casting
uncertain cold lights upon the last of the mauve corals and the first knells of something nascent, quavering on the horizon; clues beyond the human meaning exciting
our perpetual, extroverted intrigues. But no more than to instill a solemnity by
which we restrain rather than investigate. The inward-dwellingness of poetic reverie
Fig. 97.2 Hummingbird in Big Sur California. (Photo © M.C. Tobias)
97 The Biosphere Beyond Humanity