This is only the second of your amazing articles I have read, the first one being about Asher's artwork.
Please excuse the spelling but I am recently back from the Heart Hospital following a stroke and then a heart attack " black " eye. More specifically the black blob hanging to the left side of my nose is in my left field of vision which is currently unavailable to take signals from either orb, leaving me with a rather fuzzy picture of the world that does not comport with the way that I've always read a line at a time because I'm not sure where that line begins because I have some kind of ghost writing hanging to the left of the screen.
Proofing and editing are also difficult but I will try to clean up areas that are likely to be confusing to a reader.
What I wanted to say in this besides sniveling about my difficulties is that you are a really good writer and write about very interesting topics which I have been reluctant to pursue because I knew they would hook me in and at 80 years old with a very complex family life and a high maintenance lifestyle of exercise, nutrition and sleep and "a head full of ideas that are driving me insane" and recent DNA driven heart problems that have made it obvious I do not have forever to download those ideas and I don't want them turned to ashes, no matter how decorative the urn.
I did not intend to read this one but the word Mega flood drew me in and caused me to return three or four times after I stepped out to do something and had to rapidly scroll through to find my place again until I finally finished it this morning.
As I suspected not only did I find your topic to be amazing but you're writing to be amazing as well, including not only your ability to convey the all you feel at such amazing events but also those little aside comments about Britain's lack of tolerable weather and detectable emotions.
I always said that I wish Isaac Asimov had written all my high school textbooks and I would put you in that same category along with folks like Arthur Clark and Robert Audrey.
Perhaps if we somehow muddle through this current anti-science authoritarian mess we're in perhaps we will take steps to see that understanding how things work would go a long way towards useful solutions that don't involve Jewish space lasers and other total nonsense.
Having met you on the writers it is obvious to me that you are not only a good writer but a good person and with your educational bent can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem although it's going to take a good Mass psychologist to help us figure out how to educate people who do not think everything's amazing but rather simple and any hint of nuance is some kind of "woke" conspiracy to undermine the natural order of white male superiority as was firmly established and the collection of Legends and folk wisdom known as the Bible.
That bit about the human footprint made me wonder if at least some of the minor Mega floods might not have been witnessed and passed on, with a little extra baggage like " and God did that to punish the Wicked Ways that I don't agree with, so God must not agree with them either and you better look out or God and I will get you again!"
I have apparently wasted enough of your time already and as I Tire I find my thumb hitting the wrong place more often, creating even more confusion in my healing brain so it's time for lunch and a nap to reboot.
(And yikes, you've really been through the mill there - I'm so sorry to hear! That is just....a lot. I hope you're able to be comfortable as you recover from that perfect storm of awfulness.)
>>"That bit about the human footprint made me wonder if at least some of the minor Mega floods might not have been witnessed and passed on, with a little extra baggage like " and God did that to punish the Wicked Ways that I don't agree with, so God must not agree with them either and you better look out or God and I will get you again!""
I guess that's what might have happened? It's impossible to say, alas. But attaching sacred (and religious) meanings to events like this is what we *assume* humans did back then, if only for the fact that we still do it (even in the form of, say, the tiny superstitious suspicion that The Universe is trying to tell you something, which I guess everyone gets every now and again)...
But - and this is a huge "but" - perhaps ancient peoples *didn't* attach sacred meanings to events like this, in the same way we define "sacred" nowadays? Maybe they had something closer to what we think of as "scientific and rationalist" views? I wonder about this a lot. With the amount of information we *don't* have about what was in the heads of our ancestors....? And considering we now have a tendency to think "oh, I bet they thought it was God" which might be heavily influenced by OUR experience of studying Western history over the last 2 millenia...?
Who knows? Perhaps they saw the world very, very differently to anything we can now get our heads around? It's fun to think!
It seems to me, often epically misled and mistaken, that our understanding of European History (and the history of America, civilizations, the entire “West” and “East”) get us into big trouble. It even appears that the usefulness of all this history lies in our interpretation of it. Since we humans are very good at self delusion there is quite a bit of delusional history around.
The universe is frantically trying to tell us something but not everyone is good at deep listening.
Your wide-eyed wonder, which you capture in a way that is both visceral and utterly charming, is a gift for all of us. To be all sappy and decidedly not-British about it. Thank you. 😊
Absolutely mad! It's also so interesting to see how advances in raw computing power can lead to these kind of breakthroughs, as with the Moon simulation Phil talks about - it's not just a case of "we can learn the same thing as we learned before, but faster", it's "by calculating faster, we can learn something totally new here", which is incredible (and unexpected, if you're a non-expert reading this stuff).
Same! It would definitely be a mind-unhinging thing to see. (And that's for us with a reassuringly understandable explanation of what's happening! Imagine seeing it and you had no idea what was going on? All the yikes.)
I think I've told you that I wrote an entire novel based on characters actually being there for the Black Sea Deluge theory. It was great fun to imagine how my characters reacted to that.
Such an amazing read, as always! I love how you just pull us along at every turn -- always something I'm excited to see in my inbox.
I was thinking about how speculative/science fiction novels often talk about some big environmental event that marked a shift in humanity's approach to certain things (like climate, or water usage) and wondering if we're going to see some of those in our lifetimes, or if they exist in the realm of speculation. But I should have remembered about the mega floods!
The species whose footprints were found in Norfolk was a hominin thought to be Homo heidelbergensis, I think? Which was living in Europe at that time. I've wondered so often if there were hominins to witness one of these mega floods, but on the other hand why should the witnesses of other creatures be any less compelling?
Aw. Well, considering the quality of YOUR work, I'm going to take that compliment for a change instead of blusteringly shrugging it off. *pins compliment to lapel proudly*
Regarding the narrative and persuasive power of catastrophes - oh boy, this seems like such a rich topic to explore, considering the current desperate need to persuade people of the urgency of a gradual catastrophe *points at sky*. I mean, we're quickly reaching the point where it's no longer gradual enough to be ignored, and people are going to see realtime effects of the changing climate, so I wonder how much that's going to energise people's thinking?
The environmentalist Michael E. Mann has written about this, I think: how staunch denialists cling to the "it's not happening" narrative to the point where it's no longer feasible to do so, then switch straight to "it's too late to do anything now". What's the best way to interrupt that process with a motivating story of action and change? Can anything be learned from professional storytellers, including scifi authors? I'm sure Kim Stanley Robinson would have a few ideas, for starters...
>>"The species whose footprints were found in Norfolk was a hominin thought to be Homo heidelbergensis, I think?"
Yes! You're right. Whoops, I should have been more specific - not Homo sapiens (anatomically modern human), the earliest known example of which is from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco around 300,000 years ago. The Norfolk ones are thought to be earlier humans - as you say, heidelbergensis, or the contested name Homo antecessor, rather romantically meaning "explorer" or "pioneer" (controversial because some sources think antecessor is just part of heidelbergensis). I'll add a correction/clarification. Thanky!
Nope, you're right, it was thought to be antecessor! Though yes, the whole existence of that species is still a bit speculative? So much more to learn and discover ... so exciting.
I think Mann has it basically right. There's probably a lot we can learn from storytellers, but the basic thing I think is to meet people where they are, understand their identities and what is a step too far for them, and then accept that there are just some realities they aren't going to agree to. That last is the hardest for me, I think. The whole idea of working with people and getting them on board without insisting that they agree with reality -- or reality as I see it -- is just really, really difficult. For me, psychologically.
NOPE, you were right too! Depending on who you talk to, heidelbergensis *is* antecessor, so - let's both agree that we agree, and grab some popcorn and watch the palaeoanthropologists fight it out...
>>"The whole idea of working with people and getting them on board without insisting that they agree with reality -- or reality as I see it -- is just really, really difficult. For me, psychologically."
Absolutely me too. It's incredibly hard. I've got Monica Guzman's book on using curiosity to bridge those kinds of divides - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691561/i-never-thought-of-it-that-way-by-monica-guzman/ - and I will report back. But having conversations with folk who refuse to unbend their opinions, to even accept that they *might* be wrong, that's a skill I need a lot more practice with. I guess we all do. (And even saying that makes a little outraged voice pipe up in my mind, yelling, "WHY SHOULD WE!??!! THEY'RE THE ONES WHO ARE WRONG...")
Yeah, it's something I just struggle with all the time. I've really got to let it go because I live in a place where we need a lot of people doing a lot of things, and so many people willing to do the things except not if it requires them to, say, believe in climate change. I can't force it and can't change it and yet it's so hard to let go of! And that's on me to do something about.
What gives me hope here are the people doing two things in a really effective way:
1) tricking the bad actors into doing good things by manipulating their toxic self-interest into the service of a good cause without them knowing (or caring)...
2) the people with the ability to discuss things in a way that builds a bridge between the Crazy and the Rational, so the person they're talking to can stroll across it on their own, and then, when they're almost the whole way across, come to their own "unsettling" conclusions about how, maybe, "those people" aren't so stupid and evil after all, and that it's worth continuing to talk with them rather than flinging insults or attacking them, figuratively or literally.
I think there's a lot of mileage in both these approaches. And potentially a lot of ground regained?
I see some ragged writing right off the bat the heart attack left me with a black eye for instance. I did this with talk to text and I'm not that good at it yet and proofreading is really a strong with my eyesight right now
if it helps, there's actually an edit function with these comments! Just click on the three little dots at the bottom of your comment, select "Edit Comment" and you're good to rewrite anything you've written. (Extremely comforting, for someone like me who is always guilty of blasting out typos in his enthusiastic haste to say something.) But I can understand if proofreading is not an option right now.
However you do it, I appreciate your words and I bet I'll always get the gist of them. 🙂
Love just flowing with your thoughts on this and imagining the scale of those mega-falls. That it's not just a Peter Jackson fantasy is mind-blowing. A real whiff of 'godly' perspective!
Me neither! So many times I've been on deck of a ferry crossing from France to England and having no idea of what was underneath us.
There's also a set of cliffs near my hometown in the northeast of England - and I was recently stunned to discover that just offshore from them, one of the most celebrated naval battles of the American War Of Independence (!!!) took place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Flamborough_Head
Everywhere is a little mystery waiting to be solved. (Or maybe not so little.)
This is only the second of your amazing articles I have read, the first one being about Asher's artwork.
Please excuse the spelling but I am recently back from the Heart Hospital following a stroke and then a heart attack " black " eye. More specifically the black blob hanging to the left side of my nose is in my left field of vision which is currently unavailable to take signals from either orb, leaving me with a rather fuzzy picture of the world that does not comport with the way that I've always read a line at a time because I'm not sure where that line begins because I have some kind of ghost writing hanging to the left of the screen.
Proofing and editing are also difficult but I will try to clean up areas that are likely to be confusing to a reader.
What I wanted to say in this besides sniveling about my difficulties is that you are a really good writer and write about very interesting topics which I have been reluctant to pursue because I knew they would hook me in and at 80 years old with a very complex family life and a high maintenance lifestyle of exercise, nutrition and sleep and "a head full of ideas that are driving me insane" and recent DNA driven heart problems that have made it obvious I do not have forever to download those ideas and I don't want them turned to ashes, no matter how decorative the urn.
I did not intend to read this one but the word Mega flood drew me in and caused me to return three or four times after I stepped out to do something and had to rapidly scroll through to find my place again until I finally finished it this morning.
As I suspected not only did I find your topic to be amazing but you're writing to be amazing as well, including not only your ability to convey the all you feel at such amazing events but also those little aside comments about Britain's lack of tolerable weather and detectable emotions.
I always said that I wish Isaac Asimov had written all my high school textbooks and I would put you in that same category along with folks like Arthur Clark and Robert Audrey.
Perhaps if we somehow muddle through this current anti-science authoritarian mess we're in perhaps we will take steps to see that understanding how things work would go a long way towards useful solutions that don't involve Jewish space lasers and other total nonsense.
Having met you on the writers it is obvious to me that you are not only a good writer but a good person and with your educational bent can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem although it's going to take a good Mass psychologist to help us figure out how to educate people who do not think everything's amazing but rather simple and any hint of nuance is some kind of "woke" conspiracy to undermine the natural order of white male superiority as was firmly established and the collection of Legends and folk wisdom known as the Bible.
That bit about the human footprint made me wonder if at least some of the minor Mega floods might not have been witnessed and passed on, with a little extra baggage like " and God did that to punish the Wicked Ways that I don't agree with, so God must not agree with them either and you better look out or God and I will get you again!"
I have apparently wasted enough of your time already and as I Tire I find my thumb hitting the wrong place more often, creating even more confusion in my healing brain so it's time for lunch and a nap to reboot.
Thank you so much, Pete! So kind of you to say.
(And yikes, you've really been through the mill there - I'm so sorry to hear! That is just....a lot. I hope you're able to be comfortable as you recover from that perfect storm of awfulness.)
>>"That bit about the human footprint made me wonder if at least some of the minor Mega floods might not have been witnessed and passed on, with a little extra baggage like " and God did that to punish the Wicked Ways that I don't agree with, so God must not agree with them either and you better look out or God and I will get you again!""
I guess that's what might have happened? It's impossible to say, alas. But attaching sacred (and religious) meanings to events like this is what we *assume* humans did back then, if only for the fact that we still do it (even in the form of, say, the tiny superstitious suspicion that The Universe is trying to tell you something, which I guess everyone gets every now and again)...
But - and this is a huge "but" - perhaps ancient peoples *didn't* attach sacred meanings to events like this, in the same way we define "sacred" nowadays? Maybe they had something closer to what we think of as "scientific and rationalist" views? I wonder about this a lot. With the amount of information we *don't* have about what was in the heads of our ancestors....? And considering we now have a tendency to think "oh, I bet they thought it was God" which might be heavily influenced by OUR experience of studying Western history over the last 2 millenia...?
Who knows? Perhaps they saw the world very, very differently to anything we can now get our heads around? It's fun to think!
It seems to me, often epically misled and mistaken, that our understanding of European History (and the history of America, civilizations, the entire “West” and “East”) get us into big trouble. It even appears that the usefulness of all this history lies in our interpretation of it. Since we humans are very good at self delusion there is quite a bit of delusional history around.
The universe is frantically trying to tell us something but not everyone is good at deep listening.
Your wide-eyed wonder, which you capture in a way that is both visceral and utterly charming, is a gift for all of us. To be all sappy and decidedly not-British about it. Thank you. 😊
And you are the absolute nicest. THE NICEST. Thank you. 😊
(And I'll also take your incorrect identification of my ignorance as "wide-eyed wonder", and run with that gratefully as well.)
As always, so mind blowing! The moon could have formed in hours?! So interesting to think of.
Absolutely mad! It's also so interesting to see how advances in raw computing power can lead to these kind of breakthroughs, as with the Moon simulation Phil talks about - it's not just a case of "we can learn the same thing as we learned before, but faster", it's "by calculating faster, we can learn something totally new here", which is incredible (and unexpected, if you're a non-expert reading this stuff).
I'd totally want to see that! I might lose my marbles, but what a sight...
Same! It would definitely be a mind-unhinging thing to see. (And that's for us with a reassuringly understandable explanation of what's happening! Imagine seeing it and you had no idea what was going on? All the yikes.)
I think I've told you that I wrote an entire novel based on characters actually being there for the Black Sea Deluge theory. It was great fun to imagine how my characters reacted to that.
Such an amazing read, as always! I love how you just pull us along at every turn -- always something I'm excited to see in my inbox.
I was thinking about how speculative/science fiction novels often talk about some big environmental event that marked a shift in humanity's approach to certain things (like climate, or water usage) and wondering if we're going to see some of those in our lifetimes, or if they exist in the realm of speculation. But I should have remembered about the mega floods!
The species whose footprints were found in Norfolk was a hominin thought to be Homo heidelbergensis, I think? Which was living in Europe at that time. I've wondered so often if there were hominins to witness one of these mega floods, but on the other hand why should the witnesses of other creatures be any less compelling?
Aw. Well, considering the quality of YOUR work, I'm going to take that compliment for a change instead of blusteringly shrugging it off. *pins compliment to lapel proudly*
Regarding the narrative and persuasive power of catastrophes - oh boy, this seems like such a rich topic to explore, considering the current desperate need to persuade people of the urgency of a gradual catastrophe *points at sky*. I mean, we're quickly reaching the point where it's no longer gradual enough to be ignored, and people are going to see realtime effects of the changing climate, so I wonder how much that's going to energise people's thinking?
The environmentalist Michael E. Mann has written about this, I think: how staunch denialists cling to the "it's not happening" narrative to the point where it's no longer feasible to do so, then switch straight to "it's too late to do anything now". What's the best way to interrupt that process with a motivating story of action and change? Can anything be learned from professional storytellers, including scifi authors? I'm sure Kim Stanley Robinson would have a few ideas, for starters...
>>"The species whose footprints were found in Norfolk was a hominin thought to be Homo heidelbergensis, I think?"
Yes! You're right. Whoops, I should have been more specific - not Homo sapiens (anatomically modern human), the earliest known example of which is from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco around 300,000 years ago. The Norfolk ones are thought to be earlier humans - as you say, heidelbergensis, or the contested name Homo antecessor, rather romantically meaning "explorer" or "pioneer" (controversial because some sources think antecessor is just part of heidelbergensis). I'll add a correction/clarification. Thanky!
Nope, you're right, it was thought to be antecessor! Though yes, the whole existence of that species is still a bit speculative? So much more to learn and discover ... so exciting.
I think Mann has it basically right. There's probably a lot we can learn from storytellers, but the basic thing I think is to meet people where they are, understand their identities and what is a step too far for them, and then accept that there are just some realities they aren't going to agree to. That last is the hardest for me, I think. The whole idea of working with people and getting them on board without insisting that they agree with reality -- or reality as I see it -- is just really, really difficult. For me, psychologically.
NOPE, you were right too! Depending on who you talk to, heidelbergensis *is* antecessor, so - let's both agree that we agree, and grab some popcorn and watch the palaeoanthropologists fight it out...
>>"The whole idea of working with people and getting them on board without insisting that they agree with reality -- or reality as I see it -- is just really, really difficult. For me, psychologically."
Absolutely me too. It's incredibly hard. I've got Monica Guzman's book on using curiosity to bridge those kinds of divides - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691561/i-never-thought-of-it-that-way-by-monica-guzman/ - and I will report back. But having conversations with folk who refuse to unbend their opinions, to even accept that they *might* be wrong, that's a skill I need a lot more practice with. I guess we all do. (And even saying that makes a little outraged voice pipe up in my mind, yelling, "WHY SHOULD WE!??!! THEY'RE THE ONES WHO ARE WRONG...")
POPCORN. I'm all for it.
Yeah, it's something I just struggle with all the time. I've really got to let it go because I live in a place where we need a lot of people doing a lot of things, and so many people willing to do the things except not if it requires them to, say, believe in climate change. I can't force it and can't change it and yet it's so hard to let go of! And that's on me to do something about.
What gives me hope here are the people doing two things in a really effective way:
1) tricking the bad actors into doing good things by manipulating their toxic self-interest into the service of a good cause without them knowing (or caring)...
2) the people with the ability to discuss things in a way that builds a bridge between the Crazy and the Rational, so the person they're talking to can stroll across it on their own, and then, when they're almost the whole way across, come to their own "unsettling" conclusions about how, maybe, "those people" aren't so stupid and evil after all, and that it's worth continuing to talk with them rather than flinging insults or attacking them, figuratively or literally.
I think there's a lot of mileage in both these approaches. And potentially a lot of ground regained?
Especially #2, so true. We can arrive at the same places without necessarily thinking the exact same thoughts.
I see some ragged writing right off the bat the heart attack left me with a black eye for instance. I did this with talk to text and I'm not that good at it yet and proofreading is really a strong with my eyesight right now
if it helps, there's actually an edit function with these comments! Just click on the three little dots at the bottom of your comment, select "Edit Comment" and you're good to rewrite anything you've written. (Extremely comforting, for someone like me who is always guilty of blasting out typos in his enthusiastic haste to say something.) But I can understand if proofreading is not an option right now.
However you do it, I appreciate your words and I bet I'll always get the gist of them. 🙂
Love just flowing with your thoughts on this and imagining the scale of those mega-falls. That it's not just a Peter Jackson fantasy is mind-blowing. A real whiff of 'godly' perspective!
Thank you, Elaine! Yeah, the scale of these things is mindnumbing. There's actually an artist's reconstruction here of what those first waterfalls looked like, before the waters rose and the land-bridge broke apart completely: https://www.science.org/content/article/original-brexit-how-tremendous-ice-age-waterfalls-cut-britain-europe It's quite the sight...
That's an incredible rendition! Really brings it to life.
Big wow. Thanks.
Wow so interesting and you make it fun to read
Thank you, Kerrie. 🙂
Awesome article -- I loved my visit to the Dover Cliffs a few years ago; didn’t know about that catastrophic history!
Me neither! So many times I've been on deck of a ferry crossing from France to England and having no idea of what was underneath us.
There's also a set of cliffs near my hometown in the northeast of England - and I was recently stunned to discover that just offshore from them, one of the most celebrated naval battles of the American War Of Independence (!!!) took place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Flamborough_Head
Everywhere is a little mystery waiting to be solved. (Or maybe not so little.)