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2020 Vision
The Living Sea
(Rehearsal Transcript)
First aired 19 June 1998
What is 2020 Vision?
Gillian Deacon introduces Robert J. Sawyer as a
biologist in the Year 2020 who leads a team that has made a
profound discovery.
Gillian: Dr. Sawyer, what is it that you have discovered?
Rob: Gill, you've heard the expression "The Living Sea."
Gillian: Sure. It was the title of a book by Jacques
Cousteau, wasn't it?
Rob: Exactly. What we've discovered is that it isn't
just a metaphor. It's literally true: taken as a whole, the
water that covers 71% of our planet is one giant organism.
Gillian: That's a bit hard to swallow. After all, water
is a pretty simple compound just two hydrogens and an oxygen.
Rob: Distilled water is simple, yes. But seawater is
enormously complex. We've known for decades that seawater and
human blood plasma have highly similar chemical compositions.
And, of course, sea water doesn't just contain salt, but also a
great many other dissolved minerals. It's an extraordinarily
complex liquid.
Gillian: And you're saying this liquid is alive?
Rob: Not just the liquid but, in total, everything
that's in it. Our blood doesn't just consist of plasma, after
all; it also consists of cells and platelets. The fish, the
plankton, the mollusks, the krill, the seaweed, the algae, the
kelp these are also parts of this vast world-spanning life
form. Just as our body contains various specialized structures,
so too does the living sea.
Gillian: I'll grant you that the sea is complex but
I'm still not sure why you say it's one living organism?
Rob: We've been using satellites and deep-sea probes to
map ocean currents and the dispersal of mineral streamers
throughout the water and they're not random. They form
patterns and interconnections, and they can move in ways that are
contrary to what you'd expect simply based on wind patterns, the
ocean-floor geography, and so on. The streamers of dissolved
minerals very diffuse, but still detectable persist for
very long periods; they seem to form the equivalent of a neural
network, such as the ones that exist in our brains but on a
vastly larger, and vastly more complex, scale.
Gillian: You're saying the ocean isn't just alive, but it
also thinks?
Rob: We don't know yet. But, remember, the ocean doesn't
go through generations, the way we do. This is the same ocean
that once surrounded the original supercontinent of Pangaea.
This one lifeform has existed continuously for billions of years.
Could consciousness have emerged in that time? Who knows? But I
wouldn't rule out the possibility.
Gillian: Well, if the world ocean is conscious, do you
suppose it's aware of us?
Rob: I don't know. It's a matter of scale; we are so
incredibly puny compared to it, it may be impossible for it to
detect us, or for us to ever communicate with it. Besides, given
all the garbage we've dumped into it over the centuries, I'm not
sure that it's a wise idea to let it know we're here.
Gillian: Why not?
Rob: I told you: the ocean can move itself; it wouldn't
take much effort on its part, if it wanted to, to send giant
waves washing over every coastal community on the planet and
since ninety percent of humanity lives in coastal communities, it
could wipe almost all of us out.
Gillian: Sort of a modern day Noah's flood, eh?
Rob: Well, I wouldn't equate the ocean with God, but it
is clearly this world's dominant life form. From space, there's
not a single human-made object that's visible but the ocean is
clearly visible. In fact, given what we know now, we should
probably stop calling this Planet Earth. It really is Planet
Water.
Gillian: Dr. Sawyer, thank you for joining us.
More Good Reading
Other "2020 Vision" scenarios
Rob's CBC Radio Science FACTion columns
"2020 Vision" press release
Rob on TV with lots of stills!
Media backgrounder on Rob Sawyer
Radio-TV Interview Report ad for Factoring Humanity
Radio-TV Interview Report ad for Frameshift
My Very Occasional Newsletter
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