Where would one sit, if the sky were the ground, and the ground were the sky? How would buildings be rooted within a blue sky? Where would mothers walk their children, or how would kids run out to play? Surely, with all of our technology, we could not reach up and touch the ground to build from sidewalks of clouds. Would we survive, amidst the pumping of pollution into the sky where we walk - or would we be pumping our pollution into the face of the earth?
In an upside down world the frosty green grass would hang crisply down towards the sky. Snow flakes would drift up from nothingness. Party balloons would fly up into the ground. Little girls would climb up green-feathered trees and reach out, crowing, “Look, Mommy! I reached the root!” The old black-and-white movies would deliver a passionate kiss shared beneath a clear, blue-glass lake. Rainbows would reach out and touch us like fog, and the ground above us would seem dark. Unknown, even.
If we didn’t have intelligence to build a plane, and didn’t have a billion years to sprout wings, how would we fly or rest on the silver charted surface of our ozone layers? Would the birds become like worms, and the bugs worm into the sky? Would the street-lights rise and blaze at noon, and perhaps set dimly at night?
If the whole world was shaken like a salt and pepper shaker, what would make it land up-right? If we were all to evolve again - assuming we have slowly evolved to the intelligent beings we are today - what would keep our brains from replacing our feet, and our feet from taking the place of our brains?
I believe evolution itself cannot have taken place, and creation is the only logical reason for the way we are and for the direction our world faces. I only wonder, if we were to be created again, if our philosophy would land just as upside-down in our intelligent liberal world, and into our intricate, ignorant heads as it is now.
In an upside down world the frosty green grass would hang crisply down towards the sky. Snow flakes would drift up from nothingness. Party balloons would fly up into the ground. Little girls would climb up green-feathered trees and reach out, crowing, “Look, Mommy! I reached the root!” The old black-and-white movies would deliver a passionate kiss shared beneath a clear, blue-glass lake. Rainbows would reach out and touch us like fog, and the ground above us would seem dark. Unknown, even.
If we didn’t have intelligence to build a plane, and didn’t have a billion years to sprout wings, how would we fly or rest on the silver charted surface of our ozone layers? Would the birds become like worms, and the bugs worm into the sky? Would the street-lights rise and blaze at noon, and perhaps set dimly at night?
If the whole world was shaken like a salt and pepper shaker, what would make it land up-right? If we were all to evolve again - assuming we have slowly evolved to the intelligent beings we are today - what would keep our brains from replacing our feet, and our feet from taking the place of our brains?
I believe evolution itself cannot have taken place, and creation is the only logical reason for the way we are and for the direction our world faces. I only wonder, if we were to be created again, if our philosophy would land just as upside-down in our intelligent liberal world, and into our intricate, ignorant heads as it is now.
4 comments:
Nice little post. Beautiful images.
Of course, being an Australian, I really have to make note that, of course, living in Australia, we are upside down all the time. We hang off the bottom of the globe of the Earth, rooted to the ground by sheer gravitational forces alone. In a way, it's slightly disconcerting: But in another way, in the universe, there isn't really any up and down or left and right at all. Which prompted me to read the Wikipedia entry, just to check!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_direction
So we only have a concept of "down" because that's the most obvious influence around us - the gravitational pull that draws objects down to the earth's service. When we travel up into orbit, we are only going "up" until we escape the earths gravity: then we have no clear directional reference until we approach something else that exerts a significant gravitational force, like the moon, which then draws us "down" to the moon. So, when we land on the moon, even though we're still going "up" from the earth, we're going "down" onto the moon.
Because of the world being spherical, you got me thinking: because the idea of an upside down world is actually impossible: if you turned the earth "upside down", you would still just have a sphere: the sky would be where it is, the ground in the same spot, down would still be down - just the poles would be at opposite ends.
So how to turn the earth "upside down?" Perhaps it could be turned "inside out"! If you imagine a hollow sphere, with the atmosphere on the inside, and people living on the interior surface of the "crust" - but that wouldn't look very nice, presumably!
There's an excellent classic science fiction book by Arthur C Clarke called "Rendezvous with Rama" which is worth reading a) because it's one of the most remarkable pieces of writing due to the tension he generates by haveing ALMOST NOTHING happen during pretty much the entire book, and b) because Rama is a vision something like that: a "created world" that is a giant hollow cylinder. The cylinder travels through space, and as it revolves around it's axis, atmospheric currents and weather are generated inside, and people are held to the interior surface by centrifugal force generated by the spin. The closer you are to the central axis, the less gravity, but at "ground" level, the gravity is almost earth-normal (as far as I remember.)
Apparently (and I've never tried this, only read it), experiments have been done with spectacles which have lenses which invert your worldview: so the sky is at the bottom, and the ground at the top.
While they are enormously uncomfortable to wear for a while, eventually the brain compensates: and flips the world back to "normal" again for you. So even though the light that reaches your retina is "upside down", the brain interprets it for you "correctly automatically." Then, when you remove the spectacles, everything looks upside down again for a bit: even though it's not, your brain is still compensating; then after a while again, it "flips" it back for you to normal.
If we were all to evolve again - assuming we have slowly evolved to the intelligent beings we are today - what would keep our brains from replacing our feet, and our feet from taking the place of our brains?
Obviously, our feet would be wherever the ground was: different types of feet have evolved depending on the type of ground they are on: many insects have feet that make it very easy for them to walk upside down on the bottom of leaves and tree trunks.
There's not a PARTICULAR reason why our brains couldn't have appeared in our feet instead: however, there are lots of small factors. The fact that almost every creature in the world has pretty much the same layout (brain at top/front) is a good indicator of our common ancestry; vertebrates brains all share essentially the same structures, those "closer" to us on the evolutionary tree have more similar brains. Other animals have very different brain structures, and some forms of life like sponges have none at all. It is also makes sense that the brain being at the top is more of an evolutionary advantage, as it is more easily defended from predators, and eyes have evolved in tandem: eyes that are high up/at the front are more useful than anywhere else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain
That's enough of me sounding like a science geek. I learnt a few new things today, so I'm happy!
Oh no, one more thing:
A City in the Sky may well happen within your lifetime:
http://www.thedubailife.com/index.php/main/blog/dubai_to_build_city_in_the_sky
Those nutters in Dubai have more money than sense!!!
Oh, and:
and creation is the only logical reason for the way we are and for the direction our world faces.
But our world doesn't face in any particular direction. Spherical shapes are simply the natural shape that celestial bodies will accumulate into, due to gravity. I'm fairly sure people haven't discovered any rectangular planets yet!!
So, although creation is a POSSIBLE reason, it is certainly not the only logical reason: the shape and "direction" of our world are in fact inevitable!
"So how to turn the earth "upside down?" Perhaps it could be turned "inside out"!" I like this thought. It's almost cooler than the thought of the world being upside down. But in reality, a more accurate way the world could literally be 'upside down', is if our gravitational pull was reversed. That was the picture I had in mind with the idea of the world being "upside down". I wrote this piece some time ago when I needed an English assignment and wanted something 'beyond normal/average' to write about. It's really just an intriguing thought, and less of a possible scenario. ;)
"The fact that almost every creature in the world has pretty much the same layout (brain at top/front) is a good indicator of our common ancestry;"... True. A common designer. Makes sense.
The thought of direction always used to intrigue me when I was a child. I remember I asking my teachers, "When we get into space, you always talk about how we go to the moon or we go up and away from the earth's surface, but what would happen if we went down? What is 'down' in space? What's there?" This still intrigues me, actually, but I imagine the fact that space has no gravity answers that question for me.
Hmm.
Oo - but if you think about it - a lot more things than humans would be affected by a gravity reversal. Take just the items in my picture. Rocks would have to be pulled away from the earth's surface, the oceans would be emptied into the sky, and would trees even survive with their tops pointed down? Of course, trees all ready have a gravitational pull on their branches to fall to the ground...
Just... the odds of everything being pointed 'the right way' that promotes each organisms survival seems all too concidental for a non-organised, non-designed, un-planned evovolution.
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