We began this discussion thinking about an earth that had an environment that
could sustain life. This consideration can give us a kind of baseline for life. It
requires us to understand the evolution of the earth environment, an interesting
thing in itself. We are also led to understand certain physics and chemical principles,
for life itself is solidly based in chemistry and physics. To understand the earth
environment we must have experimental knowledge. Knowledge purely of the mind, because
of our fertile imaginations, is subject to individual variations. We therefore try
to base our learning on things invariant-it is our goal. The experimental knowledge
of the early earth, that can support life, is gained though the field and science
of geology. Geology itself depends on the principles of physics and chemistry. It
is through using these principles and observations that geology yields its information.
After "knowing" what we think are the requirements for life we may search
the geological record to check. We might even ask "what IS life" in the
most general sense. Our parochial view is that life requires water even in extreme
conditions and so earth must have plenty of it today; and clean. How did water get
here? Why, if it does, does it stay? There are, in the answers to these two questions,
principles of planetary geology, fundamental principles of physics and of chemistry
and of chemical dynamics.
And so, my ulterior motives in discussing environmental questions: to attempt to
reveal some of the basic elements of physical and biological science. The idea of
a goal of invariance's and experimental evidence is a thinly veiled attack on the
postmodern concept of subjective reality - the text is reality; a reality that may
exist in any mind, but not in a consistent way. In our discussions we will see the
connectedness of environments and the fields needed to describe, measure and understand
them. Needless to say, these topics are vast and we can only skirt the boundaries.
JCB
At the Tennis Hall of Fame, Newport, R.I. Sunday evening July 26, 1998