Friends are Electric

I consider myself to be an animist, although not in the traditional sense.  I do not necessarily believe that the rocks, the trees, the muskrats have a spirit of sorts within them.  I would not discount the potential for this to be the case either, however, nor discredit someone else for having such a literal belief, but it is not mine.  My animism is related to the traditional.  It stems directly from how I view the world, and where I view my own and humanity’s place within it.

Allow me to explain.

I am, as much as anyone else alive today, a child of reason.  Through science especially, but more truthfully through all aspects of my education, save one exception which I shall come to later, as well as most of my thinking until rather recently has been either developing this belief in this.  To see the world in a rational, logical way.

Cogito ergo sum. I no longer hold with this, but I understand why many do.  There is certainty in it.  By the nature of perception, I can be sure of nothing, I can prove nothing, save that I myself perceive. I can be certain only of my own existence.  This certainty is satisfying, anyone who has a basic understanding of science, for example, knows that science cannot be used to prove anything.  The whole of this Cartesian reason is just like science, nothing can be conclusively proven except, of course, your own existence.

There is truth to this, for what its worth.  When you strip away all the adornment around pure reason, you arrive at Descartes’s  statement.  To be a child of reason is to define yourself, to define your being, everything that you are, based solely on your ability to think.  To reason.  To know.

This works for some people, I am not like that.  Even when I thought I was, when I tried to live through reason alone, I knew on some level that it was not so, that it was a completely unsatisfactory way to live.  While thinking, reasoning and knowing were important to me, they were not me completely.  They were, to put it mathematically, necessary but not sufficient conditions.

Then, after going on like this for years, knowing on an unconscious level that Cartesian pure reason did not work for me, came the change in my education.  That change was a single course taken during a single term.  But it was pivotal in my development.  It was existentialism.

Like Cartesian reason, existentialism can be reduced to a simple principle.  Although at present I lack a universally recognizable Latin phrase, it comes down to I act purposefully therefore I am.  In existentialism, you define yourself through your actions.  Whether or not you believe that purpose exists to them, whether you are yourself capable of knowing or understanding that purpose, or whether it only exists if you yourself invent it is irrelevant, merely shades of the colour of existentialism.

When first learning about existentialism, when I was developing my ideas of it in my head, I adopted the belief that there was no universal purpose to anything and that none of any sort existed.  This was as unsatisfying as Cartesian pure reason.  Beyond that, it was even less practical.  While not strictly an existentialist, Nietzsche’s Übermensch was supposed to take every action in a purposeful way, that is to be conscious of every action and decision.  How can one be purposeful when the actions themselves are supposed to lack purpose?

So I softened by existentialism.  I still rejected universals, especially a universal purpose behind anything, for I did believe and agree with Nietzsche when he spoke of the death of God at our hands.  But why could there not be  a more practical, personal purpose?  Not just purpose which we created to comfort ourselves, but a real, tangible purpose which was individualized.  Such a thing as a measure of our actions was satisfying to me, and I remained with this colour of existentialism for a time.

However, like Descartes’s pure reason, existentialism did not provide me with a complete world view.  Even the colour I preferred was lacking.  It was interesting to think about, enjoyable to practice for small periods of time, but in the end completely unsatisfying.  Even though I had defined purpose within it, to me it still felt as though purpose was lacking.   From the point of view of pure reason, I could only be sure of my existence through thinking, from existentialism, through my actions.

The problem is that I’ve never been concerned about whether I exist or not.  Whether I can prove it with reason or not, whether I can justify it through logic is irrelevant.  Common sense tells me I exist.  My own existence  is something I consider self evident.  Common sense tells me that the people around me exist, whether or I can prove that they think, which I cannot, or whether I can prove that their actions are taken consciously, which again I cannot.  They still exist, to pretend otherwise is foolhardy and is the seed of many wrongs.  These rational structures, Cartesian reason and existentialism, fail because by rationalizing the reality around them, trying to justify everything, they fail to grasp what is important.  They get caught up in irrelevant details, like futilely attempting to prove that a given being exists.

So I exist.  And you exist.  And the world exist.  So does the rest of the universe.  I don’t need to see it, don’t need to touch it, to know this. The existence of these things is as self evident to me as the nonexistence of other things.  Does god exist?  As a universal system of morality, perhaps.  As a flesh and blood being, or a being of some other literal composition? No.  That is, however, for another time.

Here, however, we come to the seed that is the centre of by animism:  Things exist.  But, of course, existing is not in and of itself satisfying to me, since both by Cartesian pure reason and existentialism I existed if I was careful.  Of course, now other things exist, but what of it?  Is that enough?  Is simply existing sufficient?  It is conceivable that a pill could be formed which contains all the nutrition a human needs for a single day.  Would being sustained by such a thing be as satisfying as living, sustaining yourself on real food?  Both are, from the point of view of existence alone, equal prospects.  Eating is not done just for sustenance, but also for enjoyment.  As is being not just existing but living.  What then is the seperation between existing and living?

I spoke of the death of god.  Its death applies here.  There cannot be a universal separation between existing and living.  My separation involves purpose.   Is there purpose to anything?  I would answer yes.  What of meaning, can an action have meaning?  Can a natural occurrence have meaning?  What of emotions?

Here is where I depart from the rational belief structures drastically.  My animism, like the more traditional variations of it, is spiritual in nature.  I cannot, nor shall I try, to rationalize it through any logical means.   To do so would be contrary to its nature and would render it as unsatisfactory and empty as the other systems I talked about.

My belief is that there is purpose, nothing grand, nothing specific, but purpose nonetheless.   The purpose of existence, with life an important part of it, is beauty.  Not perfection.  Not facts.  Perhaps nothing even tangible.  There is beauty in the natural as there is in the human.  Human imitation of the natural can possess beauty, as can creations of a purely human nature.  To be utilitarian is not to be beautiful, although utilitarian objects can still possess their own beauty. Again, god is dead, these are personal, not universal, in nature.

The purpose of life is therefore beauty, the enjoyment, creation and study of it.  Since the natural world possesses this beauty, the natural scientist, for example, can lead a purposeful existence.  This is important to me as, while I am not a scientist nor am I even training to be one presently, it is a position I have always respected and admired.  The artist, be their medium visual, aural, written or dramatic is therefore on par with the natural scientist, as they study and create their own brand and style of beauty. And we are all on equal footing when we take it all in and enjoy these works.

The only morally reprehensible act, therefore, is the intentional destruction of beauty.  This must, of course, be taken with common sense.  The destruction of an insect or a weed is not on the same level as the destruction of a greater beast, such as a human.  Destruction for its own sake is unforgivable, but if a greater beauty could be formed from the initial destruction then perhaps all can be forgiven.

“The cut worm forgives the plough”, as a wise man once said.

My animism substitutes the spirits found in more traditional animism for beauty, but keeps the most important aspect intact: that people, like animals, are just part of the environment in which they live.  That any action taken has consequences, and while I won’t have any sort of ceremony of prayer for what becomes my food, I will be certain to attempt to minimize the harmful or negative responses to my actions.

For now, the final word on this also belongs to William Blake,  “the fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees.”  My beauty is not the same beauty you see, and we should try our best to respect that and not force our own beliefs on each other.

There are exactly five Nobel Prizes awarded every year, with one more masquerading as a true Nobel Prize.  Our friend Alfred specifically set up three of these five prizes to reward scientific developments which have benefited human kind.  In the case of the peace prize, an individual or individuals who have furthered the cause of world peace, and with literature, those who further the understanding of what it means to be human.  Whether these awards have always reflected their original purpose is open to question.  This is not the question for the moment, however.

There is another prize, one which ostensibly seems to be awarded for scientific achievement in a field of study.  Of course, this field is as unscientific as the study of history, but few realise or are willing to accept that.  I speak, of course, of that mighty social science, economics.

There is no doubt that  the prizes in medicine, chemistry and physics are all rewarding true scientific achievement.  But what makes these fields scientific and economics not?  I would argue that it is the nature of what is being studied.  Medicine, strictly, would not exist without purposeful human study, but the subject of their study, biological organisms, would.  The same can be said about chemistry and physics, as prior to humans both played the same role they do now in the universe.  Economics, however, is entirely different.  It is emergent from human behaviours.  It is not separate and independent from humanity.  In short, it is not universal.

Economics is a social science.  Social sciences are quite unfortunately named, since they have little if nothing to do with science.  Which is not to belittle them, merely condemn them to a specific sort of operation, ideally closer to that of the humanities than the natural sciences.  However, that is a discussion for another time.  Being a social science, economics must understand that what it pretends to be is false, that it is not, as said above, universal and is, more importantly, not fundamental.

Not fundamental.  No other social science, humanity or indeed natural science places itself on such a pillar of self-importance.  Economics claims that only economics is the lense which we can judge our actions, plans and programs.  Perhaps other fields would make such claims if they were in a position to, but certainly we would recognize the absurdity of judging everything through the principles of  anthropology.  It is not that anthropology has nothing important to tell us, quite the opposite really, it is that a single lens view of society is an impossibly terrible way of running things.

The reason why no other social sciences have Nobel Prizes?  None of them have rich backing organizations.  That is how this prize came about, a Swiss bank funded the prize, a Nobel Memorial Prize.  I would argue that they did so to increase the credibility of the field as a science, rather than as just one of many social sciences which we attempt to understand our society with.

A final point on the relevance of a prize in economics: other fields attempt to describe laws of nature, but the way nature functions does not change based on these laws, not true for economics.  For example, gravity works as gravity no matter how we describe it, be it Newtonian, Relativity or some future Quantum-Gravity theory.  Economics does not behave this way, if a new mindset takes over, the way the system itself functions can change.  This is because it is an emergent system which requires humans, or something similar, rather than fundamental to the nature of the universe.

In all of my time studying engineering and science, I have never come upon something as useful and nearly perfect as Bowen’s Reaction Series.

For those who have yet to be made aware of it, Bowen’s Reaction Series shows the relation between various minerals of igneous (molten rock) origin.  There are three parts to Bowen’s Reaction Series, the continuous reaction series, the discontinuous reaction series and the residual phase.  I’ll talk about each part in more detail and move on to a few interesting applications of Bowen’s Reaction Series in mineralogy.

The layout of Bowen’s Reaction Series is such that as you move up the series (towards olivine and calcium plagioclase), the melting temperature increases.  Calcium plagioclase and olivine do not have the same melting temperatures but are usually placed at the same height for aesthetic reasons.  This means that quartz, muscovite and potassium feldspar melt at the lowest temperatures.

Related to the melting temperature is thermodynamic stability.  Minerals which crystallize at a high temperature tend to be stable at such temperatures, and are less stable at atmospheric conditions.  Olivine, therefore, weathers very easily under standard conditions.  This helps to explain why quartz is the leftover in beach sand.  Quartz is resistant to chemical weathering and is commonly left behind.  The mechanical weathering of waves may wash away other materials, but quartz will remain behind.  Olivine and pyroxene, the two  mineral types on the discontinuous series with the highest melting points, weather extremely easily and are thus unlikely to form such deposits.

Anyone not interested in a more detailed discussion of the chemistry of Bowen’s Reaction Series should skip ahead to the final section on interesting applications of Bowen’s Reaction Series.

The Discontinuous Series

The discontinuous series is the most interesting part of Bowen’s Reaction Series.  It is here where the most interesting chemistry takes place.  As mentioned already, olivine is the first mineral to crystallize out of a melt.  Olivines have the general formula (Ca,Mg,Fe)(Mg,Fe)SiO4.  Calcic olivines are metamorphic minerals and will not be discussed further.  Magnesium rich olivine is known as Forsterite, and melts at a temperature much higher than the iron-rich end member, Fayalite.

If an olivine, (Ca,Mg,Fe)(Mg,Fe)SiO4, reacts with quartz, SiO2, it will form a pyroxene, (Ca,Mg,Fe)(Mg,Fe)Si2O3.  Unlike olivine, calcium pyroxene (known as clinopyroxene) are found in igneous formations.  Orthopyroxenes do not contain calcium.  Ortho and clinopyroxenes have different crystallographic structures since calcium ions are enough larger than iron and magnesium to force a change in the structure.

Adding another SiO2 and water to a pyroxene will produce an amphibole, (Ca,Mg,Fe)2(Mg,Fe)5Si8O22(OH)2.  Amphiboles are minerals that we begin to see more regularly in light coloured volcanic rocks, such as granites.  Amphiboles show a lot more chemical variability than either pyroxenes or olivines.  Sodium ions are capable of substituting for any of the (Ca,Mg,Fe) ions and minerals with up to three sodium ions exist.  To maintain charge balance, however, if a sodium is substituted for one of these atoms, an aluminum (3+) must substitute for a silicon (4+).  Al-O bonds are slightly weaker than Si-O bonds and thus only up to half of the silicon in a structure is available for substitution.

As all of the above minerals crystallize from the melt, thee melt becomes rich in potassium and silica (SiO2).  The last mineral in the  discontinuous series has plenty of silica in its structure and contains potassium, a very large ion.  Biotite’s chemical formula is K(Mg, Fe)3AlSi3O10(OH)2.  Like all other mineral classes on the discontinuous series, it has a high temperature magnesium and a low temperature iron end member.

Each mineral class in the discontinuous series has an increasing degree of polymerization than the last.  Olivine is a nesosilicate, meaning that the silicon-oxygen tetrahedra (which comes from the relative size of the two ions) are physically isolated from each other and no polymerization has taken place. Pyroxenes are single chained inosilicates, meaning that they have a linear chain of tetrahedrea linked together.  Amphiboles are also inosilicates, only two of these chains have joined to form a wider sheet.  Lastly, biotite is a phylosilicate, meaning that many such chains have joined such that the resulting polymer structure is infinite (compared to the size of the atoms) in two directions, forming a sheet.

The Continuous Series

Unlike the discontinuous series, where earlier minerals react with the melt to form  later minerals, once a mineral is formed it remains unless remelted.  The continuous series features only one mineral, plageoclase feldspars, varying from calcium-rich (anorthite) to sodium-rich (albite) end-members.  All feldspars are tectosilicates, meaning they are polymerized in all three directions forming a complex network of interconnected silica tetrahedra.  The way these minerals form tend to produce a zoning effect, where within a crystal calcium content decreases as you move from the centre to the edge.

As you move from albite to anorthite, an increasing number of silicon atoms must be replaced with aluminum atoms to ensure charge balance.

The Residual Phase

The residual phase is whatever is left over after both reaction series have run to completion.  As it cools, orthoclase (potassium) feldspar forms, as well as muscovite mica and quartz.  Quartz and orthoclase are both tectosilicates (3D network), while muscovite is a phylosilicate (sheet).

Interesting Uses

Now that I’ve walked you through the basic chemistry, its time to examine a few reasons why Bowen’s Reaction Series is such an amazing tool, aside from chemical and temperature relationships and weathering.

The first is something I’ve already referenced, as you move down the series, crystal structures generally become more complex.  From olivine with no polymerization to quartz with perfect three dimensional polymerization, all in one easy to see chart.  I say generally since it is common to group all of the feldspars together (as above), which separates biotite and muscovite mica.

Crystal structure determines many physical properties.  For example, micas break off into thin, flexible sheets because all of the silica tetrahedrons point in the same direction, all of the upward facing oxygen are coordinated (bonded) to potassium, which is so large that it needs 12 oxygen to bond to.  This means that the potassium-oxygen bond is extremely weak (1/12 of the silicon-oxygen bond).  Since the structure forces these to form linear sheets, its no wonder micas cleave the way they do.

The third thing is incompatibility.  You will never find an olivine and a quartz in the same rock.  Why?  If there was silica in the melt, it would have reacted with the olivine to form pyroxene, leaving either less olivine and no silica or no olivine and less silica.

Finally, Bowen’s Reaction Series allows us to explain what we see in rocks.  We know that a granite, rich in quartz, feldspar and biotite, is the result of a relatively iron-magnesium free magma which crystallized at lower temperatures.  A dunite, on the other hand, is mostly olivine and so had to crystallize at high temperatures and become physically separated from the rest of the melt and its silica.  Combine this information with the size of crystals observed in the rock, which determine the rate of cooling, and even an amateur like myself can tell a rock’s story with ease and accuracy.

That is why I find Bowen’s Reaction Series to be so fascinating, with only two other pieces of information (bonding rules and crystal size in relation to cooling rate) you can explain most common minerals and the rocks they make up.  It is a very powerful tool in earth history and mineralogy.

Like any proper amateur earth scientist, I have a mineral collection.  As I sort through it and catalogue my rocks, I’ll update my mineral collection page.  On the off chance that anyone is interested in this, information will be updated as I have time.