Mother Earth

The Overview Effect: How Traveling in Space Would Improve the State of the Planet

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

 

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The famous “Earthrise” picture. Credit to NASA

Since the first image of Planet Hearth seen by humans in the far 1968, taken by the Apollo 8 mission, much has happened.  

Now, race to space belongs to the past. Maybe. Nowadays, at least up there, missions are multinational and they are supposed to be in the interest of the whole humanity, expression of its longing to enlarge borders and knowledge. They are close to getting self-funded, as space tourism takes off, bringing to space a few billionaires at crazy prices.

What is nowadays more multinational than the International Space Station? And which flag a joint mission will plant on the next planet it will land on?

Definitely, we need to develop an earth consciousness and a planet flag, happy that artists and designers are already thinking about both.

 

 

And… here it is an interesting side effect of the walk in the space immensity.

You get to see the Earth.

Having a glance at the planet as a whole is an unforgettable experience not only because of its beauty as a blue marble ball on a black screen but really because of this “wholeness” which is easily missed when looking at it from the surface as we tiny humans are used to doing.

People having this experience experimented with the so-called overview effect. In the words of astronaut  Edgar D. Mitchell, as quoted by Raya Bidhshari, <<seeing Earth from space causes one to “develop an instant global consciousness…” >>.

Not only you realize how small you are, but also how trivial are many political issues, how shortsighted most of political ed economic choices, how silly the conflicts. You start thinking about how better we could all live on this beautiful planet as a brotherhood of men and women. Borders disappear, blue and green triumph in their beauty, cities glow like lights in the night, in the same way, no matter the continent they are in.

From space, the increasing phenomenon of nativist populism so well described by Eirikur Bergmann appears really as an “infantile disease” due to the lack of perspective. I quote Einstein, here, to be compassionate towards those who, for cultural heritage or traumatic experiences miss the big picture. I am sorry for them. I am less sorry for those speculating on the fears nourished by separation and conflict to gain a bunch of votes.  Not sure, yet, where to put the blurring line between the two fields. Anyway, I would send all of them to space (don’t take me wrong, with a return-ticket).

The overview effect has been described in the book by Frank White in 1987, in the movie Overview by the Planetary Collective and it is the subject at the core of the Overview Institute.

I will copy here part of the article by  Raya BidhShari, which expressed these concepts beautifully, a few years ago, on the SingularityHub:

A Cosmic Perspective

What the overview effect leads to is a cosmic perspective. It is recognizing our place in the universe, the fragility of our planet, and the unimaginable potential we have as a species. It involves expanding our perspective of both space and time.

Unfortunately, many world leaders today fail to take such a perspective. Most politicians have yet to develop a reputation for thinking beyond their term limits. Many have yet to prioritize long-term human progress over short-term gains from power or money.

What we need is for our world leaders to unite rather than divide us as human beings and to promote global, and even cosmic, citizenship.

What if every world leader and politician truly experienced the existential transformation of the overview effect? Would they still seek to become “momentary masters of fractions of dot”? Would they continue to build walls and divide us? Probably not. It is likely that their missions and priorities would change for the better.

Obviously, giving everyone a trip to space is impractical—that is, unless space tourism becomes cheap and effective. But there are other ways to promote the much-needed “big-picture thinking.” For instance, we must upgrade the kind of values our education system promotes and equip future generations with a cosmic mindset. We can continue to educate and engage the public on the state of our planet and the need to upgrade our morality in the grand scheme of things.

But there are even other ways. One exciting organization, called The Overview Institute, has developed a virtual reality program that will allow users to experience the overview effect. It is a scalable tool that will make the existential transformation of the overview effect accessible to many.

An Existential Awakening

In the words of Sagan, the image of Earth from space “underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.’

Experiencing the overview effect and developing a cosmic perspective is known to inspire more compassion for our fellow human beings. It stimulates a determination to successfully resolve all the problems we have here on Earth and focus on the issues that matter. It upgrades our consciousness, our values, and the kind of ambitions that we set forward for ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.

It is a powerful awakening of the mind and  a fundamental redefinition of what it means to be human.

 

So, virtual reality could make the trick.

But we can move a step forward. If this cognitive shift is so helpful, why not moving the experience and the comprehension of it back in time, making it part of our educational programs starting from elementary schools wherever on the planet? It seems to be strategic to prepare kids for such a big thing as taking care of the planet where they happened to be born.

 

 

Oneness III

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

Following from chapter I here and chapter II here

Chapter III

Definitions

Brindisi, April 6 2020

 

For an academic mind the first problem is about the definition.

For an academic mind, an even bigger problem is defining a spiritual object, giving yourself permission to dig so far outside your field, accepting judgment (even your own), and deciding to let it go, in advance.

Oneness: awareness of being one of One, a living cell in a huge living body called humanity. Or inside an even bigger body comprising all living beings on the planet. Or, even better, a spark of life in the body comprising – with all of her inhabitants – the very body of Mother Earth, our mothership in this travel called life.

This feeling that some of us have experimented in the contemplation of nature, in meditation or in some altered states of consciousness is the most sublime experience we can recall. Even if, sometimes, we realize we had it only after it has gone, vanished. Trying to explain this feeling may be difficult, even painful.

It feels like pure love. Not just feeling it, being it.

For me, a vivid moment of those was the first glance – eyes in the eyes – with my newborn Giuseppe, sixteen years ago. One of those perfectly quiet moments when the time stops and you feel you are in the right place and in the right moment and everything makes perfect sense.

I can recall other crumbs of infinity when, as a little child, I was contemplating the slow movements of snails on the grass until losing the sense of time. Now, I can somehow hack my system into feeling this state of temporary happiness when I see in my minds’ eyes all of us connected in the same luminescent energy field. Yet, I envy my cat when I see him lost in happiness, just being. Easily.

I suppose all humans, deep down, consciously or unconsciously perceive at times this being all one. Yet many do not know that this feeling may be cultivated with love, compassion, and gratitude and that it may grow like a muscle with exercise.

I feel called to write on this topic by the current pandemic, as we are now, as One, big sick body. Or maybe just now our illness surfaced after so many symptoms here and there. The illness dates back, I suppose, to the origin of what we call the Anthropocene.

How terrible to lose a dear one because of an invisible enemy and how exhausting to fight every day an unequal struggle in hospitals and labs. I have no direct experience, I can only imagine. Yet this could be a good moment to slow down and reflect on ourselves, on this big body we all are. We are sharing a deep common experience, we are more open, more caring to the world, more conscious of our interconnectedness.

Internet is now the circulatory system of this big body: our words and thoughts circulate like blood, bringing life and nourishment or more diseases. Waves of compassion, as well as waves of hatred, spread quickly and we are all responsible for the fragile health we have as a collective.

We don’t speak the same language, we don’t share the same beliefs and rituals, yet we have the same needs of safety and peace, of family and community, of food and fresh air and nourishment for the body, the mind and the heart. We suffer the same climate threatens. We all aspire to the same freedom and sovereignty in making choices for ourselves. We all depend on others, near and far.

Where does a population, a territory end, another start? People living on the borders know this well: it’s not black on one side and white on the other, there are shadows of grey and connections beyond the lines traced by politics and history. And we live in our state as in a big condominium, discussing common elements and big and small injustices, perhaps imagining the condo beyond the street as more comfortable and less quarrelsome. As Italian, I know I was lucky to be born in a good neighborhood.

Yet, the texture of my life is made up of thin threads connecting me to the four corners of the world: I have no idea where my tea, my coffee, my chocolate comes from, or the wood of my furniture, or the apps on my phone. I don’t know the lives of those my comfort relies on. Maybe I should. I could know more and care more about how all these little particles of my reality are produced and dispatched to me.

We are all rings in a chain. My work too is intended to benefit others near and far, or at least, I hope so.

I want to enlarge my glance now and allow myself to dream out loud: one day this big One living body could show a collective intelligence and dance to the same rhythm of life like a flock of birds or a swarm of bees. Just think of the potential of AI, if not misused. Just think of our huge combined creativity.

Maybe it is time for humans to step back, leave the hearth breath and the sun shine and use their terrific brain and its fruits to imagine and realize a more equal and less aggressive society for themselves, for the other living beings, for Mother Earth.