Monday, May 20, 2019

Three Images of Life and Death


Vincenzo Di Nicola

Three images:

“The double helix” – DNA (1953)

Image result for double helix
Schematic representation of the DNA double helix


“The blue marble” – Earth from space (1972)

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The Blue Marble - Earth seen from space



“The black hole” – the event horizon (2019)

News | Black Hole Image Makes History
Black Hole - Even Horizon Telescope 

Each image was the result of extraordinary technology wedded to a theory or a scientific mission (genetics, the structure of the universe, space exploration).

And each image produced an extraordinary vision of life on earth and beyond.

Not since the “Great Chain of Being” – scala naturae (Latin: the ladder of nature) – in the Middle Ages have we had such a convergence of knowledge (science), belief (philosophy), and practice (politics) cutting across all domains of human activity.

In my visualization of social psychiatry (of life, really), I think we need to capture and somehow superimpose these three images together.

They represent to me:

·         The double helix – the biochemical building blocks of human being

(my association – the double helix is much like the caduceus as a symbol of medicine)

·         The blue marble – the Earth as a complex organism, bound both by the laws of nature and social life

(my association – this image had a profound social impact; many astronauts who trained in engineering and physical sciences had metaphysical, almost spiritual experiences in space; the external perspective of Earth, facilitated by physical sciences and technology, led to metaphysical and almost mystical reflections)

·         The black hole – the event horizon, representing the collapse of stars and star systems into compacted masses that change our understanding of the physical laws of the universe

           (my association – in science fiction black holes represent a kind of metaphysical radical
           departure – either of the end of the universe or an anxious uncertainty as to their potential as               in time travel, parallel worlds and so on)

In socio-political terms, in my lifetime (I was born in 1953) we have gone from a scientific image of life (DNA) which represents hope (not forgetting its reductive potential to define life in terms of chemicals) to an image of astrophysics which represents death (a black hole) with life on the blue planet hanging in the balance (the blue marble).