"Let there be light" - words spoken, perhaps sang into the darkness and nothingness which brought on a vigorous but somehow gentle rush of soft, radiant light piercing through the darkness. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1–2). The power of language itself, the need to send and receive was perhaps the very thing that manifested this very life and universe itself.
I won't lie - I was too intimidated to apply for this scholarship last year. Upon reading the winning and finalist applications, I was even more so intimidated by the incredible knowledge regarding physics, astronomy, quantum mechanics, genetics, and more that my impressive peers wrote about. I never especially excelled in my science or math classes, however, I argue that I understand a small part of this universe in a very different way than my scientifically inclined peers.
I know that while I look at stars, I am bending ancient light with my cornea and sending it to my retina which in turn translates that pinprick of history into the image of a star, a constellation, a story. I also know that sound waves wash over my eardrum and are amplified by the mechanics of a minuscule hammer, anvil, and stirrup using distance and force to form a basic lever to increase the pressure of sound waves from the eardrum (55 square mm) to the oval window (3.2 square mm). I know that from there, the vibrations make the fluid in the cochlea shift which makes hair cells move. These dancing hairs take the movement of sound and translate it into the electrical signal our brain understands as music, voices, laughter, language. Our universe gives itself away when our cochlea's pattern matches that of spiral galaxies, sunflower seeds, musical scales and octaves, DNA structures, sea shells, the shape of hurricanes, and delightful poems where each line's number of syllables is the sum of the previous two.
While I understand the basics of how humans see and hear, I also know about the brain uses those two senses together when listening to speech sounds. Watch this few-second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFPtc8BVdJk, and listen closely. Then watch it again with your eyes closed.
What you see is someone saying "ga ga" but what you hear is someone saying "ba ba." Feel where your tongue and lips are when you make those sounds. Your tongue should go up and touch your soft palate to make the /g/ sound and your lips should close to form the /b/ sound. When watching that video, your brain will likely compromise for the mismatch between sound and sight and allow you to hear "da da" as the articulators' placement is in between the lips and soft palate.
The nature of our universe is perhaps this integration, this relationship that allows for a compromise or even allows something new to exist like the unsaid sound our ears hear. Objects wandering around in space hold on to one another with gravity to create something new: a system, a galaxy, a little planet in a goldilocks zone.
One of my favorite classes was Neurolinguistics. I learned about the visual word form area (VWFA) compared to the fusiform face area (FFA) within the brain.
Whenever someone sees another human face, their right occipital temporal lobe activates in recognition of humanness. Mirrored on the other side in the left occipital cortex, the brain reacts to letter combinations. Even more specifically, the VWFA activates to abstract representations of visual word forms. For example, RADIO and radio cause the same activation despite the different cases making the word look completely different. The human brain gets excited at the visual representation of abstract language itself just as it gets excited to see the visual representation of another soul walking about in a physical form. These two areas reflect our very humanness to connect with others by recognizing them to be one of our own and communicating with them.
The interesting thing about the VWFA is that it is not actually formed until someone learns how to read. Researchers monitored the growth of this area in 5-year-olds throughout their reading acquisition. Adults who learn to read later in life also gain sensitivity in this area. This is just an incredible discovery that astonishes me every time I ruminate on it. One tiny chunk of grey fleshiness delights in seeing a human face while another dances when it detects written word.
I fell in love with the study of how language works. Language is magic: a limitless, creative, innate need to communicate and connect with others. It is like learning a secret that has been right in front of you all your life. It is the implicit ease of comprehending and producing complex phonemes, morphemes, syntax, phonotactics, idioms, connotations, and so much more without ever needing to realize the underlying intricacies of it.
Like language, the universe is right in front of us with so many secrets to share if we take the time to really look, to really listen, to really learn. The nature of our universe is interconnectedness. We are connected by the gravity of a star whose light is only 500 moments away. We are connected by the very elements that make up our persons and the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen found within stars. We are connected by our breath pushed through vocal folds to produce sounds in the optimal range of human hearing that make up language. We are connected by the words of historians long gone to people and civilizations so very different from our own and yet were grounded in their ability to express and receive meaning from one another. The universe is connected by its origin and its destiny. We are not of this world but of this universe - be it physical or spiritual, we are citizens of both.
I know that some people wonder if God exists, then why would he create secrets of the universe that humans will never have the resources to discover, let alone understand? I think that is because God delights in complexity and beauty regardless of it we ever find it. And yet, he delights in simple but elegant repetition - the sun rises and falls every day, trees wither and flourish throughout the year, and seasons come and go. G. K. Chesterton's words propel me to engage in the monotony and child-like wonder of life itself.
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
I spoke of the integration of human senses, language, child-like wonder, and even God when trying to answer how to better understand the universe. I experience and learn about this universe every day. This universe has many secrets to offer that are not limited to this physical place in which we breathe and sigh and get bug bites. To better understand this universe in which we abide, I employ the concept of consistency (mundane yet beautiful repetition), the idea of connection through mere intonation, implicit phonological rules, eye contact, and theory of mind. I employ rules, implicit or otherwise, to understand the inner workings of the many layers our universe has to offer. The nature of our universe teaches us to delight in beauty for beauty's sake. It teaches us to reflect on complexity and the "bigger picture" when rules are seemingly broken. It is important to spend our lives working to better understand this vast and intricate universe since it reminds us of our place and yet our privilege.
Douglas Adams, the genius who wrote "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," fictitiously created the Total Perspective Vortex wherein sentient beings are tortured when given "just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it there's a tiny little speck, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, 'You are here.'"
And yet, despite our smallness, our insignificance, we are here. We have the privilege to exist and catch a glimpse of the awesomeness our universe holds. We are connected to our universe's origin be it through spoken word or a big bang or both. Either way, you and I are stardust and to dust we shall return.