Evolution of Control

Katie Eppley, Raisa Janke, Leah Schaffer, Kayleigh Sopko and Megan Taylor

 "Why play the innocent? We have to face the consequences of our scientific thinking. It was my duty to work out the effects that would be produced by my unitary theory of elementary particles and by my discovery in the field of gravitation. The result is--devastating. New and inconceivable forces would be unleashed, making possible a technical advance that would transcend the wildest flights of fantasy if my findings were to fall into the hands of mankind."- From The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt


As our trip comes to a close, our final issue to face is that of control. Moving into Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Physicists we meet new characters: three physicists who attempt to deceive one another and ultimately lose control of themselves. They all seek the knowledge of the main character Möbius whose life's work has powerful implications which feuding governmental interests desire.

The scientist no longer has control over his own discoveries. Instead, what we find are new scientific ideas being at the mercy of those whose strength and power is measured in money. Modern ideas are curtailed and even halted when they are not deemed as necessary thoughts by those holding the power.

 

MobySick has entered the room.

Jakobs Ladder: I have lost control of my science a long time ago. I can't deal with this right now.

BANG.

Jakobs Ladder has signed off.


TexasRaisaN: Jakob can not keep up with the change, and he can not accept that science is ever evolving and leaving many behind--including the scientists themselves.

MobySick: You think that you have it bad. I could not even live in my own time! In order to protect humanity I had to leave it by convincing everyone I was mad instead of further pursuing my work like other scientists do.

Heis57: I could never give up control. In the wrong hands my science would be manipulated and humanity would be in greater danger.

Kaitums3.14: How did we get to this point?

Mobysick: Our knowledge has become a frightening burden. Our researches are perilous, our discoveries are lethal. For us physicists there is nothing left but to surrender to reality. It has not kept up with us. It disintegrates on touching us. We have to take back our knowledge and I have taken it back. There is no other way out, and that goes for you as well.

Megalopteryous: We've traveled around the world and we have witnessed environments and their potential towards destruction under global climate change and at the hands of humans. But what we have come to understand is that as much as we influence that change, we are not in control.

MobySick: Even if we had any control, we are powerless. No one wants to admit to the danger of our own knowledge.

WildBohr:  Heisenberg, now you know why I was so scared when you came to visit me in Copenhagen in 1941. You let your own curiosity blind you of the fact that in today's world science cannot remain innocent. 

TexasRaisaN: Now we've come full circle. All we understand is the uncertainty of who possesses control over knowledge, over change… over everything.

Kaitums3.14: We don't possess the control, nature does. Just think about the immensity of the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska, the extremes of Haleakala in Hawaii, and the strength of the tsunami that threatens to take thousands of lives in the Maldives.  All of this is beyond our control, and this is only what we saw in three months in a small preview of the world--preview of what is yet to come.

AlexVonHumby: I experienced this firsthand on my travels with Aimé Bonpland down the Orinoco. I was at the mercy of the river's current, winds, storms, wildlife, mosquitoes and natives.  It was at that point I realized that no matter how much I traveled and how much I knew, I would never know enough to control nature.

EXCELentK: Nature will always survive; nature is the living and dying of an environment in a cooperative way so that those that are best equipped are those that survive. More than nature is vegetation and animals; it is the series of relationships. We are, then, under the ruling of this complex system.

WriteITdown: Nature will overrule the physical environment. We can behave in a way that threatens the current system. We can promote pollution and global climate change. We can wipe out entire rainforests and kill off an entire species, but in the end, we are the ones who will suffer. What is easy for us to forget is that more than any other species, we rely on a consistent way of life. As complex beings, we require a complex set of conditions, so more than destroying nature, we are destroying ourselves. Nature will never die, but it can (and will) certainly change--the question is, can we change quickly enough to survive?  

 

The characters of Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland are courtesy of Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World and Tomasina Ross’s edited translation of Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America during the years 1799-1804 by Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. The character of Victor Jakob is courtesy of Russell McCormmach's Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist . The characters of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg are courtesy of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen . Johann Wilhelm Möbius is courtesy of Friedrich Dürrennmatt's The Physicists. T he dialogue is a compilation of these texts along with our own interpretation.

Standing outside St. Mary's Church in Lubeck, Germany. 
Photo by: Angie Booher

Katie Eppley, Raisa Janke, Leah Schaffer, Kayleigh Sopko and Megan Taylor
sopkokj at hiram.edu
Last Modified: 21 Apr 2008