Two Hundred and Three

I've nothing to live on and no one to live for, so I must die.

Two Hundred and Two

Gregor Samsa wakes to find he's a cockroach.  Or so most English translations render ungeheures Ungeziefer.  I don’t think he undergoes a physical change, but a psychological one.  He wakes to the realisation that he is, and always has been, an ungeheures Ungeziefer.

Kafka’s story is about a metamorphosis, but it’s not Gregor’s.  He’s already an ungeheures Ungeziefer when he wakes and the story begins.  It is Grete, Gregor’s younger sister, who changes.

When she sees what he is, she’s horrified.  But she overcomes her disgust enough to bring him food, and remove furniture from his room so he can crawl about it more easily. 

He stays hidden in his room, listening to the music coming from the other room where Grete plays her violin.  She'd hoped to study at the conservatory, and he'd intended to pay her tuition; but now she must give up her hopes and take a job in a shop to support their parents.

Realizing he's a burden to his family, Gregor stops eating and starves himself to death.  Relieved, their father and mother observe that young Grete has grown into a woman, and it's time to find her a husband.

I’ve been reading about the Fermi Paradox.  Given that there are billions of stars similar to our sun, some probably orbited by planets similar to ours on which intelligent life similar to ours probably evolved, Fermi asked why we haven’t been contacted by any of them.  In order to get the right answer, one must ask the right question.  Fermi assumed answers to questions he never asked.

The building materials of life appear to be common throughout the universe, and planets on which it could take root and evolve appear equally common.  But it probably remains simple bacterial life.  Complex life like ours is probably rare.  Even here on Earth the most common form of life is single-celled bacteria.  Multicelled plants and animals live only on the planet’s surface.  Complex intelligent life, like ours, is even rarer.

All living things, from bacteria to plants and animals, are sentient to some degree; but we make a distinction between sentience and intelligence.  Most of us wouldn’t call plants intelligent, or even other animals, unless we lived in intimacy with them and knew them well.

We flatter ourselves that we dominate this planet because we are the most intelligent species on it.  But we use our intelligence to find better ways of doing destructive and self-destructive things.  We dominate the planet because we are the most ruthless predator on it, preying not only on other animals but on each other, until we're now destroying the planet and everything on it, including ourselves.  That’s not rational by any definition.

Swift said we're not a rational species, but a species capable of reason.  Unfortunately we use reason only after we’ve acted foolishly, to justify ourselves. 

An intelligent species might invent weapons that could destroy a planet, but a rational species wouldn’t use them.  Intelligent life doesn’t long survive if it isn’t also rational.  A rational species would avoid contact with a species as destructive as ours, which explains the Fermi Paradox.  We are an ungeheures Ungeziefern that would arouse disgust in any rational being. 

          

Like Gregor Samsa, we've finally awakened to the fact that we are not what we thought we were.  We are no longer animals guided by instinct, but not yet humans guided by reason.

Music has always been our symbol for the harmony we imagine lies hidden beneath the seeming chaos of the world.  Gregor listens to the music that comes from another room, knowing he can never enter that room.  All he can do is die.

Bunin is dying.  He knows it, and has resigned himself.  He's stopped eating, and lays in my arms all day and night.  I don't eat, either.