An Immense World, by Ed Yong - Hidden realms around us

citizenschallengev4 · April 7, 2023, 5:43am

It’s time for something fun, and amazing, and of the real world, a part of it most of us ignore most of the time.

I had a friend suggest I check out Ed Yong, a science journalist who’s written some popular books.

I got on the web and first impressions were good, given his two books and COVID articles and an impressive resume’. Those sent me straight to another favorite search engine, YouTube, where I found over a dozen videos of Ed Yong talks over the years. Listening to a few of them added to my admiration. His book, “I Contain Multiples” resonated with me and reinforced and enhanced my growing understanding of the biome within and what it means. He’s a good story teller.

I got particularly excited by his “An Immense World” talks. I downloaded the book in audio and listening to the complete book and it did nothing to disappoint. Now, besides starting a second listen through, I’m going to order a hard copy and make the time read it.

What’s really gratifying is that Yong book/reporting provides the bricks and mortar that undergird my own decades old hippy dippy country boy notions, that started when I fell in love with Wawona and nature in general, way back 75ish. Namely a deep recognition of the vast variety and individuality of creatures out there in the landscapes around me. A love for the complexity and all the layers and cycles between living things. The web of life, each individual character playing their part, looking at the world through their own particular eyes, senses.

And my more recent contentions also gets affirmed, that is, we’d do better to view our consciousness and senses as an interaction, not some oneway receiver that simply collects data.

Our senses quite literally interact with our environment, there are exchanges on all sorts of levels, many beyond our ability to observe. Yong offers a peek.

The book is a culmination of many thousands of curious scientists from all over the world, striving over the past decades, with ever more amazing sensory capabilities being discovered and understood to an extent never before possible. Ever more environments and creatures are being studied, and on deeper levels than ever before.

Yong’s state of the science review weaves these varied discoveries into a coherent internally consistent description of what humans have been able to learn about the sensing abilities of countless creatures great and small. Even his closing chapter is spot on, when too many others sputter.

Of course, I read it with primed eyes and a mind that’s easy with the notion that, I am an evolved biological sensing creature, a product of Earth’s evolution, and all other beings are related to me. Beyond that, I have a living appreciation for time, deep-time, varied Earth time-scales all coming together in this moment, the wave of consciousness that we ride.

Appreciating the Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide is also a great tool for better grasping these Earth realities that are totally outside of our own experience. Yet, happening within the same space and moments that we inhabit.

There’s some more ideas I want to tease out of that, but it’s late and I better get to bed. Still I been wanting to start a thread on Ed Yong and his recent book, “An Immense World,” and I’m tired of putting it off.

Here’s the index for a taste of what he’s sharing:

An Immense World
How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
By: Ed Yong
Narrated by: Ed Yong

Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins

Dedication