The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans
Page 13
The Island of Han is barely six hundred meters long. It is a tranquil paradise of pure white sand, turquoise waters, and picture perfect sunsets. But its once thriving gardens are being destroyed by seawater. Fallen coconut trees litter the beaches, their roots swamped by high tides. Water seeps from beneath the sand into the homes of the villagers. In an attempt to hold back the encroaching tides, the people have built seawalls from rocks and clamshells, but the barriers are breached daily. Once self-sufficient, the people of Han must now survive on handouts shipped twice yearly from the over burdened government of Bougainville. The carbon footprint of these islanders must surely be as low as any culture in the world, so it is ironic that they are perhaps the first people to have to leave their homeland because of rising seas attributable to global warming.
Standing outside her humble bamboo house we encounter Carteret Rose. She is a woman of forty with smooth tawny skin and tightly curled, dark hair with golden tips. Her shoulders and arms are strong from physical work, and the soles of her feet are toughened from a lifetime of shoeless trekking over jungle terrain. Her eyes are deep with wisdom, and with sadness, too.
“What you see here is the way it used to be: peaceful, plentiful, sublime,” says Rose. “I made it this way because I need to remember my home as it once was, and because I want people to see how it was, and to understand what is happening now, and why.
“When the sea began to encroach on the land, it became impossible to grow bananas, taro and breadfruit,” Rose explains. “When the ship with provisions did not come, we had to get by on only coconuts and fish.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine this place underwater,” says Kiz to Carteret Rose.
“It began with the rising of the tide in the lagoon, above the flashing coral, and up the beach where the thin canoes lie,” Rose tells us. “Soon the water breached the sea walls and ran over the coconut palms and the pathways of the village. The sea lapped at the houses; in the middle of the island saltwater bubbled up through holes dug by the crabs and flooded the fields and gardens until half the land was swallowed up.
“It happens every few months. But however many times we see it happen, it is never any less terrifying. The kids run around crying,” Rose tells us. “People try to comfort them. They carry the kids and leave everything else behind. I have seen houses washed away with everything inside them. Whoosh! Every year the surge becomes stronger and more frequent; every month, a few more inches are eaten away from the land. It happened once in March, then again in September. And it will surely happen again under the new moon.
“When the tides rise this place is shoulder-deep in water,” Rose says about an expanse of drying mud that was once rich bush. “There are stingrays and sharks swimming around—right here, where we’re standing! And when the water finally goes down, the entire place is a wet and stinking mess with rubbish all over the place. The mosquitoes breed in the water, and the children get malaria and diarrhea. Once this was a garden of breadfruit, papaya, cassava, tapioca, sugarcane and taro. Over time it has become a slimy, salinated wilderness where only palm trees can grow.
“How long before a really big wave comes? A tidal wave that will destroy everything—wash away all the houses, drown the children? We live in fear, but we have nowhere else to go.
“I recreated our island in Virtual Life because I know I’m going to miss the sea, the fish, and the coconuts. I will miss the palm trees. I will miss our beautiful life. This place is my home. I belong to the island, and I feel sorry for it. We have no cars, no factories, and no airplanes,” says Rose, “but we are the first victims of greenhouse-gas emissions. Our home will be lost forever, and the very idea of leaving this place is just too sad to think about.”
The next Virtual Life portal through which Kiz and I travel takes us directly to the Cornishe on the waterfront at Alexandria, Egypt. We intend to visit the recently completed, ultra-modern Bibliotheca Alexandria.
Mohammed Qatal, the administrator of the new library, welcomes us before taking us on a verbal trip through history, where he describes in intricate detail the famous ancient library that was destroyed by fire and earthquake two thousand years ago. Standing in stark contrast to the travesty of the destruction of the ancient library is the gleaming new library, which now stands as a defining architectural signature, not only for Alexandria, but also for Egypt.
“Egypt is an exact copy of heaven; the one place on earth where the forces of God and man are in balance,” Mr. Qatal asserts. “Egypt is the temple of the entire world!”
Mr. Qatal gives us a brief history of the ancient library.
“The Library of Alexandria was established by Ptolemy I in the year 288 B.C. It was intended as a meeting place for the most eminent minds of the time. The world’s first research center, it attracted intellectuals from all over the world.
“The library included all the knowledge of the ancient world. At its zenith, it held more than seven hundred thousand scrolls. Some of the great thinkers that the old library attracted included Aristarchus, the first to proclaim that the earth revolves around the sun; Hipparchus, the first to measure the solar year within six and a half minutes’ accuracy; Eratosthenes, the first to measure the circumference of the earth; Euclid, who wrote the elements of geometry; Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of the ancient world; Callimachus, the first to write a catalogue for books classified by topic and author.
“The ancient Library of Alexandria was open to all civilizations. Efforts were made to collect the best works from all over the world, and any ship that docked in Alexandria Harbor was searched, and all books found on board were copied. Scholars from all over the world were invited to come and study. The Old Testament was translated for the first time from Hebrew to Greek.
“The library stood for at least three hundred years after its foundation in 48 B.C. The library was partially lost to a fire in Alexandria’s Harbor when Julius Caesar attacked the city, and it was later totally destroyed by an earthquake. Some of the books were salvaged, but most of the manuscripts were sold to the hundreds of bathhouses in Alexandria, where they were used as fuel for the fires that heated the bath water!”
I cannot help but speculate: Were it not for the invention of the Internet, the ancient collection of scholarly materials and general information at Alexandria would still stand as the pinnacle of man’s effort to categorize, and to centralize, the sum total of the world’s documented information. Surely, many fine library collections have been assembled after the destruction of the ancient library at Alexandria, yet none has matched—or even come close to matching—the fabled collection of knowledge. The Internet, however, has enabled a new collection of information and knowledge to begin to evolve and to grow—one not necessarily created by design or decree, but a new and evermore glorious collection limited not to the contributions of scholars and experts, but open to every man, woman and child. Of course the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Virtual Life is a testament to this renaissance, as it houses the only complete external backup of Internet data.
“A body of knowledge such as that which existed in the ancient library surely took centuries to collect,” observes Kiz. “The vastness of geography—not to mention the relative lack of speed at which anything (goods or ideas) moved from place to place in the ancient world—was only one hindrance. Another impediment, surely, was the predominance of illiteracy. Esoteric knowledge was only for the educated people of the time, who were also the wealthy and privileged classes—royalty! Today, as Fizzy suggests, knowledge is literally at everyone’s fingertips. And so many people take advantage of the new medium, which is of course so much more than a library. Nowadays we are not confined to vicarious scholarship, we can interact at will. That’s Virtual Life! If we want to conduct an interview with Ptolemy I, for example, it is not impossible. Time is no longer a barrier. Geography is no longer a barrier. The only barriers that remain are the ones we ourselves impose.”
Turning to our guide, I say, “I think Kizmet’s
point is a defining one.”
Mr. Qatal smiles and says, “Allow me to show you ladies a bit of the new Bibliotheca Alexandria.”
We follow our guide at arm’s length, listening to his enthusiastic description of the reconstructed facility.
“The design concept is a perfect circle inclined towards the sea, partly submerged in a pool of water,” he tells us. “The image of the Egyptian sun illuminates the world and all its diverse civilizations, even as an inclined roof allows indirect daylight to penetrate. Designed as an arrow, an elevated passageway links the University of Alexandria to the Corniche, just as it was in ancient times. A wall composed of Aswan granite and engraved with calligraphic letters and representative inscriptions from the world’s civilizations surrounds the building.
“The new library has thirteen floors, thirty-five hundred seats, and a capacity of more than eight million volumes, fifty thousand maps, one hundred thousand manuscripts and a quarter of a million videos.
“In addition to its volumes, Bibliotheca Alexandria has four thousand periodicals, thirty thousand audiovisual materials and fifty thousand rare books. These books will never leave the building, but most will be accessible in the library’s spectacular ten-story high reading room, whose pillars soar to a sloping circular roof. The reading room will seat twenty-five hundred people.
“The library also includes a planetarium, museums of calligraphy and archaeology, and a laboratory for restoring manuscripts.
“This library is more than a modern-day archive,” explains Mr. Qatal. “It is a mark of respect for the ancient library, which was a place where the intellectuals of the day once congregated. We have been very careful to observe its design. Each level in the library is dedicated to a different field of study.
“The bottom level of the Bibliotheca houses all books pertaining to the roots of knowledge; including philosophy, history, classics and psychology. The second level includes languages and literature. The third houses books relating to art. The fourth level, which is also the central dividing level, is where all the business and economic books and other resources are located (since business is a central force in the world we live in today). On the fifth level are all books pertaining to social sciences and women’s studies. The sixth level includes science and technology books, and finally, the seventh level includes books relating to new technology. Standing on the top level, the symbolism follows that all information on the lower levels supports contemporary information,” he explains.
“Apart from the main library, the complex includes a Library for the Blind, a Young People’s Library, the Alexandria Conference Center, a science museum, a Planetarium, the International School of Information Studies (ISIS), a Calligraphy Museum, a Restoration and Conservation Laboratory and the Hall of Fame.
“Our goal in creating this new library is both simple and auspicious: we’re trying to revive the very spirit of curiosity, as well as the passion for the pursuit of knowledge that thrived in ancient times. The old library enabled the public to debate, create and invent; the new library endeavors to carry that legacy into the future.”
In Virtual Life, time does not actually exist. Only the present is vital. Of course dates are employed, as well as clock time, to provide a point of reference, but here in Virtual Life the future is always within our grasp (consider those who create a new species specific to and thoroughly adapted for the VL environment) while the past, as it remains obscured in shadow, is also within reach (even the dead sometimes pay a courtesy call in VL). As a result of time’s nebulous nature in Virtual Life, we can experience people and places and events we once thought consigned to antiquity and wholly unreachable.
Traveling through our next and last portal in the Land Where Lost Things Go, Kiz and I find ourselves standing on the threshold of the most extraordinary garden that either of us has ever seen. This wondrous ‘hanging’ vinery flourishes on a series of vaulted terraces that rest upon cube-shaped pillars raised one above another. These pillars are hollow and filled with earth to allow even the largest of trees to be planted. The pillars, the vaults, and terraces are constructed of baked brick and asphalt. Each terrace is built upon stone arches twenty-three meters above the ground and is planted with exotic foliage. The ascent to the highest story is by stairs, and by their side are water engines, where laborers are employed raising water from the Euphrates into the gardens. Almost immediately we are greeted by a swarthy man dressed in a splendid robe decorated with intricate embroidery and extravagant jewels. He tells us he is the King and Supreme Ruler of the city and greater environs of Babylonia, ca. 598 BC. “My name is Nebuchadnezzar II,” he informs us, “but my friends call me Majesty. You can call me that, too.”
Bowing before the monarch, Kiz and I both acknowledge his graciousness.
Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only the oldest one, The Great Pyramid of Giza, built between 2650 and 2500 BC, is still around in PL. The other six have long since vanished, but of the original seven relics, only six can actually be documented with certainty. The one that remains shrouded in legend and mystery (its origin, its actual location, and its final destruction) is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
The Colossus of Rhodes was built by the Greeks between 280 and 295 BC. A giant statue of the Greek god Helios, it stood nearly as high as the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. An earthquake destroyed it in 224 BC.
The Lighthouse at Alexandria was a Hellenic construction erected in the third century BC in what is now Egypt, and at one hundred thirty-five meters high, it was the tallest man-made structure in the world during its time. Sometime between the years 1303 and 1480 AD, an earthquake claimed it for antiquity.
The Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus (Persian and Greek) was built in the year 351 BC. It stood approximately forty-five meters tall. By the year 1494 AD it had been badly damaged by earthquake and was eventually dismantled.
The Statue of Zeus at Olympus, built by the Greeks in 435 BC, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was forty feet tall. Its true fate is unknown, but it is presumed destroyed by fire or earthquake.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was built in 550 BC. Dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis, it took one hundred twenty years to build. Herostratus burned it down in the year 356 BC in an attempt to achieve lasting fame.
“The PL Babylonian civilization endured from the eighteenth until the sixth century BC,” His Majesty explains as we ascend the steps leading to the gardens’ upper terraces. Behind us the panorama of a glorious city unveils itself as the sun rises once more over the Mesopotamian desert kingdom. “It was urban in character, although agricultural rather than industrial by nature. The empire consisted of a dozen or so cities, surrounded by villages and hamlets. At the head of the political structure the king—Yours truly!—wielded more or less absolute power, though working underneath the monarch, governors, administrators, mayors and councils of city elders were in charge of local administration.
“The Babylonian way of life underwent very little change for more than a millennium,” explains King Nebuchadnezzar. “One of the most important aspects of the culture was the remarkable collection of laws often designated as the ‘Code of Hammurabi’, which provides a comprehensive picture of Babylonian social structure and economic organization.
“The Code of Hammurabi is the earliest legal code known in its entirety. The divine origin of the written law is emphasized by a bas-relief in which the king receives the code from the sun god, Shamash. The code itself begins with direction for legal procedure and the statement of penalties for unjust accusations, false testimony, and injustice done by judges; then follow laws concerning property rights, loans, deposits, debts, domestic property, and family rights. Sections covering personal injury indicate that penalties shall be imposed for injuries sustained through damages caused by neglect in various trades. Rates are fixed in the code for various forms of service in most branches of trade and commerce.”
Nebuchadnezzar wags his finger at Kiz and lectures: “Whatever your experience of justice might be in the present, Babylon, at its zenith, actually practiced judicial equality. For example, the Code of Hammurabi contains no laws having to do with religion. The basis of criminal law is that of equal retaliation. The law offers protection to all classes of Babylonian society; it seeks to protect the weak and the poor, including women, children, and even slaves, against injustice at the hands of the rich and powerful. Hammurabi counsels the downtrodden in these ringing words: ‘Let any oppressed man who has cause come into the presence of my statue as king of justice, and have the inscription on my stele read out, and hear my precious words, that my stele may make the case clear to him; may he understand his cause, and may his heart be set at ease!’
“To ensure that the legal, administrative, and economic institutions functioned effectively, the Babylonians used the cuneiform system of writing developed by their Sumerian predecessors. To train their scribes, secretaries, archivists, and administrative personnel, they adopted the Sumerian system of formal education, under which secular schools served as the cultural centers of the land. The curriculum consisted primarily of copying and memorizing both textbooks and Sumero-Babylonian dictionaries containing long lists of words and phrases, including the names of trees, animals, birds, insects, countries, cities, villages, and minerals, as well as a large and diverse assortment of mathematical tables and problems. In the study of literature, the pupils copied and imitated various types of myths, epics, hymns, lamentations, proverbs, and essays in both the Sumerian and the Babylonian languages.”
Now absorbed in King Nebuchadnezzar’s compelling account of Babylonian culture, Kiz and I sit with His Majesty on a stone bench in a particularly lovely area of the hanging gardens where a waterfall cascades over a stone trough into a pool filled with water lilies. And with time itself now hanging forever in the balance of Virtual Life, we are free to savor this moment, this ecstatic and crucial juncture in human history. How utterly sublime it feels to immerse oneself within a culture whose tentacles extend even into our present tense, our peculiar compartment of human history, whose pigments color our cultural bias and lend us a model for our own code of social justice! Yet, nothing lasts forever, and cultures—no matter how urbane or lofty they aspire to become—seldom, if ever, transcend or reconstitute themselves.