Whenever I've come across Richard Dawkins, I've felt he was rather arrogant. However, I found some time to watch his lecture "The Universe is Queerer Than We Can Suppose" and its inspiring, not least because I could listen to his voice for hours, he reminds me of children's stories on casette tape. Its really when he gets to this part:
‘In a desert plane in Tanzania in the shadow of the volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai there is a dune made of volcanic ash. The beautiful thing is that it moves, bodily. Its what's technically known as a Barcarn and the entire dune walks across the desert in a westerly direction at a speed of about 17 metres per year. It retains its cresent shape and moves in the directions of the horns; what happens is that the wind blows the sand up the shallow slope on the other side and then as each sand grain hits the top of the ridge it cascades down on the inside of the cresent and so the whole horn-shaped dune moves. Steve Grande points out that you and I are ourselves more like a wave than a permanent thing. He invites us the reader to think of an experience from your childhood, something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell – as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell, you weren't there, not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are therefore you are not the stuff of which you are made – if that doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does! Because it is important.’
The hair stood up on the back of my neck…
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