We are Trace Beings

Page under construction 15 March 2025
Just as we are information beings, we humans (earthlings) are also paradoxically “trace beings”. This page discusses the meaning of the word “trace”, how small changes to tiny elements of any system can transform its formation entirely, how we can best transcend the conundrum of living with uncertainty and, using the exemplar of climate communication, illustrates how our scientific use of “trace gases” enables us to live in accord with Earth’s climate flows and balances.

Tracing the Meaning of “Trace”
(A word bespeaking our human journey amidst uncertainty)

There are few, if any, words in our Crown dialect of English that adequately communicate the psychology~~physics of the English Combustion Revolution and the magnitude of the massive impacts this radical culture is having on the global eco-systems that sustain Mankind. This failure of our modern English language is particularly true regarding our discourse concerning our pollution in the form of invisible trace gases that disproportionately disrupt the global thermal balances of the atmosphere.

Adherents to the Greenhouse World Religion, who believe Earth’s atmosphere acts like a greenhouse, call the trace gases concerned “greenhouse gases”, which perpetuates a vast, lethal deceit about the unsustainable activities of some humans.

Merriam Webster dictionary lists 321 words with similar or opposite meanings to “trace” under two categories as a verb (to define, to track) and seven categories (footprint, shred, hint, relic, path, road and trail).
It is also used as an adjective e.g. “trace gas” (Meteorology) , “trace element” (Chemistry), “trace evidence” (Forensics), “trace commutator, trace operator” (Maths)

Track each trail of meaning of each of these 321 synonyms~~antonyms and we come back to the word “trace” as the word having the most transcendent meaning of them all.
Cartoon of etymology of trace to come
Caption

The word “trace” forms a reminder, reminding us about reminders in the form of vestiges, signs and memories of the past informing us of future possibilities.
Forms came and went and we are reminded in their existence by their impacts on our world as they passed through it – the slime of a snail trail, the deer-nibbles on tree leaves in a forest, the contrails of a jet aircraft across the sky, the movements of the planets in an eclipse, marks on an ancient parchment…
Tiny quantities of radioisotopes can pass through our body system revealing the totality of its functions via a PET scanner so we can better predict future functions of the body system.
Minuscule changes in our intake of vital minerals or gases can transform us in wellness or in illness.
A momentary, fleeting change in the electrical potential of our heart can both stop it beating and restart it beating.
A turn of a car’s ignition key can generate a genocide on the other side of the planet.
The English language has a million words and yet it may take only one of them to start a world war.

The word “Trace” is transcendent in that it speaks of a both tiny changes to something and to something existing in minuscule quantities relative to its environment.
The word also reminds us of how our psychology is inextricably involved in the physics of tracking – the “tracer” is both the observed (the “tracer”) and the observer (the “tracer”.)
We are paradoxically the path (the “trace”) we walk (“trace”).

The act of drawing a picture of something is a wonderful experiential lesson in these paradox – we delineate the observed according to our ability to truly see it. See We live Paradox
discussion

In geophysics a “trace gas” or “trace element” is quantified as having a trace existence in a system if it constitutes less than 0.1% of it.

For instance, a trace gas in Earth’s atmosphere is any other gas than Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon Those three constitute 99.9% of the atmosphere. This does not include water vapour, which is called a “trace gas” because though it is relatively abundant locally, it constitutes only a minuscule portion of Earth’s total atmosphere. The atmosphere’s thermodynamic processes means the distribution of the trace gases typically varies in space~~time.

For instance, while vital trace elements such as iron, copper and selenium are relatively abundant on the surface of Earth, the human body’s system only needs and tolerates them in comparatively minuscule amounts. They can easily disrupt our body’s vital flows and balance if we do not eat with moderation, with care.

These and other trace aspects of our lives are relatively invisible yet our survival as individuals, as societies and as a species depends on our skills at husbandry, at practicing true economy, at compassionate stewardship of these vital substances. However the ego – the exclusive, know-all force in our psyche – would have us believe it knows best how we can survive. In reality, it inherent acquisitiveness and arrogance confounds and diminishes our perceptions of change, the continuous universal transformation of all.

It is actually compassion – our humbling, inclusive force – that sustains us in trust, generosity and humility:
– trust in our senses other than sight such as senses of smell, taste, sound, touch tactile and proprioception (our sense of place in space);
– generosity enabling us time to reflect on and appreciate the wisdom on our invisible senses;
– humility empowering us in the kind humour of compassion that reminds us we are finite, moral beings and our thought process, the domain of the ego, is itself a mere trace element of the greater consciousness of our being.

Sages have long advised our thought process is but a glimmer on a wave in the vast ocean of our consciousness.
It is helpful to remain mindful of this sustaining capacity of compassion in our lives as we now discuss a phenomenon of change: so called “Chaos Theory”.

Uncertainty Rules
(The great paradox of order~~disorder)

The Conservation of Energy Principle is simple and clear: energy continuously transforms all formations and is so bounteous it can usefully be called a constant i.e. we can neither create or destroy it. Energy is information continuously informing and reforming all possible formations in the universe.
We know this experience as “change” (from French changier – “to alter” from PIE kemb – “to bend, to turn”.
Everything is always turning from one thing into another.
Change is our greatest constant and we all experience it according to the simple equation:
Power = Energy/Time (P = E/T)

Energy being a constant, the big variable in the equation is our sense of “time”. It is our sense of time that determines how the universal potential is manifest, how change informs us, and how, in turn, we inform the universal formation.

Surely we all know continuous change is the way of the universe? Well, no. Always the ego informs us what we know and it exists in extreme denial of change – especially in denial of our finite nature, our mortal, moral formation amidst the continuous universal transformation. The ego has countless, ingenious ways of having us deny and dismiss the principles of physics.
For instance, it would have us believe that any change it cannot control just happens “randomly”, “accidentally”, “without cause”, as “acts of God”, “from out of nowhere”, “from out of the blue (sky)”.

All these phrases express our experience of shock and surprise, suddenness and lack of warning, the unexpected, the inexplicable. However, invariably, the event is unfolding according to the principles of physics

Two types of sudden, seeming unpredictable changes are relevant to this discussion about exponential change and uncertainty. It is important to understand them for a wide range of reasons. They enable us to better appreciate many of the most wondrous phenomenon in our lives. They enable us to develop finer civics and to better act as stewards. And, above all, they enable us to appreciate how our human ego is both fundamentally antipathetic to them and can exploit our ignorance of them to our great peril.

This film is a fun way of experiencing extraordinary acceleration and deceleration of change as an introduction to the first type of sudden, escalating change compounding transformation.

Compound (“non linear”) change
Compounding change, also known as “exponential change” occurs when a a small transformation adds to itself at an escalating rate. This rapidly accelerates the overall rate of transformation of a system, as is graphically illustrated in another famous exemplar involving plant growth .

Civilized (sustainable) cultures have since time immemorial understood the forces of compounding change, which is why their belief systems place great emphasis on caring for their language (a word can make a world of difference) and on ensuring usury does not prevail (monetary exchanges involving compounding debt can quickly destroy societies).
They well understood the psychology~~physics of such interactions and how systems based on such exchanges of money invariably led to escalating inequity and misery.

This is because men’s behaviour~~language inevitably becomes delusional when they believe money begets money begets wealth. Soon this delusion of the ego means their actions increasingly generate waste, pollution and warfare because the money has no collateral in the reality of fresh water, healthy soils, clean air and other sustaining systems.

Our modern Anglosphere is driven by this ego-derived delusion and our Crown dialect of English even has us equate wealth increase with vast dis-economy. and we call money “earned” from usurious exchange by names such “interest”, “change” (cash returns), “capital returns”, “equity” and even “smart money”. Usurious merchant bankers even speak of compounding interest/debt as the so-called “miracle of compounding.”
We are our language.

Circularity of information (action)

The second type of change involves circularity of action or “non-linear” dynamics.
The Crown dialect of English lacks the capacity to describe this in meaningful way. This lack is manifest in the phenomenon of the most dense formations of matter being described as “black holes”, Earth’s atmosphere being likened to that of a “greenhouse” and “science” being defined as an exclusive, inductive, amoral way of thinking.
Self-styled “scientists” are very vulnerable to this thinking.

So it is that Jim Yorker and Tien-Yien Li published a mathematical paper in December 1975 titled Period Three Implies Chaos. This built on the work of Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist, who attempted to model weather systems using computer programs. He observed in the early 1960s that tiny changes in the initial information given the computer programs generated vastly different weather formations.

In particular Lorenz likened the evolution of information into increasingly complex and unpredictable formations to the “the butterfly effect” – a butterfly flaps its wings in China , thus informing complex, unpredictable changes in U.S. weather a few days later.

“The displacement of a single electron by a billionth of a centimetre at one moment might make the difference between a man being killed by an avalanche a year later, or escaping.”

Alan Turing (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence

We are all vitally intimate at a cellular level with the continuous, universal transformation and Turing’s quote resonates with us at some degree. It resonates in profound ways with me because my childhood was amazing. I was privileged to be born and bred by the Waiorongomai River (stream/creek) to parents who allowed me from an early age to play in it all the hours of the daytime.

Waio’s murmuring and chattering waters informed me in respect for the ways of the universe, the principles of physics in ways no teacher ever has as I created myriad little dams and channels of boulders, sticks and sand. In retrospect, the creek was my greatest sage, informing me in humility, awe, wonder and connection with all.

No matter how carefully I shaped a water channel and placed a stick in the same spot at its inflow, the stick always charted a different, unpredictable course downstream.
Similarly it took only a few drops of water to seep through or over the top of a dam for it to begin disintegrating at an escalating rate until whoosh… the force of the trickle of water transformed my hours of labour creating disorder into the river’s order again in a few moments. And was my response to feel disappointed and a failure? No – the creek chuckled against the boulders and taught me to laugh with wonder at the world and amusement at my own trace existence.

Thus the chortling Wairongomai creek wordlessly imbued in me the paradoxical principles of certainty~~uncertainty, of order~~disorder, of simplicity~~complexity and, while like many I have graduated from our Crown English education system baffled and disinterested in mathematics, something in me appreciates how and why a tiny change to a simple equation can paradoxically inform amazing complexity and emergent self-organisation exists. The myriad formations of the rich forests beside and the racing clouds in the sky above the creek made that vividly evident to me, a young child.

I am a very ordinary human being and we are all born into this sentience of change. It is easy to forget our innate spirit of discovery and wonderment at the myriad patterns of transformation and formations that inform our lives. Sometimes it is helpful to give a few moments to recalling that fearless spirit of inquiry we had as a five-year old.

Bottomless wonders spring from simple rules which are repeated without end.

Benoît Mandelbröt, 1924-2010

You do not have to be able to speak the language of mathematics or the language of computer code to appreciate the wonder and beauty of the Mandelbrot equation. I understand neither. My brain goes numb trying to think how it works. The equation simply says Z = Z² + C and yet it can potentially generate an infinitely complex set of formations by means of using feedback loops that iterate transformations.

Basically we can take any one of a certain type of numbers and call it “c”. We then say “z = c”, multiply z by itself and add c. We then reassign the resulting number to “z” and once again multiply z by itself and add c. We then repeat this boring operation until we go silly or let a computer repeat this operation myriad times for us.

A tiny change in the initial number generates massively different patterns of behaviour, or in terms of the continuous universal transformation, the small change in the initial information generates massively different formations of transformation of formations.

A picture can communicate in ways words and mathematical calculations never can. There are many videos illustrating these patterns of transformation based on variations of the Mandelbrot equations and these inspire awe, wonder, mystery and sensations of transcendence in the compassionate person even as you sense great familiarity arising from the reality that these unseen patterns of transformation inform the leaves of trees, the clouds in the sky and all the other forms that shape our daily lives.

For example:

Embracing Our Trace Being
(Transcendent meaning in chaos)

All these amazing insights into the unknowable order in the hidden patterns of change (transformation) we glibly call “Chaos Theory”. Why? What are we saying? From whence comes our meaning of the word “chaos”? What is the meaning we give it say about us?
The etymology of the word “chaos” is a revealing, wonderful and cautionary story:

Men (human beings) have long had the capacity to disrupt the sustaining flows and balances of Earth’s in significant ways. However these sustaining ecosystems remained relatively intact until about three centuries ago when a radical culture emerged, typified by a major imbalance of the exclusive and inclusive forces of the human psyche indicating a significant loss of compassion and the predominance of the ego.

This coincides with The English Combustion Revolution, aka The English Industrial Revolution, which is founded in the radical belief it is the divine right of the Merchant Bankers of The Crown to burn Earth’s biomass at their will. This delusion generates behaviour and language involving extreme divisiveness, alienation and denial of reality (the ways of the universe). It is manifest as behaviour in such extreme discord with the principles of physics that it imperils all Mankind.

Thriving in Uncertainty
(Transcending the paradox of change with compassion)

Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. While most traditional science deals with supposedly predictable phenomena like gravity, electricity, or chemical reactions, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear things that are effectively impossible to predict or control, like turbulence, weather, the stock market, our brain states, and so on. These phenomena are often described by fractal mathematics, which captures the infinite complexity of nature.

https://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-is-chaos-theory/

The caption to the Wiki gif below states: “the three double pendulums with nearly identical starting conditions diverge over time, demonstrating the chaotic nature of the system.”
The gif perhaps forms a graphic expression of how we can each feel as we experience the unexpected, the unimaginable, the unpredictable, the complexity, the uncertainty of life. To use a New Zealand expression, “everything turns to custard” (things go badly awry).
When we attempt to think about it, the ego in each of us would have us believe such unpredictable complexity is impossible for us to cope with. The ego has us either feel hopeless because everything seems so meaningless and/or to become very exclusive in our consideration of the possible consequences of our actions.

Without compassion, the ego can have us become nihilistic and ultimately self-destructive as our actions generate mayhem and “chaos” (modern English meaning of “complete disorder, utter confusion“. )
It is compassion that enables us to thrive in uncertainty and understand that “chaos“, far from being “a mess” is actually the vast, universal potential from which all forms arise.
It is compassion that enables us to experience humility and wonder in complexity, to trust and sense there exists a fundamental order in the continuous universal transformation that is is beyond the ability of the human mind to know and for words to communicate. We can never truly know what order or disorder are
It is the inclusive force of compassion that reminds us in the great, enduring principles of physics and enables us to employ their profound wisdom to evaluate the unknowable and to transcend the limitations of thoughts, words, paradox and the ingenious deceits of the ego in general.

This is particularly true of the Conservation of Energy Principle. Its truths enable us to evaluate how sustainable our behaviour and language are in practical ways. Its profound wisdom uniquely offers us the means to transcend our human condition – our paradox of information in particular – by ensuring our use of words (symbols) is transcendent and in accord with reality.
We are our language and the simple act of caring for what we say best ensures we employ words in ways that enable the universal potential in turn to become manifest to us in sustainable ways. Our fears, deceits and denials of unknowable complexity vanish when we are in this compassionate state of being and are replaced by sensations of wonder, awe, beauty and gratitude that we are alive at all amidst the vast universal transformation. We experience the paradox: by embracing our trace being, we become the universe.

Footnote – Embracing our Trace Beings
(A practical exemplar)

Eating, breathing, sleeping, waking, walking, talking, learning, trading, procreating – all these systems involve tiny changes to trace elements of them that generate disproportionate transformation (change) of the system.

An exemplar is the air we breathe. Our existence depends on an exquisite, dynamic balance of what are commonly called “greenhouse gases”. In reality, these gases exists in a few parts per million of Earth’s atmosphere and play a critical role in maintaining the surface at a relatively comfortable temperature. The following cartoon explores how a simple change of name (“greenhouse gas” v “warmer trace gas”) generates two entirely different education systems and world views. Their use of the phrase “greenhouse gas” puts those teaching air care and those teaching the wise use of insulation in dwelling design in complete conflict with each other’s conflicts whereas the use of the phrase “warmer trace gas” enables both schools to complement each others objectives.

Human life exists because of this physics: (1) Air has a high capacity for thermal convection and low capacity for thermal conduction. (2) A few trace gases constituting less than 0.1% of the atmosphere act as vital warmers – without them Earth’s surface temperature would be 33̊C cooler i.e. a frigid Minus18̊C instead of our present comfortable 15̊C.
The language in green is in accord with this physics and generates harmony whereas the language in brown denies this physics and generates dissonance.
More here