What does it feel like to be a fish?
21:04
Very human. Well, having seen my promptness in reply, the reader is likely to doubt my, humanness. No. I am not a fish. To some extent well.
Picture yourself on pier. The rustic reclaimed wood lies inches from the calm, collected lake. From the side, the deep brown of the wood meets the violent green of the moss in an everlasting battle for visual supremacy. The pier overlooks the pond like a mysterious, distant, silent watcher. On the surface are dried leaves of yellow and green. A soft breeze fights the water, dragging it like it’s a battle mace in a warzone. Bubbles float to the water surface and escape their circular prisons into a new, free world. Beneath the surface is a school of fish. They’re very regular fish. They don’t say much of anything, and occasionally let out air from their gills. The fish has never come so near to the surface before, but even so, finds it impossible to surface. The sun shines brightly for the fish to see, but the fish sees nothing. The light is reflected off of the bed of leaves. In an inexplicable turn of events, your foot gently taps the water, and ripples rush outwards in nature’s perfect concentric circles. The fish are alarmed. “What is this weird movement at the edge of the universe?” As they see the leaves they though they know all about rock left to right.
The universe? Well, yes. The universe is all within your perception and nothing else. The fish see nothing but the water they are in. That is their universe.
Meanwhile in the fishiverse, the fish notice the dried leaves on the surface knock from side to side with the ripples, this mysterious dark energy, that affects distant objects.
So much for fish.
Well, you are an astrophysicist! Your lunchtime ended a full hour ago, and you are here at the pier, talking about fish physics. Walking back into your lab, you get the regular ‘hellos’ from your advisor, the janitor and the guy from the marine biology department who seems to spend all his time next to the water dispenser.
“Hey come here!” A loud voice sends a shattering whiplash to your brain, and you turn around and run to the auditory source. Look at this! The source says as he points to a screen with a rather satisfying spike in its graph.
“Is this…” You begin to ask.
“These stars are accelerating away from us, all of them!”
“But what’s pushing them?”
“I think someone tapped their foot on the pond again.” Says one of the fish.
“In the end, we are simply fish that don’t surface. We try our best to understand the things we can’t touch and comprehend the phenomenon we cannot explain.”
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
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